Drip Fantasy — Scoring Rulebook

Drip Fantasy is head-to-head fantasy where what you start matters less than how you score it. Every slot is a hidden bet: a player and a secret metric that decides how that player's real NFL game converts to points — and how it attacks or defends against the opponent across from it. Picks stay sealed until each window's kickoff, so what you learn early can change what you play.

The §5 catalog and §8 power-up tables below are auto-generated from

src/data/metrics.ts and src/data/powerups.ts (run npm run gen:rulebook),

so they can never drift from the live engine. The same data drives the in-app

Rulebook (Settings gear → Rulebook) and the companion [Power-Up Handbook](./powerups.md).

Edit prose by hand; never edit between the AUTO-* markers.

1. The shape of a week

Your lineup is 8 slots spread across the five game windows:

Window	When	Slots
TNF	Thursday night	1
SUN 1PM	Sunday early	3
SUN 4PM	Sunday late	2
SNF	Sunday night	1
MNF	Monday night	1

Each slot = one player + one hidden metric. A player is only eligible in the window their real NFL team plays.
Head-to-head, your slots are paired against your opponent's by window and slot position — slot 1 fights slot 1, etc. Each pairing is its own little battle.
Picks are sealed: neither side sees the other's players or metrics until the window locks at its own first kickoff.
Windows lock one at a time — a TNF pick is final Thursday night, but your SUN/SNF/MNF picks stay editable until those windows kick off. Thursday's reveal is intel you can counter-pick against. (Pre-match power-ups are the exception — they arm only before the week's first kickoff.)

How you win. Your score is the sum of every slot's banked points, plus two extra layers: window battles (§4) and a lineup-wide power-up economy (§8). A slot can win its fight by scoring big or by zeroing out the player across from it — most metrics attack as well as score.

2. Two kinds of metric

Every metric does one or both of:

Scores — banks points for you (flat points, or a drip that accrues over time).
Effects — does something to the opponent slot (wipe, erase, halve, multiply, siphon…).

The big idea: flat metrics are predictable, drips are explosive but fragile, and effect metrics win by denial. It's rock-paper-scissors — see §6.

3. The Drip system (the heart of the game)

Drip metrics (Rush Yards, Receiving Yards, the Combo/Return unlocks, and the DST Earn Points drip) don't score yards directly. Each productive play raises a rate (points per minute), and that rate accrues over time.

Rate = yards × 0.01/min for a WR or RB · 0.0065/min for a TE (two-thirds). Rate builds gradually — production early in the game accrues over far more time than production late.
Accrues on offense, on the real game clock (it pauses at quarter & half).
HOT — 3 straight productive touches with no opponent score in between doubles your drip (×2). A stuffed run (<3 yds), short return (<10 yds), or incompletion breaks the streak. (Combo/Return drips need 4.)
A touchdown wipes the bank — drips reward sustained production, not boom plays. The rate survives; the banked points don't.

WR vs TE drip — the key difference

	WR / RB drip	TE drip
Rate	0.01/yd per min	0.0065/yd per min (two-thirds)
Erase/pause immunity	Fragile — opponent catches erase + pause it	Bulletproof vs WR/RB erases & pauses
Cooled by per-play scorers?	Yes	Yes (immunity does not cover this)

A TE drip can't be erased by an opposing receiver — but it builds slower, and its hot streak can still be cooled by an opponent who banks points every play (a passing QB). See the worked example in §9.

The defense drip

Earn Points (DST) works the same way, driven by splash plays: each sack/INT/ fumble/TD raises the rate (splash-weight × 0.02/min), so an early splash snowballs. It can't be paused or erased — only a TD nuke wipes its bank. The other two DST metrics spend that same production differently: Field Marshal trades the drip for a window-wide shield, and Suppress spends it as a bigger halving bar (§5, §6).

4. Window battles & the MVP

Beyond the raw point total, each of the five windows is its own head-to-head:

Whoever posts the higher window total wins the window and banks a flat +5 bonus. A live battle meter shows who's ahead in each window; at final you'll see a ⚔ windows won 3–2 tally.
The single highest-scoring slot in a window earns its side the Window MVP bounty — drip-coin only (5 × the window's slot count), no points.

