The Professional & Amateur Pinball Association
Director Guide
"A helpful guide for starting your own local league or competition."
The goal of this guide is to help directors run successful pinball tournaments and leagues that will result in repeat attendance, positive word of mouth, and help the game of pinball prosper. Setting up games for competition requires far more thought than just making them play as difficult as possible, otherwise the PAPA World Championships would include games without flippers and force players to wear blindfolds.
When setting up your games, avoid arbitrary, sweeping decisions and focus on the specific needs of your event!
This guide is intended to be a community resource that grows and becomes more refined over time. To this end, PAPA welcomes feedback and suggestions. If you feel that you could contribute to this guide in a meaningful way, please contact us!
Game Notes:
The Game Notes section is intended as a community-sourced area for opinions, advice, and general notes regarding specific games in a competitive setting. The opinions and advice expressed below are not intended to be a one-size-fits-all guide for preparing games.
Different competitive events have different needs, and simply because a game was declared reasonable in one instance does not make it reasonable in all instances. Tournament and League directors are encouraged to use this information on a case-by-case basis and make the final decision whether it is helpful when considering the caliber of players and needs of their specific events.