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 belegarth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label belegarth. 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.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
The results are in
I have two pieces of good news to report:
First, I passed my qual! I haven't got the “official” announcement yet but Jeff told me that the qual has been graded and I passed it.
Second, all the votes are in and I am now going to be an official member of House Valdemar in Belegarth. They are in the process of making the special tunic for me and I will have an official “initiation ritual” next Saturday, March 12.
EDIT: I typed "not" instead of "now" before.
Saturday, February 19, 2011
More Belegarth Action
Also this weekend I went to Wolfpack Opener, a large Belegarth event. We had to squish in the back seat of a truck because we were low on space in cars, but we got there fine. The battles were exciting, and especially since I am an archer it was fun because it's inside, so everyone bunches up and there are lots of easy targets. There are different types of battles including "line battles" wher everyone lines up in two lines and you fight each other, and also "four corners" battles where each player gets a different color wristband, each color has a corner associated with it, you are fighting against anyone who is not your color, and the referees will periodically call out a color and anyone who is dead with that color comes back alive.
Another thing is they're in the process of voting to see whether I get to become a full member of House Valdemar. So far the vote is going in my favor, but not all the votes are in and several of the key members who are supposed to vote haven't been out to practices in a while and we haven't been able to get ahold of them to get their votes. Maybe they're hiding in Wisconsin.
Another thing is they're in the process of voting to see whether I get to become a full member of House Valdemar. So far the vote is going in my favor, but not all the votes are in and several of the key members who are supposed to vote haven't been out to practices in a while and we haven't been able to get ahold of them to get their votes. Maybe they're hiding in Wisconsin.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Octoberfest
This weekend I went to a weekend-long Belegarth camping event called Octoberfest. It was quite an entertaining experience.
I first found another member of the park who agreed to give me a ride up there, and he wanted to go on Thursday. We agreed that he would pick me up on Thursday afternoon, after my meeting with my research group. Previously, my professor asked me to send him visualizations of the output of our program so that he could put it in a presentation. I sent them to him before the meeting, but when we viewed them at the meeting he told me that the visualizations didn't look right and I would need to redo them. There wasn't enough time to do them before I had to head up, so I called the park to ask if they had wireless Internet access there. They said that they do have Internet access, but "it doesn't always work because of the woods." I was surprised that a campground would even have wireless Internet, and the statement about "it doesn't always work because of the woods" made me a little suspicious that he thought that "wireless Internet" meant a 3G signal (which wouldn't help connect the computer to the Internet) but I put my plan into action anyway. I brought my laptop up, and when I got there I found out that they did, in fact, have actual wireless Internet. So I was able to finish my work and send it off.
The next day, I put the computer back in the trunk of the car, left the 21st century behind, and got suited up for a day of medieval warfare. There were big battles with dozens of people on a side, and there were many different scenarios, including castle battles (there's a wooden castle on the field with platforms that you can shoot from), realm battles, and unit battles. There were only about 5-6 other members of House Valdemar there, so we had to use tricky tactics, like waiting until two larger groups were engaged with each other and then stabbing one of them in the back. At the end of the day there was a feast, which was soup in a "bowl" made of bread. I didn't have any soup and just got the bread bowl, and there was also a stall selling quesadillas. After the feast, I wandered around the campsite looking for something to do and I saw that in one of the buildings a game of Texas Hold-Em was starting up. I played some Texas Hold-Em, and the first game I was eliminated about in the middle, and in the second game I came in 2nd place out of 6.
Then on Saturday there was another day of fighting. There were no more castle battles this day because there were too many people to fit in the castle, which was a shame because the castle battle was my favorite part of the fighting on Friday. But there was still lots more realm and unit battles. At the end of the day there were some tournaments. I participated in the archery tournament. I won the first round but got eliminated int he second round by the player who would go on to win the tournament. Then there was another feast, and after the feast there was supposed to be the "Bardic Games", which is a contest where you do a "bardic performance." When I heard about that contest I entered it, planning to do an improv comedy routine, but never got a chance since the contest was canceled since I was the only one who signed up. Also, I did run into Steve Cecchin, the head of Nero Chicago, the Nero group that also meets at Stonehouse Park. He said there was a special Halloween event that is happening that weekend and that he could try to find me a ride up there. I haven't decided yet whether I will want to go.