This means you can sacrifice raw points to win more windows, and spiking one slot can steal a window's marquee bounty — every window is a fight worth winning on its own.

5. Metric catalog

Quarterback

Metric	Tag	Scores	Effect
Field General	×	0 direct pts	Passing yards set a window-wide drip multiplier on all your skill players. 300 yds = 2.8×. The QB scores nothing himself.
Passing Yards	FLAT	0.04 pts / yd + 4 / TD	Flat points on passing yards and TDs. No drip, no nuke, no interaction. Predictable.
Rush Yards	FLAT	0.1 pts / yd + 6 / TD	Flat points on your scrambles and rushing TDs. Purely additive — no nuke, no erase, no interaction.
Air Raid	TD HEAVY	0.04 / yd + 10 / TD	Unlock (1 wk): passing yards at 0.04/yd plus a huge 10 pts per passing TD. Flat — no nuke or erase.

Running Back

Metric	Tag	Scores	Effect
Rush Yards	DRIP	0.01 / yd → rate (pts/min)	Each carry permanently raises a drip rate (yds × 0.01 pts/min) that accrues while your team has the ball. An opponent catch erases the last 10 min and pauses it; a target pauses it; a TD wipes the bank. Rate survives erases. 3 straight (no opponent score) goes hot → drip doubles; cold when they score.
Carries	COMPRESSION	0.85 / carry	0.85 per carry. A 3+ carry streak with no opponent score compresses: each further carry trims the opponent’s most recent score by 35% — and you keep a quarter of every point trimmed.
Receptions	RATE RESET	1 pt / catch	Each catch zeroes the opponent’s active drip rate (they keep the bank, rebuild from scratch); against a flat scorer it halves their last play — and you steal a quarter of any points cut.
Touchdowns	NUKE	0.04 / yd + 10 / TD	Boom-or-bust: scrimmage yards at a discount (0.04/yd) plus a big 10 per TD — and each TD wipes the opponent’s entire banked score AND steals a quarter of it.
Underdog	COMEBACK	0.1 / yd + 6 / TD	Unlock (1 wk, pick ANY TIME BEFORE KICKOFF — even after lock-in): flat rushing points, but while you’re TRAILING in the slot every score banks ×1.5. Fall behind and you punch above your weight to claw back; pull ahead and the boost switches off — no running up the score. Best on a player you EXPECT to trail — on a stud who leads all game the boost never fires and you gave up his drip for nothing.
Combo Drip	RUSH+REC DRIP	0.01 / yd → rate (pts/min)	Unlock (1 wk, ONE SLOT PER PURCHASE — buy it again to field another): carries AND catches both feed one drip rate (yds × 0.01 pts/min) that accrues while your team has the ball. Same pauses/erases as a normal drip; a TD wipes the bank. 4 straight productive touches goes hot → drip doubles (a stuffed run or incomplete cools it).
Return Yards	RUSH+RET DRIP	0.01 / yd → rate (pts/min)	Unlock (1 wk): carries AND kick/punt return yards both feed one drip rate (yds × 0.01 pts/min) that accrues while your team has the ball. Same pauses/erases as a normal drip; 4 straight productive touches (rush 3+ / return 10+) goes hot → drip doubles, a stuffed run or short return cools it.

