Battlefield Mathematics Pt. 2

This is a continuation of my post on Battlefield Mathematics.

There's only so much the player can do to try and ease the issues associated with the speed of battle. However, if you're keeping this in mind when designing your LARP game, you can take further steps to reduce complexity.

1. Less is More
I know everyone wants to swing big numbers. However, swinging much lower numbers makes the math of combat a lot easier to follow. For the most part, Accelerant type games follow this theory. Instead of giving a person 50 body and letting people swing 10s, they have 5 body and people swings 1. It really can make the math a lot easier.

2. Avoid Multipliers
One of the common ideas take from various roleplaying games is the idea of weaknesses to a type of damage, which usually ends up causing double or triple damage. Let me tell you what isn't easy for some people - multiplying numbers when taking damage. Instead, add a flat damage increase or simply not allow defenses to be used against opposing elements.

3. Less Defenses
Every time a player is hit with something, they have to review their current state. If I've been hit by a magic spell, I need to identify if there's any defenses I have for that effect before I can continue with the fight. By reducing the number of possible defenses, you make the state check faster.

Battlefield Mathematics

It takes a fair amount of brains to be able to compete in most LARP combat. And I'm not referring to developing strategy of sorts.

I'm referring to the ability for a combatant to comprehend everything they've been hit with to determine their current state.

In the heat of battle, it can be hard to tell if you should still be up or if you still had defenses for that spell you were just hit with. The following is a list of things that players should keep in mind in order to ease battlefield math as much as possible.

1. Add Instead of Subtracting
Sometimes it can be hard to keep track of how many hit points you have left. A lot of player will take their starting body and subtract hit points as they are damaged. Truth is, subtraction is a lot more difficult than addition, especially when you're not dealing with round numbers. So instead, count the damage you've taken with addition, and whenever you exceed your maximum hit points, then you know you're down.

2. Visual Representations of Protectives
We used to have protective rings, but let's be honest, those are hard to update or reference in a fight. Instead, use bracelets, rings, or any other simple identifier that can be seen on your hands to remind you what protective you might have. You can have your left hand represent inactive spells and have your right hand be active spells. If your blue bracelet is on your right hand, it means you still have a shield magic up. If your red bracelet is on your left hand, it means you do not have a magic armor up.

Obviously this doesn't need to be updated in the heat of combat. It's intended for remembering what you have between lulls instead of assuming you have all protectives.

3. Only Track Yourself
A lot of the excessive damage taken by players is due to the fact that they are trying to keep track of how much damage they're putting out. Both PCs and NPCs do that. When you and your opponent both track the hits they're dealing instead of the hits they're receiving, one of you two is definitely going to take too much damage. Trust that the other person is going to monitor the damage that they're taking.

Next post will be about the ways that game designers can make it easier for the players to perform Battlefield Mathematics.

Fighting Styles of Preference

Boffer combat offers many different fighting styles, and while some are considered better than others in some games, it's still fun to step outside your safe zone and fight in other ways.

So what are your favorite and least favorite fighting styles?

For me, I'm most effective as a sword/board (strap shield), but I have the most fun with either two shorts or a polearm. My least favorite fighting style is swoard/board (punch shield). It just doesn't feel right. If I'm going to chase shots with my off hand, I'm going to use a sword that can strike as well.

YouTube Friday: SKBC Advanced Sword and Board

This video is a bit of a blast from the past, but I think it's a good one for people to look at. This is a class from Sword Knight Boot Camp (SKBC) 2006, brought to us by Sir Dalos.

For those of you unfamiliar with SKBC, it's a 3-4 day event held in a different place every year. At that event, they have a bunch of classes on basically anything you can think of for battle gaming, combined with a metric shit-ton of ditching. Anyone who really wants to be a better fighter can benefit from attending SKBC.

This year's SKBC is in MA, so if you're in that area and are interested, you should check it out here.

While a lot of this video is specific for battle games that let you close on your opponent, you can definitely use a lot of the shield placement and body positioning in any game. I know that I went and grabbed a round shield after watching this video, and it's brutal. While I get a lot of benefit from it on the fact that I'm short, the placement of the grip helps a lot. This is also where I learned the power of the lean.

Enjoy!

YouTube Thursday: Foam Weapon League

Alright, I admit it. I used to watch professional wrestling. It's no big deal. I never pretended like it was real, but the people were still athletes and still got you cheering for your favorite wrestlers.

