That's very in-depth analysis, thank you very much! The post suffered from first being just a interest check basic description that I kept adding things to, heh.
First please make this clear, what votes will the players have? It strikes me that we're the manager, in which case all of this is only tangentially relevant.
Outside of games, potentially everything from choosing who plays on what line, who to sell or buy and with what teams, who to promote in the media, what sponsors to lure in, what kind of players to scout, what to spend your money on, etc. I say 'potentially', because I suspect going too deep into the nitty-gritty of managing finances wouldn't be all that interesting. Various events and narrative developments will demand your attention, whether the personal issues of your players or a death on another team forcing you to take a public stance on things). Much of the meat of the game would be here.
Within matches, what Strategy to go with (ranging from offensive Overwhelming to defensive Guarding - as you can imagine, full-on offense brings penalties to defense, and vice versa), what lines to play against which enemy lines (so you can choose to counter high-offense enemy lines with your own defensive ones set to Guard, for example), what pep talks to give (which have different effects depending on what they emphasize, for example increasing your scoring chance a little bit or increasing your players' Aggression a bit), and... well, possibly some minor things, but not much more. You can't control the players of your team during the games directly. You need to have prepared well and made the right tactical choices beforehand, for the most part (though you can adjust tactics in the intermission).
The talk about Fame and stuff shows that getting people to come to the game is important in this however you don't say why. I assume this means ticket sales and budgeting however you don't even touch on what is likely the most important part of building our team after we exit char creation.
Fame is just bizarre that as players we could potentially dump all of our points into fame so that everything else is 0, and have a player so ludicrously incompetent that the only reason they're able to be picked by a team is their fame? It'd certainly explain why the team is struggling but how would that be explained in universe. Also is it capped by growth? It seems that this should largely be a QM stat to act as a reward, and represent the growth of the team.
Fame is a measure of how famous individual players are. Having Famous players brings in more fans, ticket sales, and sponsors - so yeah, it's all about the money there. For the players, the Fame will likely go to their heads, resulting them in demanding bigger paychecks, more generous contracts (for example, a contract stipulating they always play in the prestigious first line or get their faces on the ads), as well as having narrative effects of various stripes. It's also a nice measure of how 'good' they are, at least in the eyes of the public. Fame would grow from scoring Lightings, with especially glorious Lightings (very high result on the scoring roll) netting more Fame as they get replayed over and over in highlight reels, playing on successful teams, being promoted in the media, and various events and things. Just having a particularly entertaining personality can increase the rate of Fame growth.
What you can do to increase this stat is media promotion or even personality coaching, but it mainly works irrelevant of you.
Fame is unaffected by Growth or training. It relies purely on what the audience sees, so a very skilled player who has poor luck is not going to get as much Fame as the amateur who somehow only rolls 6s every time.
Additionally you talk about managing the line but its not clear what exactly that entails. Building chars? Selecting the team? Telling them what to do? Choosing actions? How many do we even have? Getting a team of 5 and being able to make substitutions gives a lot more strategic depth and agency to questor choices as well as some protection against bad RNG on a injury roll compared to a team of 3.
You'd have roughly 20 players (4 lines of 3 players, plus replacements) at any given time. You get to choose a number of Star Players at team creation, but the rest will be fairly unexceptional (though they can grow to be stars in their own right). You get to distribute these players in whatever fashion you like for your lines and within them, trying to find the best man or woman for each job. It's not simply about skill, though, as Fame and interteam relationships will affect where players work best (so two players who hate eachother's guts should not be placed on the same line, and the world-famous star on the team probably won't like sitting on the reserve bench).
You can choose to focus training your players on particular areas, so if you need the young prodigy with exceptional Fire Control to branch out and get a grasp of the other elements too, that's what you'll direct them to train in. Or if you have a high-Aggression player you want to mould into a much less problematic high-Aggression/high-Discipline player, you keep training them to stick to the rules as much as possible and to think more critically about what they're doing.
Within matches, you don't choose specific actions, only the Strategies - the gameplay of the matches is largely abstracted, after all. The narrative will spice up what would otherwise be just a series of rolls.
Part of the implicit design for anything is that we can assign them to do things that would better, in what way do you allow this? Can high physique characters act as shields for more fragile ones, to protect them from injuries?
Double lighting just seems thematically weird given the elemental flavoring. And Nat 1 as instant failure is potentially quite severe on a D6 because its nearly four times as likely compared to a d20.
Some examples:
-You need your Line to win each Duel, as this allows you to take the first attack for a 'free' offensive chance. You place your player with the best individual Control skills here; even if they're not great at Offensive Play otherwise, their high Control skills will have them winning the Duels and starting the team off on the right foot.
