Encouraging decent armour and techniques

[Noe]

Emergent behaviour fascinates me. A few simple rule changes and people develop a new attitude. It goes like this:

When Avalon hosts a tournament, it is always made up of several smaller competitions. Over the past year, I have made it a point to include among these at least one competition that rewards good armour, usually doing counted blows based on the kind of armour that you are wearing (plastic equals unarmoured; aluminum at a penalty). We also sometimes fight using regular rules, but with a "plate as proof" option: the only shots that count are those that strike a weak point.

In doing so, I have made no rules against using plastic or aluminum, and only change a single competition in our tournaments; the others use regular rules. The result has been that we now have no Avalon fighters in either plastic or aluminum, and I have had three requests in the past two weeks to help people plan out a kit using plate and chain.

Now, admittedly, we are a tiny group; nevertheless, I'm posting this partially to gloat, and partially to encourage people. You can affect change, and you don't have to act like a jerk to do so (well, not often anyway), and you don't have to even overthrow an entire system. A little tweaking does the job nicely.

[AllenJ]

Is Avalon an SCA region or something? If so this sounds fairly encouraging. With so many of the SCA can or can not threads going on whose to say you cant alter little things to reward those that do it right. It's still club play though

[Magmaforge]

good work Noe!

[Rainald]

Is Avalon an SCA region or something? )

Based in Tokyo, Avalon is an offshoot of the American historical recreation organization, the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) , which has a world-spanning membership numbering in the tens of thousands. In Honshu, the SCA is present on the military bases in the form of the local stronghold, Vale de Draco, centered at Yakota Air Force Base. However, because of differences between Western and Japanese culture, and because of the difficulties presented by daily life in a city like Tokyo, the full range of SCA practices were never able to be realized. Avalon was formed to provide an organization in which members from both cultures could comfortably engage in their interests. Avalon exists alongside Vale de Draco, and, indeed, currently shares fighter practices with the stronghold. Dual membership is both common and encouraged, but far from mandatory.

This info and more can be found here: http://avalonjp.org/
Poke around the site a bit, the group wears more armour combined than most large baronies.

On a personal note, Noe would have been recognized as a Pelican 10 times over if he was anywhere near the SCA mainstream. I fought with him on almost a weekly basis for ~ 5 years and he was the driving force that kept me and others motivated enough to make fighter practice. Showing up for practice might seem minor to most unless you can first hand experience the cultural/logistical nightmare that is Tokyo.