So, I have finished up with everything for scvhool, I have deposited my thesis, and I am ready to start work on Monday. Here is what I have found so far:
Transportation
Transportatoin will be slightly more difficult here than in Champaign. I live in Fort Collins, then about 10 miles south of Fort Collins is downtown Loveland, and about 4 miles east of downtown Loveland is where I work. There is a bus system (Transfort) in Fort Collins, which I don't need ot use much because I can just bike everywhere in Fort Collins that I want to go usually. In order to get to work, I need to take the "Flex Bus" down to Loveland, then get on a COLT (City of Loveland Transit) bus to get to where I work. The last Flex Bus northbound from Loveland leaves at 7:12 PM, so I have some time to do stuff thereafter work. One problem with the bus system is that none of the buses run on Sundays (see below to find out why that is a problem). I did try riding my bike down all the way from Fort Collins to Loveland once, but I don't think it's something I will want to do very often. There is also a taxicab company (Denver Yellow Cab) here. According to here, it gets horrible reviews for customer service, but I have used it three times and so far have no problems, except that sometimes I get put on hold for a few minutes while calling for the cab. It is about $30 to go all the way from Loveland to Fort Collins.
Shopping
There is a major street (College Avenue) with all the usual chain stores like Target, Best Buy, Barnes + Noble, and so on. Another thing I have noticed here is that there seems to be a lot of outdoor stuff, camping, and hunting going around here, because I've seen several outdoor equipment stores including a dedicated archery store. Also I have seen lots of signs for gun shows - I wonder if those are geared toward hunters. Also, when I was in Loveland I saw the store Phoenix Nest, which sells Renaissance-style garb and they also do custom made leather products. I will probably be back there a few times to get stuff for live-action role playing (see below). Another store that is cool is in downtown Fort Collins, and it is called Science Toy Magic. It is a very small store but it is packed full of cool toys that demonstrate principles of science, and the guy who runs it does really fun demonstrations. A couple weeks ago I saw a sign indicating that they would get new toys in, so I went back to see the demonstration of the new toy, which was called the "Invisible High Bouncing Ball". The demonstration was okay, but it was a little hard to see what was going on. You can also watch this YouTube video here. Here's another thing which obviously won't affect me directly, because I am not going to use any illegal drugs, but might be interesting: I saw in the newspaper that Fort Collins is considering banning medical marijuana, and if you have been here you will understand why lots of Fort Collins residents complained that the ban would screw up their economy.
Gaming
There are two main game stores in Fort Collins: the Haunted Game Cafe and Gryphon Games and Comics. They all have things going on almost every night, including role-playing games, miniatures games, and board games. The Haunted Game Cafe has a shelf full of games you can borrow to play in the store., and they sell drinks and snacks there. Each of these stores is a little bit bigger than the ones in Champaign. I haven't played any role-playing games yet here so I don't know what the scene there is like. As far as miniatures go, it seems like I may be in luck. I like miniatures games because of the strategy and tactics, but I don't really like haveing to paint and maintain all the miniatures. At the Haunted Game Cafe, I saw a game called Malifaux, which is a miniatures game where each side only has a few miniatures (a starter army has about 5 miniatures, compared with several dozen for a game like Warhammer). One of the factions in the game has the ability to summon new units during a battle, which adds clever new strategies and tricks you can do. Back in Champaign, I looked into Malifaux and they advised against that faction because you have to have the additional miniatures for the extra units in order to be able to summon the extra units. I asked about that here, and they said they don't play that way here. When we came here before on our house finding trip we saw a game store called Duelist Kingdom in Loveland, but that store is closed now. Fortunately, it turned out that the reason it was closed was because it was bought out by a bigger game store called Grand Slam Games and Comics, but I have only been there once so far.
Live Action Role Playing
There is an Amtgard group in Fort Collins, which meets on Sundays, and one in Denver, which meets on Saturdays. I went to the one in Denver just to check it out. It was sizable - about 20 people showed up - but it was not nearly spectiacular enough to be worth the trip all the way up there on a regular basis (I had to take an airport shuttle from Fort Collins to the Denver airport, then another airport shuttle from the airport to the park). During the battlegame there I aplayed an archer, and about halfway through the game the person running the game pulled me aide and said "we have to talk about your arrows." For a second I thought I was doing something wrong, but the real problem was that I was so effective with the arrows he thought it was unfair for the other team. (Part of the reason was that the scenario had the opposing team transporting a torch between two locations, and they are required to stay near the torch. This made it so they were all in one place and easy to hit, and they were unable to chase me down.) I went to the group in Fort Collins, and I was originally planning to take the bus there but I forgot that the buses don't run on Sundays, so I had to take a cab. When I got there the people there said I must be really dedicated to the game in order to be willing to take a cab. There weren't a lot of people here that day so we didn't do a whole lot exciting (apparently the previous week was a big tournament, so everyone was tired from that, plus it's the first week of school). Additionally, I learned that there is a Belegarth group in Loveland that also meets on Sundays. That group has a "small" practice with 20-25 people each Sunday, and then ion the first Sunday of each month they have a "big battle" with 50-75 people.
Showing posts with label amtgard. Show all posts
Showing posts with label amtgard. Show all posts
Friday, August 26, 2011
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Origins 2011: Part 4 - "Rules of the Game"
First of all, today I learned that John, the owner of one of the local game stores, read my previous posts. He didn't agree with my contention that necromancers are environmentally friendly, because "rather than letting the corpses return to the earth, they're just going to send out [the undead] to do more harm" and "no necromancer is going to raise skeletons to clean your house or something."
Second of all, another thing I did at Origins is the following. Last time, I mentioned that I didn't get a chance to tell the author of the Hero System books about what I thought about the quality of his writing, but this time, I did. Of course, he said that he "disagreed completely" that the writing was too wordy, and said that the reason for the wordy writing was that his customers demand detailed rules. I am under the opinion that the same information could have been provided in a more concise way.
Rather then talk more about the details of the Hero System, the rest of this post will be about a more general topic - how the differences of opinion between me and some of the other people I play with about the rules of various games reflect fundamentally different ways of looking at game rules.
Consider the following conversation that I had with another Amtgard player. (This was a long time ago, so some of the details like the names of the spells are probably incorrect, but the general idea was the same.)
Him: "There's a gray area in the rules with the 'Dimensional Portal' spell. If two people are both under its effects, can they cast spells at each other?"
Me: "Why? What's unclear about it? The spell says that it takes a player out of game. Under the definition of out of game, it says you can't be affected by anything. So it seems obvious that they can't affect each other."
Him: "Yes, but it's the same out-of-game area."
Me: "What do you mean, out-of-game area? The rules don't say anything about out-of-game areas. You're either out-of-game, or you're not."
Him: "But in Dungeons & Dragons, the 'Dimensional Portal' spell does work that way."
Me: "This game is not Dungeons & Dragons. The rules of Dungeons & Dragons have no force in Amtgard."
The cause of our disagreement was that I was looking at the rules as a self-contained set of information, while he was thinking of the rules as codifying some pre-existing conception of how he thought the game should operate (if you're both transported to the same other dimension, you should both be able to affect each other).
A similar thing happened when the new 4th edition of Dungeons and Dragons came out a few years ago. I was reading some articles online discussing the new system and comparing it to the previous editions, and one of the most common complaints was that the new system "didn't make sense." For example, in the previous edition, fighters generally had only one or a few attacks that they had to keep using, while wizards had lots of spells that they could each use only a couple times per day and after those were done their powers were very weak. 4th edition balanced out the two classes by giving all classes some powers that they could use all the time, and some powers that were restricted to once per encounter or once per day. Lots of people didn't think this made sense because why would a fighter not be able to use a specific move once he had used it once earlier in the day? At first, I was really confused about why this would be a problem. I mean, true, maybe it isn't realistic. But I can't think of any criterion of realism that "I can magically throw a fireball, but only once per day" would pass, but "I can stab the dragon with a sword a certain way, but only once per day" would fail. And there are all sorts of physical phenomena that do happen in real life that are counterintuitive (have you ever watched MythBusters?) so I don't see why the fact that it doesn't fit with your intuitions about how fighting should work should be a problem. Again, this was a case where I understood what was going on because I just looked at the rules as a self-contained system, while others got bogged down because they tried to fit how the rules worked with their pre-existing conceptions of whoe combat should work.
Of course, sometimes things work out the other way around and my method of thinking is a hindrance. One example is some problems I was having with archery in Belegarth. There was a rule that you had to draw your bow back only half way when shooting at an opponent within 15 feet. (The issue is that if you shoot a target at full draw at close range, then the arrow will be going very fast, and is likely to hurt.) People were complaining that I was not following this rule, so I brought a tape measure so I could practice judging distance. This didn't completely help, so I came up with the idea like taking video and then going over it afterward so we can see what the distances were, and whether I was judging them correctly. They said that it wouldn't work because "there are too many variables." I was confused - I thought there was only one relevant variable: the distance to the target. At one point one of them tried to help me by asking me to stand in one place, then backing away and saying "okay, this is 15 feet." When I asked to measure to ensure that his judgement was accurate, he said that "it doesn't matter" whether it's accurate or not. This made me even more confused: how can it possibly not matter?