I first found another member of the park who agreed to give me a ride up there, and he wanted to go on Thursday. We agreed that he would pick me up on Thursday afternoon, after my meeting with my research group. Previously, my professor asked me to send him visualizations of the output of our program so that he could put it in a presentation. I sent them to him before the meeting, but when we viewed them at the meeting he told me that the visualizations didn't look right and I would need to redo them. There wasn't enough time to do them before I had to head up, so I called the park to ask if they had wireless Internet access there. They said that they do have Internet access, but "it doesn't always work because of the woods." I was surprised that a campground would even have wireless Internet, and the statement about "it doesn't always work because of the woods" made me a little suspicious that he thought that "wireless Internet" meant a 3G signal (which wouldn't help connect the computer to the Internet) but I put my plan into action anyway. I brought my laptop up, and when I got there I found out that they did, in fact, have actual wireless Internet. So I was able to finish my work and send it off.
The next day, I put the computer back in the trunk of the car, left the 21st century behind, and got suited up for a day of medieval warfare. There were big battles with dozens of people on a side, and there were many different scenarios, including castle battles (there's a wooden castle on the field with platforms that you can shoot from), realm battles, and unit battles. There were only about 5-6 other members of House Valdemar there, so we had to use tricky tactics, like waiting until two larger groups were engaged with each other and then stabbing one of them in the back. At the end of the day there was a feast, which was soup in a "bowl" made of bread. I didn't have any soup and just got the bread bowl, and there was also a stall selling quesadillas. After the feast, I wandered around the campsite looking for something to do and I saw that in one of the buildings a game of Texas Hold-Em was starting up. I played some Texas Hold-Em, and the first game I was eliminated about in the middle, and in the second game I came in 2nd place out of 6.
Then on Saturday there was another day of fighting. There were no more castle battles this day because there were too many people to fit in the castle, which was a shame because the castle battle was my favorite part of the fighting on Friday. But there was still lots more realm and unit battles. At the end of the day there were some tournaments. I participated in the archery tournament. I won the first round but got eliminated int he second round by the player who would go on to win the tournament. Then there was another feast, and after the feast there was supposed to be the "Bardic Games", which is a contest where you do a "bardic performance." When I heard about that contest I entered it, planning to do an improv comedy routine, but never got a chance since the contest was canceled since I was the only one who signed up. Also, I did run into Steve Cecchin, the head of Nero Chicago, the Nero group that also meets at Stonehouse Park. He said there was a special Halloween event that is happening that weekend and that he could try to find me a ride up there. I haven't decided yet whether I will want to go.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Some more news
1. The Lego robotics thing won't be starting until the 4th week in October, and will only be once a month on the 4th Sunday of each month. So there will be no more news about that until then.
2. I will be presenting my work at the CS Grad Expo on October 4. I will try to get some sort of picture up then.
3. We just submitted our annual report to the National Science Foundation. If you want to see it I can try to put it up here soon.
4. I have gone to several Magic card tournaments in the past few weeks. I have started to get better at the tournaments and I actually got in first place in one of tham (out of about 12 people or so). The only problem is that now whenever I play multiplayer (that is, games with more than 2 people) everyone gangs up on me because they assume that I will beat them if they don't. It is impossible to convince them otherwise even if there is a situation where, say, I have no creatures with any useful powers on the board but the person across from me is just one turn away from using his power that will make all his creatures indestructible for the rest of the game.
5. At Belegarth, I have identified several things that I need to get better at, and I have devised a plan for doing so, as follows. These plans have not been implemented yet but I will post again as I see how they come out.
PROBLEM: Sometimes I can't remember who is on my team. Asking the target is rarely useful because it simply alerts them that I am about to shoot them. Not asking is problematic because it sometimes results in me shooting people on my own team.
SOLUTION: Take photos of as many players as possible. Write a computer program that will do the following: (1) display a random selection of these images, each labeled as "red" or "blue", then (2) display images one after another and ask me to identify which is on which "team." This way I can practice team identification.