Wide Receiver

Metric	Tag	Scores	Effect
Receiving Yards	DRIP	0.01 / yd → rate (pts/min)	Each catch permanently raises a drip rate (yds × 0.01 pts/min) that accrues while your team has the ball. An opponent catch erases the last 10 min and pauses it; a target pauses it; a TD wipes the bank. Rate survives erases. 3 straight (no opponent score) goes hot → drip doubles; cold when they score.
Receptions	ERASE	1 pt / catch	Each catch erases the opponent’s drip from the last 10 clock-minutes — and you steal a quarter of every point you erase.
Targets	CLOCK STOP	1 pt / target	Every target stops the opponent’s drip clock. No erase — pure denial.
Touchdowns	NUKE	0.04 / yd + 10 / TD	Boom-or-bust: scrimmage yards at a discount (0.04/yd) plus a big 10 per TD — and each TD wipes the opponent’s entire banked score AND steals a quarter of it.
Underdog	COMEBACK	0.1 / yd + 6 / TD	Unlock (1 wk, pick ANY TIME BEFORE KICKOFF — even after lock-in): flat receiving points, but while you’re TRAILING in the slot every score banks ×1.5. Fall behind and you punch above your weight to claw back; pull ahead and the boost switches off — no running up the score. Best on a player you EXPECT to trail — on a stud who leads all game the boost never fires and you gave up his drip for nothing.
Combo Drip	RUSH+REC DRIP	0.01 / yd → rate (pts/min)	Unlock (1 wk, ONE SLOT PER PURCHASE — buy it again to field another): catches AND carries both feed one drip rate (yds × 0.01 pts/min) that accrues while your team has the ball. Same pauses/erases as a normal drip; a TD wipes the bank. 4 straight productive touches goes hot → drip doubles (a stuffed run or incomplete cools it).
Return Yards	REC+RET DRIP	0.01 / yd → rate (pts/min)	Unlock (1 wk): catches AND kick/punt return yards both feed one drip rate (yds × 0.01 pts/min) that accrues while your team has the ball. Same pauses/erases as a normal drip; 4 straight (catch / 10+ return) goes hot → drip doubles, an incomplete or short return cools it.

Tight End

Metric	Tag	Scores	Effect
Receiving Yards	DRIP	0.0065 / yd → rate (pts/min)	Each catch raises a drip rate (yds × 0.0065 pts/min) — two-thirds of a WR’s — that accrues while your team has the ball. Immune to ALL pauses and erases: only a TD (or K shutdown) stops it. 3 straight (no opponent score) goes hot → drip doubles.
Targets	WIDE ERASE	1 pt / target	Every target — catch or incompletion — erases the opponent’s drip from the last 10 min (you steal a quarter of every point erased). Fires on volume alone, no catch required.
Receptions	ERASE	1.5 pts / catch	Each catch erases the opponent’s drip from the last 10 clock-minutes — and you steal a quarter of every point you erase.
Touchdowns	12-PT NUKE	0.04 / yd + 12 / TD	The strongest single play in the game. Yards at a discount (0.04/yd) plus 12 per TD; each TD wipes the matched opponent’s entire bank (you steal a quarter of it) AND knocks every opposing drip in the window down by 1.0 pts/min (min 0).
Combo Drip	RUSH+REC DRIP	0.0075 / yd → rate (pts/min)	Unlock (1 wk, ONE SLOT PER PURCHASE — buy it again to field another): catches AND carries both feed one drip rate (yds × 0.0065 pts/min, TE rate) that accrues while your team has the ball. Immune to pauses/erases like any TE drip; a TD wipes the bank. 4 straight productive touches goes hot → drip doubles (an incomplete cools it).
Return Yards	REC+RET DRIP	0.0075 / yd → rate (pts/min)	Unlock (1 wk): catches AND kick/punt return yards both feed one drip rate (yds × 0.0065 pts/min, TE rate) that accrues while your team has the ball. Immune to pauses/erases like any TE drip; 4 straight (catch / 10+ return) goes hot → drip doubles, an incomplete or short return cools it.

Kicker

Metric	Tag	Scores	Effect
Banker	XP BONUS	FG by distance	Each XP made adds +1 pt to ALL your TDs for the week.
Negation	SHUTDOWN	0 pts	6+ kicks → the matched opponent scores 0 and all their effects are negated.

Defense (DST)

Metric	Tag	Scores	Effect
Suppress	HALVING	0 pts	Banks 0 itself — instead its full defensive production becomes a kill-bar: EVERY opponent slot, in ANY window, that scores at or below it is halved. It DRIPS like Earn Points (each splash play raises the bar over the game — an early sack/pick makes it bite harder) but banks nothing, spending the whole lot as the threshold.
Earn Points	DRIP	sk1 / int3 / fr2 + drip	The scoring DST. Banks flat splash points (sk1 / int3 / fr2 / def-TD6 / safety2) AND each splash play raises a DEFENSE DRIP rate (splash weight × 0.02 pts/min) that accrues for the rest of the game — an early sack or pick snowballs. The drip can’t be paused or erased; only a TD nuke wipes the bank. Higher scoring ceiling than Field Marshal, but no shield.
Field Marshal	SHIELD	sk1 / int3 / fr2	The defensive Field General. Banks flat splash points (no drip) AND builds a window-wide SHIELD on your side — every splash play (sack/INT/fumble/TD) ramps damage reduction (up to 50%) that BLUNTS every opposing nuke and erase against all your slots in that window. Trades Earn Points’ scoring drip for protection: a lower ceiling, but it shields the whole window.