The problem here seemed to be that I was focusing on the particular rule about 15 feet, while what they probably had in mind was a more general concept about how to do Belegarth archery safely, which is why they thought there were "too many variables," and getting the distance right isn't the most important factor. It seems to me, though, that if the 15 foot rule isn't a good proxy for safety, then why is it in there at all? It would make more sense to say something like "The velocity at impact shouldn't be more than X feet per second," with X chosen appropriately. Then you could test to see what combination of draw distance and ranges given you that velocity (this would only need to be done once for each bow, before any battles).
Basically, I tend to interpret things based on what they say. If the game mentions 15 feet, I assume that they mean 15 feet. If they actually mean something else, then they should say something else.
Second of all, another thing I did at Origins is the following. Last time, I mentioned that I didn't get a chance to tell the author of the Hero System books about what I thought about the quality of his writing, but this time, I did. Of course, he said that he "disagreed completely" that the writing was too wordy, and said that the reason for the wordy writing was that his customers demand detailed rules. I am under the opinion that the same information could have been provided in a more concise way.
Rather then talk more about the details of the Hero System, the rest of this post will be about a more general topic - how the differences of opinion between me and some of the other people I play with about the rules of various games reflect fundamentally different ways of looking at game rules.
Consider the following conversation that I had with another Amtgard player. (This was a long time ago, so some of the details like the names of the spells are probably incorrect, but the general idea was the same.)
Him: "There's a gray area in the rules with the 'Dimensional Portal' spell. If two people are both under its effects, can they cast spells at each other?"
Me: "Why? What's unclear about it? The spell says that it takes a player out of game. Under the definition of out of game, it says you can't be affected by anything. So it seems obvious that they can't affect each other."
Him: "Yes, but it's the same out-of-game area."
Me: "What do you mean, out-of-game area? The rules don't say anything about out-of-game areas. You're either out-of-game, or you're not."
Him: "But in Dungeons & Dragons, the 'Dimensional Portal' spell does work that way."
Me: "This game is not Dungeons & Dragons. The rules of Dungeons & Dragons have no force in Amtgard."
The cause of our disagreement was that I was looking at the rules as a self-contained set of information, while he was thinking of the rules as codifying some pre-existing conception of how he thought the game should operate (if you're both transported to the same other dimension, you should both be able to affect each other).
A similar thing happened when the new 4th edition of Dungeons and Dragons came out a few years ago. I was reading some articles online discussing the new system and comparing it to the previous editions, and one of the most common complaints was that the new system "didn't make sense." For example, in the previous edition, fighters generally had only one or a few attacks that they had to keep using, while wizards had lots of spells that they could each use only a couple times per day and after those were done their powers were very weak. 4th edition balanced out the two classes by giving all classes some powers that they could use all the time, and some powers that were restricted to once per encounter or once per day. Lots of people didn't think this made sense because why would a fighter not be able to use a specific move once he had used it once earlier in the day? At first, I was really confused about why this would be a problem. I mean, true, maybe it isn't realistic. But I can't think of any criterion of realism that "I can magically throw a fireball, but only once per day" would pass, but "I can stab the dragon with a sword a certain way, but only once per day" would fail. And there are all sorts of physical phenomena that do happen in real life that are counterintuitive (have you ever watched MythBusters?) so I don't see why the fact that it doesn't fit with your intuitions about how fighting should work should be a problem. Again, this was a case where I understood what was going on because I just looked at the rules as a self-contained system, while others got bogged down because they tried to fit how the rules worked with their pre-existing conceptions of whoe combat should work.
Of course, sometimes things work out the other way around and my method of thinking is a hindrance. One example is some problems I was having with archery in Belegarth. There was a rule that you had to draw your bow back only half way when shooting at an opponent within 15 feet. (The issue is that if you shoot a target at full draw at close range, then the arrow will be going very fast, and is likely to hurt.) People were complaining that I was not following this rule, so I brought a tape measure so I could practice judging distance. This didn't completely help, so I came up with the idea like taking video and then going over it afterward so we can see what the distances were, and whether I was judging them correctly. They said that it wouldn't work because "there are too many variables." I was confused - I thought there was only one relevant variable: the distance to the target. At one point one of them tried to help me by asking me to stand in one place, then backing away and saying "okay, this is 15 feet." When I asked to measure to ensure that his judgement was accurate, he said that "it doesn't matter" whether it's accurate or not. This made me even more confused: how can it possibly not matter?
The problem here seemed to be that I was focusing on the particular rule about 15 feet, while what they probably had in mind was a more general concept about how to do Belegarth archery safely, which is why they thought there were "too many variables," and getting the distance right isn't the most important factor. It seems to me, though, that if the 15 foot rule isn't a good proxy for safety, then why is it in there at all? It would make more sense to say something like "The velocity at impact shouldn't be more than X feet per second," with X chosen appropriately. Then you could test to see what combination of draw distance and ranges given you that velocity (this would only need to be done once for each bow, before any battles).
Basically, I tend to interpret things based on what they say. If the game mentions 15 feet, I assume that they mean 15 feet. If they actually mean something else, then they should say something else.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
RPG Math - Problem 9
Recently, I have been talking to some professors in order to get advice on what classes I should take during the next few semesters so I can fill out my Program of Study Form, where I will create a plan for what courses I will take during my time at UIUC. One professor I talked to is Steven LaValle, a robotics researcher who specializes in motion-planning and navigation algorithms for robots. Some of the problems discussed in his book include things like, given a map of an environment and limited sensing ability, what's the best way for the robot to move in order to get enough data to find out where it is in that environment?
Recently, when I was visiting the Amtgard group in Peoria, the first part of the quest involved a motion strategy problem very similar to these. The scenario was as follows:
- The battlefield was approximately a rectangular field. At one corner was the "destination."
- At the beginning of the game, all the 'questers' (about 6-8 of them) were blindfolded, disoriented, and placed at an unknown location on the battlefield.
- The goal of the questers was to get to the destination. If a player ran into the edge of the battlefield, he would be directed back in by a reeve, no penalty suffered. However there were also "kill zones" in the battlefield that contained enemies. If a player moved into (or too close to) one of the "kill zones" then the enemies would kill them. (The player would then come back to life a few minutes later where he was, and would have to move away from the kill zone before continuing.)
- Although questers were blindfolded, they could still hear what was going on, which meant they can hear if someone is getting killed and would then know approximately in what direction that kill zone was.
Although I had actually read some of LaValle's book, I didn't remember enough of the part about motion planning under incomplete information, so that didn't really help me much - I got hit a total of three times (although I only died once - it took two hits to kill me, and I got healed when I got to the destination.) But that did give me an idea for another RPG Math problem. this is a much more simplified version of what happened in the game, but it should still be interesting and give me a chance to talk about some more algorithm techniques. With that out of the way, we now present...
Problem 9: The Killing Fields
Consider a square battlefield X units on a side. The battlefield contains a total of N "kill zones", the location of which is unknown, and each of which is a circle of radius at most 1. (Kill zones may extend off the side edges of the battlefield, but may not cross or overlap the top or bottom.) The goal of the "attacker" is to go from the bottom edge of the battlefield to the top edge of the battlefield. The attacker can start at any point on the bottom edge and move in whatever path he wants to get to the top. If the attacker hits a "kill zone", he is dead, and has to go back to the beginning and choose a new path, and he knows exactly where he was when he was hit. The goal of the attacker is to minimize the number of deaths before he is able to get to the top.
9a. Prove that no matter what method the attacker uses to choose his paths, there is an arrangement of "kill zones" such that he will take at least N deaths. (Hint: Imagine that you were the defender and you knew the attacker's strategy. How would you place the kill zones?)
9b. Suppose that N < (X/4). Show that the attacker has a strategy such that he will never take more than N deaths.
9c. Suppose that N > (X/2). Suppose that the attacker uses the strategy that minimizes the "worst case" number of deaths that he will suffer. What is the maximum number of deahts that he can guarantee he will not suffer more than, in terms of N and X?
The solution is here.
Recently, when I was visiting the Amtgard group in Peoria, the first part of the quest involved a motion strategy problem very similar to these. The scenario was as follows:
- The battlefield was approximately a rectangular field. At one corner was the "destination."
- At the beginning of the game, all the 'questers' (about 6-8 of them) were blindfolded, disoriented, and placed at an unknown location on the battlefield.
