Ok, so I sort of let the cat out of the bag in a private forum, but I thought it time to bring it up here in General for more discussion.
Keep in mind, this is just the beginnings of my plans for this venture, which I hope to make into a formal proposal to Sarah later in the year. So think of it as sort of a brainstorming session/asking for help/what do you all think type of discussion.
The idea is simple, change the "Casual" reporting format to "RPG".
Add a third DCI scoring format called, "Unlimited Play". This will be a rated and tracked format along side of "Limited (Sealed)" and regular tournament play. In fact, it might involve changing regular play to be called, "Tournament" or something else for lack of a better title at the moment.
The idea of Unlimited Play is that the local store can choose the squad building rules, the maps, the legal figures, and so on. Now, I intend to have some rules that govern how they must advertise it and so forth, to prevent some issues, but in general, the idea would work like Casual can work now.
The reason for the change is simple. It gives people a chance to play banned minis, banned maps, and more importantly, fan created material in a legal, rated tournament environment. It also means you can report at the stores that do more casual league style play as well. Ultimately, the ratings won't mean anything more than bragging rights, which is little difference than the actual DCI ratings for tournaments mean now (although one day I suspect that will change), but we all know, that motivation alone is enough to get people to use the system - even to fight through the reporting problems and so on.
In addition, it would involve getting together some of our great sub-game rule set creators to write up formal rule sets for the side games that have become and remain popular. I know Boris has questioned the validity of using DD in the regular ratings specifically, and this gives him the correct place to do so.
My initial proposal of ideas would look something like the following:
Dynamic Duo (Perhaps with additional sentences for Terrific Trio and Fantastic Four)
Tile Wars
Peasant
Epic
Dream Team (No Faction Rules)
Lightside/Darkside
Melee Only
Each of those would be included regularly in the DCI Floor rules to give them that official feel, under a section titled, "Optional Rulesets for Unlimited Play".
Now, Unlimited would not be limited to only these things, but these would give people at every store across the country, access from the DCI site, the basic set of rules for all the tested and created fan formats. And better yet, players get the fun of having bragging rights of an actual rating. It would mean something.
It would also give DCI legitimacy to the great maps made by JC, AG7 and others. And in particular, it would open up the possibility of advertising the sale of those fan maps to a wider audience, without violating Copyright infringement or taking away from WotC product sales. WotC maps would remain the only legal maps for DCI Tournament play, and the usual subset of those, while the remaining, like Mustafar, Geonosis, Korriban, Chrystophis, Teth, etc can be used in this format.
There would be a strict limit on changing the rules of play however. House rules are not allowed beyond the simple format changes allowed. In a sense, the only rules you can change are the legal minis/maps, and the format of the games. Banned minis are allowed, but each store would have the right to eliminate any mini they choose to, provided they follow the advertising rules properly. They will be free to ignore any non-rulebook DCI rules as well as a part of this, including Gambit and the Initiative change, unless those are added at some point to an actual rulebook. In a sense this is meant to be a straight from the Rulebook playstyle to a degree.
So tell me what you all think. I will be working on this over the next few months and if you are the creator of one of the mentioned formats, expect to hear from me at some point