So baseball rules. Perhaps irrationally, we wants 'em.

We also want data on what team is where nowadays; nothing's really been updated since Shadowbeat, with a few exceptions. Here's what we have so far:

The Check: While the catcher and the pitcher are deciding which pitch to throw, the catcher may make a Judge Intentions roll opposed to any runner's Agility + Con roll; if successful, he will know if the runner is attempting to steal or not.

The Pickoff: A runner may take a lead off of any base, which grants him up to a +2 bonus on any attempt to steal; however, he takes a proportional penalty to any attempt to resist a pickoff. When a pitcher attempts to pick off a runner, he makes an Agility + Throwing test opposed to the runner's Reaction + Running; if successful, the runner is out. On a critical glitch, the ball goes 2d6 meters past the first baseman and the runner may attempt to get as far on the basepaths as he likes.

The Set: Pitching, in general, is very similar to an attack with a grenade; this includes the fact that a pitcher make Take Aim for as long as he likes prior to his pitch. (Limited, of course, by both the Take Aim restrictions in SR4A and the "delay of game" restrictions in baseball.)

The Windup: The pitch itself is a Throwing + Agility roll, modified by a range penalty appropriate to the pitcher's Strength. A pitcher may take a full windup if he so wishes. (In baseball, this mostly happens on a 3-2 pitch or when the bases are empty.) If he does, he gains a +1 dice pool modifier to the roll; however, the batter gains a +1 modifier to his Judge Intentions roll, and anyone attempting to steal gets a +1 modifier to their roll as well.

The Pitch: The Throwing + Agility roll is resolved as if it were a grenade attack (scatter 1d6) against a Reaction roll of 0 hits. However, if the scatter minus net hits is a positive number (0 is not a positive number in this case) the pitch is out of the strike zone and is a ball. If the pitcher glitches, the catcher must make a Reaction + Agility check with a threshold equal to the net hits of the pitch; on a failure, the ball gets by him. (Scored as a wild pitch if the pitch would have been a ball, or a passed ball if it would have been a strike.)

On a critical glitch, roll the Throwing + Agility roll again, and subtract successes from scatter. If this roll indicates a strike, the pitcher has pitched an "easy one right down the middle" and the batter gets a +4 bonus to his hitting roll. This bonus may bring his dice pool above the normal maximum of 20 or Attribute + Skill. If the roll indicates a ball, the pitch is heading right for the batter. Resolve this as a normal Throwing + Agility attack, with the batter rolling his Reaction and, if applicable, Body + Armor to resist damage. (Damage from a baseball is [STR/2]P.)

The Steal: When a runner declares he is stealing, he makes a Strength + Running (15; 1 second) extended roll against the catcher's Agility + Throwing (15; 1 second) extended roll. If the runner wins, he's safe; if the catcher wins, the runner's out. Ties go to the runner. If the batter critical glitches, he's tripped and automatically out; if the catcher glitches, the ball goes 2d6 meters past the second baseman and the runner may continue as far as he likes.

The Swing: The result of ball or strike is not immediately revealed to the batter. Instead he may make a Judge Intentions roll with a threshold equal to the net hits of the pitch; if this roll succeeds, he will know if the pitch is a ball or a strike. Regardless of the Judge Intention roll, the matter may choose to swing or not to swing. If he does choose to swing, he rolls Reaction + Clubs as an opposed test against the Throwing + Agility roll the pitcher has made. If his roll is exactly equal to the pitcher's, he hits a foul ball out of play; if he misses, he gets a swinging strike; if his roll is higher, it's a solid hit. A glitch in any case means his bat breaks; a critical glitch means a foul pop-up. If the batter hits, and the pitch would have been a ball, he may instead choose to "check his swing;" in that case, a ball will be called (assuming the umpire makes the right call; see below).

The Call: In the event that the batter doesn't swing, and the scatter test was either negative or above 1, the umpire makes the correct call. If the scatter test was 0 or 1, or in any case where the batter checks his swing, the umpire rolls Perception + Intuition. There is no threshold for success, but in the event of a glitch (including a critical glitch) the umpire makes the wrong call -- a ball is a strike or a strike is a ball.