Anyways, out in California, a group of people created the Foam Weapon League, where players take on personas, much like professional wrestlers, and duke it out with foam weapons. I know, "So what, we do that all the time."

Yeah, but not like this. Each person wears a harness with "Blood Bags" on various portions of the body, and you defeat your opponent by breaking those bags, spilling the red contents everywhere.

I don't know the rules about it, but I do know that I would love to drink some beer and go watch this. Someone should bring the Foam Weapon League to Ohio.

Edit: The link above is for the facebook page. The official page is www.foamweaponleague.com

YouTube Thursday: On-Foot Stance

There's a lot of differences between the various boffer games, but one thing remains true to all of them.

A bad stance will make you a bad fighter, and a good stance will make you a good fighter.

Here is a short video of Brennon (Amtgard/Warlord Sports) talking about the On-Foot Stance, which is the most common stance. He's also got a video about the Off Foot stance which you can find here.

This is pretty basic stuff, but as you fight, take the time to occasionally check what your stance looks like. You'd be surprised how often you slip into bad habits. I had this problem a few years back with my grip.

Tim prefers the On-Foot Stance, while I prefer the Off-Foot (but use the On-Foot in certain situations). Figure out which works best for you.

Note: Brennon uses conversational descriptions and tends to drop the F-Bomb. This one's probably better for headphones.

Weapon Review: Warlord Sports OMNI

Edit: These weapons were purchased about 6-9 months prior to the release of this article. Since that time, WLS has dropped off the face of the earth and the website is down indefinitely, so these weapons are unfortunately no longer available.

We have not done any reviews yet so here is my first. I am going to give you 4 categories; Style, Functionality, Durability and Value, then I will give the weapon a score out of five based on the average of the 4 categories. Without further ado, I give you the Warlord Sports Omni.





Between Bill and myself we have purchased four of these swords. I purchased two of the 33" swords, one regular and one light. They have a few different handle varieties, I ordered the cast rope. When they got to my porch, they were professionally packaged. I was impressed with that because the company is fairly new. I am not sure about the rest of you but I get super excited when I get new kit, I called Bill pretty much right away so I could beat on him.

Style: These swords look like foam baseball bats or clubs. They are not the most stylish weapon in existence. The translation from foam club, to magic sword of epicness is one that larpers get used to fairly quickly in the game so they looked good to me. Professionally built, excellent stitching on the covers, the foam was all tight and there were no rattles. Style is pretty subjective but with real looking latex sword on one end and duct taped PVC on the other I can safely give these a 3.5 on style.

Functionality The functional use of a foam sword is to hit your friends. These swords have dense foam which seems to break down very slowly. The cores are well buried on all sides and the cap on the top( Which appears to be marine foam) is really thick. I can see myself beating my friends with these two swords for at least a year from purchase. The weapons are very well weighted, they have the balance point about half way up the blade. The cast rope handle does not slip even when the air is wet. The foam appears to be somewhat waterproof as the sword does not get significantly heavier in the rain. For functionality these swords get a 4.5 they are really a 5 if you play only Amtgard or Dagorhir, a 4.5 for NERO because you need to do some convincing every time you use them that the marine foam cap is safe to stab with.

Durability I generally get about 12 events out of a latex sword before I deem it unsafe, I have already used my Warlord Sports sword for probably 20 events worth or practice and it shows no signs of deterioration( Apart from the cap of the cover coming off because I do a tip drag on a low feint) For Durability these get a flat 5 no questions asked one of the most durable weapons I have ever owned.

Value For 25$ these are an excellent value. You get a bunch of customization options and color choices. You can choose from light, normal or heavy weapons. It is strange but buying these is probably cheaper than making your own sword of similar quality. I give these a 5 on value as well.

So for an over all score you take the 4 categories
Style 3.5
Functionality 4.5(5)
Durability 5
Value 5
Total 18 /4 = 4.5 (4.625 if you play Amt or Dag only)

YouTube Thursday: Cleveland Jugger

A short video of the Jugger games from Saturday. We played for about 3 hours and I picked some points I thought were cool.

Review: Lake County Dagorhir - The Dunedain

Tim had a halloween party this weekend that prevented us from attending any LARP events this weekend, but we had recently heard word of an Amtgard group in the area that runs practices on Sundays nearby, so we decided to check it out.

I'll start off with the fact that we did suspect something was up, simply because the Amtgard group hadn't updated it's character stuff since 2006, and Tim remembered talking to the guy who sent the email - about Dagorhir. We went out there anyways, because we were just looking for some foam fighting.

