Youth Rulebook
MLQ set out to create the MLQ Youth Rulebook with two goals in mind:
Remove as much contact—and chance for contact—as feasibly possible while keeping the gameplay compelling and interesting.
Simplify the game of quadball to a point where a newcomer can pick the concepts up more easily. Or, at least, shift the complexity of the sport away from players and toward officials.
Our first thought when we started was to try to pare down the current rulebook we had, removing contact and hoping the rest could follow, but we soon realized that simply removing contact and trying to keep the rest of the elements of the sport leaves too many gaps that led to a form of gameplay that was more one dimensional than quadball deserves.
Ultimately, the path we decided on was to build this rulebook from the ground up—mirroring quadball wherever we could and adding or changing elements where we felt they were needed to keep the rulebook in line with the goals mentioned above. Some of these changes went further and are things we are excited to bring to the sport of quadball for the first time.
We’re incredibly excited to see this rulebook in action and have put extensive effort into making sure it will be playable from day one for any group looking to play contact-free quadball. That said, there’s a reason this rulebook is “Version 1”. Despite wanting to, the current health climate has prevented us from playtesting this rulebook in any significant format. We expect to continue to improve this ruleset as time goes on, and we would love to do so with your feedback. We want to see groups pick this rulebook up, play with it and then tell us what they liked and what they didn’t.
We’re wholeheartedly enthusiastic to expand the horizons of how and where quadball is played, and we hope you’re willing to go there with us.