PROBLEM: I am supposed to only "half draw" the bow back when shooting from under 15 feet. However I sometimes have a hard time determining whether it is 15 feet.
SOLUTION: Tape a piece of tape near the side of my glasses, with two tick marks on it. The distance between the tick marks will be calibrated such that the apparent distance between the tick marks is equal to the apparent height of an average-height target at 15 feet. (The principle is similar to the principle described here, except that I don't need to know the exact range, just know whether it is more or less than 15 feet.)
PROBLEM: Different people have given me conflicting answers as to what exactly "half draw" means. Basically, the "draw length" is the distance between the nock (the place where the arrow is attached to the bowstring) and the front of the handle of the bow when you draw it. The maximum allowable draw length for full draw is 28 inches. The question is that even if you just put the arrow on the bow in the "neutral position" and don't draw it at all, the "draw length" is not zero; it is about 7 inches or so (because the bow is curved.) So does "half draw" mean 14 inches (halfway between 0 and 28) or 17.5 inches (halfway between 7 and 28). I have gotten both answers from different players, and sometimes they tell me one thing but when I have them demonstrate and measure it, it's clearly something else.
SOLUTION: Bring a tape measure to practice. Have as many archers as possible demosntrate where they think "half draw" is, and measure it. Take the average of all these measurements, then put a "half-draw mark" on the arrow at that location. Get the half-draw mark checked by a herald (that's like a referee). Additionally, in case I am playing and there is a different herald who disagrees with the first herald on where half-draw is, bring replacement tape so I can re-mark the arrows if necessary.
2. I will be presenting my work at the CS Grad Expo on October 4. I will try to get some sort of picture up then.
3. We just submitted our annual report to the National Science Foundation. If you want to see it I can try to put it up here soon.
4. I have gone to several Magic card tournaments in the past few weeks. I have started to get better at the tournaments and I actually got in first place in one of tham (out of about 12 people or so). The only problem is that now whenever I play multiplayer (that is, games with more than 2 people) everyone gangs up on me because they assume that I will beat them if they don't. It is impossible to convince them otherwise even if there is a situation where, say, I have no creatures with any useful powers on the board but the person across from me is just one turn away from using his power that will make all his creatures indestructible for the rest of the game.
5. At Belegarth, I have identified several things that I need to get better at, and I have devised a plan for doing so, as follows. These plans have not been implemented yet but I will post again as I see how they come out.
PROBLEM: Sometimes I can't remember who is on my team. Asking the target is rarely useful because it simply alerts them that I am about to shoot them. Not asking is problematic because it sometimes results in me shooting people on my own team.
SOLUTION: Take photos of as many players as possible. Write a computer program that will do the following: (1) display a random selection of these images, each labeled as "red" or "blue", then (2) display images one after another and ask me to identify which is on which "team." This way I can practice team identification.
PROBLEM: I am supposed to only "half draw" the bow back when shooting from under 15 feet. However I sometimes have a hard time determining whether it is 15 feet.
SOLUTION: Tape a piece of tape near the side of my glasses, with two tick marks on it. The distance between the tick marks will be calibrated such that the apparent distance between the tick marks is equal to the apparent height of an average-height target at 15 feet. (The principle is similar to the principle described here, except that I don't need to know the exact range, just know whether it is more or less than 15 feet.)
PROBLEM: Different people have given me conflicting answers as to what exactly "half draw" means. Basically, the "draw length" is the distance between the nock (the place where the arrow is attached to the bowstring) and the front of the handle of the bow when you draw it. The maximum allowable draw length for full draw is 28 inches. The question is that even if you just put the arrow on the bow in the "neutral position" and don't draw it at all, the "draw length" is not zero; it is about 7 inches or so (because the bow is curved.) So does "half draw" mean 14 inches (halfway between 0 and 28) or 17.5 inches (halfway between 7 and 28). I have gotten both answers from different players, and sometimes they tell me one thing but when I have them demonstrate and measure it, it's clearly something else.
