Why Use Tournament Scoring Software?
While it is technically possible to run a NAF tournament with a pen and a piece of paper, it’s much easier to use a custom made tournament scoring software. Along with generating the draw for each round of your event, scoring software can provide you with all kinds of statistics, instantly apply tiebreakers and produce nice outputs for your websites. Importantly, several programs allow you to generate XML output files that can be directly uploaded to the NAF website (see how here). This does not only make everybody’s life easier, but dramatically reduces the risk of errors.
The Blood Bowl and wider tabletop gaming community has produced a number of scoring software examples over the years, and a handful are discussed below. If you use something that has not made this page, please leave a comment and we will investigate. We know this page is not exhaustive!
Score! (offline program, with XML output)
Despite its age, MS Windows based Score! is still the most well understood of all Blood Bowl scoring programs used at NAF Blood Bowl tournaments. Score! was originally developed by Joris Dorman, and because of its historical popularity, the software has been rigorously stress tested and iterated. We host an introductory page and a rather helpful user guide written by super-user Sann0638. In the vast majority of cases, Score! will run your tournament very successfully and generate an upload file so that the results can be easily added to the NAF database. The software is a little un-intuitive and is showing its age, but with our handy user guide, you should be an expert in no time. If you are new to running tournaments, we recommend you start here. If nothing else, we have the most experience with this software. We know it’s robust, and the tournament staff will be able to help you use it if you have any issues.
Tourma (offline program, with XML output)
Tourma by Lord_Bojo is, in many ways, Score!‘s newer, prettier, easier to use brother. The Java based interface is cleaner than Score! and the software has a number of clever features such as easy to input NAF names, a host of statistics about your tournament and a very easy to use team tournament component. Tourma also allows for multi-point result upload, meaning that (with some work), coaches can potentially upload results from their smartphones. This software is being used extensively and successfully in France. Learn more about by visiting their Wiki page. If you spot any issues while using Tourma, drop them in here and Lord_Bojo will take a look!
TourPlay.net (webpage, with XML output)
A very recent addition, TourPlay.net allows the online organisation of tournaments and leagues. As of beginning of 2023, organisation of tournaments is officially still in a preview version but it is fully operational and multiple tournament results have already been uploaded to the NAF database using their comfortable XML export function. It’s an all-in-one place with a user-friendly interface that makes it easy for for hosts to setup tournaments and for participants to directly submit their rosters. However, one should keep in mind that this is a purely online tournament software at the moment, and if you are playing in your parents’ basement with a spotty internet connection, or the server goes down, it might create issues on tournament day.
Best Coast Pairings (smartphone app)
Best Coast Pairings (BCP) is a multi-system tournament organiser that works as a smartphone app. It is perhaps somewhat lacking in features specific to Blood Bowl tournaments that Score! and Tourma provide, however if you are running a very simple Blood Bowl event, BCP may be for you. The benefits of BCP are that coaches can upload their rosters to the app as Word / similar files, and after the software has generated a draw for the next round, each coach receives a push notification on their smartphone or other device, directing them to their table, informing them of their opponent and giving access to the roster they will be facing. In some ways, the tournament pretty much runs itself, leaving the TO free to play or wander! The software is currently in beta, meaning it isn’t perfect, but it is an interesting option. Currently, this software does not offer a NAF upload file, so inputting results would be a manual task. Not recommended for a new organiser.
BBGestor (webpage, with XML output)
The Spanish community uses a number of web-based scoring / management systems, of which BBGestor is arguably the most user friendly. The organiser needs to pay a 20 Euro, returnable deposit to use the site, but once he has, he can set-up a tournament. This software allows attending coaches to register in advance and create their rosters on the webpage, creating a self-contained tournament online. The website controls drawing the rounds and produces a NAF site upload file, and attending coaches can access the tournament online at any time. The software currently only supports CRP rosters and a few tiebreakers, but does support the (very popular in Spain) challenge system, where a coach can make a challenge to another coach in round one. Similar Spanish systems are the Bilbalicup page and the FEBB league / tournament manager, however these are less attractive to the inexperienced organsier for various reasons (software knowledge required, pay per use).
Other Tournament Software
A lot of other tournament software exists. Some were built for specific tournaments, some were made a number of years ago and perhaps have not been updated for a while. In Oceania, the BEVAN and Tournament Manager systems were popular a few years ago, but an up-to-date and working version of these softwares was not available at time of writing. In France, Fantasy Football Architecture was written by Trambi and used extremely successfully at the 2017 Eurobowl tournament. However it requires Linux to run and is perhaps not user friendly enough to include in detail here. Excel based systems have also been developed, contact Sann0638 if interested in the spreadsheet that drove the 2015 World Cup, as well as subsequent Eurobowls (Exscore).
The Future
Each of these tournament scoring systems has their positives and negatives, and the perfect solution does not currently exist. A software that combines the depth of Score! or Tourma, the web functionality and roster upload ability of TourPlay and the smartphone wizardry of Best Coast Pairings would make for the perfect Blood Bowl software. If you fancy writing that, contact the NAF! In the mean time, we are focusing on keeping our eyes and ears open to new opportunities and engaging coders to edge toward the target of creating a perfect scoring system.