Motivation

[Vandey]

Alright its me again. Well our belegarth group is still new. Alot of our members can still remember the days of noob sticks and only having single blues Running around the feild in whatever we were wearing that day. Well we have grown abit and now have sheilds and spears and bows and now we have garb and we try to enforce it. Because of this we lost a few members who dont want to do this stuff. Also new members are showing up less and less. Are there any ways to make our group look better so that they will be more intrested to show up? like some senario battles or such? any help would be great because i would like our group to grow and have more variety cause you can only get better if the people you fight get better too.

[Embara Cayosin]

a quick tip. don't be a garb Nazi. encourage the use of garb but don't make a point of it being a requirement for regular practices. but when you start hosting events thats when you fly your Nazi flag.(at the event, not at practices)

[Slagar]

Dude, asking the boards how to make your group more fun might give you ideas, but it's kinda to the side. Ask your group the same questions. Call up the guys who are starting to lag, and ask 'em why. See what they want to be doing. If your guys feel like what you're doing is for them, is something they are a part of, then they'll be more likely to stay interested.

One suggestion I can offer, since you asked, is to hang out after pracitces, grab some food or whatever. If the guys at practice are your friends in real life too, it makes the group more tight-knit, keeps 'em together.

You are going to lose people, though. I once heard a quote I liked, "99% of all foam-fighters are retired". Our game, for better or worse, experiences a lot of turnover. While it's important to try and keep the members you've got, almost nobody stays in this game forever. Recruitment is a must, to replace the members that you will lose over the months and years.

[Thomas MacFinn]

Best tips I can come up with are to hold practice in a public place and to find at least three people that show up, on time, religiously.

If fighter practice is at 2:00 and a potential member shows up and doesn't see anybody, he will leave. He won't wait until 2:30 when most people straggle in and he won't call to see where everybody is at.

The reason three people is a magic number is because life happens. Life can slap one of them and the other two still have somebody to duel instead of standing around by themselves.

... and if practice is held at somebody's house, the homeowner is the one most likely to get slapped by life.

[Sir_Mel]

a quick tip. don't be a garb Nazi. encourage the use of garb but don't make a point of it being a requirement for regular practices. but when you start hosting events thats when you fly your Nazi flag.(at the event, not at practices)

And ignore this. Wearing good garb consistently as a group while making you feel somewhat outta place, will make you appear as if you are serious enough about what you're doing that you don't mind that out-of-placeness. Far better than just a bunch of silly kids hittin each other with funny lookin sticks.



Also, you should definitely inform the couple of guys who do this, wearing an open button up shirt does not equal garb.

[Big King Jimmy]

wearing an open button up shirt does not equal garb.

Fact, some of your guys looked good, others looked like they were putting effort towards looking bad.

[Titan G]

a quick tip. don't be a garb Nazi. encourage the use of garb but don't make a point of it being a requirement for regular practices. but when you start hosting events thats when you fly your Nazi flag.(at the event, not at practices)

Kid is new and dur d has gotten lax as **** atm on garb cause we've had several new recruits lately and chavez moved to dur d. garb is a must one should always wear it if the realm requires it. i personally hate wearing garb to practice as i think it's retarded cause you don't wear a game uniform to practice but if the realm has rules you wear it and like mel said it WILL bring more recruits in than it chases off. the question is are you more worried about recruiting new people or chasing off your friends that you have been doing it with? garb will get strangers to come and look at you and some of them will want to try

[Embara Cayosin]

a quick tip. don't be a garb Nazi. encourage the use of garb but don't make a point of it being a requirement for regular practices. but when you start hosting events thats when you fly your Nazi flag.(at the event, not at practices)

Kid is new and dur d has gotten lax as **** atm on garb cause we've had several new recruits lately and chavez moved to dur d. garb is a must one should always wear it if the realm requires it. i personally hate wearing garb to practice as i think it's retarded cause you don't wear a game uniform to practice but if the realm has rules you wear it and like mel said it WILL bring more recruits in than it chases off. the question is are you more worried about recruiting new people or chasing off your friends that you have been doing it with? garb will get strangers to come and look at you and some of them will want to try

sorry if i made an out of place statement and * some people off

[Titan G]

no one cares, is the interwebz, your post was just off a bit as far as advice goes. generally everyone with a bit of expierence knows your not a garb nazi to new people. but eventually almost all realms with a few key exceptions, make you put on garb after you've been their awhile. ive always like jimmy's approach of "garb is a uniform for the sport i play". atm your new to dur d and we haven't been enforcing garb rules as stringently as when i started. but tbh when your a new realm you do need a garb nazi of some sort so that at least when you go to an event your realm looks like their trying.

[Embara Cayosin]

well im still learning and i think my garb has come together nice. I'm still making a few pieces but they should be ready by beltaine

[Titan G]

considering you've only been at dur d for collectively like 2 months your garbs great.

[Vandey]

wearing an open button up shirt does not equal garb.

Fact, some of your guys looked good, others looked like they were putting effort towards looking bad.