- The goal of the questers was to get to the destination. If a player ran into the edge of the battlefield, he would be directed back in by a reeve, no penalty suffered. However there were also "kill zones" in the battlefield that contained enemies. If a player moved into (or too close to) one of the "kill zones" then the enemies would kill them. (The player would then come back to life a few minutes later where he was, and would have to move away from the kill zone before continuing.)
- Although questers were blindfolded, they could still hear what was going on, which meant they can hear if someone is getting killed and would then know approximately in what direction that kill zone was.
Although I had actually read some of LaValle's book, I didn't remember enough of the part about motion planning under incomplete information, so that didn't really help me much - I got hit a total of three times (although I only died once - it took two hits to kill me, and I got healed when I got to the destination.) But that did give me an idea for another RPG Math problem. this is a much more simplified version of what happened in the game, but it should still be interesting and give me a chance to talk about some more algorithm techniques. With that out of the way, we now present...
Problem 9: The Killing Fields
Consider a square battlefield X units on a side. The battlefield contains a total of N "kill zones", the location of which is unknown, and each of which is a circle of radius at most 1. (Kill zones may extend off the side edges of the battlefield, but may not cross or overlap the top or bottom.) The goal of the "attacker" is to go from the bottom edge of the battlefield to the top edge of the battlefield. The attacker can start at any point on the bottom edge and move in whatever path he wants to get to the top. If the attacker hits a "kill zone", he is dead, and has to go back to the beginning and choose a new path, and he knows exactly where he was when he was hit. The goal of the attacker is to minimize the number of deaths before he is able to get to the top.
9a. Prove that no matter what method the attacker uses to choose his paths, there is an arrangement of "kill zones" such that he will take at least N deaths. (Hint: Imagine that you were the defender and you knew the attacker's strategy. How would you place the kill zones?)
9b. Suppose that N < (X/4). Show that the attacker has a strategy such that he will never take more than N deaths.
9c. Suppose that N > (X/2). Suppose that the attacker uses the strategy that minimizes the "worst case" number of deaths that he will suffer. What is the maximum number of deahts that he can guarantee he will not suffer more than, in terms of N and X?
The solution is here.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Ways of Warriors and Warlords, part 2 (Now With Archers!)
This weekend there was a lot of interesting events going on. First of all, there was a meeting of the local Belegarth group. Belegarth is a lot like Amtgard except that there are no character classes, levels, or magic - just fighting. You can, however, still use archery, which I did. I prefer archery to melee fighting in these games because:
1. Since there are far fewer archers than melee fighters, it allows me to have a unique role on the field.
2. It requires tactics and battlefield awareness rather than just raw fighting ability, because you have to scan the battlefield to identify good targets.
3. It's less frustrating, because I'm never up face to face with someone who is much better than me and that I can't beat. If someone charges me then I can run away and find another location.
4. It means that I don't have any problems with identifying where and when someone hit me. This is also harder in Belegarth than it is in Amtgard because in Belegarth, shots must strike with "sufficient force" in order to count.
--
So far I have been to three Belegarth practices. There are two per week - one on Wednesdays on the UIUC south quad (no archery is allowed there) and one on Saturdays. So far, after playing the game for a while, there are a lot of interesting differences between Amtgard and Belegarth in terms of archery.
Reasons why archery is more effective in Belegarth than in Amtgard:
1. There tend to be more people on a side and battle lines tend to be tighter, so it is easier to find targets and to find allies to hide behind.
2. Since there is no magic, archers are the only people on the field who have any kind of ranged fighting ability (except javelin throwers but those aren't usually that big of a threat). Thus as long as our battle line holds and nobody's snuck around it I don't have to worry about anyone except enemy archers.
3. With the exception of shields (see below) and dodging, there is no way to defend against incoming arrows - there's no "protection from projectile" spells, immunities, armor (actually there is armor, but arrows go right through it), etc., and you're not allowed to block arrows with weapons.
4. Head shots are legal in Belegarth, but not in Amtgard.
Reasons why archery is less effective in Belegarth than in Amtgard:
1. Shields are far more prevalent in Belegarth, and shields are very effective as a defense against arrows. (And unlike in Amtgard, there are no "specialty arrows") that can damage shields.
2. The safety requirements on arrows are far more stringent in Belegarth than in Amtgard, making the arrows heavier (due to the extra foam) and less aerodynamic.
3. At least in our group, arrows are not reusable. So once you're out of arrows, you have to switch to a melee weapon.
(1) and (2) combined make it so that it is very hard to hit someone who has a shield, is aware of you, and is not distracted. And if that is the case I don't want to waste an arrow on him, because of (3). That means that lots of times my teammates try to point out specific people on the other team to shoot at, but of course all that does is alert them to the fact that there's an archer there. And then my teammates wonder why I'm not shooting them, when the answer is that I know I won't be able to hit them. (Usually the people my teammates point out is one of the more experienced fighters on the other team - that's why they want them dead - so he is going to be better at blocking.)
Another problem is in figuring out who is on which team. Since there are so many people that can be hard to keep track of, so a couple times so far I have ended up shooting people on my own team. And of course, if I ask someone whose team they are on, all I am doing is alerting them to the fact that I am about to shoot them, and giving them the chance to put their shield up or defend. They actually did try to solve this problem last practice by giving people colored strips of fabric to wear. However, this didn't work very well because the pieces weren't that big and could be placed anywhere on the body, making it so that you had to look around for it. The strips were also easily concealed behind shields.
In one battle last session, it was a "capture the flag" battle, and I saw someone rushing toward our flag, with no visible "team sash". I asked him twice what team he was on, with no response. I let loose with the arrow, and it was a hit. The target turned out to be my own teammate, bringing the enemy flag back to our base! I couldn't see his sash because it was hidden behind his shield. Fortunately by the time he got hit he had already got back to our base, so we still one, and he was okay with it afterwards.
I suggested that they require that the "team sash" be worn on the head to eliminate the problems mentioned above. I don't know yet whether they will implement this suggestion next time. I do know, however, that I am not the only person who has trouble with the teams, because at a previous battle (at the quad so it was melee only) I observed lots of people asking each other what team they are on.
1. Since there are far fewer archers than melee fighters, it allows me to have a unique role on the field.
2. It requires tactics and battlefield awareness rather than just raw fighting ability, because you have to scan the battlefield to identify good targets.
3. It's less frustrating, because I'm never up face to face with someone who is much better than me and that I can't beat. If someone charges me then I can run away and find another location.
4. It means that I don't have any problems with identifying where and when someone hit me. This is also harder in Belegarth than it is in Amtgard because in Belegarth, shots must strike with "sufficient force" in order to count.
--
So far I have been to three Belegarth practices. There are two per week - one on Wednesdays on the UIUC south quad (no archery is allowed there) and one on Saturdays. So far, after playing the game for a while, there are a lot of interesting differences between Amtgard and Belegarth in terms of archery.
Reasons why archery is more effective in Belegarth than in Amtgard:
1. There tend to be more people on a side and battle lines tend to be tighter, so it is easier to find targets and to find allies to hide behind.
2. Since there is no magic, archers are the only people on the field who have any kind of ranged fighting ability (except javelin throwers but those aren't usually that big of a threat). Thus as long as our battle line holds and nobody's snuck around it I don't have to worry about anyone except enemy archers.
3. With the exception of shields (see below) and dodging, there is no way to defend against incoming arrows - there's no "protection from projectile" spells, immunities, armor (actually there is armor, but arrows go right through it), etc., and you're not allowed to block arrows with weapons.
4. Head shots are legal in Belegarth, but not in Amtgard.
Reasons why archery is less effective in Belegarth than in Amtgard:
1. Shields are far more prevalent in Belegarth, and shields are very effective as a defense against arrows. (And unlike in Amtgard, there are no "specialty arrows") that can damage shields.
2. The safety requirements on arrows are far more stringent in Belegarth than in Amtgard, making the arrows heavier (due to the extra foam) and less aerodynamic.
3. At least in our group, arrows are not reusable. So once you're out of arrows, you have to switch to a melee weapon.
(1) and (2) combined make it so that it is very hard to hit someone who has a shield, is aware of you, and is not distracted. And if that is the case I don't want to waste an arrow on him, because of (3). That means that lots of times my teammates try to point out specific people on the other team to shoot at, but of course all that does is alert them to the fact that there's an archer there. And then my teammates wonder why I'm not shooting them, when the answer is that I know I won't be able to hit them. (Usually the people my teammates point out is one of the more experienced fighters on the other team - that's why they want them dead - so he is going to be better at blocking.)
Another problem is in figuring out who is on which team. Since there are so many people that can be hard to keep track of, so a couple times so far I have ended up shooting people on my own team. And of course, if I ask someone whose team they are on, all I am doing is alerting them to the fact that I am about to shoot them, and giving them the chance to put their shield up or defend. They actually did try to solve this problem last practice by giving people colored strips of fabric to wear. However, this didn't work very well because the pieces weren't that big and could be placed anywhere on the body, making it so that you had to look around for it. The strips were also easily concealed behind shields.
