Tournament Scoring Systems - So what's the difference and why?

 A chunk of change load of us play in tournaments and/or leagues, so you would think there is a unified scoring system used by all Kings of War players.

Right?

Right!

WRONG

and that's great.

Sorry wait, what, why?

Yer you heard myself (talking to myself, again. really should stop that, but then who would respond when the voices start?), it is great there are different systems as each system gives weight to what that system and the TO want to drive at in their tournament.

Lets take it back a bit. 

Why have a system at all?

A Tournament system is there to work out the pairings as the rounds progress and to determine the final winner, and without a system it is chaos and if its chaos you may as well be in Margate the shell suit twin of Blackpool.

The fundamentals of a scoring system.

The Tournament points are made up of some of the following:

• 0 to n points for Result (Win, loss, draw)
• 0 to n points for Scenario Points scored
• 0 to n points for Kills
• 0 to n points for difference in Scenario Points scored (Scenario point attrition)
• 0 to n points for difference in Kills (Kill attrition)

These are either kept separate or some of them combined into Tournament Points.

For equal scores then deciders are done

1. Number of Wins
2. Scenario Points scored
3. Actual Kills points
4. Difference in Scenario Points scored (Scenario point attrition)
5. Difference in Actual Kills (Actual Kill attrition)
6. Tournament Special Characters Survived
7. Tournament Special Characters Killed

With deciders removed for those parts that were already combined into tournament points.

For example if you used for TP:

• 0 to n points for Result (Win, loss, draw)
• 0 to n points for difference in Scenario Points scored (Scenario point attrition)
• 0 to n points for difference in Kills (Kill attrition)

Then deciders would be:

1. Scenario Points scored
2. Actual Kills points
3. Tournament Special Characters Survived
4. Tournament Special Characters Killed

OK, so they score different, so what

Well from this mix of tournament systems (there are others but they basically follow the same format), you have:

• Positive Scoring Systems
  where no matter how bad things are going you can still go for better score/deciders.
• Examples include:
• Northern Kings Scoring System
• Clash at Kingston Scoring System
• Herts & Reaper Scoring System
• Bullshroud Scoring System
• Tabletop Republic Scoring System
• Negative Scoring Systems
  where the better you are doing the more points you steal from opponent, or the opponent can reduce your win by stealing points back.
• Examples include:
• Blackjack Scoring System
• Clash of Kings Scoring System
• Scenario is king
• Examples include:
• Bullshroud Scoring System
• Herts & Reaper Scoring System
• Northern Kings Scoring System
• Clash at Kingston Scoring System
• Its all just Kill
• Examples include:
• Clash of Kings Scoring System
• Clash at Kingston Scoring System
• Northern Kings Scoring System
• Tabletop Republic Scoring System
• Blackjack Scoring System
• Most wins always wins
• Examples include:
• Herts & Reaper Scoring System

So what is the best system?

That's the million dollar question, and there is not one "best" system.

Want the person who won the most games to win the tournament - Herts & Reaper Scoring System, but without the combined TP some players find it difficult to track progress as dependent on the deciders and tracking those.

Want scenarios to lead the march - Bullshroud Scoring System

Want players to always be able to strive for more points - Northern Kings Scoring System

Want the seesaw scoring of positive and negative scoring - Blackjack Scoring System

Others are variations of these

• Clash at Kingston Scoring System is Northern Kings Scoring System with different weight on Kills
• Clash of Kings Scoring System is Blackjack Scoring System minus the Scenario points attrition