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Pen & Paper Football

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Pen & Paper Football is football without the commercials, endless merchandizing and prison sentences. A few dice and some paper is all you need to simulate an American football game. Just find some friends (or play solo), roll up some teams and pit them against each other in League Play, which requires eight simple dice rolls to play a game, or in Head-to-Head play, which simulates a game play-by-play.

P&PF has all the rules you need to play a whole season of football, with rules for passing, running, kicking, penalties, injuries and even off-season rules for team development. There are dozens of sample teams you can use and handy record sheets for teams, leagues and games.

51 pages

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Discussions (27)
Customer avatar
Jeff N December 31, 2023 4:01 am UTC
PURCHASER
The example in the rules for League Play seems to have a couple of errors.

The Cruisers have an OFF of +8 and the Tycoons have a DEF of +10. This is shown as a -3 for the Cruisers before their home field adjustment. Shouldn't it be a -2 before the home field adjustment ?

The Tycoons roll a 17, modified to 19, which the example says gives them 13 points. However, a 19 on the chart shows 7 points, not 13. Have there been revisions to the chart that didn't make it into the rules ?

Thanks for any help.
Customer avatar
John P October 08, 2023 9:53 pm UTC
PURCHASER
How can I play Head to Head solo?
I see in the discussion talk of a D100 random play chart is that available somewhere?
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Customer avatar
Kevin L February 20, 2024 5:20 am UTC
PURCHASER
You still looking for solo?
Customer avatar
Wesley H April 04, 2023 12:50 pm UTC
PURCHASER
This game is great! I wish there were supplements or expansions.
Customer avatar
Gary S March 22, 2023 4:23 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Bought this a while back but haven't had a chance to dive in until now. Really love this. I must say that as someone who has used tabletop and PC games for years to create sports universes, this is a great. It's like someone read my mind and then organized it for me, lol. Thanks John M.
Customer avatar
Keith G September 01, 2021 12:30 am UTC
PURCHASER
OK...just wanted to check in here...thanks to a gentleman called Electric Football Hero, I bought a copy of Pen and Paper Football, and am watching his 10-12 video tutorial/league play season---and I am HOOKED

I'm gonna get MY league going shortly. I have read the Pen and Paper book from cover to cover at least three times, and I wanted to come on here and thank John Slater for this marvelous piece of work...but I have a couple questions here

1) After you have finished your league play season, and are doing your playoffs/championship, you don't have to play those games using head to head rules, do you? I had thought about doing head to head solitaire, but league play seems to be the better format for me as far as solitaire goes

2) The Off-Season Events, Team Development, and the Off Season itself, all apply to league play and not head to head, correct?

I just want to be sure that I'm doing things right, because the whole being in charge of my own league and its'...See more
Customer avatar
George U July 21, 2021 9:08 am UTC
PURCHASER
I've run two seasons of a ten-team league in the game. In season 1 the net change in the total levels for the ten teams was -25 points. In season 2 it was -24 points.
There seems little chance at this rate of the weaker teams improving, and eventually the majority of teams will be at a pretty similar level.
In real football the teams finishing at the bottom have the top picks in the draft. I don't really see how this is accurately simulated in this game.
Has anyone who has simulated an extended number of seasons had a similar outcome in the progression of the league?
Customer avatar
James S June 09, 2021 9:33 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Further clarification needed on "Example Off-Season: San Diego Cruisers" on page 25. I've already read the post about the development roll being a d20 and not a d6.

However, later in the example, the income is multiplied by the result of a d6 roll:

"As a division leader with one major and minor market in their fan base, their base income is $24 million. They roll a d6 and get a 4, so they multiply their base income by 4 and get a total income of $96 million."

However, I do not see a rule that says "multiply income by 1d6." So is it correct that this is in fact the right procedure to generate income: Add up Major and Minor Markets, and multiply results by 1d6? It would make sense, as it costs $50 million just to get an attempt to add one additional ability score.
Customer avatar
James S June 06, 2021 6:02 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Hi all, I'm just starting to read the rules on this, and prepare for my first head to head game. Before I DIY, has anyone created a quick reference sheet they could share? Like with difficulty classes, modifiers, kick off chart, etc?
Customer avatar
Patrick L January 01, 2021 9:26 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Off-Season Rule clarification !

Reading the rulebook for team development they said to roll a D20...but the example they give for the San Diego Cruisers i read Next, they roll a d6 and get a 4. They must deduct four points from their ability scores.So i just want to know if i roll a D20 or D6.
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Customer avatar
Phillip G April 02, 2021 5:29 am UTC
PURCHASER
D20. It originally used a d6, but this was revised after many players pointed out that it made it too easy for a team to lose points.
Customer avatar
Kevin L September 06, 2020 7:38 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Why do you add the QB bonus to a rushing play (I assume fakes)....wouldn't it make sense to add the Offensive Linemen (LM) to the RB bonus instead?

