Paradise League Rulebook Draft revision

The Paradise League Council (PLC) is pretty new and hasn't even completed its first season of games. If you have any suggestions, complaints or comments about this document send email to users.sf.net@glamm.

I really need to look at the INL rulebook.

Registering a Team

I'm going to adapt some words from Tom Holub he used to announce the Spring 1994 INL season (the normaltrek equivalent of the Paradise League):

``The PL is a collection of teams made up of players from around the world who are interested in playing organized games of Netrek. A team consists of 8 or more players, one of whom will act as the team captain; there is no limit to the number of players on a team, but no one may be listed on more than one roster.
Potential Team Members Read This
``Your team will be counting on you to show up for all your games. If your team has fewer than 8 players for a game, they may be forced to play shorthanded or forfeit the game. The league is supposed to be fun, first and foremost, but many people take it quite seriously, and will be quite angry with you if you fail your team.
Potential Team Captains Read This
``The job of team captain takes a lot of time; if you are pressed for time now, we suggest that you don't volunteer to be a captain. There is much secretarial work involved in captaining a team, especially an at-large team; if you hate secretarial work, don't become a captain. The other team captains will be counting on you to schedule all your games, so this is not a position to accept lightly. If you just want to play some high-quality games, you are welcome to put a team together to scrimmage PL teams; the PL, however, is reserved for teams who plan to be dedicated to the game and who will complete their schedule (no, we don't know exactly how the scheduling is going to work). Please consider this when applying for membership in the PL.
``It's a good idea to have more than 8 people on your roster; most PL players are college students with college students' schedules, so it can be difficult to muster a full team. Also, in each of the past two seasons a number of teams have dropped out of the league; this inconveniences the PL Council and all the teams you were scheduled to play. Don't apply if you don't plan to finish the season.''

Basically, we take our fun seriously. If you don't, stick to pickup and everyone will stay happy.

If you wish to be a player,

brag about your talents on alt.games.netrek.paradise. In the future the PLC will maintain a WWW site where you can post your C.V. and captains can browse that board to find potential teammates.

If you wish to be a captain,

collect a group of players. You will be expected to field at least 8 players for each game and the council would like to see 12v12 games. Get players who are very flexible about game times and won't blow you off (people with real jobs will serve if they can make evening and weekend games). Nobody likes to show up for a game and find they have no opponents.

Draw yourself a logo. It should be an X bitmap with dimensions 99x99 (see the manual page for the MIT X11 program ``bitmap'' for an OK bitmap editor). The bottom left corner should be left empty so that the player count can be displayed. The team name customarily goes along the top and a logo goes in the bottom right corner. This logo will be used in the team selection window during league play.

Contact the PLC by sending mail to reed.edu@plc and send them your team roster and team logo. They'll give you a set of matches to play and then you're on your own!

The Rules

Scheduling a match

Both captains must agree on the time and place for a match. It is in both captains best interests to specify the time zone. If a time zone is omitted, the PLC will assume GMT when settling disputes.

Assembly

At the time specified for the match, both captains must be present to begin the pre-game setup.
If, 15 minutes after the specified time, one side is not ready to start the opposing captain has the option to declare the unready team forfeit.
At any time before the match either captain may forfeit the match.
At any time before the match, both captains may agree to declare the game ``fizzled'' and reschedule.
If the opposing captain agrees, a captain may recruit substitute players. These substitutes may not be members of another PL team.
On public PL servers captains must respect reservations by other teams. If a game cuts into a reservation by another team, the game must be halted and the server ceded to the teams with the reservation.

Configuration

League games for the Winter '94 season must be played with 60 minutes regulation time and 0 minutes overtime (overtime is not yet implemented).
The default maximum players per team (mp/t) is 8. If both captains agree this may be increased or decreased. The PLC encourages increasing it if teams have enough players and the server can handle the load.

Play

Go kick ass. Despite possible problems try to continue the game unless things have been irrevocably screwed. You might win despite technical difficulties.

The game should proceed smoothly if the coders have done their job. Anything that the code lets you do is ``legal''. If you think any of these ``laws'' are wrong, try to keep playing, but tell the PLC. The coders may have made a mistake interpreting the PLC's intentions. Game bugs like this should be sorted out as soon as possible. Game bugs of this sort may be a basis for annulling the match.

If you encounter network problems, try to keep playing. If things get too bad reschedule the match.

The team with the most planets at the end wins.

Bragging

When the game is over, someone should get the tournament log file and send it to the PLC's record keeper. He will parse the tournament results and publicize the results of the match.

Problems

The Paradise League Council exists to supervise league play. If captains have any disputes that they can't resolve on their own, they should bring it before the PLC.

The decisions of the PLC are final.

The Paradise League Council / reed.edu@plc