Event Ideals (fighting)

[Keith Ewing]

You wrote: 

>     Additionally, try not to fall victim to the 'let's have a tourney 
where
>we pile all the armor and weapons up in the middle and make the 
fighters
>scramble for them' syndrome.  It leads not to hilarity but to chaos 
and,
>finally, a lot of sweaty, aggrieved fighters who will remember the 
combat
>organizer's name forever, even if they forget their own after a 
serious head
>trauma.  Variety is the spice of life, but spice is not an ingredient 
in
>warfare.
>
>Cynric
>
>
I am not against new and different tournaments or battles. If there is 
a legitamate attempt to improve a scenario, That's cool. Especially if 
it gives a fighter an opportunity to use strategy. I am against novelty 
for it's own sake.
Another story. (Tell me if you guys get bored with these.) At a North 
Sea Raids in Raven's fort a while back, they had a boat battle. The 
theme of the event is Norse against Celts. The Norse had 4 or 5 
"longships", steel tubing bent into the correct shape, and the Celts 
had 10 or 12 "coracles", much smaller circles of steel tubing. If you 
were "in a boat" (inside one of the steel tube constructions and 
carrying it) you could maneuver on your feet. If you were not, then you 
had to "swim" (walk on your knees). It was a resurrection battle  with 
res points at each end of the field, one per side. Obviously there was 
an advantage to organising a ferry service from the res point to the 
battle, otherwise your reinforcements would arrive, literally, at a 
crawl. It struck me that if the Norse had no boats then they could 
never organise a coherent attack. So we took a long boat. The fighting 
was fierce, but I had organised a ferry service for reinforcements and 
the Norse had not. So we filled the longboat with Celts and attacked 
another longboat. We soon had every boat on the water. There was still 
10 or 15 minutes left in the battle but it was effectively over. I 
heard some of the Norse grumbling after the battle that we had taken 
unfair advantage of them.
They were right and wrong. We took advantage of them. That is the 
essence of strategy. To find the circumstance which will allow you to 
defeat the enemy. It was not an unfair advantage because they had the 
same opportunity to make the same obversations and take the same 
actions.
What is a warriors most potent weapon? His mind. Musashi says, 
"Strategy is the craft of the warrior."

I wandered off subject a bit. Anyway. If you are an event coordinator 
and you have a cool idea for a scenario, Don't blow it off. It might be 
great. Check with an experienced fighter and see what he or she thinks. 


Thanks for listening,

Kein MacEwan

mka Keith Ewing