Saturday, January 19, 2019

Winter Is Here... and Bracketology 101

With the exception of one weird storm between Thanksgiving and Christmas, we've had a relatively mild Winter... until this afternoon, when the heavens should dump somewhere between 0-82 meters of snow on Pennsylvania.  Meteorologists are still scrambling to see just what how many llama farts it will take in the eastern portion of the state, to keep the heavy snowfall further north.

While I've had my regular online 5e game on Monday, there's been little gaming thanks to the six-day a week basketball schedule. 

But the light is at the end of the tunnel, and with that, I was able to whip up a pseudo-game to enlighten and entertain.

My wife and a I are going on a no-kids trip in February, with the kids going to a different location with relatives that same weekend.  We worked alongside the local board of the community basketball association to make sure we picked a weekend that Maja and Millie missed a regular game, and not the playoffs.

This week, the schedule was heavily revised, the last regular games of the season cancelled, and the start of the playoff structure put in its stead.

Sonnuvagun.

We're not cancelling our trip and I needed something to allay the fears of the women in the house, that Maja (the #1 player on the team) would not completely torpedo the teams chances week one.   I broke out a five team double-elimination bracket, some color coded d6's for the different teams, a dice cup, and some basic rules.

Dice would be drawn randomly and placed in order.

Only three games are played week one (it looks like j1 and j2's on the top bracket.), so everybody gets to play at least two weeks.

And because they all wanted to see this bracket resolve itself, I set up some basic rules based on the teams this year.

For 3rd and 4th grade girls, the parity has been pretty good this year, and to keep the dice rolling to a minimum, only the home team (bottom team of the bracket) will roll a single d6 for resolution.

The Cavs are the absolute worst team in the league, with no wins, but the playoffs make odd things happen.  They win a game as the home team on a 1 on 1d6.  Other teams playing them win on a 5-6

Warriors, Celtics, and Lakers are the home team:  They win and advance on a 1,2,3 each other.

And finally, the Sixers (Maja's team) wins on a 1-3 vs the Warriors and Celtics and 1-2 vs the Lakers (all games have been close losses right down to the last seconds.  They should be able to beat them... someday.)

With those quick rules in place, we moved the seedings around about a dozen time, rolled some results, and while Maja's team never went all the way, I did prove to everyone else in the house, that we can go to Pittsburgh, see two Penguins games near the glass, and have a relaxing weekend with destroying anyone's post-season chances.


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