How do you guys stay interested in Fictional Leagues?

[Jman0329]

For sure I see the appeal in it, as you can build your own world with connections to fictional players.

However I struggle connected, as I love the aspect of taking real teams and building them to the top.

How do you all stay in interest with your leagues?

Year 1 of my Fictional League (Hats off to Providence for the 114 wins)

[The Game]

Start a dynasty thread. Since OOTP 12 i have played various versions of my EBL vs MLB league.
http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...12-beyond.html
This league was originally created on Tony La Russa baseball around 1992. I have played it on Hardball & High Heat. When I rediscovered OOTP 12, I could not easily continue where I left off in 2037, so I decided to start all over again. I love my league 10x starting over with it.

In my new White Sox league i imported my top 5 all time favorite players along with myself.
http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...ml#post3984995
There are so many features that OOTP has that i do not use in my EBL league because that league is mostly a fictional historical replay. i want to see how good of a GM & MGR i can be when i don't know what 90% of the players will actually do. I plan on switching to stats only in this league soon.
Learn the players. Take your time. Do it over several years.Create fictional backstories on the players , MGRs & Owners.
I have plans for a fictional 1871 league for 17 where i will import 2 historical players per decade and stay as close as possible to real MLB and see how many teams i can manage in 140 years. Leaning towards having me as The Game be a time traveling android from the year 3050.
Hope that helps.

[BaseballMan]

Id say make the championship your goal each year but dont just focus on the championship. Enjoy the struggles and small victories players make. Watch their accomplishments. Let your league tell its own story.

[Tyler87898]

Honestly the first couple years for me are never the most interesting because I'm still learning about the league. Once I start learning the stars of the league as well as seeing how my draft picks turn out, I become a lot more connected to the league.

[Matt Arnold]

Originally Posted by Tyler87898

Honestly the first couple years for me are never the most interesting because I'm still learning about the league. Once I start learning the stars of the league as well as seeing how my draft picks turn out, I become a lot more connected to the league.

That's why I love starting out modern day, since I know the league at that point. And then as the fictional stars start to over-take, it's like I naturally have my history blend into a fictional league.

[slugger922cubs]

To me the only way to go is fiction. MLB leagues always throw me because i have expectations about players and who they are and what they should be come. But the key to keeping interest is i find is to keep your fictional league small 8 to 12 teams 16 max. Anything larger and you lose track of players. The immersion factor adds value when you can track most players through only a few teams. Helps a lot to keep the league regional or in a foreign country. I usually like to choose Australia. Slowly teams start to form their own identities.

[Tyler87898]

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

That's why I love starting out modern day, since I know the league at that point. And then as the fictional stars start to over-take, it's like I naturally have my history blend into a fictional league.

That is exactly what I used to do and it was great, but eventually I decided I wanted a league where the history was completely fictional.

[ThatSeventiesGuy]

Originally Posted by BaseballMan

Id say make the championship your goal each year but dont just focus on the championship. Enjoy the struggles and small victories players make. Watch their accomplishments. Let your league tell its own story.

This sums it up pretty well. I'd add putting in cities, names, or whatever that mean something to you. Also, mods. Mods make it SO much more fun and engrossing, at least IMO.

As for the dynasty reports thing...I had the total opposite experience. I HATED writing them. Bored me to tears, and it took way too long to collect the images and such needed. Screw that, I wanna play OOTP, not write about it! And the kicker? I'm a writer!

[thirdsaint]

Well, to stay interested in it I think you need to definitely get a few seasons in like someone said earlier. When you start off you don't know any of the players, coaches, etc. I'd say in the three fictional leagues I've played (currently in season 6 in one and season 14 in another, did 9 in one that I stopped) it usually takes to about year 3 or 4 before you start really getting engrossed. By then you know who the star players are, the draft starts to shape up and free agency comes into play if you reset all their service times to 0 when you start (which I do).