SOLUTION: Bring a tape measure to practice. Have as many archers as possible demosntrate where they think "half draw" is, and measure it. Take the average of all these measurements, then put a "half-draw mark" on the arrow at that location. Get the half-draw mark checked by a herald (that's like a referee). Additionally, in case I am playing and there is a different herald who disagrees with the first herald on where half-draw is, bring replacement tape so I can re-mark the arrows if necessary.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
A new semester
So a new semester just started. A few cool things have been going on:
1. I signed up for two classes: "Adaptive + Multigrid Methods" with Luke Olson and "Finite Element Analysis" with Dan Tortorelli.
The class on Iterative+Multigrid Methods is about techniques for solving large systems of linear equations. Large systems of linear equations arise a lot from approximating a partial differential equation by a separate linear equation at each point on the mesh. "Iterative" means that you solve the equation by coming up with an approximate "guess" and then repeatedly improving the "guess" until you get close enough to the solution. "Multigrid" means that rather than just using one mesh, you have several different meshes of different sizes, and you use the solution to the coarser mesh (which can be computed faster) in order to get a better guess for the solution of the finer mesh.
The Finite Element Analysis class is in the mechanical engineering department, so most of the students are mechanical engineering students. It is interesting to learn more about how the mathematical techniques I am learning about are actually used to model physical systems, although one problem (from my perspective) is that since most of the students are not computer science students a lot of time is spent going over basic programming concepts that I've already seen over and over. For example today the professor spent most of the class just explaining how to write a program that reads input from a data file and puts it into a matrix.
2. As for my research, we have gotten to the point where we can produce reasonably good looking visualizations of the meshing process. Once I finish that part (probably in the next few weeks) I am planning on making a web page where I can put them up so you can look at them.
3. In Belegarth, last week there was the Numenor "Opener" to mark the start of the semester, where lots of people come, including some from other groups, and they do lots of different battles. One of the battles was a "Unit Battle," where the different "units" (units are groups of people that fight together and often have distinctive uniforms) all fight. For that battle I temporarily joined a unit called House Valdemar. During that battle the leader of that unit (who is also the owner of one of the game stores I play Magic at) was so impressed with my archery skills he asked me to join the unit. The way it works is that now I am a "petitioner", and after a couple months the members vote on whether to keep me in as a full fledged member. So I guess it's kind of like a fraternity (not that I would know).
4. I have volunteered to be an instuctor for a 4-H club activity that teaches kids how to build robots using Lego Mindstorms toys. The way this happened was that one of my classes is in the engineering building, so when I was getting out of class I saw a flyer up on the wall advertising this, and it sounded really cool. It's going to be an hour once a week for 6 weeks, and it probably going to start in a couple weeks or so (they haven't set up the schedule yet). I did check to make sure it will end before December so it won't interfere with our vacation plans.
1. I signed up for two classes: "Adaptive + Multigrid Methods" with Luke Olson and "Finite Element Analysis" with Dan Tortorelli.
The class on Iterative+Multigrid Methods is about techniques for solving large systems of linear equations. Large systems of linear equations arise a lot from approximating a partial differential equation by a separate linear equation at each point on the mesh. "Iterative" means that you solve the equation by coming up with an approximate "guess" and then repeatedly improving the "guess" until you get close enough to the solution. "Multigrid" means that rather than just using one mesh, you have several different meshes of different sizes, and you use the solution to the coarser mesh (which can be computed faster) in order to get a better guess for the solution of the finer mesh.
The Finite Element Analysis class is in the mechanical engineering department, so most of the students are mechanical engineering students. It is interesting to learn more about how the mathematical techniques I am learning about are actually used to model physical systems, although one problem (from my perspective) is that since most of the students are not computer science students a lot of time is spent going over basic programming concepts that I've already seen over and over. For example today the professor spent most of the class just explaining how to write a program that reads input from a data file and puts it into a matrix.
2. As for my research, we have gotten to the point where we can produce reasonably good looking visualizations of the meshing process. Once I finish that part (probably in the next few weeks) I am planning on making a web page where I can put them up so you can look at them.