-You want a Line to be very good defensively, to be played against skilled enemy attackers. You place your best Defensive Play players on that Line, perhaps setting them on a defensive Strategy as well. Keep in mind, however, that should they instead find themselves in an offensive situation instead, they might not do much.
-You know the opposing enemy Line is full of thuggish enforcers who'll happily break your players. You place high-Physique players on the Line that faces them, using them to soak up the hits that are bound to be coming.
-Alternatively, you face them with expendable nobodies who you can afford to lose anyway, protecting your fragile star players.
-Star Players will have special traits that further allow them to specialize; you have a player who always deals greater injuries on enemies, so you send them against the enemy stars. You have a player who shines in shootouts; you send them in first in the shootout to get an early advantage. You have a player who increases the difficulty of scoring when they're on the field, so you put them in charge of your defensive line.
-And so.
High-Physique players acting as shields for more fragile players on their Lines would be a good addition, though it'd add some complexity. If I went deeper and allowed you to set specific tactics/goals for each player in the match, a Defend tactic would be a natural fit. I'll have to think about it.
Double lighting's meant to be a show of masterful skill - simultaneously wielding two different elements and blasting their respective lanterns at the exact same time, and is a fairly rare result of a high Lighting roll anyway. The rules of the game disallow additional lightings after the gong has sounded, and it sounds when a lantern is lit - thus, only a truly simultaneous lighting will go through. Needless to say, this adds quite a bit of Fame. One of the penalties (which one you get is mainly flavor) is an Illegal Lighting - an attempt at a double that's not simultaneous and thus illegal.
Nat 1s being instant failures is there to prevent superstars with +5 or more Control in the appropriate element from scoring every single time. I think it only makes sense - most scoring attempts in any given sport end in failure, after all. Nobody gets it right every time.
From what you've shown the mechanics are probably broken in favour of teams that run super aggressively and win before theres a chance for them to suffer injuries.
Linear bonuses and absolute checks almost always tend to favour extreme stat distributions and I think your offensive vs defensive system only encourages this. If rather than split our players abilities we would be looking at something like +18(+3d6?) vs just +6(+3d6?) which means they'd expect 2 lighting opportunities a round and gives the defensive side a mere 2% chance to halt the offensive. So a highly offense oriented team will beat any balanced team, they'll flip a coin against other offense oriented teams for the win as neither would be able to regain teritory. And defense oriented teams, hard to say either another coin flip as both teams bonii balance out, or else it would go down to injuries and penalties and which team loses enough members to shift the balance first, or possibly time.
Some work to mix things up and prevent games being foregone conclusions is needed, yes. No team is going to have four perfect Lines, though: nobody can afford to field a squad of purely superstars.
As a note, you can't score twice in one turn unless with a rare result on a very high roll (a Double Lighting), which somewhat curbs offensively rushing to victory in one go. A successful lighting brings the game back to the center for a new Duel.
The mechanics are also unclear on when and why a injury check would occur, I assume every person on the field rolls it once a turn? I must admit concerns that that could potentially be very favourable for teams built around winning through fouls. I have complaints that I expand on below about the associated stats.
This is one of the things that doesn't feel right either way. Either it gets rolled for everyone twice per game, for both halves, or every Round. The former leads to some... issues (what if the game ends before the injury is supposed to take place?), the latter demands a lot of rolls. Keep in mind the most common penalty is losing a player for the next Round and playing with two against three, so high-fouling teams might pay the price for their aggression. Using injury-inflicting enforcers is meant to be a gamble (though if you don't care about that particular game, you might be using them as a strategic weapon to take out enemy players for longer periods at critical junctures). But then, nothing's stopping the opposition from discreetly hiring thugs outside of the game to kneecap those particular players in their leisure time as revenge...
The Aggression/Discipline could probably be factored out into a character personality or something decides what sort of actions a player is likely to take (assuming that as the manager we can only layout strategies). You present them as opposed but its not clear why I can't have a high aggression high discipline char who brutally removes an opposing team member from the game every turn however only does so within the rules of the game.
You absolutely can have a high Aggression/high Discipline who can probably avoid most penalties for their vicious attacks... but how common do you expect those kinds of players to be? They'll be sought after and will expect a higher paycheck for their great skills. Developing your own players into these kinds of superstars will take time and effort.
You can't 'buy' stats for players, if that's the impression I've given. You have to use what you've got, and improve them through training, or by trading in new guys who have the skills you need.
