[Ansteorra] Altering armor standards

[robert segrest]

Sir Lyonel says:

"First, reducing our armor standards to SCA minimums
would not be 
adopting 
corporate standards. We already rely on the corporate
standards. To 
that 
extent, we're already in line with every other
kingdom. Essentially, 
we'd be 
scraping off a lot of extra stuff we've layered on
over the years."



"Secondly, although three kingdoms (possibly a couple
of others) have 
already 
taken the step we're suggesting (eliminating
additional armor 
restrictions 
over the SCA minimums), taking that step would not put
us in line with 
every 
other kingdom. If, at some future date, other kingdoms
saw the wisdom 
in 
doing this, that change would ultimately simplify
interkingdom 
activities 
and travel"

But my concern is not really that the SCA will lower
armor standards lower than what they already are.  It
is that if a group of people in the SCA feel that the
armor standards are too light that they will address
their concern at the SCA level vice doing so at the
kingdom level.  I suspect that every kingdom in the
SCA has some rule that some other kingdom nearly
universally thinks is crackpot.  If An Tir decides
that fighters should wear safety glasses to prevent
splinters from a shield from entering the eye, they
can make such a rule without affecting me unless I
chose to fight there.  On the other hand, if most
kingdoms change their armoring standard to one such as
Sir Lyonel proposes, many people will feel that
addressing such an issue at the kingdom level is moot
since the kingdom is just going to conform to the SCA
standard anyway.  Thus it becomes likely that instead
of dealing with the local crackpot rule, we now end up
dealing with other peoples crackpot rules.

Please note that this concern is entirely unrelated to
my personal opinions on what armor standards should
be.  No matter what our decisions are on the armor
standards that we are free to decide, this issue is
about whether we maintain local control.  Of course we
would still have the right to make local rules, but a
right not exercised usually atrophies.  If the kingdom
Earl Marshal is not the person who decides the armor
standards, then any person interested in changing them
will take his concerns to the Society Earl Marshal
instead.

Simplifying the paperwork involved in publishing and
maintaining these regulations is a laudable effort,
but one that I think could probably be accomplished by
doing what I understand the rapier community is
working on, i.e. stating that the rules for chivalric
combat are the same as those set by the SEM with the
following additions....  This means that revisions to
society law are automatically incorporated into
kingdom law, without requiring a rules rewrite unless
some other aspect of the laws conflict.  I would favor
attemting that sort of approach, although I think the
blanket statement that society law is always in force
and supercedes kingdom law more or less accomplishes
the same thing.

Laszlo



 
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