In one battle last session, it was a "capture the flag" battle, and I saw someone rushing toward our flag, with no visible "team sash". I asked him twice what team he was on, with no response. I let loose with the arrow, and it was a hit. The target turned out to be my own teammate, bringing the enemy flag back to our base! I couldn't see his sash because it was hidden behind his shield. Fortunately by the time he got hit he had already got back to our base, so we still one, and he was okay with it afterwards.
I suggested that they require that the "team sash" be worn on the head to eliminate the problems mentioned above. I don't know yet whether they will implement this suggestion next time. I do know, however, that I am not the only person who has trouble with the teams, because at a previous battle (at the quad so it was melee only) I observed lots of people asking each other what team they are on.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Ways of Warriors and Warlords
Over the past couple weeks I have been exploring the gaming scene in Champaign-Urbana (CU).
From talking with some people I found out that there is likely not going to be a large market for Amtgard in this area, because there are several Dagorhir and Belegarth groups (Belegarth is another LARP like Dagorhir that focuses mainly on fighting) in the area, and most of the people in the area who are interested in LARPing are already going to one of those. (This probably explains why there are Amtgard groups in Peoria and Springfield but not CU, as well as why there didn't seem to be anyone currently going to one of the other Amtgard groups that lived closer to CU than to their park.)
I did find that there is a bus that goes to Peoria every day, including weekends. The bus ride is 2 hours long and costs $19 each direction, so it's definitely not something I will want to do every week. But it might be worth doing occasionally, like if there is a special event.
Additionally, I went to some gaming stores to check out the board gaming scene. There's a store, Armored Gopher Games, that is about a 20 minute bike ride away from home that has regular miniatures and Dungeons and Dragons (D+D) campaigns. I joined a D+D campaign that runs every other Friday and played one session so far. There were some funny things that went on. One of the rooms had a puzzle that consisted of a set of 16 plates, each with a different word on it, a door on the east side, and a statue on the south side. We assumed the goal was to open the door, and "door" was one of the words on the plates, so we tried combinations of plates like "Open East Door" and "Unlock East Door" and got nowhere. Then we remembered that we had got a scrap of leather in the previous room that had a picture of a left hand with a down arrow on it. So we tried "Left Hand Down" and that didn't work either. Unfortunately while we were doing this, one of our party members got greedy and tried to pry the gems out of the statue's eyeballs. This triggered the "Open Hell Gate Now" and forced us into combat with hell-spawned monsters. After defeating the monsters we discovered that the puzzle plates were now locked and inoperative. We also discovered that the door on the east side of the room was never locked in the first place. (We also later learned that we almost solved the puzzle: if we had stepped on "Left Hand Down Open" then the statue would have slid away, revealing a shortcut. Since we had to go through the door we had to take the long way around.) The "long way around" consisted of a trap room with traps that pulled us under the floor and attacked us with spears. Some of the characters didn't have the skills required to get out of the trap, so they kept failing their skill rolls to get out, and they were about to get crushed. However we were saved when after 5 rounds, the trap abruptly stopped (because that's what the description of the trap said) and let us out.
Finally, I found a real-life martial arts place, called Hwa Rang Do, in the same shopping center as Armored Gopher Games. I had learned about Hwa Rang Do from the Champaign Arts Festival, and there was a coupon for a free lesson. During the free lesson I learned about some of the basic moves, and also did some grappling, which is like wrestling. Hwa Rang Do grappling is a competitive sport where you get points for putting the opponent in specified positions, for example on the floor with you sitting on top of him or on the floor with you lying on his back. So in order to get the most points you have to shift between the different "scoring positions" while not allowing the opponent to get the upper hand. The cost of tuition at Hwa Rang Do is $90 per month for two 1-hour lessons per week, or you can sign up for the "Warrior's Path" which is $660 up front for training all the way up to the green belt level (green belt is the 4th out of 10 belt levels, IIRC) which on average takes about 10 months. I have not signed up for it, because I'm not sure if it's something I will want to do.
From talking with some people I found out that there is likely not going to be a large market for Amtgard in this area, because there are several Dagorhir and Belegarth groups (Belegarth is another LARP like Dagorhir that focuses mainly on fighting) in the area, and most of the people in the area who are interested in LARPing are already going to one of those. (This probably explains why there are Amtgard groups in Peoria and Springfield but not CU, as well as why there didn't seem to be anyone currently going to one of the other Amtgard groups that lived closer to CU than to their park.)
I did find that there is a bus that goes to Peoria every day, including weekends. The bus ride is 2 hours long and costs $19 each direction, so it's definitely not something I will want to do every week. But it might be worth doing occasionally, like if there is a special event.
Additionally, I went to some gaming stores to check out the board gaming scene. There's a store, Armored Gopher Games, that is about a 20 minute bike ride away from home that has regular miniatures and Dungeons and Dragons (D+D) campaigns. I joined a D+D campaign that runs every other Friday and played one session so far. There were some funny things that went on. One of the rooms had a puzzle that consisted of a set of 16 plates, each with a different word on it, a door on the east side, and a statue on the south side. We assumed the goal was to open the door, and "door" was one of the words on the plates, so we tried combinations of plates like "Open East Door" and "Unlock East Door" and got nowhere. Then we remembered that we had got a scrap of leather in the previous room that had a picture of a left hand with a down arrow on it. So we tried "Left Hand Down" and that didn't work either. Unfortunately while we were doing this, one of our party members got greedy and tried to pry the gems out of the statue's eyeballs. This triggered the "Open Hell Gate Now" and forced us into combat with hell-spawned monsters. After defeating the monsters we discovered that the puzzle plates were now locked and inoperative. We also discovered that the door on the east side of the room was never locked in the first place. (We also later learned that we almost solved the puzzle: if we had stepped on "Left Hand Down Open" then the statue would have slid away, revealing a shortcut. Since we had to go through the door we had to take the long way around.) The "long way around" consisted of a trap room with traps that pulled us under the floor and attacked us with spears. Some of the characters didn't have the skills required to get out of the trap, so they kept failing their skill rolls to get out, and they were about to get crushed. However we were saved when after 5 rounds, the trap abruptly stopped (because that's what the description of the trap said) and let us out.
Finally, I found a real-life martial arts place, called Hwa Rang Do, in the same shopping center as Armored Gopher Games. I had learned about Hwa Rang Do from the Champaign Arts Festival, and there was a coupon for a free lesson. During the free lesson I learned about some of the basic moves, and also did some grappling, which is like wrestling. Hwa Rang Do grappling is a competitive sport where you get points for putting the opponent in specified positions, for example on the floor with you sitting on top of him or on the floor with you lying on his back. So in order to get the most points you have to shift between the different "scoring positions" while not allowing the opponent to get the upper hand. The cost of tuition at Hwa Rang Do is $90 per month for two 1-hour lessons per week, or you can sign up for the "Warrior's Path" which is $660 up front for training all the way up to the green belt level (green belt is the 4th out of 10 belt levels, IIRC) which on average takes about 10 months. I have not signed up for it, because I'm not sure if it's something I will want to do.
Monday, August 3, 2009
My last day at Amtgard (for now...)
Sunday was my last day at Amtgard before I move out to Illinois. It was also the last day of the current reign period, so we had a coronation, and it was a joint coronation with Bandit Flats East, a park in Delaware. So we had to drive all the way out to Delaware to go to the coronation.
As usual, I ran the kid's quest for the day. My plan was to do a quest based on Greek mythology. The way it was going to work was that there was going to be a series of events where they had to "prove themselves" to the gods in order to get items that would enable them to defeat the evil Minotaur. There were different events based on each god's theme - for example a weapon making tutorial for Hephaestus, an arts and crafts project for Athena, and so on. My original plan was also to spice it up by telling them some of the myths. The problem with this is that most Greek myths are not very kid-friendly, because they involve sex, revenge killing, or both. But I did identify several that were. One that I was planning to use was the story of the contest between Athena and Poseidon. (I think this is a humorous one because it is similar to the modern practice of selling naming rights to sports stadiums, except that they were selling naming rights to a city. In fact there is a Capitol Steps song, a parody of "This Land Is Your Land," that speculates that states will have to begin selling naming rights in order to cover their budget deficits, resulting in states with names like "Okla-Home Depot", "New Texaco", and "North Toyota." Apparently the Greeks had the same idea thousands of years earlier.)
