Are You Ready For Some Siegeball?!

The Siegeball Sourcebook is a 35 page fantasy sports sourcebook by Mage Hand Press. I stumbled on this recently and I'm happy I did. For a long time I've wanted to add something like this to my games. I think campaigns should have things like this. Jousting and tournaments are fun, but kind of boring too. I like fighting leagues and arenas, but I want something else too. Blood Bowl is cool, but too much for just a party to do in my experience. That's why I think Siegeball would be a great addition to my campaigns.

The game is relatively simple. Two teams try to smash a ball into an opposing teams tower and destroy it. Actual D&D rules for playing it are simple too, fitting on just three pages. The writers have even broken down into actions that can be taken by players. There are also different variations of the game (described in the Degrees of Rules section).

Chapter two present a few new game related class archetypes. They are Path of the Die-Hard (Barbarian Path), Star Player Martial Archetype, Dirty Player Roguish Archetype, and the School of Charade (Wizard Arcane Tradition). They archetypes give you definite advantages playing Siegeball but are all also useful outside of combat.  The chapter ends with five feats. They aren't super useful outside of the game, but are still a nice touch. The magic items on the final page are cool rewards granted to champions. There are also items made to help cheating and others to help officials.

The next chapter details new equipment and magic items for the game. There are four new weapons and three types of armor. Something that really had me chuckling that I thought was a nice touch was the inclusion of an illegal performance enhancer, Jax.

The next chapter focuses on tournaments. The chapter starts by discussing using tournaments are campaigns (and what that looks like at various levels). There's then discussion setting up tournaments. The Siegeball Championship is highlighted. This is followed by various prizes that can be awarded. Finally there's an example tournament.

Chapter Five focuses on arenas. There's a handy d20 chart quickly outline arenas and their traits. There are also several actual example arenas. What's great about these samples is the fact you get pdf grid maps of them. They'd be wonderful to print out and use. There's a short section discussing variant rules for playing the game in three-dimensional arenas, zero-gravity, and underwater. Can you say Blitzball?

The following chapter discusses teams, coaches, and sponsors. While I think sponsors are kind of silly, especially since a lot of these are cheesy, I don't know if I'd use them personally. The chapter also includes eight sample teams and printable stat cards for each one. If you were creative you could make trading cards with them.

Finally the pdf ends with a one page appendix with a d20 chart of game twists. This is followed by a list of patreon supporters and your standard OGL info.

I know everyone might not want to include something like this, but I really like it. Not sure if I'll ever run a Siegeball-centric campaign, but I think it would be a cool element to help flesh most campaign worlds. I'm already thinking about how I would use the game in the Forgotten Realms. I might write up a few teams and a bit of revisionist lore for the Realms to include Siegeball.

You can grab the pdf from the Mage Hand Press store for 4.99... or you can support them on Patreon and get it at the 1 dollar a month supporter level. They have a lot of great content and you should support them.