Sure enough, we were duped. The mercenary who we talked with (who was not actually part of the unit) apologized when we got there, but whatever. We'll give it a shot.

My biggest fears of Dagorhir were that the game was a bit more physical than I'm used to. I'm a short guy without a lot of strength, so as soon as games start to involve elements like shield bashing and grappling, I get a little worried. In some ways, it wasn't as bad as I expected it to be. In others, it was exactly what I expected.

The Unit - The Dunedain
I believe there were 4-6 people who were part of The Dunedain, a few independents, a mercenary and a member of the ravens (another group).

The members of the Dunedain were actually pretty cool. We never really received any grief for being NERO players (although they kept calling us Amtgard players, since we were looking for Amtgard). They've got a few fighters that were on par with our fighting, and a fair amount of newer fighters that were still green. None of those players got too physical, apologized when hits were in the head, and had pretty decent shot calibration (didn't hit too hard or too soft).

Now, the fighting did at times get a little hairy. The mercenary pretty much runs at one level of intensity all the time, and it shows. While he's a good fighter, he was definitely not shy about getting up and physical with his shield which is totally legal for Dag. However, he did give me a pretty nasty shield rim to the face when I was legged and there wasn't much I could do. In that situation, I don't see any value in shield rimming over shield bashing, other than inflicting physical damage on the down person.

Translation: It's a Douche Move.

I don't want to sound vain, but between that and a pretty solid shot to the face that rung my bell, I am kind of worried about losing some teeth.

I was also a little concerned about the training community there. There was a newer player who the mercenary called his "Noob," but he seemed more interested in teaching him by embarrassing and beating on him rather than actually teaching him how to fight. He actually went so far to tell us about a guy who swings way to hard just beating him to make him not fear getting hit. At one point, Tim and I helped him a little bit with single sword fighting, explaining the use of the off hand for hand blocking, and talking about putting his weight on his back foot for leg control, since he kept getting legged. After we said that, the merc said "You just have to keep telling him," yet I hadn't heard him give one hint about how to fight.

I think the big thing is that they look up to the mercenary, and they back down when he's around. The Dunedain seem like they like to help each other (based on their forums), but the merc's personality is pretty overwhelming.

Summary:
All and all, I think the group is a lot of fun and it would be great to be a part of it. It was fun playing with everyone, except for that mercenary. However, I think my concerns about the physicality of the fighting and fear of losing my teeth might prevent me from getting big into Dagorhir. Because even if the Dunedain guys are cool, there will always be a douche on the other side of the field that I can't account for.

Edit: After some nice discussion on the Dag boards, the Dag community has pretty much agreed with my assessment that the guy was a douche. This give me hope for Dag. Activity like his is not the norm, and they don't condone that kind of activity.

How To: Jugging Chain

As I finally got a day off work, I decided to sit down for some nice relaxing video games and podcast or two. I was tipped off to the Mid-Level Crisis Podcast a while back, but I hadn't got around to listening to it until just recently, so I'm working through the archives. I got to their episode where they talked about jugging. Needless to say, I decided to be productive for a change and I did something I've been waiting to do for a long time - build a Jugging Chain.

We've got a number of people in this area who said that they'd be interested in playing Jugger or even starting a team on the USJL. The only thing stopping us at this point is the equipment required. Sure, we can make the Q-Tip and the Bludgeoner, as those are essentally common boffer weapons. And even making the skull and the spike is easy enough. But what's really tricky, is the chain. Here's what you'll need to make a bitchin' chain.

Webstats, Contest, Attention Whoring, Oh My!

So I've got this counter on the bottom of the page that is run by www.statcounter.com, which gives me some good feedback about the health of the blog. It gives me information such as how many page loads I get, how many unique visitors, how many returning visitors, search engine keywords... blah, blah, blah.

But what is most interesting is search engine hits I get. Most of the recent ones were searching for larp ohio blog, but one in particular from the UK caught my fancy.

"Avatar Live Role Play Equipment"

If you're looking for L.A.R.P. Equipment, I'm sorry that I couldn't be of more help. We'll endeavor to get some in the future. But maybe Mr. Costume can help!



Anyways, I appreciate all the vistors we're getting and all the great feedback we're seeing through the comments. In fact, if this keeps up, I think we might have to have a give-away.

Let's make a deal. If we've got 4000 unique page views by our 100th post, we'll do a contest and give some gear away.

