Orklord’s Haven

I’ve recently been watching the MLB playoffs and noodling ideas for my baseball RPG Making the Bigs. Since I’m not only watching the game for its own sake, I’ve started watching pre-game and post-game shows. This is out of the norm for me. Over the years, I’ve found pre-game shows for all sports a bit droll, mostly banter with little substance. Now, I’ve always enjoyed Baseball Tonight because I got a good summary of all the games that day and some human interest stories and context. But I really consider the pre and post-game shows to be a different animal.

Previously I saw these shows as making mountains out of molehills, talking on and on about how on the second Thursday in Septembers this guy hits .453 or how this pitcher has a slider like some other pitcher who also beat this team two weeks ago.  Lots of number crunching, not much that interested me.

Now that I’m looking at baseball as an RPG, things are different. I watch pre and post game shows with interest, I record them and sometimes take notes. I has misjudged these things, they have lots of human interest stories that are quite compelling.  I now listen to the stories of today’s baseball and try to imagine how to boil it down into a toolset for a game.

It has been an interesting process, trying to imagine baseball games as if they are RPGs, and watching the commentators highlight modern day myths.

I have recently been watching the ‘08 MLB playoffs; listening
to the play-by-play and color and trying to distill what it is that’s
cool about baseball in a story form and how to deliver that in an RPG.

One idea I have is a stat called “History”.  ”History” is the
relationship between the PC and a pitcher/team/city and would be
expressed in a bonus or penalty to conflict resolution.

FREX:

Jimmy Mattingly is an experienced minor leaguer PC.  He comes up to
bat against Hank Jones, a tricky spitballer.

(Somehow we determine “History”, TBD)

Jimmy’s “History” with Hank is that Hank struck him out looking the
last at bat he had against him in a series last season.  Hank gets a
bonus in the ensuing at bat for Jimmy.

I’m also really trying to get into a one roll resolution for an at bat
without losing the flavor of a pitch count.  Perhaps some type of
conflict roll couple with a resolution generator?

So, player rolls for PC.  GM rolls for pitcher and one of them also
rolls the pitch count.

So, if player wins roll and GM rolls pitch count and gets a 2-1 count,
then player describes how the pitch count got to 2 and 1 and then got
his hit.

I’m wondering how to resolve the type of hit now… hrm…