Calvinball Discussion Thread

[World Calvinball Federation]

List of Relevant Links for Reference, in Chronological Order

Calvinball Interest Thread (Shadowbourne)
Calvinball Disregulation Treehouse OOC
Watterson Bowl I Signup Thread
Watterson Bowl I Everything Thread
Calvinball Interest Thread (German Shepherds)
Watterson Bowl II Signup Thread
Watterson Bowl II Everything Thread

Calvinball has had a off-and-on following for quite a few years, with the first mention of "Calvinball" on the NS Sports Forum occurring in July of 2009, where a small tournament was created but never finished. A few sporadic attempts for the rest of the summer flamed out as Calvinball, like an old, worn set of treasuries, was pushed back into the NS-Sports closet of discarded ideas.

Until March of 2013, when Shadowbourne, the Father of Modern Calvinball (logo shamelessly applied to him without explicit permission, or even non-explicit) started a discussion thread. Free South Califas and Shadowbourne, with the help of Bearded Moose and Yesopalitha, pioneered the scorination concept of sport-mixing we see today, and for the first time in nearly four years, Calvinball, in the form of the Hobbes Trophy, a friendly scorinated by Bearded Moose and played between the teams of Shadowbourne and Paradystopia. The Calvinball Disregulation Treehouse, the first attempt at any sort of governing body, with set up and a system of friendlies, similar to test cricket and designed by Bearded Moose, were scheduled, whereupon a grand total of zero people RPed, key officers ran out of time for Calvinball, and the Treehouse collapsed.

Until October.

Shadowbourne set up the first Watterson Bowl, running a distant cousin of the Disregulation Treehouse style of Calvinball. Featuring eight teams, a swiss system lead into a four-team playoff bracket, whereupon Super-Llamaland topped New Wolfopolis to win the trophy.

There was another six-month break before the World Calvinball Federation, a new governing body set up by Super-Llamaland and New Wolfopolis. The Watterson Bowl II came out, with an eighteen-team format, the largest in history...but nearly nobody RPed. However, recently Shadowbourne returned from an NS hiatus and joined as the third member of the World Calvinball Federation.

---

Is there enough interest for a Watterson Bowl III? Can a Disregulation Treehouse system, similar to Test Cricket, get off the ground? Or will a new, radical system define the fourth era of Calvinball?

Please discuss your thoughts on the future of NS Calvinball below.

[Barunia]

I've always like the Shadowbourne/Bearded Moose/Free South Califas concept for Calvinball, where you have to RP part of a match and add a ruleset after each move. Unfortunately, that doesn't work if both parties aren't committed to the match. The other type of Calvinball is where the ruleset is set beforehand by the host. That type of Calvinball works best for tournaments, like the Watterson bowl where Llama used it. I think both could work together, like cricket has tests and ODI's.

So, you would have a thread for teams to play international "test" friendlies, where teams find an opponent and play a match using the turn-based style, and then tournaments using the predetermined style.

I think if we formally set it up, so there is the predetermined style run by the World Calvinball Federation, and the turn-based run by the Calvinball Disregulation Treehouse.
I'd be willing to help restart the Calvinball Disregulation Treehouse. Perhaps we could have a ranking system, and at the end of the season the two top teams compete for the Hobbes trophy.

One way to solve the problem with turn-based Calvinball would be to set a cut-off for each turn. If an opponent does not play their move before the cut-off, the other player is allowed to name a ruleset and the game continues as normal. This would prevent any slowdowns and theoretically would allow a game to be played without any RP from one party. Also, the original concept called for scorination only at the end once turns were complete. I propose scoring at the end of each turn. One of the reasons for this is that I think the spirit of Calvinball is that the rules can be changed in the middle of a game.

In terms of percentages for the scores, I would suggest the CDT give a set of lists of percentages. Each team picks one list to follow.

So for example, Barunia vs Furellum:
Barunia picks List A, which gives the first two moves as 20%, 50%
Furellum picks List B, which gives the first two moves as 40%, 30%
Barunia goes first and chooses the first rule: Basketball, 20%
Furellum then scores a Basketball match, cuts it down to 20% and posts the scores, then adds: Lacrosse, no draws, 40%
Barunia scores a Lacrosse game with no draws, cuts it down to 40% and adds it to the Basketball score, and adds another rule set: Canadian Football, reverse results, 50%
Furellum would score it, reverse the results, post another rule set and so on until each team has completed the predetermined number of moves each.
Non-numericals are added to scores by the players upon the first scorination, and may be changed in a ruleset in addition to a new sport.

(Sorry if this seems like a stream of random thought. My brain is melted from too much study.)

[Shadowbourne]

snip

Yeah, I'm also partial to the extended version where each player adds a new rule every move, but like you said, it's hard to execute properly if everyone isn't entirely committed. I think we should just go ahead and use the version in which the rules are set by the host for all Calvinball games. It would be good to maintain a level of consistency, in my opinion.

[New North Aqmuland]

I'm interested in this, but I'm wondering whether we have to be able to scorinate to participate?

[New Wolfopolis]

I'm interested in this, but I'm wondering whether we have to be able to scorinate to participate?