Im one of the good looking ones. and mel are you talking about nipples?? wears pants and a open button up shirt to show off his weak pale as all hell chest? cause if so we know.. we try to be lax on garb for the first few weeks of fighting but then we enforce it for every friday practice but not on our unformal tuesdays. And as for recruitment rate and what the group wants. The group wants noob sticks and no garb... except for the few good ones we show up every practice and fight. Our reqruitment rate is slow because we really only get new members from the high school and pickings are slim..

[Arrakis]

Graavish: I wear garb to practices because a) I don't want to wreck my real clothes, b) I make stuff that's way comfy to fight in, and c) that way, I don't get to an event, put on my garb, go to throw my Super Awesome Lizard Moon Spin Reverse Cross and realize that my sweet tunic and haks snag my elbow and trip me so I end up landing on my teeth or something.

Plus, I look fly as hell.

[Michael]

Plus, I look fly as hell.

This is the best argument for garb.

[Vandey]

Ok so it seems like one of our issues might be repititon we seem to do alot of just teams, chaos and king battles. Anyone else know a good scenario battle thats fun to fight but still helps you work on your skills? And the issue i have is the lack of weapons variety.. Because we only have a few foamsmiths and they dont wanna use up all there money to make weapons we dont have at practice. Like flails god i suck against flails...

[Phrix]

Ok so it seems like one of our issues might be repititon we seem to do alot of just teams, chaos and king battles. Anyone else know a good scenario battle thats fun to fight but still helps you work on your skills? And the issue i have is the lack of weapons variety.. Because we only have a few foamsmiths and they dont wanna use up all there money to make weapons we dont have at practice. Like flails god i suck against flails...

idk eh here we do like .. pinkys vs monsters or .. unit battles or pick which you like more cheese or crackers.. lol my favorite is 1! 2! 3! CUTTHROAT! and you get to backstab all your team mates lol mind you CT is at random lol

we did goblin battles once in "fun time with catibus" lol no matter where you got hit you died (limbed or other wise) and you could only use like 1 rock or a single blue .. or JUST a javelin that was pretty fun just some ideas

edit - i dont think you could use reds when we did that goblin battle .. honestly i don't remember but it sounds right

[The Lost Celt]

Over here we tend to do a lot of stand and deliver/red rover battles where if someone keeps losing they get to choose a player from the other team and set the scales accordingly, right now it's working pretty well because there's a good amount of vets on the field willing to work with people.

I was never a garb nazi, however I do think if you've been in this sport for awhile it's kinda best to set an example, half the time I consider my armor garb for practices The way I tell them at practices isn't condescending, basically I tell them if you look like something people get the picture, instead of a bunch of goofy guys hitting each other with sticks, and it's much cheaper to ruin a good pair of plaid pyjama pants than a 20+ dollar pair of jeans (I swear I picked celtic persona to avoid sewing pants, T tunics are EASY)

[otherial]

A fun game involves using a rock as an identifier. spilt the group into 3-5 teams of 2-4 depending on realm size. set a rock in the middle with each team on the outside of the field. At "LAY ON" they run in and grab the rock. the team with the rock is "IT" and all the other teams are against the one with the rock until one team is left holding the rock. The rock can break shields and armor in this games case and can injure limbs/body giving people some incentive to come off of it.

Another fun game is pretty much watered down football using a rock as the ball. no real rules aside from get the rock to the goal. The opposing team can either kill the opposing team or kill the one with the rock and take it to their respective goal.

These are some fun games that can break up the normal free for all/ teams battles at practice.

[Teej]

Regarding the garb, never require it unless it's for local events -- and even then, you should be a little lax if you're a new group.

Learn from my mistake... The day I started a 'garb or go home' policy (back in my EARLY days) my realm hit a HUGE slump. It took time to coax people back.

To keep numbers... recruit! The best time to recruit is when you don't feel like you need to; this is because new members show up to a field full of challenging opponents. If you recruit during a slump, it's much harder to retain numbers as people expect to fight in a real-life Braveheart situation and find themselves disappointed by coming to a slumped realm. This preventive maintenance is essential.

[Satanaka]

A lot of the time- your attendance will be slow during the summer- and with your group being mostly highschool age- this will hit your group. Many HS & College groups lose a lot of people during the summer.
(work, vacation, summer stuff, etc.)

Changing up battles is good and will keep it interesting- BUT- don't just change after every 3rd battlee if everyone is having fun. There are a lot of battles you can do. We have a very good amount of types.

Garb is good. I like the way a few realms do- give newbies a "grace" period say- like 4 weeks and then make it where if you don't have garb- you can only fight with a few select weapons & styles.

As stated above- everyone in Gard is a good thing. It will attract people.

Are you in a location that gets a lot of exposure to people?
Keep the fighting consistant- same bat channel, same bat time...


All this has been mentioned above and it's good advice.

Also- don't forget the advice to talk with your people as well as the ones that don't come out any more or don't show up as often.

Best of luck