Not sure what the contest will be yet nor what the prizes will be, but it's going to be awesome. So tell your friends and start linking this blog on forums - especially you Alliance players!

Edit: For the record, unique page views are tracked via the counter at the bottom of the page. So that needs to read at least 4000 before the 100th post is up. I expect it to be about a month and a half, but it might be less, since we've got Russ contributing now.

Edit 2: I just realized that we're now on the first page if you search for LARP Blog. Good job!

YouTube Thursday: Jugger

Back in 1989, a movie called The Salute of the Jugger was released in the US under the name The Blood of Heroes. While it wasn't that good, it is now a cult classic, if for no other reason than "The Game," which is played in the movie.

For a long time, Amtgard players have been playing "The Game." However, they call it Jugger or Jugging. It's very easy to incorporate into any LARP game since, well, the weapons used in the game are essentially LARP weapons. But leave it up to the Germans (and the Australians as well) to take it to the next level. Here's a video of a match from the German Jugger League.

Brief Rules Rundown:
- Each team has 5 players: 1 Qwik, 1 Chain, 3 Enforcers.
- Only the unarmed Qwiks can score or pick up the skull. They can also tackle the other Qwik.
- If you're struck with a weapon you are down for 5 stone (5 drumbeats).
- 100 Drumbeats in a round, 3 rounds in a game.
- Enforcers can pin players to prevent them from getting up, once the pin is let go, that player cannot be pinned again until after he gets back up.



I totally want to play this game. And you know what? I might have a chance here soon enough.

The USJL is currently being formed. More information, including the rulebook, can be found here.

But seriously, who around Ohio wants to play some Jugger? Maybe we can get some teams made up for this league, or at the very least we could have a tournament.

Game or Sport...maybe both?

Larp is an odd confluence of concepts. We combine the nerdy wonder of a roleplaying game, with the smash mouth speed western martial arts. This gives rise to some strange dichotomy's of player types, the most famous is perhaps the Stick Jock versus the Roleplayer or flurb as they are known in some circles. Whose philosophy is correct? What is the intention of this game? How can people who run games cater to these two totally different mindsets? Maybe the goal should be to combine the mindsets and run the game to appease the new normal.

I am an unapologetic stick-jock, I do role play but a a large portion of my enjoyment on any given weekend is derived from the skill required to win whatever fights take place. I like the team dynamic of games and the pressure that is put on the foam swinging players to protect those without the foam. So from my personal perspective, a game can get by with a skeletal plot line interspersed with intense fights and the occasional break for Gatorade. This would not please my flurby friends.

On the flip side, there are some plot teams that have no skill with stick at all. They tell fabulous stories but all fights boil down to take down spells because that's the only way they can compete with the high end teams. I have been to events where the whole weekend is based around the translation of some ancient scroll, deep thought and careful planning for a final battle that is over in fifteen minutes. This does not please the stick-jocks amongst us.

The best solution I have found in my tenure as a plot/staff person is to make every team NEED certain skills that only the roleplaying crowd has. Let us set up a theoretical encounter to show this. Team A consists of a fighter( Stick jock) a healer(Stick Jock) and a damage dealing class(Stick jock) they find that they must delve into an ancient tomb filled with horrible(but well scaled) monsters that fight them at every turn. At the bottom of the ancient tomb lies a text which requires knowledge skills to read....Team A cannot read the text, their characters may not even be able to read. This gives rise to Team B consisting of a fighter(Stick Jock) a healer(Stick jock/flurb) and a damage dealer(Stick Jock/different type of flurb). Team B can still fight their way down to the bottom of the dungeon, they have trained their flurbs to be at least decent at the foam arts. When they reach the bottom they can read the ancient tome and complete the module. It is important for plot teams and players to remember, anyone can be taught to swing foam or cast spells, teaching flurbiness is much harder.

What then can plot teams take from this? Stick jockery can be taught. I can take 4 weeks and train someone to be an acceptable team player, someone who will not get me killed. The willingness to roleplay and focus skills on something other than combat cannot be taught. Sure I can take some knowledge skills but I probably will forget I have them or not use the right ones. I can probably make some neat crafts but I have no real desire to do so, so I won't. It is up to the stick jocks to train the roleplayers, and the roleplayers to learn. These games that we love demand the combination of roleplay and martial arts, without this combination they do not have the same draw. It is an amazing thing that such different people can be drawn together by one activity, lets keep it amazing. Stick jocks nurture your flurbs and flurbs be patient with your stick jocks. Plot teams, require both on every team, thus can balance be achieved.