The Armour Archive

So I made the criminal mistake of having a good idea out loud in the Society while waiting for Midrealm crown touney results:

"It's enough to make me wish for a proper sports section for the Society..."

Immediately, I got offers to publish the thing. Which I might do, but I'd like some advice before undertaking such a thing.

So let me toss it out to the gallery - would you like to see a "sports section" on an SCA forum? If so, what information would you like to see in it?

My tentative list of information worth publishing:

"Box scores" - the win loss record of every bracket in a tourney.
"Stats" - What's the fighter using? Might be hard to record clearly, but it would be nice to have something objective behind observations like "The Midwest favors center-boss shields" or what not.
"Marshals presiding" - always nice to recognize these people.
"Deeds of valour" - Moments of courtesy, generosity, and general coolness. Not impressive wrap shots; impressive behavior. The stuff that, in the end, really matters about the Society. Nothing negative, and nothing without sources.

I'm a little wary about this sort of project - it could run aground really hard on SCA politics. But it might also be nice to have "hard numbers" about tournaments and fighters, and to recognize a few things that don't always get the limelight.

Thoughts?

I would be wary of this as well. By making a sports page and giving credence to scores and stats focuses purely on winning in SCA combat. I think that focusing on this aspect of fighting would take away from what fighting is really about - the honor and joy of combat with our fellows.

Try it out, the worst thing that would happen would be someone tell you to not do so anymore.

I would sugest running it a bit like the pennsic independant. Independant jurnalists doing an article on the goings on at each pratice/event.
Preferabley the marshal in charge or the local MOL. Compliling weapon form and numbers by group/region should be easy enuff with the kingdom marshal. Find a few helpers to cover rapier and other marshal activities.

A baseball style score sheet with background information and turney brackets for crown may be intresting if you can get BIO/hearldry information on the fighters prior to the event.

Skip the indavidual fighter stats unless you want to spend some quality time crunching numbers with the MOLs and reading the paperwork.

Believe it or not, but I have actually considered putting out "rankings" every quarter for various Kingdoms.

Some of the info is certainly there from various MOL's and stuff, and then you could also throw in some personal opinion and some "weightings' on various tournaments, like Crown wins count more than wins at Grandma's rinky dink tournament or Queen's Champion counts more than Novice Tourney, etc etc.

In the SCA, though, I think that ratings/rankings offer a lot of falsity. Say a guy like Brannos doesn't fight in a tournament for 6 months, but continues practicing- he is still probably #1 in the Mid, but the "ratings" wouldn't show this.

It can be done, but there is a lot of work involved and a lot of "esoteric-ness" that would have to go into each ranking.

DA

DA tends to give good technical run-downs of competitors, like a Jimmy the Greek of the SCA. I also like some of his/her/it's witicisms, and thought for a long time that a "Dark's Diobolical Prognostication" sports column would be a fun read. Even if it's just ruminations on the sport and the turns it is taking, not even if it's particular run downs of any specific tourney. I can see DA's article article titles now : "What the hell is with the MADU anyhow?" or "Does Ducal Pouch = Ducal Perogative?" and "Sport Cleats, and where you should stick 'em".

If Dark did a blog, I'd definately tune into it, especially if he/she/it did regular odds on the big 3 tournies in Atlantia (Sapphire Joust, Ymir and Crown <-which is technically 4, since there are 2 crown tournies per year).
Not only are DA's odds ratings fun to read, but they're informative and sometimes down right scary in accuracy. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but word has it locally that DARK has fixed some of the bigger tournies for personal gain, though it eludes anyone what gain that might be.
(collect underwear + ? = $$$$)

I don't know if even the Dark one knows what his end goal is.
-Cian

Niall Mor wrote:I would be wary of this as well. By making a sports page and giving credence to scores and stats focuses purely on winning in SCA combat. I think that focusing on this aspect of fighting would take away from what fighting is really about - the honor and joy of combat with our fellows.

I will take exception to this argument. Reporting scores and stats does not focus on winning. Rather, it merely reports.

The focus of the viewer is beyond the reporter's control. Some people looking at such stats will immediately look to the win/loss numbers. Some people will look for their names and those of their friends. Some will look for the "Famous". Others will look to see what weapons forms are being used and where (with or without noting the relative success of the forms).

These various people are already doing these things - they just have no convenient central source for data right now.

I expect that it would lead to unending debate over which form/kingdom/Famous Fighter is better - now supported by statistics.

As to the heart of the matter, I probably wouldn't bother reading it if it were available.

I want to see stats so I can figure odds and perpetuate my persona of being a medieval bookie.
-Cian

If you post the stats someone will then try to make a Fantasy SCA League out of it and then play mock-Pennsics... or some how try to compile win-loss records when evaluating which mercenary households to hire.

Not saying it's good or bad, just saying what will happen.

The biggest challenge I see is getting good reportes on site. We all know when and where crown tourney will occur and there will be lots of people volunteering to copy down the list-tables data and send off the win/loss records. getting someone out to the shire of BF nowhere for their 5 person random weapons draw tourney will take some doing... and then you have to write, edit and publish an article worth reading, not just raw data. That takes having good WRITERS on site acting as reporters.

Honestly I suspect it will go the way as most shire/barony news letters. Great in the begining and then held together by 3 determined people until one burns out and the tower of cards colapses.

It might however be the only sport page I read consistantly.

Good luck!