Tournament scoring began in 1983 with the NSG regionals and National Championship.  At that time, teams had 15 players, games lasted a half hour to an hour on huge parcels of land in the woods and penalties were assessed as point deductions after a game concluded.

Scoring was based on the following:

80 points and an  automatic win for a Flag Hang

In the event that no flag was hung, teams received points as follows -

3 points per live player

20 points for flag grab
15 points for flag in motion at game end

for a potential total of 45 + 20 + 15, or 80 points.

Meaning that you could score the same as a flag hang (80) if you somehow kept all of your players alive, made the first grab and were returning it when time ran out.

As a former strategy board game designer, that does not seem right, although if that system's creators were focusing on stealth, sneaking around and winning games with few to none actual eliminations, it kind of makes sense.

Later versions folded the flag hang points into that mix, meaning that a game could end with as high as 160 points awarded - making for an awkward system.

(First grab points never sat well with me either.  It's like rewarding a team for NOT achieving the game's objective.  Others argue that it represents partial completion of the objective, but then, if that's the case, why don't we score all grabs that occur?  I don't expect this to change, but it is food for thought.)

Over time, the NSG scoring system was modified by later events such as the PMI North American Championship. the Air Pistol Open and Music City Open.  Once we introduced the 1-for-1 penalty system and largely eliminated after game point deductions, scoring was pretty much finalized by the NPPL using the system we largely employ these days - 1 point for a live player, 2 points for an elimination, 20 for the Grab, 50 for the Hang, making for a 100 point score if your team maxes a game.

This still retains a problematic presentation:  with flag pull and hangs representing 70% of the total possible score, the numbers on the scoreboard rarely reflect how the game actually went.  A hard fought, largely balanced game ending with one live player hanging a flag ends in a score of 27 to 100, while a similar game not ending with a flag hang would be scored as 27 to 50 (with grab) or 27 to 30 (without grab) which far more accurately actually reflects what happened on the field.

So much for background.

One thing that took place in NY was a lot of games ending as body-count matches...scores like 13 to 19, 14 to 12, etc.
Why? Two primary factors: many of the teams were fairly well matched, and, the fields themselves are tough to master tactically. If you don't have an effective plan and execute it, you're going to stall short of a pull or hang.

I thought that this created an interesting situation - it kept most teams "in the hunt" throughout the course of most of the event. Since scores were tight and low counts, a single game ending in a hang could dramatically alter the standings at any given time throughout preliminary play.

I think that's good for teams. Who wants to sit on the bench, waiting to play yet another game that's not going to change anything at all? ("Great, now we have to spend more money for a low place finish", is not a good attitude, but one that many teams have experienced. The right attitude is, of course, persevering and continuing to take advantage of additional learning opportunities, but I digress.)

We've been speaking, internally, about several possible alterations to scoring at WCPL events, and at least one of them has the potential to keep things tighter, for more teams, throughout more of an event, than our traditional 100 point scoring system.

(What's more exciting, a SuperBowl that ends 38 to 9, or one that ends with a 3 point difference on a successful field goal during the last play of the game? (I vote for the latter.))
I'd like others to weigh in here.

Lets start with the actual scores from New York.  Scheduling worked like this:

Teams were seeded into two divisions of 7 teams each (based on a live draw).

Teams then played a round robin schedule (6 games each) within their division.

Following completion of those rounds, the teams were re-ranked, within their division, based on their total earned points, and then, based on that re-ranking, each team played two opponents from the other division, giving each team their 8 preliminary round games.

Once those cross-divisional games were completed, scores were totaled and the top two teams from each division (based on their 8 preliminary round scores) advanced to a four team round-robin finals.  The remaining teams were ranked based on over all score, regardless of division.

Below, the preliminary round scores.  At the top, the two divisions (6 games) and below that the cross-divisional games.  At the bottom, final point totals for all teams and the four teams that advanced.