3. In Belegarth, last week there was the Numenor "Opener" to mark the start of the semester, where lots of people come, including some from other groups, and they do lots of different battles. One of the battles was a "Unit Battle," where the different "units" (units are groups of people that fight together and often have distinctive uniforms) all fight. For that battle I temporarily joined a unit called House Valdemar. During that battle the leader of that unit (who is also the owner of one of the game stores I play Magic at) was so impressed with my archery skills he asked me to join the unit. The way it works is that now I am a "petitioner", and after a couple months the members vote on whether to keep me in as a full fledged member. So I guess it's kind of like a fraternity (not that I would know).
4. I have volunteered to be an instuctor for a 4-H club activity that teaches kids how to build robots using Lego Mindstorms toys. The way this happened was that one of my classes is in the engineering building, so when I was getting out of class I saw a flyer up on the wall advertising this, and it sounded really cool. It's going to be an hour once a week for 6 weeks, and it probably going to start in a couple weeks or so (they haven't set up the schedule yet). I did check to make sure it will end before December so it won't interfere with our vacation plans.
Friday, March 5, 2010
Geekiness in perspective
Today, I had the following conversation (paraphrased) with a member of my Belegarth group:
Me: I'm confused about the rules for checking arrows to see if they are safe. It says you're supposed to push down on it to see if you can feel the core. But any arrow you can feel the core if you push hard enough. So how do you know how hard you are supposed to push?
Him: There's no way to quantify it. It's not like testing it, like in a lab. Testing the weapons is personal, different people do it differently.
Me: Okay, so clearly the best strategy is to get the arrows tested by a representative sample of weapons checkers, so that it's more likely to pass everywhere (like if you take it to a different group).
Him: Don't worry about that. Everyone does it the same way, they just do it differently.*
Me: Okay, well how about this idea. I can bring a scale and have them push down on the scale with the same force that they push down when checking weapons. Then I will know how hard to push down when I am testing the ones I make.
Him: That's not necessary. People will think you are weird for doing that.
Me: Why? I'm just using quantitative data. Is there something wrong with using quantitative data?
Him: It's geeky as hell.
Me: Let me get this straight. Someone who does live-action role-playing is telling me that it's wrong to be geeky?
Him: Some of the people there don't consider it "role-playing." They're there for the fighting.
Me: Okay, let's rephrase. 'Someone who does foam sword-fighting is telling me that it's wrong to be geeky."
Him: "Not all of them think foam sword-fighting is geeky."
*This sentence, however, is not paraphrased. I distinctly remember him saying "Everyone does it the same way, they just do it differently." I laughed out loud when he said this, though I don't think he realized what was so funny.
Me: I'm confused about the rules for checking arrows to see if they are safe. It says you're supposed to push down on it to see if you can feel the core. But any arrow you can feel the core if you push hard enough. So how do you know how hard you are supposed to push?
Him: There's no way to quantify it. It's not like testing it, like in a lab. Testing the weapons is personal, different people do it differently.
Me: Okay, so clearly the best strategy is to get the arrows tested by a representative sample of weapons checkers, so that it's more likely to pass everywhere (like if you take it to a different group).
Him: Don't worry about that. Everyone does it the same way, they just do it differently.*
Me: Okay, well how about this idea. I can bring a scale and have them push down on the scale with the same force that they push down when checking weapons. Then I will know how hard to push down when I am testing the ones I make.
Him: That's not necessary. People will think you are weird for doing that.
Me: Why? I'm just using quantitative data. Is there something wrong with using quantitative data?
Him: It's geeky as hell.
Me: Let me get this straight. Someone who does live-action role-playing is telling me that it's wrong to be geeky?
Him: Some of the people there don't consider it "role-playing." They're there for the fighting.
Me: Okay, let's rephrase. 'Someone who does foam sword-fighting is telling me that it's wrong to be geeky."
Him: "Not all of them think foam sword-fighting is geeky."
