by Teej » Mon May 13, 2013 3:05 pm
Tails, RP by rank is basically my way of rating which of the orgs has more roleplay LOCALLY. 1 being the highest, 5 being the lowest.
Thurat, I've actually seen both manifest in this cross-gamer state; however, the positive benefits outweigh the rest.
Belegarth has declined in the state, mostly due to external factors. The flip of the Southern Marches left us 12 hours to the nearest national event and other realms 12 hours from us. At the same time, the Lowlands Realm that was once the only major foam-combat in the state, kind of faded as Dag Chapters were popping up EVERYWHERE. I actually have a little study I did that showed that Florida (which had ~4 years of development at that time) doubled in number in 2009 after Rolemodels released (Nov 2008). These were ALL Dag Chapters. At the current moment there is 1 unofficial Belegarth field in the state; the majority of the Lowlands realm (the remainder of OG FL Belegarth) now practice at Dag fields. We started hosting Dag battles because we'd get more national fighters from Dag. We still do the occasional Bel as well.
Overall... foam-fighting has improved vastly. Our flagship event in the state Summer Slaughter went from 70 to 180 in a single year. Way of the Sword Campouts went from ~300 to 450 in a single year. Both of these growths come from cross-gaming and some out-of-state marketing efforts.
The FFA (our neutral cross-gaming organization) pretty much ushered in a new era down here. We've gone from 2-3 events a YEAR, plus maybe 2 "local" out of state events in GA. To months where there are ~3-5 events. I have to choose between events some weekends -- there is a minimum of 2 events a month down here. Dag and Tsuki host monthly day battles.
It brought Bel/Dag together; you can't really tell the difference in the fighters... but of my 51 events, I'd say at least 30 are Dag.
Amtgard pretty much keeps to themselves down here. We've been trying to play nice for a while now. Our games and cultures are just vastly different. The local Amtgard fighters are an older and more "cultured?" group. Because... when WotS formed, a lot of their younger fighters left. So it ended up being 2-3 major fighting companies down here and a LOT of A&S.
Florida was unique in that the largest and most successful organization in the state was a 3rd party org called Way of the Sword (WotS). It's basically to Amtgard what Belegarth is to WotS. They split off. Except over time, WotS shifted to being more like Bel/Dag except... no garb requirements, super lax safety standards in weapons and other equipment, and legal headshots with melee weapons.
When we arrived at WotS, it looked like this:
Last edited by
Teej on Tue May 14, 2013 9:18 am, edited 1 time in total.