Beating The Throw: Once a runner has hit a ball into play, he makes a Strength + Running (15; 1 second) extended check, which is opposed to the fielder's Agility + Throwing (1 per 2 meters' distance from target; 1 second) check. Whoever reaches the threshold first wins; as in baseball, ties go to the runner. A fielder may "relay" the throw to another fielder in order to avoid range penalties.

We're going to need Smartball for the players, that is a given.

I have no idea how to do that.

Right now I am away until Monday for the most part as I came to set up my new computer (i7, 12g ram, 275 geforce, yadda yadda). I have yet to transfer any of the data I have stored on old drives yet but once I do I can start tossing up various concepts I have in different aspects of the project.

P damage? Stun more like it (I've never seen anyone bleed pints from a baseball).
If hit, the batter immediately moves to first base.


Batter?

You may also want to include pinch runners and pinch hitters. A guy who's been smacked by a ball may opt to have a pinch runner for him while he rests off his stun from being beaned by a ball.

Watch this video!

I think P damage is appropriate.

The pitcher hit a seagull with a ball. Seagulls won't have a stun + body track as long as a humans. Doing 4 stun to a seagull--while annoying to a human--probably puts it into bleeding out.

Well, I somehow doubt that this baseball - if it'd hit a human's head - would have caused Stun damage only. But for game purposes it'd possibly be better to treat a hit by a baseball as Stun damage. Agreed.

It's P. Check Arsenal 20. Also look up Ray Chapman.

Baseball does as much damage as a thrown knife?

You didn't look up Ray Chapman, did you.

WhoTH is Ray Chapman?

Ray Chapman

Alright I am finally back up and running on my new computer at home. So without further wait here are those thoughts.

The Roster
Each team is composed of 25 players assigned across the various playing positions. This includes the following minimums and maximums allowed by the league.

Infielders: 5 to 8
Catcher: 2 to 3
Outfielders: 4 to 6
Pitcher: 10 to 13; 4 or 5 Starters, 3 or 4 Relievers, and 3 or 4 Closers
Designated Hitter: 1 (I am opting here for this over Pitcher hitting as the fans have come to expect more action.)

I have a Google Doc going for this. Right now I have some layouts of various team rosters, based off real teams choices for number of players at each position.

The Starting Lineup
Each team must choose a starting lineup of 8 players excluding the 9th slot which is reserved for the designated hitter in place of the active pitcher.

Pitchers
Pitchers rely on a few factors which follow below.

Role
Starting Pitcher: A pitcher that begins the game.
Relief Pitcher: A pitcher who replaces a Starting Pitcher who has been removed from the game.
Closing Pitcher: A Relief Pitcher who attempts to get the final outs in the game.

Style
Power: Relies on fast pitches.
Control: Relies on accurate pitches.
Ground: Relies on forcing a batter to hit ground balls.

Stamina
Since only humans are allowed within baseball the following applies to maximum innings a Pitcher is able to perform. (This is very rough at the moment so some input might be in order.)

Body + Strength: Batters (effective innings)
18: 33 (11)
17: 30 (10)
16: 27 (9)
15: 24 (8)
13 or 14: 21 (7)
11 or 12: 18 (6)
9 or 10: 15 (5)
7 or 8: 12 (4)
5 or 6: 9 (3)
3 or 4: 6 (2)
2: 3 (1)

Fielders
Players fall into 2 categories when fielding, Specific or Utility. Specific players may only play that exact position or they receive a fielding penalty. Utility players (either Utility Infielder or Utility Outfielder) only receive a fielding penalty if they are located in the opposing fielding area.

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Since I have some things to tend to right now I will leave these thoughts up for everyone to mull over and make suggestions about them.

That said I will leave you with one last thing found below.

