Football Board Game

In this blog post I will discuss about a football(soccer) board game I designed.

Requirements:

Number of Players: 2 – We need two players who will build and manage their teams.
Game Master: 1 – We will need a person to take the role of the referee and will have to take decisions on the result of certain actions in the game.
Dice: 2 – D20s, 1 – D10 per player are needed for the game, while the Game Master will need at least 2 – D6 dice.
Additional Items: A collection of numerical indicators or 5 – D6 dice with two different colors can be used as the jersey numbers for each of the teams – a team can field 5 players at any time. A small spherical or entity a different colored D6 may be used as the football.

For the testing purposes of the board game, I used D6 dice for the jersey numbers and the football.

Game Board:

The game board is made of 14X7 square blocks as shown below:

As you can see, the board resembles a typical football field with the center circle, goal posts, corners etc.

Game Details:

A-F on Game Board – Half of Player 1.
G-L on Game Board – Half of Player 2.
Each Half has its own goal post – A3 and L3.
D and I have dots to indicate the positioning for Direct Freekicks and Indirect Freekicks.
The goal-keeper can’t make dive saves outside the D-box i.e. area A2-4, B2-4 and area K2-4, L2-4.
The game starts at center circle.
During corners the defending team cannot stack players at the corner square i.e. A0, A6, L0, L6 squares can’t be used by the defending team.
Penalties can be taken only from the B3 and K3 squares.
Ball crossing over the sidelines gives ball possession to the opposite team and the opposing team can restart the game by passing from the respective square from where the box crossed over the sidelines.
A deck of 50 cards with various abilities represent football player – “hero” to be used in the match.
Each player has a starting “war chest” – 800 M $ for buying players for their team, each hero has a Market Value(MV) mentioned on the hero card.
The Game Master shuffles the deck of 50 cards and presents one card at a time for each player to make a bid greater or equal the hero’s market value from their war chest.
The players cannot buy less than 15 players and can indicate to the game master if they want to buy more heroes so to continue the team-building process until the players are satisfied with their team or the game master is out of cards.
Of the 15 heroes, 2 heroes must be goalkeepers and 13 of them must be outfield players.
Of the 15 heroes, only 4 outfield players and 1 goalkeeper can be at the field at the same time.
The rest of the players heroes are in substitutes and the game allows unlimited substitutions.
A round in the game consists of each player may or may not move their heroes across the board, and perform some definite actions in order to win the game.
The game has 20 rounds and if scores are level after that, there are 10 more rounds which starts as normal kick-off and after that a 5-round penalty shootout followed by “sudden-death” – where the first player to miss the goal given that other player scored loses the match.
The heroes that move in a turn roll a 2 – D20s to be affected by match condition (explained below) – i.e. their match condition remains same or reduces, for goalkeepers – match condition roll takes place if they move like other players or make an action.
At the end of a round the heroes who performed an action does an Agility check to see if they can perform an action in next round or not.
Game starts by each player rolling a D6 for a winner – one with the highest score of the dice, to check which player moves first.
When a player concedes a goal, the round ends and they get to go first next round, the opposing player moves all his players back to their own half.
Short pass – when a pass is attempted through 2 or less squares.
Long pass – when a pass is attempted through more than 2 squares.
Direct Freekick – when distance to goal is less than 4 squares given that a foul didn’t occur inside the D-box.
Indirect Freekick – when distance to goal is greater than 4 squares.

Hero Cards:

These are examples of heroes for various positions:
(I had no space for the positions at the top of the card, so I added it the bottom)

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All the abilities have a maximum value of 20. These values were taken from the latest edition of Football Manager by SI Games.
You can also see the goalkeeper hero has a different set of abilities than outfield players.

Hero Actions:

These are the possible actions that an hero can take along with the abilities for the actions.

For each ability the player has to make a D20 dice roll and has to get it more the ability score for that hero to perform that action. Failing the dice roll would mean the hero failed to perform that action.