For example, in my Year 14 league I'm really engrossed because numerous story lines seem to play out every year, like players going to rivals in free agency, retired players becoming coaches and leading teams to the championship, I change the names of draft picks so some 'sons' of players who have retired are now coming into the league, etc. Next year, year 15, the Hall of Fame will finally begin so that's a new wrinkle I'm looking forward to, and I'm having my first league expansion of 2 teams. I'm excited to see who will be made available for the expansion draft and how the new teams do.

Now, I've been in control of one franchise for all 14 seasons but I don't make ridiculous trades to win every year. I keep everything as realistic as possible. In my second phase of expansion in a few years I'm going to leave and take over a new team for a new challenge to start from the bottom.

I am also obsessed to the point I have about 5 or 6 different types of spreadsheets tracking milestones, best players for each franchise, etc. that keeps me involved.

[Hammercraft]

If you're at a point where you're feeling that your game is stale, here's a short list of things I can recommend that don't break anything in the continuity

1. Have your team bought out by a new owner and moved to a different city of your choosing. Pick a new logo. Change your financials to match your market. Make your new owner a celebrity you find interesting or humorous. "What do you mean Elton John bought the Reds and moved them to Honolulu??"

2. Go through your roster and find the unique guys who had an atypical path to the pros. There's always someone who was a tag-along on a trade or was a late round draft pick that made good. Flush out his story. Give him a badass nickname, like Jimmy "Steely-Eyed Missile Man" James, etc.

3. Smash common strategy in the teeth, and do something eccentric, like focus on a roster with elite defensive skills and decent pitching. Or pack your lineup with 3TO guys. Or super speedy base stealers.

4. Go through your lowest team roster and rename everyone to a movie character and see where they end up in a couple years. You'll smile when little known Snake Pliscon ends up being your starting left fielder.

[Westheim]

All that effort...

I guess it really helps when you hate the real world and just want to be somewhere entirely different.

And if you absolutely have to rename every fictional player to a Game of Thrones character to keep your toe nails from falling off through sheer boredom, then you're probably better off with the MLB quickstart anyway...

[Mr. Marlin]

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

That's why I love starting out modern day, since I know the league at that point. And then as the fictional stars start to over-take, it's like I naturally have my history blend into a fictional league.

All leagues are fictional at some point!

[Mr. Marlin]

I use a few setting you don't see in the real world. No revenue sharing and the team's media contract is based on market size. In Mr. Marlins world a team must sink or swim on it's own. If they fail I move them. In real life I don't like the Nationals or Mets. I just f-ing HATE the Phillies. But I have no animus again the New York Empires, Washington Capitals, or Philadelphia White Stockings. My teams play a balanced schedule and there is no DH. In a real life replay there is every reason for the Tampa Bay Rays to move. But I'd never do that because they Rays never moved. I break immersion in a replay when something that didn't actually happen, happens. But in Mr. Marlins world the Baltimore Canaries played 20 miserable seasons in a city where no one came to see them and they didn't win anything. Then they moved to Boston and became the Boston Irish and won 4 Doubleday Cup Championships in the last 10 years.

My biggest thing favoring fictional leagues is anything can happen. I have no preconceived notions. If I'm playing a replay and see the Yankees traded Babe Ruth to the White Sox (it happened) or the Cubs won a dozens championships over the years I just can't deal with it. That never happened. And if I'm going to play with the rigid setting of historical transactions only then what's the point? With fictional it is all new and happening right before your eyes and you don't know how it's going to turn out. That is what appeals to me. I won't go back to replay or MLB Quickstarts. They just don't interest me anymore.

[smiller]

I simmed the first 10 years of my fictional league to establish a history, then took charge of the team with the worst record, as I prefer building a team into a winner. After a few years, I switched to stats only which made it more real as GM and manager to me.

[Hammercraft]

Originally Posted by Westheim

I guess it really helps when you hate the real world and just want to be somewhere entirely different.

