[Mr. Marlin]

I use a few setting you don't see in the real world. No revenue sharing and the team's media contract is based on market size. In Mr. Marlins world a team must sink or swim on it's own. If they fail I move them. In real life I don't like the Nationals or Mets. I just f-ing HATE the Phillies. But I have no animus again the New York Empires, Washington Capitals, or Philadelphia White Stockings. My teams play a balanced schedule and there is no DH. In a real life replay there is every reason for the Tampa Bay Rays to move. But I'd never do that because they Rays never moved. I break immersion in a replay when something that didn't actually happen, happens. But in Mr. Marlins world the Baltimore Canaries played 20 miserable seasons in a city where no one came to see them and they didn't win anything. Then they moved to Boston and became the Boston Irish and won 4 Doubleday Cup Championships in the last 10 years.

My biggest thing favoring fictional leagues is anything can happen. I have no preconceived notions. If I'm playing a replay and see the Yankees traded Babe Ruth to the White Sox (it happened) or the Cubs won a dozens championships over the years I just can't deal with it. That never happened. And if I'm going to play with the rigid setting of historical transactions only then what's the point? With fictional it is all new and happening right before your eyes and you don't know how it's going to turn out. That is what appeals to me. I won't go back to replay or MLB Quickstarts. They just don't interest me anymore.