TableTopTourney Documentation

Complete guide to features, rules, and mechanics

What is TableTopTourney?

Create yearly tournaments for any number of contestants and board games. Compete across the entire year and enter your plays to follow up on standings and interesting stats about both players and board games.

The tournaments serve as yearly competition between contestants but also as a tool for managing your collection. Games played are rewarded and each month the top games are decided based on the number of times they were played taking into account their complexity. At the end of the year the board game of the year is awarded.

Each tournament is created with the size of the board game collection you want to manage and each quarter you can choose to pay a tax based on the size of your collection. In addition, every month there are penalties if you don't play enough and bonuses if you have more plays than there are games in your collection. What this means by the end of the year you have an indicator for whether you have a manageable sized collection or not. Deep in the red? maybe consider selling some games. On the plus side? Potentially room to expand that collection!

Earnings & Bonuses

Each play awards points to the first and second place players. The winner of a play receives the total points which consists of the sum of all bonuses for that play. The runner up receives half the total points in a 2 player game. When there are 3 or more players the second place pot scales with the number of players to compensate for the difficulty of scoring high in multiplayer games.

Bonuses

  • Daily Bonus: Increases by 1 point for each consecutive day played
  • Monthly Bonus: Increases by 2 points each 5th play in the same month
  • Player Count Bonus: Increases for each player over 2
  • First Play Bonus: Increases by the game's complexity first time playing
  • Game of the Month Bonus: Adds 8 points to the pot when the game played is the game of the month
  • Custom Bonus: Invest 10 points in a game to increase the value by 5 points

Taxes & Penalties

Each quarter, contestants pay tax proportional to their earnings that quarter. The tax is based on the size of the board game collection for the tournament.

Total quarterly tax amount: 2 × (1 + 0.7)(Collection Size/10)

Each month there is a penalty or bonus depending on how many days were played and how many unique games have been played.

Board Games

Board games are tracked and awarded points when they're played based on their complexity.

The complexity is made up of several factors and is lower for online play since there is no need to set up a game and players are helped with the rules, when playing online.

The factors for determining the complexity consist of:

Each month a winning board game is established based on the complexity and the amount of plays for that board game and in the end of the year the board game of the year is awarded.

Board Game Tournament Ranking

Our tournament uses a balanced scoring system that rewards both strategic gameplay and consistent participation.

Base Score: Play Count & Complexity

Every game earns points based on how often it's played and its complexity rating:

  • More plays = more points: Playing a game multiple times increases its score
  • Game weight matters: Complex games earn more per play than simple games
  • Balanced approach: We use diminishing returns on complexity to prevent heavy games from dominating solely based on weight

Consistency Bonus: Multi-Month Play

Games played across multiple months receive a special bonus:

  • Each additional month earns extra points
  • This bonus scales with the game's complexity
  • This rewards consistent play of the same game throughout the tournament year

Medal System: Monthly Performance

The top three games each month earn medal points:

  • Gold Medal (1st place): 2 points
  • Silver Medal (2nd place): 1 point
  • Bronze Medal (3rd place): 0.5 points

Final Score Calculation

A game's final tournament ranking is determined by:

Base Score + Multi-Month Bonus + Medal Points

Tournament Strategy

This balanced system creates multiple paths to success:

  • The Complexity Path: Play heavy games that score well in individual sessions
  • The Frequency Path: Play games more often to accumulate points through volume
  • The Consistency Path: Play the same games across multiple months to earn consistency bonuses
  • Monthly competition: Games awarded monthly medals for significant bonus points

The best tournament games will likely combine these approaches, creating a dynamic and varied experience throughout the year and finally crowning a yearly champion on the last day of the year.

Rules & Mechanics

A contestant's 'running total' is the sum of all the gains from plays.

The running expenditure is the sum of all the bonus increases for specific board games contestants have paid for.

Penalty/Bonus Calculation

Penalty/bonus is either net positive or negative depending on how many games have been played in a month. Contestants get the running total sum for the month divided by the total number of days in the month multiplied with the difference in days between the number of games played in the month and the total number of days in the month. Since the last part can be negative if you played 12 games in a month of 31 days, it would be -19 for example, the entire sum would be negative and thus a penalty. If however more games were played than the number of days in the month the sum would end up positive and be a bonus instead.

Unplayed Games Penalty

Finally, there is a penalty for unplayed games which considers the size of the entire board game collection. It starts small in the beginning of the year and ramps up for each month that passes. The logic counts the unique number of games played so far in the entire year and subtracts the number of games in the collection. The result is divided by 2 times the month (so more and more as the year goes on) and finally multiplied with the tax contribution percentage. This way contestants pay a bit differently depending on how much they've earned.

Winners & Rankings

Monthly Winner: The contestant who has earned the most in the month (biggest running total).

Quarterly Winner: The contestant with the most monthly wins.

Yearly Winner:

  • Primary: Most quarterly wins
  • 1st tie breaker: Most monthly wins
  • 2nd tie breaker: Biggest yearly revenue
  • 3rd tie breaker: Total number of yearly wins

Importing Data

Both board games and plays can be imported by uploading a CSV file.

Board Games Import Format

"name","bggWeight","setup","playingTime","strategy","rules","inCollection"
"Baseball Highlights 2045","2.19","2","3.5","3","2","true"
"Agricola","3.64","4","5","4.5","3.5","false"
"Azul Queens Garden","2.95","2","2","3.5","1.5","false"

Plays Import Format

Winners and second place contestants are specified using their nickname. If a non-contestant won or came in second, specify "Other". If a coop game was won, specify "All" to share the victory.

Date,Game,Players,Type,Winner,SecondPlace
01/01/2024 02:30,Jaipur,2,Table,🦎,🫐
01/01/2024 13:00,Scout,5,Table,🦎,🚀
01/01/2024 14:00,Scout,5,Table,Other,🍠
01/01/2024 19:00,Castles Of Burgundy,4,Table,🍠,🫐
02/01/2024 20:00,Schotten Totten 2,2,Table,🦎,🍠
02/01/2024 20:00,Ark Nova,4,Table,🦎,🍠
03/01/2024 20:00,Spirit Island,4,Table,All,All

Other Features

The contestant page shows stats for all plays across all tournaments. Interacting with a contestant brings up a detailed stats page for that contestant.

Adding a new play brings up a stats overview showing the impact of that play on the tournament. Plays in a tournament can be edited and deleted. These actions trigger a recalculation of necessary plays. Interacting with a play (clicking a card or table row) brings up the stats overview.