When I got there things did not go out as well as planned. First of all there was a major rainstorm which trapped us in the pavilion. Also, the person who was supposed to help me in the quest, our monarch Perdita, got stuck in traffic and was going to be late. I started the quest anyway, but it was difficult because without an adult to help me, it was hard to get the kids to sit down long enough to listen to the instructions. We finished the arts and crafts and weapon making parts at about 2:00, and we learned that at 4:00 we would have to leave to go to a different site for feast. At about this time I called Perdita to find out where she was. As it turned out she was in Delaware near the park, but got lost because of construction. I gave the phone to someone there who gave her directions. Unfortunately when she got there she was busy with other business and couldn't help in the quest. Fortunately I got someone else to help. Since we were running short on time I had to rush through the rest of the events. I quickly abandoned the idea of telling them the myths when it was clear that after being stuck under the pavilion they just wanted to get up, run around, and fight. At the end, I told them that they had killed the minotaur, and was going to be rewarded with gems, but that robbers had stolen them. I played the robber and when they tried to attack me, I said "you'll never get these gems" and tossed them into a bush as they killed me. What I didn't realize was that the bush had prickly leaves, but fortunately they were able to get the gems out without any cuts. Then I gave them the prizes and let them keep the weapons they had made.
We then went over to feast, which was at a local SPCA office. The only problem with getting there was that only one person knew how to get there, so he had to get out in front an everyone else followed them like a caravan. Of course about half of us had access to GPS (either an in car device or a phone) so if they told us the address we would be able to find it, but they didn't know the address just how to get there. Fortuantely we all arrived without incident. There was a feast and then they gave out awards, of which I received several. There was going to be an auctio nbut it was cancelled due to lack of time and because everyone had to go home.
As usual, I ran the kid's quest for the day. My plan was to do a quest based on Greek mythology. The way it was going to work was that there was going to be a series of events where they had to "prove themselves" to the gods in order to get items that would enable them to defeat the evil Minotaur. There were different events based on each god's theme - for example a weapon making tutorial for Hephaestus, an arts and crafts project for Athena, and so on. My original plan was also to spice it up by telling them some of the myths. The problem with this is that most Greek myths are not very kid-friendly, because they involve sex, revenge killing, or both. But I did identify several that were. One that I was planning to use was the story of the contest between Athena and Poseidon. (I think this is a humorous one because it is similar to the modern practice of selling naming rights to sports stadiums, except that they were selling naming rights to a city. In fact there is a Capitol Steps song, a parody of "This Land Is Your Land," that speculates that states will have to begin selling naming rights in order to cover their budget deficits, resulting in states with names like "Okla-Home Depot", "New Texaco", and "North Toyota." Apparently the Greeks had the same idea thousands of years earlier.)
When I got there things did not go out as well as planned. First of all there was a major rainstorm which trapped us in the pavilion. Also, the person who was supposed to help me in the quest, our monarch Perdita, got stuck in traffic and was going to be late. I started the quest anyway, but it was difficult because without an adult to help me, it was hard to get the kids to sit down long enough to listen to the instructions. We finished the arts and crafts and weapon making parts at about 2:00, and we learned that at 4:00 we would have to leave to go to a different site for feast. At about this time I called Perdita to find out where she was. As it turned out she was in Delaware near the park, but got lost because of construction. I gave the phone to someone there who gave her directions. Unfortunately when she got there she was busy with other business and couldn't help in the quest. Fortunately I got someone else to help. Since we were running short on time I had to rush through the rest of the events. I quickly abandoned the idea of telling them the myths when it was clear that after being stuck under the pavilion they just wanted to get up, run around, and fight. At the end, I told them that they had killed the minotaur, and was going to be rewarded with gems, but that robbers had stolen them. I played the robber and when they tried to attack me, I said "you'll never get these gems" and tossed them into a bush as they killed me. What I didn't realize was that the bush had prickly leaves, but fortunately they were able to get the gems out without any cuts. Then I gave them the prizes and let them keep the weapons they had made.
We then went over to feast, which was at a local SPCA office. The only problem with getting there was that only one person knew how to get there, so he had to get out in front an everyone else followed them like a caravan. Of course about half of us had access to GPS (either an in car device or a phone) so if they told us the address we would be able to find it, but they didn't know the address just how to get there. Fortuantely we all arrived without incident. There was a feast and then they gave out awards, of which I received several. There was going to be an auctio nbut it was cancelled due to lack of time and because everyone had to go home.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
This week at Amtgard
Today at Amtgard I ran a kid's quest. I hadn't been planning on doing it, but what happened was that there were some kids there and they told me they wanted to "fight the evil ogre." Of course there wasn't any evil ogre before, but there was one now. So I left the base in order to "scout out" the area (i.e. hide the evil ogre's treasure for the kids to find.) The kids said they had a "map" that told them where the ogre was, and that they would "turn me into a crab" so the enemies wouldn't notice me. It took a while to hide all the stuff, so when I came back I said that I was delayed because "it's kind of hard to read a map if you're a crab." The first half of the quest was mostly the kids running around everywhere except where I hid the stuff, making stuff up as they went along. They said their "map" told them where the ogre's "secret weapons" were, but they kept changing their story about where the "secret weapons" were, and never actually found any "secret weapons." (Remember that it was just me and the kids; there were no actual players playing monsters.) Eventually they went over to the area where I hid the stuff. I hid four small pouches and one big bag, and said that the pouches contained the "fire gem," "air gem," "earth gem," and "water gem." They found all the gems except the "air gem" but couldn't find the last one. One of the kids said that maybe the last gem was in the ogre's "main treasure hoard." Of course I knew that I hid it on the ground in the wooded area, but I went to the place I thought I remembered hiding it and it wasn't there. Eventually they found the bag (the "main treasure hoard") and the fourth pouch was in there! (Someone must have been walking through the path in the back of the woods, saw the bag and the pouch, and assumed that the pouch belonged in the bag and so put it there.) At the end I took the ogre mask, put some armor on, and said that the armor was cursed and transformed me into the ogre. Of course they defeated the "ogre" and we all went back to town (the pavilion.) They looked at the treasure and saw lots of potions. I told themthat I had a "magical device that could detect the power of the potions" (i.e. my iPhone, which has an app on it that displays a fake "meter" that you can control by pressing a hidden button) They actually recognized the "magical device" as an iPhone, but went along with it anyway. Overall it was a very fun day, and Colleen rewarded me by giving me a "mithril armor" relic.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Amtgard News #5: Feast of Fools
First of all, my prediction of "exciting combat action" at the University of Maryland was recently proven correct.
----
Anyway, I went to Feast of Fools, a big Amtgard camping even in Hagerstown last weekend. It lasted from Friday to Monday.
I got there around Friday at 8:00 PM and spent the next hour or so setting up the tent. Some of the poles were broken so we had to tape spare arrow shafts to the poles. We knew this in advance and brought 4 spare arrow shafts to use for this purpose - and it turned out we ended up having to use all of them. Fortunately, we had selected a camp location right next to the security tent, so a security guy helped us set it up by illuminating the area with his flashlight.
The rest of Friday was mostly hanging out in the tavern and fighting on the "ditch field." That was fun except that during one of the battles, while I was fighting someone on the other side, one of my opponent's teammates ran at me at full speed and stabbed me in the side with about a 6 foot long spear. As I write this I can still feel the spot where it hit.
Saturday was the day with most of the action. The first event I participated in was the "Triwizard Tournament." In this tournament, three spellcasters stand at the corner of an equilateral triangle 80 feet on a side. Their goal is to retrieve an object located at the center and bring it back to their corner, and hold it there for 30 seconds (though in practice this turned into the wizards fighting each other and the last one alive wins). However, one of the contestants was high enough level to have Finger of Death (kills any target within 50 feet) and Extension (doubles range of the spell), and could cast each of these twice, so he could just kill both the enemies right off the bat. There was no effective way to defend against this, since casting a protection spell or running 80 feet to charge him both take much longer than casting Extension/Finger of Death. (In battlegames, spells like Finger of Death can be cast a limited number of times "per game", as opposed to most spells which are weaker but are either "per life" or unlimited casts, so that balances them out. A general problem with wizard tournaments is that there's only one "life" in a given round, and everything, including per-game limited spells, resets between rounds. This means that per-game spells tend to dominate the game in wizard tournaments.)
Fortunately I got to play a wizard again as an "evil sorcerer" in a kid's quest. I assumed it would be really easy to kill the kids since I could run faster than them so I could just stay out of their range, but I was wrong. It was about 5 on 1, and a couple of the kids had bows, so they could shoot me while I was trying to cast my spells! Also another kid wanted to play a wizard and be on my team. However, Celwyn said it would be a better idea for him to be on the good guys' team because, as she said, "you said you were going to make spells up? If you cast at us we won't know what the spells are, but he (talking about me, the evil sorcerer) is a really good role-player so he'll be able to make the spells do something." That quest was a lot of fun.