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Stadiums
When I was thinking over possible methods of running a baseball game I was drawn to some concepts from MLB SportsClix. The first area that made sense to me was the field itself which is a major part of any ballgame. Here is an example of a stadium, Comerica Park, I tossed together before I updated the computer. I made it smaller as it is just an example. Making other stadiums should not be too much of a problem as it is just a matter of the base field layer and the additional areas (extended outfield, fences and so on) tossed in.

http://i442.photobucket.com/albums/qq146/n...caParksmall.png

DHs don't actually work like that; you get designated as an infielder, outfielder, or pitcher on the roster but get written into the lineup as the DH. A great example of this was Thursday's Red Sox-Indians game: Julio Lugo, normally the team's starting shortstop, was the DH while David Ortiz sat with a stiff neck. You CAN have someone as a DH on your roster (David Ortiz himself, for one), but it's fairly uncommon AFAIK.

That said? That SportsClix thing is BEAUTIFUL. 1d6 for where it ends up....

You have to remember, this is Shadowrun's world and not our own we are working with here. This is the main reason why I wanted to add something such as a universal DH in the the league in place of the pitcher, for the stated reason of fan expectations. I choose the 9th spot in the lineup due to the general practice of pitchers filling that spot. The fiction behind this is that the old teams who did not follow the DH rule only conceded to the inclusion under the stipulation that the DH must bat in the 9th slot. What year this happened I leave for later if it goes through. Perhaps I will make up a d100 chart for a specific year range and the highest result becomes the year in the fiction.

While Lugo did DH on Thursday, Green was at SS, both are on the depth chart as SS. This info was even in the above mentioned Google Doc when I was sorting team position numbers.

5 teams have a set DH currently.
Boston Red Sox: David Ortiz
Chicago White Sox: Jim Thome
Kansas City Royals: Billy Butler
Minnesota Twins: Jason Kubel
New York Yankees: Hideki Matsui

1d6 for where the ball goes yes. So many aspects of that system are very nice that just playing it instead could be an option. Renaming the SportsClix players just doesn't seem right to me though when other possibilities exist which I will delve into later. On the other hand we are going more for a Shadowrun PnP version where extra aspects alongside simpler mechanics might be useful. For this reason I lean more toward alternate dice methods over dice pools used in Shadowrun. I am flexable with that though but will post my alternate dice concepts for consideration.

1d6 probably isn't accurate though. It means that every batter has an equal chance to hit it into any part of the field, which they don't. A right handed batter is more likely to hit over 3rd base, and a left handed batter more likely to hit over 1st (IIRC).

However, we can get a nice spread with 2d6 (add):

F: 2
LLF: 3-4
LF: 5-6
LCF: 7-8
RCF: 9
RF: 10
RRF: 11
F: 12

(And flip for left-handed.)

Puts the ball on average left of the center line, but not quite into Left Field.
If you don't want fowls occurring even on good hits (why not? wind and bad luck after all strikes even the best hits) you could squish those two into their respective far fields.

Heck, you can even rotate this chart such that a certain hit has a higher chance of heading down the center:
(Keep fowls as 2 and 12).

F: 2
LLF: 11
LF: 3-4
LCF: 5-6
RCF: 7-8
RF: 9
RRF: 10
F: 12

The ultimate goal here would be that every single player in the league will have stats associated with them. A table for the d6 results would show which areas of the field the batter can hit to. Infield and outfield hits would be determined in another way during the batting attempt. Until more things are sorted out I am hesitant on creating a mock-up of a player card. For an example though we will go with this example.

Name: Clarence Bosch
Position: First Base
B/T: R/R

Batting
1: Far Left
2: Left
3: Left
4: Center Left
5: Center Right
6: Right

I notice you bring up fouls, is that something we want to do here? We can design this one of two ways, pitch by pitch or single test result based. The first can end up taking far longer and might get boring where the latter ends up with a minimum of 54 face-offs. Under a perfect game scenario, Team A pitching it in the first method, could be anywhere from 27 (first pitch outs), 81 (3 pitch outs), or possibly more challenges just for the opposing Team B's at bats. Add in at least the same numbers for Team A and we are looking at making anywhere from 54 up to 200+ challenges depending on how well each does. Today's Phillies vs. Braves game had 262 pitches where most games will usually be in the 200-300 pitch range. That seems a bit excessive in practice to me when trying to play a PnP game of this type.

Ever played the MLB Card Game?

I have not played MLB but I am looking it up right now to get a better idea of what it is.