IDP (DL / LB / DB)

Metric	Tag	Scores	Effect
Tackles	FLAT	tkl 1 · sk 2 · int 3 · FR 2	Flat defensive scoring: 1 per tackle, 2 per sack, 3 per interception, 2 per fumble recovery, 6 per defensive/ST TD, 2 per safety. Volume-driven and steady.
Splash Plays	BIG PLAY	sk 4 · int 6 · FR 4 · TD 6	Rewards game-wreckers: 4 per sack, 6 per interception, 4 per fumble recovery, 6 per defensive/ST TD, 2 per safety, 0.5 per tackle. Boom-or-bust.

6. Effects & counterplay

The hidden-metric layer is a counter game:

Drips have the highest ceilings — but they're fragile: erasers (Receptions / Targets), RB rate-reset, and TD nukes all gut them, and a per-play scorer cools the HOT streak (a flat passing QB that banks points every completion keeps your drip from ever doubling — TE drips shrug off WR/RB scoring, but not a QB).
Effect metrics (erase / nuke / suppress / shutdown) win by denial — they score little, so they lose to flat scorers that just pile up points.
Flat scorers are steady but capless — they lose the big-points race to a drip that goes hot. Underdog is the exception: a flat scorer that runs ×1.5 while trailing, built to claw back rather than run up a lead.

Cross-slot & window-wide reach — the plays that make a whole window feel like a battle:

Field General (QB) — passing yards build a window-wide multiplier on all your other skill players; the QB scores nothing himself.
Field Marshal (DST) — the defensive mirror: builds a window-wide shield that blunts every opposing nuke and erase against your slots (up to 50%).
TE 12-PT NUKE — every TE TD wipes the matched opponent and knocks every opposing drip in the window down 1.0/min.
DEF Suppress — its drip-fed kill-bar halves every matching opponent slot in any window.
K Banker — every XP made boosts all your touchdowns for the week.

7. The drip-coin economy

You earn drip-coin each week — a flat weekly stipend, an unopposed-slot bounty, the window MVP bounties (§4), a swing on turnovers, and coin for signature "events of note" (nukes, shutdowns, a drip going hot). You spend it on power-ups: consumables bought into your inventory and applied when you want them. See §8 for the catalog and the [Power-Up Handbook](./powerups.md) for the full breakdown by class and strategy.

8. Power-ups

Two kinds: action (a one-time tactical effect) and metric (unlocks an extra metric for the current week only). Timing gates when a power-up applies: pre arms during setup and locks once the week's first window starts; live fires only during a live window (never retroactive). Some live plays are clutch — they only unlock from a live game-state trigger and are arm-able for a short window.

