Open Battle Gaming Play Testing, Sep. 5, Fort Collins, CO

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Open Battle Gaming Play Testing, Sep. 5, Fort Collins, CO

Postby seldon » Sat Aug 29, 2009 8:40 pm

Battle Day and Weapons Construction Workshop, September 5th, Fort Collins, CO

As some of you know, I am working on a new book currently titled "Battle Gaming: The New American Sport." Crynolyn is working on photos for the book.

This is a book about the sport that it is at the core of Amtgard/Belegarth/Dagorhir/Darkon and the equipment used to play these games.

A certain amount of play testing and player feedback needed to complete this project. Therefore I am organizing a series of play test and weapons construction activities that you are invited to attend.

Each of these activities will take place at Lee Martinez Park in Downtown Fort Collins. Directions are below.

The schedule is as follows:

10:00 AM - 12:30 PM Weapons construction in the basement of the River Rock Cohousing Community House located adjacent to Lee Martinez Park. (Directions below)
12:30PM - 1:00 PM Lunch and Feedback, I will provide sandwich bar
1:00 PM - 3:00 PM Battling. We play test specific scenarios
3:00 PM - free fighting time

I hope that you will come and participate. You can help shape the book that is likely to shape the future of this sport.

In addition to September 5th, additional play testing and weapon workshops with be held on September 12, October 10, and 17th. These events will occur rain or shine. In the event of rain, we will primarily focus on making weapons and armor.

What to bring:
Any and all Amtgard/Belegarth/Dagorhir weapons. The system in the book is inclusive to all these weapon technologies. You may also wish to bring armor as we will be doing some play testing with armor.

If you are attending the weapons construction workshop, please consider bringing some supplies. I have many supplies which I will happily donate, but my supply chest is not bottomless. Typical stuff such as foam camping pads, tape, cores (PVC pipe/kite spar/fiberglass rods) and cloth are always useful.

More Information:

Additional information can be found at http://www.OpenBattleGaming.org, or by calling Dave Graham at 970-484-4577.

Directions:

Fort Collins is located about 60 miles from Denver.
• Take I25 to Exit 269B which is CO-14 also known as Mulberry Street.
• Follow Mulberry Street approximate 3.5 miles and turn right onto Riverside Ave. This will be the intersection just after you pass the rail road tracks.
• Riverside Ave will become Jefferson St.
• Go across where it intersects with College Ave. You will now be on Maple St.
• Go four blocks and turn right on to N. Sherwood St.
• Follow N. Sherwood to the end (it ends in the park) and then turn right and go down the hill and park by the ball fields.
• Walk directly south to a fire lane (gravel) and follow it up hill to the east and you will be at the back of the River Rock Community House. Look for signs.
• Look forward to seeing you there.
Last edited by seldon on Thu Oct 22, 2009 8:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Open Battle Gaming Play Testing, Sep. 5, Fort Collins, CO

Postby sarofset » Sun Aug 30, 2009 2:48 am

I would love to come to such an event. However gas money is tight, so i may not be able to attend. I'll give it my best shot though! Especially if i see that many others are going to be there. The turnout at the last Belegarth meeting i attempted to attend was... dismal. I would love to meet others in CO. who do this sort of thing.
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Re: Open Battle Gaming Play Testing, Sep. 5, Fort Collins, CO

Postby Arrakis » Tue Sep 01, 2009 5:47 pm

The one thing I've been worried about ever since I first read mention of this book is that People will read it, decide they want to try out this "foam combat" stuff, make a pile of garb, use your guides to construct a large, expansive armory, smith armor, and then come out to the nearest Bel event and watch EVERYTHING they made, excepting possibly their garb, get tossed into the fail pile.

Whether it's because where you standardize things, you lose a rule or two that are vital to technical passage of a weapon or piece of armor in our ruleset (which is subject to changes over time, another aspect that makes producing a printed guide that will retain relevance a challenge at best), because they didn't understand some bit of information but felt that they did, or just because they got too ambitious without just checking in with their local group first, it's going to happen and that's not good for anyone.

If you are going to put weapons construction techniques in your book, PLEASE use ultra-heavily time-tested methods (like box-and-blue, or Amtgard noodle-tech, or whatever). Don't try to blend the various systems together, don't try to come up with some new uber-design. Just but in notes about what games each design is from and typically passes in, include appendices with the most recent rules of each game at the publishing date and URLs of the locations of the Current versions, and let it ride.
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Re: Open Battle Gaming Play Testing, Sep. 5, Fort Collins, CO

Postby sarofset » Tue Sep 01, 2009 6:19 pm

I would tend to agree with Arrakis on this point. especially about the url's. people ought to check out the rules and specs for whichever game they intend to join. The rules for garb, weapon construction, and play vary greatly depending on which group, and aria you are in.

for example most simple boffers won't work in belegarth and dag, because they are not padded enough.
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Re: Open Battle Gaming Play Testing, Sep. 5, Fort Collins, CO

Postby seldon » Thu Sep 03, 2009 8:54 pm

Dear Arrakis,

Thanks so much for the feedback. I think your concerns are legitimate.
I think it is absolutely true that there will be those new players who make one (or a bunch) of poor-quality weapons of their first try. I am hoping that those who know that weapon construction is not for them will turn to Edhellen. Even though about half the book is dedicated to weapons construction, I am expecting less than half the readers will make use of it. I am actually somewhat concerned that the proliferation of the book may actually outpace Edhellen's ability to ramp up and produce product.

