The Armour Archive

How would you set up the rules for an experiment in
winning armor and 'horses' from your defeated
opponents based on SCA combat rules?

We would not be able to actually do this but we
could set up rules to simulate its effects on a
participant in the experiment.

You would have to set up a bunch of guidelines to
define each person's income and expenses based on
rank. ( or not based on rank? ) We might even set up
some requirements on 'keeping up appearances' based
on rank since that was an important part of the 'game'.
( if you have the money you have to play the part of
your rank or borrow the money to do so or you are
out... )

I'm thinking something along the lines of defining
basic costs of armor, daily expenses and upkeep
plus expenses for retainers and food and travel
set against that person's 'imaginary rank and
possible income. Off the rack armor, used armor
custom armor would all have differing values.

We would need to go with a standard "we are all
wearing armor from XXXX time period like SCA combat
does so that you would be on equal footing.

Then guidelines for 'replacing' lost armor and
equipment as a purchase from an armorer or
from the one that won it. ( you could buy someone
else's armor from whoever 'owns' it at the time
or refuse to 'sell' it back to the original owner )
How long would it take to get a kit of custom made
armor crafted if you needed to replace what you lost?
How much would it cost to get a rush job?

Knowledge of who wins and loses armor would be
public, info on private arrangements and negotiations
would not ( but would be on the honor system to
track and pay for honestly )

then....?

We would have open market suppliers and the ability
to buy needed items from other members of the
experiment.

Each participant would have the right to decide if
they wanted to sell the armor/horses back to the one that
'lost' it or sell it on a 'market' to anyone that wanted it.

You could even participate as a patron to a man at arms
in return for a percentage of his winnings or even you pay
him a set amount and keep all the winnings and never
actually fight yourself or 'hire' more men and form a
company and fight with them.

( no idea how to do it but... ) We would probably have to
set up a forum to communicate with each other ( and I'm
not asking for space here, but I would not say no if it was
offered )

Thoughts? Ideas? Suggestions?

perhaps you could set it up like fantasy football only it would be a fantasy tourney league.

Duke so and so won 8 sets of horse and armour at this tourney and lost one.

Or something like that.

Vladimir wrote:perhaps you could set it up like fantasy football only it would be a fantasy tourney league.

Duke so and so won 8 sets of horse and armour at this tourney and lost one.

Or something like that.

Something like fantasy football but instead of having a 'fantasy
team' assembled and you using results of the individuals wins
and loses you have fantasy equipment and income......

that might be a nice way to describe it....


The wins and looses would only be tracked between two
members of the experiment..... Or would that make this
require an unthinkably large group of participants to make
it work?

Or could you run this kind of experiment at an event ( the
bigger the better ) like maybe Pennsic and run it for a full
week.... or would that be long enough?

There would could artificially put a 'week' between each
real day to allow time to get new armor if you lost yours.

About the closes thing I have participated in is a prize fight. format usualy a bear pit or round robin.

All fighters show up with a prize

Everyone fights and winner gets first pick.
usualy 2nd is crowns favorite
and 3rd is voted on by the fighters
Depending on how you place you pick a prize untill everyone leaves with Loot.

I rember the Knights of Aethelmearc voteing and giveing credit toward any armoury to upgrade gear or weapons at one event.

Prizes vary quite a bit depending on who shows up. Everything from food to armour, tools to materials.

Well I think I am a bit over dressed. How would this deal with the likes of me? A lowly squire with more armour than he could shake a stick at?

Edward

MacTavish wrote:Well I think I am a bit over dressed. How would this deal with the likes of me? A lowly squire with more armour than he could shake a stick at?

Edward

The armor being won and lost would not be real armor
but a 'fantasy' set based on what your rank is or what
you could 'afford' to buy after a loss with your fantasy
'income and expenses'. Or if you were successful enough
your winnings could buy you extra or 'upgraded' kits.

As a squire you would be assigned a rank and an income
to use as your basis for funding. You could find a patron
for more funding or try to work within what you have.
Bouts won would add to your account and give you more
to spend or save or....?

If you were winning more than you needed for daily
expenses you could 'loan' money to another who needed
it or act as his patron ( covering his expenses ) in return
for an agreed upon percentage of his winnings.

We would not base it off armor that you actually own
because that would limit this experiment to those with
lots of armor. No one that didn't have a dozen kits would
last long enough for this experiment to get interesting.

And to keep it simple were we can we could go with the
assumption that everyone wears the same basic size armor
so if you happened to win a better ( more valuable ) kit
and wanted to wear that to attract more possible challenges
( based on the possible 'payout' for defeating you ) you
would be able to do that and we would not have to worry
about tracking the size of the won/lost/bought/sold kits.

We would also be substituting SCA style foot combat for
any of the mounted combats that would have resulted in
you winning or losing armor.