Every time the Cardinals reach the postseason

[Rizon]

Pour over other team's players and stats. You bond with your fictional world once the world becomes familiar. It takes me about 3 seasons and then I'm fully immersed.

I also do "Team Previews" before each season, and then read them over repeatedly. That way you begin to learn the strength and weaknesses of each team and players.

[thirdsaint]

Originally Posted by Rizon

Pour over other team's players and stats. You bond with your fictional world once the world becomes familiar. It takes me about 3 seasons and then I'm fully immersed.

I also do "Team Previews" before each season, and then read them over repeatedly. That way you begin to learn the strength and weaknesses of each team and players.

That's cool. I've been thinking about doing team season previews myself for a little bit now. Do you have any examples of what you do?

[cavebutter]

I've been fictional-only since I started playing OOTP. Used to be that I would start a dozen different universes, play them for a little while, get bored and create new ones. I would GM a team here and there, but mostly I was into it for the world building. I may go back to that one day, but...

For 16, I decided to try something different. I created a very small universe- one ML with 16 teams and simmed 10 years. At year 10, I created a player and entered him into the ammy draft. I started a dynasty report (since abandonned, sigh) where I was that player. I followed him very closely through the minors and eventually to the majors, writing dynasty reports from his perspective. In this way, I got to know my league inside and out while it continued to build history. Once my guy retired, I created a human manager with his name, and started managing my way up from the minors.

I was lucky in that it only took me three seasons to get a big league GM job - with one of the worst teams and worst owners I have seen in 11 versions of this game. I am now in season 32 of the league, and almost all of the current coaches in the league are guys that "I" played with or against. I am so immersed in my league that I don't want to take the time away from the game to update my dynasty.

It's a lot of work to create that level of immersion, especially when you consider that you can get that out of the box if you play MLB quickstart. But I love creating the universe that I play in and not having external preconceptions about which players are destined to do what. Besides, I refuse to live in a universe where Portland does not have a ML team.

[thirdsaint]

Originally Posted by cavebutter

I've been fictional-only since I started playing OOTP. Used to be that I would start a dozen different universes, play them for a little while, get bored and create new ones. I would GM a team here and there, but mostly I was into it for the world building. I may go back to that one day, but...

For 16, I decided to try something different. I created a very small universe- one ML with 16 teams and simmed 10 years. At year 10, I created a player and entered him into the ammy draft. I started a dynasty report (since abandonned, sigh) where I was that player. I followed him very closely through the minors and eventually to the majors, writing dynasty reports from his perspective. In this way, I got to know my league inside and out while it continued to build history. Once my guy retired, I created a human manager with his name, and started managing my way up from the minors.

I was lucky in that it only took me three seasons to get a big league GM job - with one of the worst teams and worst owners I have seen in 11 versions of this game. I am now in season 32 of the league, and almost all of the current coaches in the league are guys that "I" played with or against. I am so immersed in my league that I don't want to take the time away from the game to update my dynasty.

It's a lot of work to create that level of immersion, especially when you consider that you can get that out of the box if you play MLB quickstart. But I love creating the universe that I play in and not having external preconceptions about which players are destined to do what. Besides, I refuse to live in a universe where Portland does not have a ML team.

Haha, that's pretty awesome. For what its worth I make sure to always include Portland in my baseball leagues too. Don't know how they don't have a ML team but hopefully they will some day. It's the perfect rival for Seattle as we see in MLS and NBA (once upon a time). I do love that about fictional leagues too. No preconceived notions about who a player is, just let the world play out and build your own history.

[DustinthePOWERHOUSE]

I love building up the history and expanding the league...shifting teams to other leagues and generally making a mess of the world. Especially with fictional leagues with independent leagues and teams/players there's so much to do that can really make your universe unbelievably expansive. I usually sim the first 20 years or so (sometimes more) then I take control of a team or make a new league/independent or whatever and keep going.

I play all the modes though, so I'm not a typical player I don't think