As for why there are instructions in the book has to do with the lack of available commercial equipment in general. If I felt I could write a book without the equipment section, likely I would have. I wanted to make sure that the book and the sport as defined by the book would endure even if Edhellen folded.

As for tried and true methods. Yes the layered sword design uses a box construction at the tip. The noodle sword uses a one inch plastic soda bottle "punch protector" to keep the core from popping through. Both are tried and true.

What you will find different in the technology as presented in the book is very specific minimum padding levels. I realized, that unlike many of us veteran weapons smiths, most new people cannot judge what is sufficient padding. I give them minimum padding guidelines, and I state something like: "Minimum padding does not guarantee a safe weapon, the weapon still must pass the safety inspection guidelines."

Then almost all the weapon construction instructions I use 1 ½ times the minimum padding. This is my fudge factor. I think you can make a layered sword with 1 inch of padding and have it be safe, but my instructions have the player build a 1 ½ of padding off the core.

As for what works with which game, I did include that information. The book presents the Open Battle Gaming System. In the system all the weapons presented may be safely used together. I realize that many players will go off to fight in Amtgard/Belegarth/Dagorhir/Darkon/High Fantasy Society and find that these organizations are more particular. As a result, there is a table for each of these groups that explains which of the weapons in the book are acceptable within each organization.

This same table also includes restrictions imposed by various organizations. Belegarth has no thrown weapons, small weapons, or light weapons, so automatically weapons which are in those classes loose those abilities. So a cut/puncture/throw dagger in Open Battle Gaming will only be a puncture dagger in Belegarth assuming it passes weapons inspection. I hope I am clear in the text and do not lead readers astray.

As far as the book becoming stale, it certainly will. There will be errata sheets constructed from time to time and posted to the web. But how many will actually look at them? Few I expect.

I am glad you voiced your concerns. As for why you can't get copies of the Open Battle Gaming System has to do with licensing. It has been suggested to me by a Lawyer that it is improper use of the Open Game License 1.0a to publish the Open Battle Gaming System since it contains no use of any Wizards of the Coast property. I expect it will not be until late October (at the earliest) that I get something worked out. For the time, I will answer your questions as best I can.
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Re: Open Battle Gaming Play Testing, Sep. 5, Fort Collins, CO

Postby Arrakis » Fri Sep 04, 2009 10:10 am

Why not just GPL or copyleft it? It's not like copyright actually applies to the mechanics of a game system (see: Supreme Court Rulings on this topic).

Also, good answers. And, if you haven't taken a look at the MCR (Modified Combined Ruleset) that has been created for the cross-game event Lord of War, I recommend it.
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Re: Open Battle Gaming Play Testing, Sep. 5, Fort Collins, CO

Postby Wisp » Fri Sep 04, 2009 10:28 am

Totally. I'm wanting to run a combined rules set version of Knoblander. I will be using the MCRS rules.

The Amtgard format info can be found on www.knoblander.webs.com if your interested in getting an idea of what it entails. Keep in mind, the Amt-version has a lot of wheels moving inside of it due to the way Amtgard is set up with classes and titles.

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Re: Open Battle Gaming Play Testing, Sep. 5, Fort Collins, CO

Postby seldon » Fri Sep 04, 2009 4:33 pm

Thanks for the tip on the Modified Combined Rules. I knew there was some talk of this or something similar. Did not know it had been laid down and was getting some pickup.

Ahh... Another rule set to go line by line through and compare against the book. :unsure:

Wisp: Knoblander looks like a cool event. Unlikely to get much Belegarth attendance as long your basing play class on the ORK. The system is slanted against the first time crossover player. I often thought of giving crossover Belegarth/Dagorhir players a few options. The first option is to start at the bottom and earn Amtgard credit. The second option is to play 3rd level Warrior and earn no Amtgard credit. I figure 3rd level warrior gives them the ability to throw javelins so it is pretty equivalent to a Belegarth fighter. Another option is the shoe them in as second level Barbarian with no Amtgard credit. I would probably do this for a Belegarth player with a bow. This has the advantage that they need not understand as much of the magic system. Down side is not as much armor or lives. It is easier to go from Amtgard to Belegarth than the other way around. I went from Dagorhir to Amtgard in 1995 and it took about a year before I was fully comfortable with the Amtgard battle game system.
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Re: Open Battle Gaming Play Testing, Sep. 5, Fort Collins, CO

Postby sarofset » Sun Sep 06, 2009 11:45 pm

I really like the way your system works. I had a lot of fun and I think that the way you have the rules set up makes for a more diverse system of play, without having to introduce a class system for players. and your instructions were well put together. Helping my friend make his sword was much easier with your instructions than with the tutorials i tried to use (the ones which produced my clubsword).
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Open Battle Gaming Play Testing, Oct. 17th, Fort Collins, CO

Postby seldon » Sun Oct 11, 2009 9:09 am

We are doing it again on October 17th. Trying to get this playtest bigger. Already several confirmed attenders. Come if you are in the area.
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No battle game play test in Fort Collins this Saturday, Oct

Postby seldon » Thu Oct 22, 2009 8:52 pm

There will be no Battle Game play testing on October 24th, 2009 in Fort Collins. It has been cancelled because of conflicting activities. This pretty much finishes up this seasons play testing. I do not expect to host any more battle game activities until March 2010.
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