So, I'll put Kevin down as a "yes".

Agreed. A later poster complains that most league games take too long. That is true. But many sports games take as long or longer than the real game! If it was a league season, and fast enough that you could play out a game say in 30 minutes, that might work. Way back when I posted on Yahoo some rules for a soccer league card+board game that was intended to meet these goals.

Oh, and to answer Dan: yes.

Now a game oriented around Fandom....

That might be something else

Well, since the main reason I'd want to design a sports game is for the season/"campaign" aspects, it would appear that a consensus is growing.

(VBAM: Football, anyone? )

So -- I've got a couple ideas for relatively quick-playing sports games that could serve as the basis for franchise play.

Details soon...

Well, I've been thinking more and more about the "franchise game", and on a parallel track I've been working again on my baseball game -- for somewhat obvious reasons... (Go White Sox!)

I think I've gotten the "tactical" game to a workable stage, and I thought of an excellent idea (at least to me... ) for the "strategic" level.

Basically, we'd run a league, in which you could draft ANY PLAYER from ANY ERA of major league baseball. I've worked out a system where the average player's stats from a given year are adjusted to match the average player from 2000-2004, and then all the players in that given year are modified accordingly (for example, in real life, Babe Ruth hit 54 home runs in 1920 -- adjusted to a 162-game schedule with modern stats, he would hit 85).

Here's the fun part -- when a player is drafted, he begins with the capabilities of his rookie year. Then, at the end of each year, his performance "shifts" randomly; for example:

Roll -- Effect
1 -- Back one year
2 -- Stays the same
3 -- Ahead one year
4 -- Ahead one year
5 -- Ahead two years
6 -- Ahead three years

Thus, if we roll a 5 for the Babe, in the next season he would perform as he did in 1922, skipping 1921's performance entirely. If at the end of the next season we rolled a 1, then he would shift to 1921's performance.

In this way, while you have a general idea of how a player will perform over the course of his career, and on average he'll last as long as he did in real life, from year to year his impact will be unknown.

In the absence of "create your own player" rules (which could be done, as well), I think this would be an excellent way to move from season to season...

Also, at the end of each season, several more historical players would become available, again each at his rookie level of play.

Does this even remotely spark anyone's interest?

It has potential... but also opens the door for everyone to argue about eras and whether a player's skills would translate....

Could be a lot of fun

Moving this topic to "Game Design", since it appears we're leaving The Grid in the dust...

That's why I'm going for the "players from all eras" angle... something a bit different when compared to the other entries in the genre.

But I also think that what we've got is pretty competitive in its own right.

Well, okay then.

The obvious question at this point is:

Let's assume we decide we want to try a "franchise" game, where the main focus of the game is in-between "matches" and the off-season. Does it even MATTER what "sport" is being simulated?

i.e., would it suffice to give players offensive and defensive ratings and then use these to determine who wins/loses a given match?

I have gone this route on my own before, as you know, and it may be safest, cause you can avoid people looking for perfection for the favorite sport or avoiding it cause it isn't a sport they play.

On the other hand, you lose interest from determined fans of a given game.

But... I would think that a franchise has certain things that translate across leagues and sports. If the core model were solid enough you could go the route of writing optional rules for a given sport.