Over time, each league playing on the internet, or in the various gamer forums on popular services of the time such as CompuServe and AOL, started writing "play design rules" that limited what the coaches in the league could do with their plays. They outlawed the AI busters. Some leagues began trying to fix the minor gliches. Well, the game was pretty popular back in it's heyday, around 1995-1996, and there were a lot of leagues. This meant there were also a lot of rules.

Because the game was so much fun, many coaches started playing in a variety of leagues. Instead of just one, a coach might participate in 2. Or 3. Or a half-dozen! This was fine and good, except that there were different rules govorning how plays could be designed in every league, and everyone was confused. Coaches would forget that something was illegal in league B, because it was perfectly fine in league A. Commissioners were getting complaints of cheating when in fact it was simply a matter of confusion.

Over in the CompuServe Sports Simulations Forum, the sysop running the joint said it had to stop. There were about 10 leagues running in the forum at the time, plus another bunch over in Sierra's own game forum. So the word came down... "let's all get on the same page"! Well, it didn't work out too smoothly, but in the end there was a single set of rules for designing FBPro plays. That text was the father of the FBPro Federation rulebook.

Now, half a decade later, the rules have evolved greatly. No longer is the elimination of AI busters and gimmicks the goal. Now we also try to correct any flaw in the AI that causes those little pixel players to do things that you wouldn't see a real human football player do. It's not perfect, because the game has too many flaws. But we've done what we can, and will continue this endeavor as long as there are coaches out there who will try to exploit the game's faults.

But that's not all we've done. Sure our rules are great, and help keep the stats at some reasonably realistic levels. But a great number of the game's problems don't stem from how plays are designed. Many are a result of how the players themselves are rated.