FastScore Football

FastScore Football was created in the early 2000’s as a quick play football game, unfolding quarter by quarter, accurately highlighting each touchdown (with missed PAT and 2pt conversions), each field goal and each safety based on actual team performance.

Each teams’ actual stats and personality are baked into the ratings, taking into account the offensive and defensive styles of each team. For example, some teams may score frequently, but fail to execute in the red zone, settling on field goals more often than scoring touchdowns. Other teams may rarely put points on the board, but when they do they efficiently march into the endzone, scoring more touchdowns than field goals. It will be harder to score touchdowns against great red zone defenses. Dominating pass defenses will shut down teams with pass-heavy offenses, and strong run defenses will stop the running game. With FastScore Football, teams will perform similarly to their actual points scored and points allowed, their actual TDs and FGs (both scored and allowed), and each team’s win-loss record.

FastScore Football is played using a scoring chart, season specific team ratings, and four differently colored or differently sized 6-sided dice. An optional variant uses two 6-sided dice and two 20 sided dice. Each team has four ratings- the Offensive and Defensive scoring ratings (OFF and DEF) determine the number of scoring drives per quarter; the higher the OFF rating, the more potent the offense. Likewise, lower DEF ratings represent better defenses. The Offensive and Defensive Red Zone ratings influence whether a touchdown or field goal is scored. Teams with higher Red Zone ratings score more touchdowns than field goals, while teams with lower Red Zone ratings will often settle for field goals.

Two six-sided dice are read sequentially, so that a 4 and 5 are read as 45. The first two dice determine how many scoring drives a team has that quarter, and the second two dice determine whether the drives produced a touchdown, field goal, or other result. A team’s offensive rating is added to the opponent’s defense rating. Better ratings are color coded in green while worse ratings are color coded in red. In the examples below, Baltimore is playing Carolina. Baltimore’s team rating is 10 (Baltimore offense 5 + Carolina defense 5), and their red zone rating is 4 (Baltimore red zone offense 1 + Carolina red zone defense 3). Carolina’s team rating is 8 (Carolina offense 5 + Baltimore defense 3), and their red zone rating is 2 (Carolina red zone offense 1 + Baltimore red zone defense 1). Baltimore rolls 4 dice (the first 2 dice determine the number of scoring drives and the second 2 dice determine the result of the drive) and gets a 33 and a 54, meaning they have 1 scoring drive that ends in a touchdown. Carolina rolls 4 dice and gets a 23 and a 62, meaning they had no scoring drives (ignore the second dice roll since they did not score). So after 1 quarter, the score is 7-0 Baltimore.

Baltimore’s blue “run” ratings represent that their offense was heavy on the running game, and they had superior defense against the run. If their opponent was Atlanta or Chicago (both with a blue “run” offense rating), Baltimore’s defense would reduce their opponent’s team rating by an additional 3 points. If Baltimore’s opponent was Cincinnati (who had a strong passing game and earned a blue “pass” offense rating- the opposite of Baltimore’s “run” defense rating), Baltimore’s defense would add 3 points to Cincinnati’s team rating. Match-ups matter in FastScore Football! In addition, home field advantage is represented in the game by adding 1 point to the home team’s rating and subtracting 1 point from the visiting team’s rating. And finally, the (-) and (3-) ratings represent teams with worse win/loss records than was expected from points scored/allowed. A similar (+) rating exists for teams with better win/loss records than expected.

FastScore Football can be used as a supplement to other football games, allowing you to quickly play other games in a single team replay scenario, or could be used as a standalone game to replay full seasons. If you don’t have enough time for a full play-by-play football dice game, you could use FastScore Football to generate the score at the end of 3 quarters then play out the last quarter using your favorite play-by-play game. Each season comes with an as-played schedule with all ratings pre-calculated for each game. So all you need to do is sit down and start playing!

FASTSCORE FOOTBALL WAS DESIGNED FOR MAXIMAL STATISTICAL ACCURACY:
Every season of FastScore Football is painstakingly calculated in a two-step process. First, the raw stats are converted into ratings based on a standard spreadsheet that takes into account the number of scoring drives, TDs, FGs and safeties specific to that season. Then the ratings are tweaked through thousands of simulations that adjust for the actual opponents and the strength of schedule. In this process, as many as half of the original ratings are adjusted for greater accuracy. Adjusting the ratings to a team’s strength of schedule is critical to achieve accuracy. After this process is completed, the average scoring drives, points, TDs and FGs (both for and against) fall within 5% of actual performance.

On any given Sunday, any team could win. Likewise, in any given replay, dice rolls have “a mind of their own”. But you are creating your own history in these games, so enjoy the unexpected events that take place as you replay your favorite seasons.