Under the Disregulation format, I believe so. I'm still kinda fuzzy on that tho.
Under the Watterson Bowl format, it's a conventional host system. BTW, I'd be interested in doing another Watterson Bowl, rather than a Disregulation Treehouse.

[Barunia]

I'm interested in this, but I'm wondering whether we have to be able to scorinate to participate?

Under the disregulation system I'm proposing, while recomended you scorinate, it would be possible for one party (or indeed a third party) to score the match.

[New North Aqmuland]

I'm interested in this, but I'm wondering whether we have to be able to scorinate to participate?

Under the disregulation system I'm proposing, while recomended you scorinate, it would be possible for one party (or indeed a third party) to score the match.

Okay, so it would be nice, but not imperative.

I'm interested in this, but I'm wondering whether we have to be able to scorinate to participate?

Under the Disregulation format, I believe so. I'm still kinda fuzzy on that tho.
Under the Watterson Bowl format, it's a conventional host system. BTW, I'd be interested in doing another Watterson Bowl, rather than a Disregulation Treehouse.

I looked at the Watterson Bowl. Sounds fun.

[Jeckland]

I think the Watterson Bowl would have worked a lot better had it not run concurrently with WC qualifying. If we wait until that is over, I think the RP interest will rise if we do it again.

As for the other thing, that was before my time, so no comment.

[Super-Llamaland]

The Llamanean Calvinball Plan - Draft One

Here's how I'm thinking Calvinball could run in the future. This is just an estimate of how long things could take; please focus on the structure.

Week 1: Watterson Bowl signups open, host voting, etc. etc. etc.

Week 2.5: Watterson Bowl happens, etc. etc. etc.

Week 4: Watterson Bowl ends.

Note: the Watterson Bowl in this scenario would be the same sort of Watterson Bowl as I and II. This would take place during a period of relative respite to get max RPing, as Jeck mentioned.

Week 6: The nations who have RPed to a certain standard get invitation telegrams for the Disregulation Treehouse, which will function as it did before.

Week 7: The Disregulation Treehouse begins. I'm thinking around a two-groups-of-IDK format. For this, we'll just say that six teams got in, so they play a round robin, with each game lasting about three days. Tiebreakers applied as necessary. A champion from each group is selected using some sort of round robin qualifying.

Week 8.5 - 9: The champions play each other in the Hobbes Trophy.

There you have it, a nine-week Calvinball season. Thoughts?

[New Wolfopolis]

Yes, Llama. Yes.

[Patistan]

Lamas method:I approve

[Super-Llamaland]

Yay, acceptance.

Let's see what the other nations think, and then we can think about getting Watterson Bowl III set up around the second of qualifiers so we can start after it ends.

[Nassau-Hessen]

I approve of Llamas method, I like the concept of seasons and the overall Hobbes trophy.

[Shadowbourne]

After reading through this thread again, Llamas's method sounds solid to me. I like the idea of having a separate tournament for the dedicated roleplayers, as well as the idea of having an extended season.

Edit: spelling

[Barunia]

The Llamanean Calvinball Plan - Draft One

-snip-

There you have it, a nine-week Calvinball season. Thoughts?

That seems like it would work really well. It accommodates both types of Calvinball and solves the RP issue with Disregulation style. Excellent idea, Llama!

[New North Aqmuland]

I like it, Llama.

[San Jose Guayabal]

I definitively support Llama's idea, but I think we should bring more formality to the sport, as an official members board "council" with more members and a ranking system.

[Super-Llamaland]

Let us welcome a fourth and final (for now) member of the WCF. The man, the myth, the legend, barunia!

[World Calvinball Federation]

Okay, this is Llama speaking from the official WCF account, with a few things to say.

1.) I forgot to give Barunia the password to the account. It's been TGed.

2.) With WC Qualifying almost upon us, expect the inaugural season of the Watterson Bowl/Hobbes Trophy for RPers format to come around mid-quals, probably in about two or three weeks.

3.)

I definitively support Llama's idea, but I think we should bring more formality to the sport, as an official members board "council" with more members and a ranking system.

We have a council (admittedly not that official), and when you consider that a Calvinball Tournament has never gotten more than two full pages of RP (forty-seven posts from Watterson Bowl I), I don't think we need an official one just yet. As for the ranking system, Kapow-shizz-wambang.

4.) What are your thoughts on the best Watterson Bowl tournament structure? So far it's been swiss system (WB I) and my weird quasi-swiss system with eliminations before the group stage ended (WB II), and I know Jeckland proposed a round-robin group stage.

5.) Should the Watterson Bowl and Hobbes Trophy be separate threads?

[Hobbesistan]

Hmmf.

[Barunia]

Okay, this is Llama speaking from the official WCF account, with a few things to say.
-snip-

1.) Got it. Thanks fellow council members for letting me be part of this.

2.) Sounds good.

3.) What Llama said.

4.) I think that should be up to potential hosts, as part of the bidding process, rather than set in stone by the Federation.

5.) As tournaments, yes. Like the World Cup Qualifiers and Cup of Harmony, they're different tournaments, even if you need to be in one to be in the other.

[World Calvinball Federation]

Coming in like five days to a forum near you.

[Patistan]

(Image)

Coming in like five days to a forum near you.

YAY

[World Calvinball Federation]

Signups

[Jeckland]

Everything Thread is here. Be happy.