I also participated in three battlegames, and played an archer in all of them. One was a "cone battle." In this battle there are five cones set up across the field. If one team gets two people on each cone they score a point and everything resets. This game was fun and competitive, and I scored lots of kills with my arrows. Several people afterward complimented me on my archery skills.
The second game was a "king of the hill" game. In this game the two teams try to hold a central point for as long as they can. What happened this time was that the other team wiped us out in the first round of fighting. When you die, you can come back to life after 5 minutes (reduced to 2.5 because of the relatively small number of people playing). The rules say that you can delay coming back to life after your count is completed, but most of the other people on the team didn't know that, so they all kept coming back to life one or two at a time and getting slaughtered by the other team. I tried to explain to the team that coming back all at once would be a better idea, but they refused saying that "our goal is to have fun, not to win." Of course, in my opinion, coming to life one at a time, being backed up against your base by a wall of 10 enemies, and being killed within 15 seconds after you come alive every time wasn't much fun either.
The third battlegame was a "defend the castle" game, and just like the previous game, my team had about 10 people on it. However the other team had about 30 people on it. So we tried to defend the castle but got slaughtered pretty easily. The reeve then said that our base is now on the outside, theirs is now on the inside, and we should try to retake the castle. Since it was clear that the match was not even close, the reeve basically said that everyone can stop keeping track of their lives, they can all respawn in 30 seconds, and just have fun killing each other. So that's basically what we did until everyone got tired of playing.
Then there was feast, and after the feast I had to go to a "Belted Family Meeting." Now, you're probably wondering what that is. The story is this: A few months ago, Gailwind Blackfoot (a.k.a. Colleen) aske to take me on as her "man-at-arms". This is kind of like a mentor-student relationship, and she gives me tasks like writing quests, learning the rules and the corpora, and making weapons and equipment. There are also other "family" relationships, like a knight can take a squire. And these all form a whole lineage, kind of like a real life family tree. This was my first belted family meeting so I was kind of embarrased that not only did I not know who was in my belted family, some of the people were people I knew from before (like Yoshi) and I didn't even know they were in my belted family. When they were explaining to me what a belted family was, I pulled out a pen and paper and started trying to draw our "family tree," but Colleen told me that I could do that later.
On Sunday there wasn't a whole lot of fighting going on due to the excessive heat (I think it was almost 100 degrees), except for a couple tournaments. In fact there was so much heat that they had to send out "water bearers" to bring water to the participants so they would stay hydrated and they wouldn't pass out from the heat or anything. I didn't have anything else to do so I volunteered to be a water bearer. Our head medic even said that we should tell the players that that they had to either drink the ater (or pour it over their heads to cool themselves off) or they would be taken off the field.
----
Anyway, I went to Feast of Fools, a big Amtgard camping even in Hagerstown last weekend. It lasted from Friday to Monday.
I got there around Friday at 8:00 PM and spent the next hour or so setting up the tent. Some of the poles were broken so we had to tape spare arrow shafts to the poles. We knew this in advance and brought 4 spare arrow shafts to use for this purpose - and it turned out we ended up having to use all of them. Fortunately, we had selected a camp location right next to the security tent, so a security guy helped us set it up by illuminating the area with his flashlight.
The rest of Friday was mostly hanging out in the tavern and fighting on the "ditch field." That was fun except that during one of the battles, while I was fighting someone on the other side, one of my opponent's teammates ran at me at full speed and stabbed me in the side with about a 6 foot long spear. As I write this I can still feel the spot where it hit.
Saturday was the day with most of the action. The first event I participated in was the "Triwizard Tournament." In this tournament, three spellcasters stand at the corner of an equilateral triangle 80 feet on a side. Their goal is to retrieve an object located at the center and bring it back to their corner, and hold it there for 30 seconds (though in practice this turned into the wizards fighting each other and the last one alive wins). However, one of the contestants was high enough level to have Finger of Death (kills any target within 50 feet) and Extension (doubles range of the spell), and could cast each of these twice, so he could just kill both the enemies right off the bat. There was no effective way to defend against this, since casting a protection spell or running 80 feet to charge him both take much longer than casting Extension/Finger of Death. (In battlegames, spells like Finger of Death can be cast a limited number of times "per game", as opposed to most spells which are weaker but are either "per life" or unlimited casts, so that balances them out. A general problem with wizard tournaments is that there's only one "life" in a given round, and everything, including per-game limited spells, resets between rounds. This means that per-game spells tend to dominate the game in wizard tournaments.)
Fortunately I got to play a wizard again as an "evil sorcerer" in a kid's quest. I assumed it would be really easy to kill the kids since I could run faster than them so I could just stay out of their range, but I was wrong. It was about 5 on 1, and a couple of the kids had bows, so they could shoot me while I was trying to cast my spells! Also another kid wanted to play a wizard and be on my team. However, Celwyn said it would be a better idea for him to be on the good guys' team because, as she said, "you said you were going to make spells up? If you cast at us we won't know what the spells are, but he (talking about me, the evil sorcerer) is a really good role-player so he'll be able to make the spells do something." That quest was a lot of fun.
I also participated in three battlegames, and played an archer in all of them. One was a "cone battle." In this battle there are five cones set up across the field. If one team gets two people on each cone they score a point and everything resets. This game was fun and competitive, and I scored lots of kills with my arrows. Several people afterward complimented me on my archery skills.
The second game was a "king of the hill" game. In this game the two teams try to hold a central point for as long as they can. What happened this time was that the other team wiped us out in the first round of fighting. When you die, you can come back to life after 5 minutes (reduced to 2.5 because of the relatively small number of people playing). The rules say that you can delay coming back to life after your count is completed, but most of the other people on the team didn't know that, so they all kept coming back to life one or two at a time and getting slaughtered by the other team. I tried to explain to the team that coming back all at once would be a better idea, but they refused saying that "our goal is to have fun, not to win." Of course, in my opinion, coming to life one at a time, being backed up against your base by a wall of 10 enemies, and being killed within 15 seconds after you come alive every time wasn't much fun either.
The third battlegame was a "defend the castle" game, and just like the previous game, my team had about 10 people on it. However the other team had about 30 people on it. So we tried to defend the castle but got slaughtered pretty easily. The reeve then said that our base is now on the outside, theirs is now on the inside, and we should try to retake the castle. Since it was clear that the match was not even close, the reeve basically said that everyone can stop keeping track of their lives, they can all respawn in 30 seconds, and just have fun killing each other. So that's basically what we did until everyone got tired of playing.
Then there was feast, and after the feast I had to go to a "Belted Family Meeting." Now, you're probably wondering what that is. The story is this: A few months ago, Gailwind Blackfoot (a.k.a. Colleen) aske to take me on as her "man-at-arms". This is kind of like a mentor-student relationship, and she gives me tasks like writing quests, learning the rules and the corpora, and making weapons and equipment. There are also other "family" relationships, like a knight can take a squire. And these all form a whole lineage, kind of like a real life family tree. This was my first belted family meeting so I was kind of embarrased that not only did I not know who was in my belted family, some of the people were people I knew from before (like Yoshi) and I didn't even know they were in my belted family. When they were explaining to me what a belted family was, I pulled out a pen and paper and started trying to draw our "family tree," but Colleen told me that I could do that later.
On Sunday there wasn't a whole lot of fighting going on due to the excessive heat (I think it was almost 100 degrees), except for a couple tournaments. In fact there was so much heat that they had to send out "water bearers" to bring water to the participants so they would stay hydrated and they wouldn't pass out from the heat or anything. I didn't have anything else to do so I volunteered to be a water bearer. Our head medic even said that we should tell the players that that they had to either drink the ater (or pour it over their heads to cool themselves off) or they would be taken off the field.
Monday, April 6, 2009
Another Funny Link
As this video (first on the list at the time of posting) shows, just because you live in a medieval fantasy world doesn't mean you don't have to make your car payments.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Weapons-Grade Bamboo
Apparently, there's an Amtgarder around here who has a "friend" that needs to get rid of a whole bunch of bamboo plants, so he's going to harvest them, dry them himself to make it "weapons-grade," and then sell it to other Amtgarders. The price? $15.00 per stick. Instead, I looked online for other options.
Cali Bamboo sells 10 foot long, 1 inch diameter poles for $2.25 each, but you have to buy 25 of them. I also don't know how much shipping costs. However, it appears you can also buy bamboo fencing and then separaate the poles, and according to my calcualtions that's actually a little cheaper than buying the poles separately. I don't know whether they're dried or not.
Bamboo Supply Company sells bales of 50 poles that are each 8 feet by 3/4 inch diameter for $48.50 per bale. That's about $1 per pole. Even if shipping is really expensive that still beats the $15 per pole. And this web site specifically says the bamboo is dried. I think a good strategy would be to buy a big bale, and then go to an Amtgard event and sell them. If people are really willing to pay $15 each, I see a very wide profit margin opportunity here.