*This sentence, however, is not paraphrased. I distinctly remember him saying "Everyone does it the same way, they just do it differently." I laughed out loud when he said this, though I don't think he realized what was so funny.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Exciting Combat Action - After Action Report
So today was the "big day" with all the action. The Belegarth event was quite exciting. There were well over 100 people on the field, and it was indoors so it was close quarters. That meant that you had an unbroken line of people stretching from one end of the field to another. This made archery much different - easier to hide behind the lines to avoid getting hit, but trickier to find lines of fire that will hit enemies without being blocked by your own guys. Also you run out of arrows pretty fast, so you have to look on the ground to find arrows to pick up. But overall the event was really cool.
Then I got dropped off at the game store to play the superhero game. Unfortunately three out of the five people couldn't make it, so rather than run a whole adventure he just ran a single practice combat to get us used to the combat system (since we hadn't played Hero System before). He pit us against two opposing villains: a "blaster" (guy who shoots energy blasts) and a "brick" (strong and tough guy.) My teammate was a blaster the ability to fly and teleport. The first round of the game my teammate teleported over to the enemies to shoot them at point-blank range. He hit one of them, and tried to use the knockback to send him flying into the other one, but missed. Then the enemy brick got up and ran him over using a "Move Through" attack, knocking him unconscious. In order to save my teammate, I tried to move my support robot over and use its "Aid" power on him, but it would only work if I "hit" him with my Aid "attack." I didn't give my support robot any OCV (Offensive Combat Value; the stat that determines how good you are at hitting people) because I thought that it's an auto-hit if the target is willing. It is, but in order for the target to be "Willing" he has to be conscious. So I missed witht my Aid, but I has another trick up my sleeve - I moved my combat robot over and activated his "Flash" attack to blind both enemies. While the enemies were stuck defenseless (and mostly attack-less, too) since they couldn't see us, I used the robot to blast the enemy brick into oblivion while I myself used my "Telekinetic Field Generator" to telekinetically grab the blaster so he couldn't do anything. Finally the enemies recovered from the blindness but by then the battle was a foregone conclusion.
Then I got dropped off at the game store to play the superhero game. Unfortunately three out of the five people couldn't make it, so rather than run a whole adventure he just ran a single practice combat to get us used to the combat system (since we hadn't played Hero System before). He pit us against two opposing villains: a "blaster" (guy who shoots energy blasts) and a "brick" (strong and tough guy.) My teammate was a blaster the ability to fly and teleport. The first round of the game my teammate teleported over to the enemies to shoot them at point-blank range. He hit one of them, and tried to use the knockback to send him flying into the other one, but missed. Then the enemy brick got up and ran him over using a "Move Through" attack, knocking him unconscious. In order to save my teammate, I tried to move my support robot over and use its "Aid" power on him, but it would only work if I "hit" him with my Aid "attack." I didn't give my support robot any OCV (Offensive Combat Value; the stat that determines how good you are at hitting people) because I thought that it's an auto-hit if the target is willing. It is, but in order for the target to be "Willing" he has to be conscious. So I missed witht my Aid, but I has another trick up my sleeve - I moved my combat robot over and activated his "Flash" attack to blind both enemies. While the enemies were stuck defenseless (and mostly attack-less, too) since they couldn't see us, I used the robot to blast the enemy brick into oblivion while I myself used my "Telekinetic Field Generator" to telekinetically grab the blaster so he couldn't do anything. Finally the enemies recovered from the blindness but by then the battle was a foregone conclusion.
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.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Reflected sound of underground spirits, part 2
As it turns out, one of the people in the local Belegarth group is the owner of Edhellen Armoury, so he was able to answer the question I posed in my previous post.
The answer is that different groups have different standards for stabbing tips, so a stabbing tip that would pass inspection and thus be legal on the field at this group won't pass at all groups. So if they were to advertise on their web site, then they might end up selling stabbing tips that wouldn't pass. But when I called, they knew I was in the area because I had come to Belegarth the previous time, so they knew that their stabbing tip would be legal here.
And in case you're wondering about the title of this post, it comes from the book "The Color of Magic" by Terry Pratchett. It means "economics" ("reflected sound" = echo, "underground spirits" = gnomes, so "echo-gnomics")
The answer is that different groups have different standards for stabbing tips, so a stabbing tip that would pass inspection and thus be legal on the field at this group won't pass at all groups. So if they were to advertise on their web site, then they might end up selling stabbing tips that wouldn't pass. But when I called, they knew I was in the area because I had come to Belegarth the previous time, so they knew that their stabbing tip would be legal here.