Pre-kickoff

arm during setup; locks once a window starts

Power-up	Cost	Kind	What it does
➕ Extra Slot	◎ 80	action	Add a slot to any window — for you AND your opponent. Must be applied before any window starts.
🏈 Return Yards	◎ 60	metric	This week only: unlock the Return Yards metric for a kick/punt returner — flat 0.1 pts per real return yard + 6 per return TD.
💥 WR/TE Carries	◎ 70	action	Arm before kickoff: all week, every carry by a WR or TE in your starting spots wipes its matched opponent to 0 — a plus-up on TOP of whatever metric that slot is scoring.
🌀 Combo Drip	◎ 65	metric	This week only: unlock a Rush + Receiving combo drip for ONE player — both carries AND catches feed a single drip rate (yds × 0.01 pts/min). One slot per purchase: buy it again to field another.
🚀 Air Raid	◎ 40	metric	This week only: unlock a QB metric where passing TDs are worth 10 pts (plus 0.04 / passing yd). Flat — no nuke or erase.
🐕 Underdog	◎ 35	metric	This week only: unlock the Underdog comeback metric for your RB/WR spots — flat yardage points, but every score banks ×1.5 while that slot is TRAILING. Pick it ANY TIME BEFORE KICKOFF — even after lock-in, once you can size up the fight. Best on a player you EXPECT to trail; on a stud who leads all game the boost never fires.
🎺 Trick Play	◎ 90	action	Arm before kickoff: if ANY non-QB in your starting spots throws a TD pass this week, your lineup banks a flat +50.
🛡️ Pick Six	◎ 45	action	Arm before kickoff: if any of your DST starters returns an INT or fumble for a touchdown, bank a flat +25.
🙏 Hail Mary	◎ 35	action	Arm before kickoff: if a QB in your starting spots throws a touchdown of 40+ yards, bank a flat +15.
📈 Momentum	◎ 70	action	Arm before kickoff: all week, your drips run 3× when hot instead of 2×.
🗑️ Garbage Time	◎ 75	action	Arm before kickoff: any points your players score in the final 5 game-minutes count double.
🔊 Second Amp	◎ 40	action	Amplifiers (Momentum · Overtime · Garbage Time) are limited to ONE per week. Arm this to run a second one alongside it.
📢 Third Amp	◎ 60	action	The full stack: with Second Amp armed, this unlocks a third amplifier for the week — Momentum, Overtime AND Garbage Time together.
🌊 Floodgates	◎ 85	action	Arm before kickoff: your drips are immune to opponent pauses and erases all week (TD wipes still apply).
⏱️ Overtime	◎ 60	action	Arm before kickoff: your Field General multiplier and drips carry into overtime. Without it they reset the moment regulation ends.
🧊 Overtime Shield	◎ 70	action	Arm before kickoff: any points your opponent scores in overtime this week are negated.
🎖️ Twin Generals	◎ 85	action	Arm before kickoff: a second Field General QB in the same window stacks — the top two multipliers multiply together instead of you taking just the higher one.
↩️ Counter-Nuke	◎ 95	action	Arm before kickoff: the first time an opponent nukes one of your slots, it is reflected back — their player is wiped instead.
🛟 Insurance	◎ 80	action	Arm before kickoff: the first time one of your slots is nuked, half its banked score is refunded instead of zeroed.
⚖️ Double or Nothing	◎ 80	action	Stake one of your slots before kickoff: at FINAL it scores double if it wins its head-to-head, or zero if it loses.
⚔️ Rivalry	◎ 70	action	Arm on a window before kickoff (blind): for every slot where your opponent fields the SAME position as you, siphon 30% of that opponent’s slot score to you at the window’s end. Whiffs entirely if they don’t mirror your position — a bet on how they build the window.
🔀 Lead Change	◎ 45	action	Arm on one of your slots before kickoff: every time you SEIZE the lead in that head-to-head (overtake the opponent after trailing), bank a flat +2. Rewards a back-and-forth dogfight — a blowout you never trailed in pays nothing.
🥊 Grudge Match	◎ 60	action	Stake one of your slots before kickoff: WIN its head-to-head by 10+ and bank a flat +25 — but LOSE the slot and you take −25. Win by less than 10 (or tie) and nothing happens. Double or Nothing with real downside.
🧿 Jinx	◎ 55	action	Before kickoff (blind), point at an opponent slot: the FIRST touchdown the player there scores is negated — no points, and if it was a nuke, no nuke. Whiffs entirely if they don’t score a TD in that slot — a bet on reading their stud.
🎣 Red Herring	◎ 90	action	Attach to one of your players before kickoff: every OPPOSING player of the same position anywhere in that window is dragged down to your player’s total (capped at it). Field a low decoy at a position and cap all their studs there — but you waste the slot, and it whiffs if they field nobody at that position.
👁️ Spy	◎ 40	action	Before a window kicks off: pick any slate slot (blind) and reveal the opponent’s current sealed pick there — their player OR their chosen metric. They can still change it until kickoff; re-checking your peek is free.
🪂 Bye Steal	◎ 55	action	Before kickoff, field one of your players who is on bye in an open slot for a flat projected score (capped at 16).
👻 Ghost Player	◎ 75	action	Before kickoff, conjure a phantom into any open slot — no bench player needed. It banks a flat set 14 points, guaranteed. Pricier than a Bye Steal, but its floor is certain and it works even when you have no one on bye.
🦅 Ball Hawk	◎ 55	action	Arm before kickoff: raise the turnover coin swing from 10 to 25 this week, across all windows — your giveaways cost more, their giveaways pay more.