Long Ground Pass: Passing + Vision
Short Ground Pass: Passing + Technique
Long Pass: Crossing + Vision
Short Pass(Lob): Crossing + Technique
Shot: Shooting + Finishing
Cross: Crossing + Composure
Goalkeeper Save: Aerial Reach + Reflexes + Anticipation + Concentration
Goalkeeper Kick: Kicking + Vision + Decision + Communication
Goalkeeper Throw: Throwing + Vision + Decision + Communication
Corner Defending/Indirect Freekick Defending: Jumping Reach + Positioning + Balance + Composure
Corner Attacking: Jumping Reach + Heading + Balance + Anticipation
Goalkeeper Corner Defending: Aerial Reach + Anticipation + Command of Area + Concentration
Goalkeeper Corner Attacking: Jumping Reach + kicking + Balance + Anticipation
Corner Taking: Corners + Decisions
Direct Freekick Shoot: Freekick Taking + Shooting
Direct Freekick Pass/Indirect Freekick Pass: Freekick Taking + Passing
Indirect Freekick Shoot: Freekick Taking + Crossing
Penalty Shot: Penalty + Finishing + Composure + Decision
1v1 Goalkeeper vs Outfield Player (Goalkeeper): 1v1 + Rushing Out + Reflexes + Composure
1v1 Goalkeeper vs Outfield Player (Outfield Player): Dribbling + Finishing + Composure + Agility
Slide Tackle: Tackling + Aggression + Decision + Bravery
Stand Tackle: Tackling + Technique + Decision + Determination
Slide Tackle Avoidance: Anticipation + Composure + Balance + Determination
Stand Tackle Avoidance: Anticipation + Composure + Technique + Decision

One vs One Situations

This section gives a detailed description for the one vs one situations that could occur in the game.

Outfield hero vs Outfield hero

Attacker – hero in ball possession
Defender – hero challenging the attacker

Case 1: Attacker fails dice roll, Defender fails dice roll
Game Master rolls a D3
1 – a foul against the Attacker is not called, followed by Agility check for both heroes by each player to see who wins ball possession, in case of a tie in Agility check the Attacker goes first
2,3 – a foul against the Attacker is called, player controlling the attacker does rolls D5 for additional hits to match condition, Game Master rolls a D3 again for card, 1 – no card, 2 – yellow card, 3 – red card.
Case 2: Attacker fails dice roll, Defender wins dice roll
Defender takes the ball away.
Case 3: Attacker wins dice roll, Defender loses dice roll
Attacker evades the challenge.
Case 4: Attacker wins dice roll, Defender wins dice roll
Attacker does a Strength check and Defender does a Positioning check to decide who wins the ball, in case of a tie in the Strength/Agility check the Attacker evades the challenge.

Goalkeeper hero vs Outfield hero

Attacker – hero in ball possession
Goalkeeper – Goalkeeping hero

Case 1: Attacker fails dice roll, Goalkeeper fails dice roll
Attacker shoots the ball out to the stands, next round start with the goalkeeper in possession of the ball, opposing player moves their heroes out of the opposition D-box, the goalkeeper doesn’t do the match conditioning roll.
Case 2: Attacker fails dice roll, Goalkeeper wins dice roll
Same as Case 1, except the goalkeeper does the match conditioning roll.
Case 3: Attacker wins dice roll, Goalkeeper fails dice roll
Goal is scored by the attacker, round ends and the player who concedes the goal gets to go first.
Case 4: Attacker wins dice roll, Goalkeeper wins dice roll
Attacker shoots on target, but Goalkeeper saves, round ends, and player controlling the attacking hero moves all heroes out of the opposition D-box.

Match Condition

When any hero performs an action or moves they get fatigued, which gives a penalty of -2 units for each roll for every 3 units lost in match condition roll – a combined Strength + Stamina roll i.e. if Strength roll + Stamina roll < Hero’s total Strength + Stamina, the hero takes 1-unit of fatigue.

When a fatigued hero is substituted for another player from the bench, the fatigued hero gets 1-unit of Strength back each round.

Give this board game a try, and add in feedback on where I can improve this game.

Cheers!

Chiranjibee Satapathy