Cali Bamboo sells 10 foot long, 1 inch diameter poles for $2.25 each, but you have to buy 25 of them. I also don't know how much shipping costs. However, it appears you can also buy bamboo fencing and then separaate the poles, and according to my calcualtions that's actually a little cheaper than buying the poles separately. I don't know whether they're dried or not.
Bamboo Supply Company sells bales of 50 poles that are each 8 feet by 3/4 inch diameter for $48.50 per bale. That's about $1 per pole. Even if shipping is really expensive that still beats the $15 per pole. And this web site specifically says the bamboo is dried. I think a good strategy would be to buy a big bale, and then go to an Amtgard event and sell them. If people are really willing to pay $15 each, I see a very wide profit margin opportunity here.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Amtgard and the SCA
"What do you expect? It's not like we have professional safety certifications or references to ASTM standards here."
- A discussion on Electric Samurai, an Amtgard discussion forum, about how to convince a university that Amtgard is not a liability risk
"Rattan-cored Siloflex or Siloflex equivalent weapons shall be constructed using tubular materials meeting ASTM standard D-2239 or the international equivalent, with a pressure rating of 160 PSI or greater, having at least a 1 1⁄4 inch (31.8 mm) diameter on the outside and at least 1/8 inch (3.2 mm) walls, and having an inner core of rattan that fills the interior of the tubular material entirely."
- The SCA combat rules handbook
--------
While going around to some bars on Route 1 trying to sign people up for Amtgard, a bartender told me that there was another group of people who "dress up like knights and fight" at a church a couple blocks away on Mondays. I went there and found that they were, in fact, an SCA group. SCA stands for Society for Creative Anachronism, and it's the main medieval reenactment organization with a focus on historical accuracy. So you won't find any magical spells or monsters there. Instead they use weapons - and these weapons are very different than the ones in Amtgard.
For one thing, they are much heavier. They are usually made of rattan, a kind of wood, with no padding whatsoever (except on the front tips of thrusting weapons like spears.) This of course means that the weapons hurt a lot, so they have to wear lots of armor. Minimum armor requirements include armor that covers almost of your body, including a helmet. (The requirements are very detailed - see the SCA combat handbook, pages 10 to 12.) Even still, people get hurt a lot. Several fighters proudly showed me their battle wounds. One person even said that they had once been hit by a particularly hard blow in the shoulder. A few days later nothing was apparently wrong with his shoulder, but there was a discoloration going down the length of his forearm. What actually happened was that he had bled internally, and later had to get the blood sucked out with a syringe.
But anway, when I asked to fight, I was told that I woul dhave to spend about two months just learning "footwork" beore they would even let me gear up and actually fight someone. Then it would be a couple more months before they would let me fight in an actual battle (rather than just practice.) And then if I want to do combat archery there's yet another process I have to go through.
But getting back to the original reason I was there, I told them about LARP and they told me in no uncertain terms that they "don't do LARP." However there was one person who was interested so I gave them the information about the web site.
- A discussion on Electric Samurai, an Amtgard discussion forum, about how to convince a university that Amtgard is not a liability risk
"Rattan-cored Siloflex or Siloflex equivalent weapons shall be constructed using tubular materials meeting ASTM standard D-2239 or the international equivalent, with a pressure rating of 160 PSI or greater, having at least a 1 1⁄4 inch (31.8 mm) diameter on the outside and at least 1/8 inch (3.2 mm) walls, and having an inner core of rattan that fills the interior of the tubular material entirely."
- The SCA combat rules handbook
--------
While going around to some bars on Route 1 trying to sign people up for Amtgard, a bartender told me that there was another group of people who "dress up like knights and fight" at a church a couple blocks away on Mondays. I went there and found that they were, in fact, an SCA group. SCA stands for Society for Creative Anachronism, and it's the main medieval reenactment organization with a focus on historical accuracy. So you won't find any magical spells or monsters there. Instead they use weapons - and these weapons are very different than the ones in Amtgard.
For one thing, they are much heavier. They are usually made of rattan, a kind of wood, with no padding whatsoever (except on the front tips of thrusting weapons like spears.) This of course means that the weapons hurt a lot, so they have to wear lots of armor. Minimum armor requirements include armor that covers almost of your body, including a helmet. (The requirements are very detailed - see the SCA combat handbook, pages 10 to 12.) Even still, people get hurt a lot. Several fighters proudly showed me their battle wounds. One person even said that they had once been hit by a particularly hard blow in the shoulder. A few days later nothing was apparently wrong with his shoulder, but there was a discoloration going down the length of his forearm. What actually happened was that he had bled internally, and later had to get the blood sucked out with a syringe.
But anway, when I asked to fight, I was told that I woul dhave to spend about two months just learning "footwork" beore they would even let me gear up and actually fight someone. Then it would be a couple more months before they would let me fight in an actual battle (rather than just practice.) And then if I want to do combat archery there's yet another process I have to go through.
But getting back to the original reason I was there, I told them about LARP and they told me in no uncertain terms that they "don't do LARP." However there was one person who was interested so I gave them the information about the web site.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Amtgard News #4
So, I started a new recruiting tactic: rather than giving out flyers, get people to give me their email addresses and sign up for a mailing list. So far I have 35 email addresses on my mailing list. Unfortunately, last time nobody who was on the mailing list came, although two people did say they tried to come but got lost. (I thought I was pretty clear where the park was because I posted up the link to the Google Map.) However I also discovered, when I put my own email address on the list (I set up a separate email address for the list) just to check whether the messages were getting sent out correctly, that the message was sent to me - but was directed to my spam folder. It is a good chance that this was caused by me writing "to unsubscribe from this mailing list, send mail to such-and-such address" at the bottom, as this is characteristic of a lot of spam emails. When I sent the same message to myself without that line, it got through.
I also came up with a new idea for my next Arts and Sciences project. It is a software program that is designed to be useful for foamsmiths (that's the term for people who create foam weapons like those used in Amtgard.) Features that I plan to include are:
- Create weapon designs: specify length, materials used, location of striking edges, etc. and automatically test new weapon designs for legality, weight, swingability, etc. before spending lots of time and materials building them.
- Set up production lists and automatically generate "shopping lists" of required materials - so you don't spend lots of money on materials you don't need or end up missing key components.
- Also: add your own material types, create shields and arrows in addition to weapons, compare different materials, and much more.
I also came up with a new idea for my next Arts and Sciences project. It is a software program that is designed to be useful for foamsmiths (that's the term for people who create foam weapons like those used in Amtgard.) Features that I plan to include are:
- Create weapon designs: specify length, materials used, location of striking edges, etc. and automatically test new weapon designs for legality, weight, swingability, etc. before spending lots of time and materials building them.
- Set up production lists and automatically generate "shopping lists" of required materials - so you don't spend lots of money on materials you don't need or end up missing key components.
- Also: add your own material types, create shields and arrows in addition to weapons, compare different materials, and much more.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Amtgard News #3
Since our group is looking for new people, I have came up with an interesting way to try to recruit new people. I am walking around the campus in garb and chainmail. carrying around flyers and handing them out to people who ask me about my outfit. Some of the rest of the group members didn't think that that would work, but they were wrong. Over a period of two days I distributed about 80 flyers, including those I handed out to people and those I put up on bulletin boards.
Today, a new guy came who said he had participated in LARP before and was interested in joining us. He found my flyer in the math department lounge. Also, a photographer from a journalism class came up and asked to take some pictures for a project because he had seen my flyer. Finally, while I was in the dining hall dressed in garb a reporter from the Diamondback approached me and asked what was going on. I told him about the game and he said he wanted to come out and see us fight and do a story on us.
Today, a new guy came who said he had participated in LARP before and was interested in joining us. He found my flyer in the math department lounge. Also, a photographer from a journalism class came up and asked to take some pictures for a project because he had seen my flyer. Finally, while I was in the dining hall dressed in garb a reporter from the Diamondback approached me and asked what was going on. I told him about the game and he said he wanted to come out and see us fight and do a story on us.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Amtgard News #2
So, a lot interesting has happened in Amtgard since the last time I posted. First, we had Coronation on the 10th. It was the usual stuff, with some ditching, a feast, and an auction. Some of the stuff I got from Vietnam fetched a reasonable sum ($40 for a robe I originally got for $18, and $17 for some vases I originally got for $3).
On the 17th, we didn't have much going on because only two people, me and the Monarch, showed up. We knew turnout would be low because some of our members were visiting other parks, but we didn't expect it to be this low. Then we called another member, Pict, who said he was going to show up but didn't because it was too cold, but agreed to meet us at Plato's, a diner, to have food and talk. He revealed that there would be a big coronation event on the 18th for Crystal Groves, and that he wanted to go but had no money for gas. I offered to pay for his gas if he could take me and he agreed. Unfortunately the next morning he had a pain in his back and had to go to the emergency room, so that plan was canceled. (Instead I spent the day in Washington, D.C., where I saw the new, remodeled, American History museum, went to the Madame Tussaud's wax museum, bought a couple Obama T-shirts, and saw a Capitol Steps performance. Judging by the number of vendors selling Obama merchandise, Obama has already begun stimulating the economy.)
