[Ansteorra] Armor standards and the SCA minimum

Sir Lyonel Oliver Grace sirlyonel at hotmail.com
Wed Nov 8 06:45:08 PST 2006


Salut cozyns,

Ansgar dit qe:

> > In addition to Jean-Paul's response to Ansgar's post, I'd like to 
>address to
> > of Ansgar's statements regarding the proposed reduction of the armor
> > standards to SCA minimums.
>
>I have not seen his response come across.  If someone could send it to me 
>privately, I would greatly appreciate it.

Sorry, I confused a couple of posts. Nothing to see here. Move along.

> > Responsibility for what? Perhaps you could offer a concrete example. I 
>for
> > one can think of none.
>
>Actually, I was referring to the issues you specifically raised in your 
>reason #1 (Just like I said in my response<G>).  To 
>clarify...repsonsibility for tracking, updating and reviewing the rules.

In that case, damn straight. Let the Society-level bureaucrats handle it. I 
don't see a down side to this.

>As for your proposed change, we have done something similar to that in the 
>rapier rules if you look at the legal blades portion.  The difference is 
>the reference is a table maintained at Society level that lists what's 
>legal in all the kingdoms.  With regard to armor standards, such an entry 
>still would not address clarifications about said armor should the kingdom 
>want them.
>
> > Reducing our standards is not a contract to use the SCA minimums with no
> > future additions. We surrender nothing. We just clean out some cobwebs.
>
>It's a matter of opinion as to what constitutes cobwebs, isn't it?<G>  I 
>would point out that, should we, in the future, add the additions you 
>suggest, we would still be back to someone having to go look up 2 separate 
>documents (the Society for the basics) and ours for the additions.  Doesn't 
>that sort of defeat the purpose of the proposal?
>(Or at least your reason 2?)

I don't think it does. As I said, this is a chance to clean out some 
cobwebs. See my note to Laszlo earlier today. Yes, we might eventually creep 
back to the present situation where someone has decided to slip in an extra 
1/8th inch of padding here and an extra quarter-inch there and a stricter 
rule for rivet placement on helms. In any case, we'll have started from a 
clean state and we'll end up where we should have been all along--with a 
small list of addenda.

This seems like a good time to clarify another point. I have occasionally 
heard complaints about the current format of the Ansteorran Participant's 
Handbook. The complaint usually runs something like this: "Why the hell did 
they restate everything in the SCA Marshal's Handbook? We have to meet the 
SCA requirements as a minimum anyway. Why wasn't the Participant's Handbook 
written as a simple addendum? It would have been easier to use, easier to 
follow, easier to maintain."

Personally, I think these complaints lack a sense of history. Yes, on the 
internet, the Participant's Handbook would be easier to use and teach and 
maintain as an addendum. When this Kingdom began, however, the Internet was 
a tiny little defense department ghetto. Extensibility is a fairly new 
concept in documentation. In the days when hardcopy roamed the earth, it 
made more sense for the Ansteorran Participant's Handbook to be a standalone 
tome. Today, that's no longer true. Now, it makes more sense to use pointer 
links where possible and write our own marshals guides as addenda.

Lyonel
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