ANYONE could participant in this as a man at arms or as
a patron or 'merchant' buying and selling from 'winners'
as long as they could gather the 'fantasy funds' to cover
their actions.

Teams could be put together to challenge other teams
and so long as both teams agreed to the conditions almost
any victory conditions or payoffs could be used. ( Even
things like the losing team covers the winners daily expenses
for a set period ) As long as you can fit the 'payoff' into the
system we designed it would be an option you could choose.

I wonder how much of the economy we could realistically
simulate before this got completely unworkable....

could we allow off the field 'gambling' as part of the system
or would that add extra complications to an already insanely
complex simulation....?

and I am going under the assumption that this would take
a LOT of discussion before it was even remotely workable.
Maybe even to the point of running this for a while without
actual fights but instead some form of a game of chance determining wins and loses so that it could be tested more quickly without
requiring face to face in armor meetings between participants

In the Kingdom of Acre / MSR we hold a yearly Grand Heraldic Tournament in which one of the heavy list tournament's is a ransom tourney.

Qualifications for entry are simple, based on your rank and titles you are required to buy into the tournament w/ bezants (our kingdom's currency). Say the base entry cost is one Angus (= 1 gold). Squires must add another angus. Knights add one Wilhelm (= 4 gold). Counts, Prince, & King add additional coinage as befitting their rank. Sometimes someone w/ deep pockets (usu. the King who normally is worth the most in ransom) will place bounties on certain (usu. dangerous) individuals so that the focus is shifted from themselves.

The tournament is run in a jeopardy format. All contestants take the field at once standing in a large circle. You can't attack your neighbors at the start and temporary alliances may be formed. For ea. contestant that you defeat after "lay on", you win their ransom.

Galvyn Lockhart wrote:In the Kingdom of Acre / MSR we hold a yearly Grand Heraldic Tournament in which one of the heavy list tournament's is a ransom tourney.

Qualifications for entry are simple, based on your rank and titles you are required to buy into the tournament w/ bezants (our kingdom's currency). Say the base entry cost is one Angus (= 1 gold). Squires must add another angus. Knights add one Wilhelm (= 4 gold). Counts, Prince, & King add additional coinage as befitting their rank. Sometimes someone w/ deep pockets (usu. the King who normally is worth the most in ransom) will place bounties on certain (usu. dangerous) individuals so that the focus is shifted from themselves.

The tournament is run in a jeopardy format. All contestants take the field at once standing in a large circle. You can't attack your neighbors at the start and temporary alliances may be formed. For ea. contestant that you defeat after "lay on", you win their ransom.

Sounds like a lot of fun.

What is your kingdom's currency used for?
This is a single day event? One of the Days activities or
the entire days fighting?

Are there any guidelines in place that would allow non-combatants to involve themselves? Say someone pays the entry fee for one or more combatants in return for a part of their winnings? Is that kind of thing allowed?

Baron Conal wrote:Sounds like a lot of fun.

What is your kingdom's currency used for?
This is a single day event? One of the Days activities or
the entire days fighting?

Are there any guidelines in place that would allow non-combatants to involve themselves? Say someone pays the entry fee for one or more combatants in return for a part of their winnings? Is that kind of thing allowed?

The bezant is a carrot. I'm not certain of the origin of their use in our kingdom, but I'm certain they've been there since the beginning.
- Kingdom officers are paid in bezants.
- You can also earn bezants working at some of the faires that we run, or working on the Jousting team, cooking a feast, crusading at a foreign war (Pennsic) etc.
There are a variety of ways you can use bezants.
- You can hoard them (like my wife does).
- You can pay your attendance fee at certain events.
- Gambling w/ them in encouraged.
- But in the end, you also have to pay your taxes w/ them. In Acre, we have taxes to maintain your titles, lands, etc. Shire groups also pay taxes. It's all very medieval. It's kind of an incensentive system for the group to go out and earn bezants by helping the kingdom.

Grand Heraldic is a normally a two day event. It features tournaments for rattan, rapier, and archery. The tournaments are usu. include:
- Challenge tournament (combatants can challenge others to a specific weapon form or other victory condition (think pas d' arms.))
- Territorial tournament (melees between the shires of our kingdom, sometimes a Grande Melee of East vs. West)
- Ransom tournament (described before)
- Singles Champion (this tournament spans both days of the event. 2 finalists from day 1 and 2 finalists from day 2 square off for the title.)

I think there is one other tourney, but I can't think of what it is. Anyway, each martial form runs these same tourneys over the course of two days. It's arranged that only one tourney is run at a time so that those who practice more than one martial form (say rattan & archery) can compete in as many tourneys as possible.

There is a feast after the close of the tourneys the first night and much revelry afterward.

As far as I'm aware there are no guidelines re: non-combatants financial involvement in the Ransom tournaments. Lord knows I've forgotten my bezants before and had to scrounge for my entry fee before. It is not unknown for two combatants to form an alliance and split their winnings after the fact.