GWJFFL 2019: Gonzo League Discussion

This thread is for the discussion of the new GWJFFL Gonzo League, and for rule modification proposals.

Gonzo League will start with the same rule set as Redraft. What makes Gonzo League different is that a set of "rule modifications" will be selected at random that change those rules. The rule mods will be re-selected before each year, so no two Gonzo League seasons will be the same, and each year, new rule mod proposals will be considered, and some will be accepted and added to the pool of potential mods.

Do not expect a perfectly balanced game. Rather, the goal is to twist the fantasy football concept as far as we can without breaking the game.

Players who wish to participate in the league (or, anyone with good ideas, really) are invited to post replies in this thread with their own rule modification proposals (after reading the rest of this post for details and guidelines).

I alone will select which rule mod proposals are added into the pool of candidates, taking into account our discussions here (and offering my own proposals up for discussion).

Rule modifications and selection:

Rule modifications will be tiered as such:

• Tier I - Drastic change to the rules. (1 selected per year)
• Tier II - Major rule changes. (2 selected per year)
• Tier III - Minor rule changes (3 selected per year)

The selection process will involve choosing modifications in order of tier, starting with Tier I and ending in Tier III. During the selection process, if a newly selected rule conflicts with an already-selected modification, the newly-selected rule is discarded and a new rule modification is selected in its place. (Depending on the severity of the conflict, I may exercise judgement to resolve the conflict without requiring a rule re-selection). This continues until we have our set of 6 non-conflicting rule mods.

Guidelines for rule modification proposals:

• Rules must have a name. Silly references are encouraged. Football-specific references are highly encouraged.
• Include in the proposal your expectation of tier placement. No rule mod is too big or too small to consider, they're just Tier I and Tier III, respectively.
• A Tier I rule mod should be extremely game-changing, likely affecting all positions and roster makeup in a fundamental way.
• A Tier II rule mod will likely affect one or more positions in a significant way.
• A Tier III rule mod is anything from a minor to a completely trivial change. It might not affect player value much at all, but affect gameplay in some fashion.
• Rules should be reasonably easy to understand. People should have a decent idea of how a rule will impact player value without doing excessive number crunching. There should be a certain level of intuitiveness.
• Rules (at least in the higher tiers) should change player value in an appreciable way. A rule that doesn't reshuffle player value to some degree is not Gonzo enough.
• The best rules do more than just make bad players good and good players bad.
• Most rules should be enforceable solely though Fleaflicker rule options. Any rule that requires manual or "on your honor" enforcement needs to be a really good one. (If you're not sure about all of FF rule options, the "Owner's Manual on their site may help, but feel free to ask, and don't be afraid to throw a proposal out there that you're not 100% sure of the implementation on. I'll comment on its viability.)
• As much as possible, rules should be building blocks that can live in harmony with other rule modifications. Some will be incompatible with others, some will intentionally be the opposite of others, but in general, we want to keep incompatibility reasonably limited.
• Remember the Roger Rabbit "only when it was funny" principle. Anything that is seemingly pointless but still amusing is inbounds. We want to be just serious enough so that it's a twisted-yet-functional game, while allowing some degree of silliness and pointlessness to work its way in. Like if people think a rule mod that adds .000001 to all scoring rules is funny, it can go in. It's OK to have a few pointless ones sprinkled into the candidate pool.