And in case you're wondering about the title of this post, it comes from the book "The Color of Magic" by Terry Pratchett. It means "economics" ("reflected sound" = echo, "underground spirits" = gnomes, so "echo-gnomics")
Reflected sound of underground spirits
Here is an interesting puzzle.
Edhellen Armoury sells weapons for LARPs such as Belegarth and Dagorhir. They charge about $25-40 per weapon depending on size. They sell weapons primarily through the web site, but since they are based near here in Illinois, they also sell weapons through one of the local gaming stores, Dragon's Table. Most of the weapons they sell on the site are only legal to slash with, not stab with, because they do not have the required "stabbing tips." It is possible to get a stabbing tip added to the weapon for $10 extra.
A stabbing tip is simply an extra piece of foam that goes on the tip that makes the tip softer. The marginal cost of adding it is certainly far less than $10. (This is not the puzzle - lots of products have "extras" that you can get that cost far more than the cost of adding it, as a way of segmenting the market and making more money. For example the 16 GB iPhone costs $100 more than the 8 GB iPhone, even though the cost of 8 additional GB of hard drive capacity is far less than $100.)
The puzzle is the following:
The existence of the option to buy stabbing tips for extra is not listed anywhere on the site, and none of the weapons that are sold at the Dragon's Table have them. In order to find out that they exist, you have to call them, and then they tell you to buy the items as normal and put a "Special Payment" in for the stabbing tip. The question is: why do they make it so hard to find this information? There are other instances of companies making information about particular products hard to find, one notable example being the Starbucks "Short" latte, as a form of price discrimination. But unlike those other examples, Edhellen makes more money off the swords with stabbing tips, not less, so why would they want to hide it? The only thing I can think of is that the demand isn't high enough for it to be worth putting on the web site, but that's surprising, because I've seen lots of weapons at Belegarth with stabbing tips. (In any case, even if people didn't want the more expensive stabbing tip weapons it might still be worth putting them on the site, because of the "decoy effect" - seeing a more expensive option makes the other option look cheaper and more attractive by comparison.)
Edhellen Armoury sells weapons for LARPs such as Belegarth and Dagorhir. They charge about $25-40 per weapon depending on size. They sell weapons primarily through the web site, but since they are based near here in Illinois, they also sell weapons through one of the local gaming stores, Dragon's Table. Most of the weapons they sell on the site are only legal to slash with, not stab with, because they do not have the required "stabbing tips." It is possible to get a stabbing tip added to the weapon for $10 extra.
A stabbing tip is simply an extra piece of foam that goes on the tip that makes the tip softer. The marginal cost of adding it is certainly far less than $10. (This is not the puzzle - lots of products have "extras" that you can get that cost far more than the cost of adding it, as a way of segmenting the market and making more money. For example the 16 GB iPhone costs $100 more than the 8 GB iPhone, even though the cost of 8 additional GB of hard drive capacity is far less than $100.)
The puzzle is the following:
The existence of the option to buy stabbing tips for extra is not listed anywhere on the site, and none of the weapons that are sold at the Dragon's Table have them. In order to find out that they exist, you have to call them, and then they tell you to buy the items as normal and put a "Special Payment" in for the stabbing tip. The question is: why do they make it so hard to find this information? There are other instances of companies making information about particular products hard to find, one notable example being the Starbucks "Short" latte, as a form of price discrimination. But unlike those other examples, Edhellen makes more money off the swords with stabbing tips, not less, so why would they want to hide it? The only thing I can think of is that the demand isn't high enough for it to be worth putting on the web site, but that's surprising, because I've seen lots of weapons at Belegarth with stabbing tips. (In any case, even if people didn't want the more expensive stabbing tip weapons it might still be worth putting them on the site, because of the "decoy effect" - seeing a more expensive option makes the other option look cheaper and more attractive by comparison.)
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.
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