Also, how does solo work?...I have seen the D100 chart but I'm not sure how to pick defense..just flip a coin?
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Customer avatar
Kevin L September 06, 2020 8:18 pm UTC
PURCHASER
nevermind...found my answers. looking forward to trying....looks fun.
Customer avatar
Dominic M September 15, 2019 1:53 am UTC
PURCHASER
I am having a ton of fun with this, but wouldn't mind trying to replay some past seasons and would like a way in the next expansion a way to convert real stats of teams to something the game can work with. If I missed it in this book, then apologies.
Customer avatar
Bobby C August 12, 2019 2:42 am UTC
PURCHASER
Sorry for spamming this discussion thread with redundant info, but I'd like to share all the additional rules I've come up with. This is not errata, but just some additional optional things. If the author wishes to incorporate any of this into later editions, you're welcome to it. Not sure what the character count is on this board, but here goes;

1). League Play: Teams coming off a BYE week add +1 to 1d20 dice rolls (this is cumulative with the Home Field Advantage +1 to dice rolls).

2). League Play: If a 20 is rolled, roll again and add the appropriate points from the League Play table to the score.

3). League Play: If a 1 is rolled, a season-ending injury has occurred; roll 1d6, consult the Injury Table, and lower that stat by -1 for the remainder of the season (adjust bonus if necessary). Such injuries are erased at the end of a season, prior to the aging roll.

4). League Play: After a league play game, each team rolls 1d10. On a roll of 1, a season-ending...See more
Customer avatar
Bobby C August 01, 2019 7:24 pm UTC
PURCHASER
It just occurred to me that rolling stats for team creation is more or less identical for rolling stats for Dungeons and Dragons characters (at least in earlier editions, I don't know about modern ones), so you could totally use all those alternate dice rolling methods to generate NFL-caliber teams. For example, roll 3d6 six times, assign stats as desired; roll 3d6 12 times, take the 6 highest rolls and assign as desired; Roll 4d6 6 times, and drop the lowest number on each roll; each stat starts at 8, roll 7d6 and add results to stats as desired (cannot exceed 18, and full value of each dice must be added...cannot be split up). Will these methods generate overpowered teams? Well in terms of the core game rules, perhaps. On the other hand, NFL teams are the sport's elite, and Manning/Brady/Montana/Bradshaw all have a QB score of 18. :P
Customer avatar
Bobby C July 29, 2019 4:13 am UTC
PURCHASER
How do you guys feel about teams receiving an additional +1 bonus to their OFF in League Play if they didn't play the week before (BYE)? Maybe to simulate a rested and recovered team? Let me know what you think.
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Customer avatar
Bobby C July 29, 2019 3:00 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Clarification, the above should actually read an additional +1 bonus to OFF/DEF in league play.
Customer avatar
Bobby C July 29, 2019 3:49 am UTC
PURCHASER
I'm experimenting with "challenges" to penalties in Head-to-Head play. It's pretty simple; a player has 2 "challenges" per game to avoid a penalty by challenging the call. The player flips a coin; if it's heads, the referee overturns the call, and there's no penalty. If it's tails, the penalty is not overturned, the team loses one timeout, and the team's number of available challenges for that game is reduced by 1. However, if a team's challenges are both successful, a 3rd challenge is awarded. IIRC, challenges can only occur prior to 2-minute warnings.

Personally, I think challenges in the NFL are lame, but if you're simulating a professional game, the above seems to do the trick well enough.
Customer avatar
Phillip G June 18, 2019 4:31 am UTC
PURCHASER
Really love this game. I've been playing it for awhile and I think it's great! The market rules are simplistic yet elegant and the League Play system lets you play through several seasons in as many minutes! There are only a couple of issues I've come across.

1) As others have pointed out, the aging rules seem extremely restrictive. I've played through the first half of the 60s with the NFL and the Detroit Lions have won every single year. In-universe I rationalized it as "that's just how dynasties worked then," but honestly other teams simply aren't able to keep up, because they age faster than they can develop (the Dallas Cowboys have finished in last every year due to their abysmal ratings). The AFL is similar, though not as bad, as the Oilers have won most titles, though the Chargers have managed to sneak in a couple of wins now and then. I just wish there was a way of balancing the teams a bit more.

2) The way the market rules are set up, it's literally impossible for...See more
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Customer avatar
Phillip G June 20, 2019 8:14 am UTC
PURCHASER
Update: I didn't notice there was a revision before I posted this. I see now that the aging roll has been changed from a d6 to a d20. I don't know yet how this will affect the teams, but just looking at it I think it will make for a positive change.
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Product Information
Platinum seller
Author(s)
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Pages
51
Publisher Stock #
QE6
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1.87 MB
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File Last Updated:
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This title was added to our catalog on May 31, 2017.