Organizing a tournament, I want to know how you do it

[Razhem]

Hello ladies and gents. I'm pretty tempted to run a start running tournies to get my local community to be more active. Thing is, well, I don't know what point criteria, rule criteria, etc to use and I wanted to hear how people over the world do it or if there is some sort of "accepted standard format".

I'm looking mostly for balance in my events (saving the distances that this is Malifaux and one sided match ups may be unavoidable) and have as initial thoughts having everybody make two lists of their chosen faction and chose one each round, only using shared strategies, only allowing core schemes and doing slight adaptations of "problematic" schemes so as to avoid too many shenanigans (example, change grudge to it's usual text and add that you get the victory points if the model is sacced or killed by it's controller so as to avoid having that scheme be useless first turn vs savy opponents). With this last point I'm making it clear that I also want to avoid no play scenarios or situations where a newish player could be outright confused with what the hell happened.

Of course, I have nothing actually decided on the table, so this is where I want to hear what other people have decided to do in their communities to organize tournaments.

[nilus]

My suggestion is first read Gaining Grounds

http://www.wyrd-games.net/Upload/Mal...Ground2011.pdf

That is the official tournament guildline doc, you should base any deviations off that.

As for the rest, well its really a community thing. Personally I try to stick to the official organized play as close as possible because it makes it easier for players to move between communities and play events. Lot of changes and house rules tend to muck that up and tend to isolate events.

Other then that advice I would say the main goal is to make sure everyone is having fun.

[LordZombie]

I second that. Having ran many a tournament, event, or what-have-you the basics are first place to look. Next is to keep your community in mind very close to second. Try not to exclude anyone, but always know there will be that 'one guy'. If everyone is pretty new, keep the points low, also true if it is your first event. If half the community only have one or two masters per faction, make it fixed masters. As for changing up stategies and schemes, have to vote against that, don't change up what people know. Even if it is an tournament, people have been playing schemes one way will confuse them if you change them up. Also let everyone know the standards you are looking for, a friendly tournament with lots of new players or is it all out tournament sytle with take no prisoners. For my area, I have to allow the proxy rule and let the painting slide as some in my group just won't do it, but as long as everyone is having fun and looking forward to the next one, you did a good job.

[Razhem]

Well, looking at the official rules, seems like there is everything I need. Initially I'll follow your suggestion of following the official rules and doing a short speech before the tourny starts of avoiding too many shenanigans (have the grudge target run away instead of just sacking it) and so on.

I will keep it to the core schemes and strategies though.

The other question I have for those that follow Gaining Ground, what format do you favour, domination, differential or accumulation? Differential seems the nicest to me initially since it places greater value to being able to complete your strategies while screwing up your opponents to do his more than the other formats, but I do want to hear your experiences with all formats.

[nilus]

Domination is the most popular but also the most like every other wargame out there. Differential and accumilation both can have a theoretical issue that a lucky pairing can put one person ahead of other players at the same skill level.

[bashamer]

Differential is a little low on my list for favorite format, but I don't mind it as a seconday tiebreaker.

Differential rewards 8-0 ing your opponent; So if I want to win the tournament and turn 1 I face the newkid I really have to kick him to the ground and proceed to jump up and down on him like a Baboon acting on urges.

I don't like doing that, I don't think that new players enjoy that. So straight wins is a nice and simple way to go, and you can use the Differnetial as a tiebreaker at the end. The drawback of this is that the number of rounds will be much higher than required for differential scoring.

Sure winning 5-2 means that you hurt your secondary tiebreaker, but atleast I don't feel bad about it.

[Bruglyother]

Personally, I prefer Accumulation with Domination as the tiebreaker, followed by differential if needed. Accumulation rewards you for achieving your objectives without requiring you to jump up and down on your opponent. If you are trying to grow your community and encourage new players, this is probably the way to go. It can often allow more experienced players to rack up their points while still helping new players learn.

Differential encourages the "win it all" mentality, which is good in certain cases, but not generally helpful in a new community.