Growth is an odd concept to express mechanically is this a cap on how high any stat can be? Is it a cap on total stats? Does it affect how long between getting extra points? Also I would be very afraid offering this to players on SV as we're all about the late game even when we make choices that might mean we don't get there.
It affects how fast the player's stats grow, yeah - basically increasing their XP gain. It represents both learning ability and maximum potential. Advancing age and injuries can decrease a player's Growth or set it to negative (so they start decreasing, in turn). You could get seemingly poor young players with high Growth, or stick with an aging star who's only going to decline as the seasons get on. The stats cap at +6... possibly with
very rare exceptions (for truly world-class players).
Also important to keep in mind, though - you won't necessarily get a perfect and factual idea of a player's stats, especially if they're not on your team but a prospective player you're scouting. The resources you put towards scouting and the skill of your scouts is important here, giving you a closer idea of what you're getting than lower-skilled ones would (imagine an over-enthusiastic scout who hypes up a potential player to you until you buy them... only to then realize the scout has also turned a blind eye to the player's many flaws in their excitement).
Is it possible for players to be able to use all three elemental magics?
Oh, yes - and they have to, if they're going to find real success. Most players only truly master one element (having it in the +4 to +6 range), so those who can consistently shine in all of the elements are very valuable. The starting Duel has a random element; It might be Fire, it might be Air, it might be Water. Are you going to want a phenomenal
Firebender Fire elementalist there and hope it turns out Fire, or someone who's above-average in all three so they can do okay with any one of them?
If I where to suggest an alternate way to do it I would establish actions any player can take, for example:
Maneuver( Not Targeted): The player attempts to advance down the pitch -> This is opposed by any opposing players attempting to maneuver. -> Increase the positioning modifier in favour of the winning team.
Light the Torch(Targeted): The player attempts to light a torch, this can be done at any time. -> This is opposed by a static DC and reduced (or increased) by the teams positioning modifier.
Disrupt(Targeted): The player attempts to prevent an opposing player from doing anything. -> This is unopposed, unless otherwise noted perform the following. Add the result of the check to the DC of the player that has been targeted by the disrupt action. If two players both declare disrupt on each other, nothing happens.
Support(Targeted): The player attempts to help a team mate. -> This is unopposed add the result of this check to the targets check. If the player using this action is disrupted reduce the bonus granted by the disruption value to a minimum of 0.
Defend(Targeted): The character intercepts attempts to interfere with a team mate -> If the target would take an injury check, this character takes it instead at a reduced DC. (Perhaps this should be wrapped into Support)
And so on...
Each character can perform one action per turn and all characters must announce their action on the same turn (I'm drawing from a game called Diplomacy here). The Questors can give strategies, however it is up to the characters if they how best to fulfill those.
Now for aggression/disipline, you mentioned that you didn't like how this was done. I suggested abstracting it by turning it into a character description so now to explain that. The characters can on every action choose if they want to 'push the rules' or whatever, doing this grants them a bonus on that action however it also means they must make a penalty roll. Doing this is outside questor choices, characters will choose when to do it based on their aggression, whether they're losing and desperate, if the questor encouraged or discouraged it, and so on.
This would certainly add a lot, but it would also make things much more complex. I'm not... opposed to it, but keeping things abstracted would make things run a lot smoother and allow for a narrative focus. Something to think deep and hard about. Offensive/Defensive Play would then play into what actions the players would choose to take, representing awareness and understanding of the situation (a very low Offensive Play dude might try to score from their own end of the field, with predictable results).
Positioning is a number shared by both teams with one difference, for the team that is has the advantage it is positive for the team that is losing it is negative.
That'd be a nifty way of showing the on-field situation, for sure.
Finally I'd suggest a reconsideration of what stats you use. They should be applicable to more than one check to prevent a char becoming a one trick pony. I'd probably go with some combination of the classic physical attributes: Strength, Stamina, Agility and Magic. And possibly I'd consider something like Skill or Teamwork however the later appears to be a team stat. If you want to keep stats like Fame and Aggression/Discipline that's fine however they should be hidden from the players and only related to them narratively.
I wouldn't want to simplify the elements into just Magic, as having them separate allows for more varied players and interesting ways they might hook up to other stats (characters with low Controls but high Play, representing 'playmakers' who know how to control the field even if they can't score well, or low-Play high-Control players who are snipers who are almost guaranteed to score if they get the chance but depend on teammates to get them there). I see no reason for having Strength, as physical attacks are illegal in any case. Separating Stamina and Agility might be fine, but the game is meant to be focused on magic; imagine players clearing a path forward with blasts of fire or carefully-placed walls of water and slowly marching, rather than necessarily darting about. The game could support both types, though, I imagine.