On the 24th, we will have the "Defense Contractor" game, where we will all compete to make weapons to fulfill "contracts" I post and make money (in gold pieces), and the team that makes the most money at the end of a given time period wins. (One of our members works for a defense contractor in real life, and thought my game was a good idea.)
On the 17th, we didn't have much going on because only two people, me and the Monarch, showed up. We knew turnout would be low because some of our members were visiting other parks, but we didn't expect it to be this low. Then we called another member, Pict, who said he was going to show up but didn't because it was too cold, but agreed to meet us at Plato's, a diner, to have food and talk. He revealed that there would be a big coronation event on the 18th for Crystal Groves, and that he wanted to go but had no money for gas. I offered to pay for his gas if he could take me and he agreed. Unfortunately the next morning he had a pain in his back and had to go to the emergency room, so that plan was canceled. (Instead I spent the day in Washington, D.C., where I saw the new, remodeled, American History museum, went to the Madame Tussaud's wax museum, bought a couple Obama T-shirts, and saw a Capitol Steps performance. Judging by the number of vendors selling Obama merchandise, Obama has already begun stimulating the economy.)
On the 24th, we will have the "Defense Contractor" game, where we will all compete to make weapons to fulfill "contracts" I post and make money (in gold pieces), and the team that makes the most money at the end of a given time period wins. (One of our members works for a defense contractor in real life, and thought my game was a good idea.)
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Media Watch: LARP Edition
"Should have gone to FreeCreditReport.com
And found out that those bankers were a bunch of ticking bombs.
We could have checked their credit and found out their loans won't work
But now we have to bail out a bunch of freakin' jerks."
- The Capitol Steps, "Free Credit", on the Wall Street bailout
-------------------------------------
Last week, I saw the movie "Role Models," which features live-action role-playing as a critical plot element. Although, like all movies, the movie takes some artistic license (for example, a melee-only battle in which each participant had only one life would certainly not last anywhere close to the whole day, and no LARP that I know of allows you to kick a defenseless opponent in the chest) it was still a fun movie to watch.
Also, here are two LARP-related commercials:
This commercial for Old Spice deodorant featuring Brian Urlacher.
This commercial for FreeCreditReport.com which does not feature LARPs, but does feature a renaissance faire, which I imagine is close enough.
CONSUMER ALERT: FreeCreditReport.com's service is not as free as they say it is. They sign you up for a 30-day trial of a $14.99/month credit monitoring service, and if you fail to opt out by the end of the 30 day period they start charging you. The site annualcreditreport.com allows you to get your credit reports for free with no hidden charges or other shenanigans.
And found out that those bankers were a bunch of ticking bombs.
We could have checked their credit and found out their loans won't work
But now we have to bail out a bunch of freakin' jerks."
- The Capitol Steps, "Free Credit", on the Wall Street bailout
-------------------------------------
Last week, I saw the movie "Role Models," which features live-action role-playing as a critical plot element. Although, like all movies, the movie takes some artistic license (for example, a melee-only battle in which each participant had only one life would certainly not last anywhere close to the whole day, and no LARP that I know of allows you to kick a defenseless opponent in the chest) it was still a fun movie to watch.
Also, here are two LARP-related commercials:
This commercial for Old Spice deodorant featuring Brian Urlacher.
This commercial for FreeCreditReport.com which does not feature LARPs, but does feature a renaissance faire, which I imagine is close enough.
CONSUMER ALERT: FreeCreditReport.com's service is not as free as they say it is. They sign you up for a 30-day trial of a $14.99/month credit monitoring service, and if you fail to opt out by the end of the 30 day period they start charging you. The site annualcreditreport.com allows you to get your credit reports for free with no hidden charges or other shenanigans.
Monday, December 1, 2008
Amtgard News #1
"You don't need to pass an IQ test to become a senator."
- Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AK), during an interview with Bill Maher
-------------------------------------------
In my Amtgard group, I am currently running unopposed for the position of Champion, which involves designing the battlegames to be played and running them. However despite me being the only candidate running, there are a couple steps I need to go through. The first step is passing a "reeves test," which is a test on the rules of the game. This is a pretty easy test to pass because it's exactly the same test every time, you only need 75% to pass, and the questions aren't that hard. Nevertheless three of us took the test and one of them failed it (fortunately that person was not me). There was also a "vote of confidence" which I passed.
The next step is to qualify in the A&S (Arts and Sciences) competition. This is a competition where you enter your creations in several different categories (weapons, armor, art, performance, writing, etc.) In order to qualify, you have to submit entries that receive a passing grade (3 or more points out of 5) in at least two categories. You can submit in as many categories as you want.
The competition is on Dec. 13, and I am planning on submitting the following items:
1. (Fiction Writing) A fictional account of a debate between two candidates for "monarch," the leader of the group, based on the real presidential debates. For example one candidate will accuse the other of supporting "earmarks" based on his support of spending money on catering food at an event.
2. (Nonfiction Writing) An essay about common aspects of Amtgard rules that lead to disagreements, and how to reduce them. I plan to use this article (which I learned about from here) as part of my argument. The article describes a real court case in which a drug dealer faced a harsher sentence if the deal occurred within 1000 feet of a school, and the debate centered on whether this was to be measured "as the crow flies" or along the path one would walk to get there. My point is that it is impossible to come up with a set of rules that precisely defines allowable actions in every situation, and the best way to proceed is, rather than to try to outlaw specific "unfair" actions, to change the rules in such a way that it isn't worthwhile to do those actions in the first place. (An illustrative example is the "forward progress" rule in football. The intended purpose is to stop defenders from essentially grabbing the ball carrier and pushing or carrying him as far back as possible. Rather than trying to define some rule about how much is "excessive push-back", they simply decided to spot the ball at the farthest point forward the ball carrier reached, eliminating the incentive for the unwanted tactic in a way that does not involve any subjective judgments.)
3. (2D art) An advertising poster for Amtgard as if it were a video game. It will include "review" statements like "by far the most realistic graphics of any game ever" and "you'll feel like you're in the action!"
4. (3D art) A model of a spinnerbox from Fable II. This will even have working spinners.
- Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AK), during an interview with Bill Maher
-------------------------------------------
In my Amtgard group, I am currently running unopposed for the position of Champion, which involves designing the battlegames to be played and running them. However despite me being the only candidate running, there are a couple steps I need to go through. The first step is passing a "reeves test," which is a test on the rules of the game. This is a pretty easy test to pass because it's exactly the same test every time, you only need 75% to pass, and the questions aren't that hard. Nevertheless three of us took the test and one of them failed it (fortunately that person was not me). There was also a "vote of confidence" which I passed.
The next step is to qualify in the A&S (Arts and Sciences) competition. This is a competition where you enter your creations in several different categories (weapons, armor, art, performance, writing, etc.) In order to qualify, you have to submit entries that receive a passing grade (3 or more points out of 5) in at least two categories. You can submit in as many categories as you want.
The competition is on Dec. 13, and I am planning on submitting the following items:
1. (Fiction Writing) A fictional account of a debate between two candidates for "monarch," the leader of the group, based on the real presidential debates. For example one candidate will accuse the other of supporting "earmarks" based on his support of spending money on catering food at an event.
2. (Nonfiction Writing) An essay about common aspects of Amtgard rules that lead to disagreements, and how to reduce them. I plan to use this article (which I learned about from here) as part of my argument. The article describes a real court case in which a drug dealer faced a harsher sentence if the deal occurred within 1000 feet of a school, and the debate centered on whether this was to be measured "as the crow flies" or along the path one would walk to get there. My point is that it is impossible to come up with a set of rules that precisely defines allowable actions in every situation, and the best way to proceed is, rather than to try to outlaw specific "unfair" actions, to change the rules in such a way that it isn't worthwhile to do those actions in the first place. (An illustrative example is the "forward progress" rule in football. The intended purpose is to stop defenders from essentially grabbing the ball carrier and pushing or carrying him as far back as possible. Rather than trying to define some rule about how much is "excessive push-back", they simply decided to spot the ball at the farthest point forward the ball carrier reached, eliminating the incentive for the unwanted tactic in a way that does not involve any subjective judgments.)
3. (2D art) An advertising poster for Amtgard as if it were a video game. It will include "review" statements like "by far the most realistic graphics of any game ever" and "you'll feel like you're in the action!"
4. (3D art) A model of a spinnerbox from Fable II. This will even have working spinners.
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