In-game

fire anytime a window is live (not retroactive)

Power-up	Cost	Kind	What it does
🔀 Metric Swap	◎ 30	action	Change a slot’s effective metric. Real-time — applies going forward, not retroactive.
🔁 Player Swap	◎ 50	action	Swap a slotted player for one on your bench — anytime, even mid-game.
🎲 Mulligan	◎ 30	action	Re-roll one slot’s metric mid-game for free — does not spend a Metric Swap.
💥 EMP	◎ 65	action	Fire during a live window to freeze every opponent drip in that window for 10 minutes.
⚡ Surge	◎ 55	action	Fire on one of YOUR live slots: everything it scores for the next 10 game-minutes counts double. Fire when your player is heating up.
🧊 Cold Snap	◎ 60	action	Fire on a live OPPONENT slot: freeze ALL of that player’s scoring — points and drip — for the next 10 game-minutes. Shut a hot rival down cold.
🔥 Napalm	◎ 60	action	Fire on a live OPPONENT slot: for the next 10 game-minutes, any time their drip runs HOT it BURNS — the hot accrual goes negative and bleeds their bank down instead of doubling it. Punishes a rival for running too hot (does nothing while they stay cool).
🛡️ Bunker	◎ 65	action	Fire on one of YOUR live slots: it goes immune to every nuke and erase for the rest of the game from the moment you fire. Lock in a lead before they can wipe it.
🎰 Halftime Gamble	◎ 50	action	A CLUTCH play — only offered when one of your slots leads by 10+ at halftime, and only until the third quarter gets going. Arm it and that slot scores DOUBLE if it wins its head-to-head, ZERO if it loses.
🎬 Encore	◎ 45	action	A CLUTCH play — only offered when one of your players scores a touchdown in the first half. Arm it any time before the game ends and his NEXT touchdown banks a bonus +12.
🪃 Counter-Wipe	◎ 55	action	A CLUTCH play — only offered right after an opponent nukes one of your slots, and only for a short window. Arm it in time and the wipe is negated — your bank is restored as if it never landed.

9. Worked example — why 127 yards scored 4 points

A TE posts 127 receiving yards, 0 TD and banks just 4.0, while a WR with 60 yards + 2 TD banks 16.0. Not a bug — a clean counter:

1. The TE drip builds at a lower rate (0.0065), so 127 TE yards makes roughly the same rate as ~80 WR yards — decent, but not a runaway. 2. The opponent slotted a passing QB — in fact the TE's own QB. Every catch was also a completion that banked points for the opponent, which cools the TE's hot streak every single time. 3. The TE is immune to erases, so the bank was never wiped — but he could never string 3 unanswered catches, so the drip never went hot (×2). Lower rate, no doubling → 4.0.

The counter to a drip isn't always an eraser — sometimes it's just a player who scores on every snap. Pairing a catcher against his own QB is the sharpest version of that read.

10. Banks, backups & edge cases

Missed picks — your league policy decides: best available lineup auto-filled (default), an AI fills it, or it scores 0.
Backups — depth behind a beatable starter can sub in for full value if it outscores them; otherwise it scores 0 (all-or-nothing — no partial credit).
Overtime / Garbage Time / Momentum — amplifier power-ups can keep drips ticking past regulation, double late points, or push a hot drip to ×3 (capacity- limited — see the handbook).
Live & clutch plays — freezes, burns, shields, and the reactive clutch offers (§8) apply going forward from the moment you fire them, never retroactively.

This rulebook mirrors the live scoring engine. If a number here disagrees with the game, the game wins — tell us and we'll fix the doc.

← Back to Drip Fantasy