Oct 08 2019

Double Feature

I went to two different parks this weekend, Silvermoon (Salem, OR) on Saturday and Dusk Hollow (Dallas, OR) on Sunday. Before I get into that I’d like to take a moment to talk about my newly launched Patreon and my YouTube Channel.

I launched my Pareon last week, I already have one supporter, Kormac, who I’d like to give a shout out! My blog focuses on my Amtgard and writing activities. My first goal is set at $50 a month, at which point I’ll remove the ads from my website, something I think everyone would agree is a good thing. What you’ll get is behind the scenes info and insight in to my writing projects, as well as into my personal life. You will also have access to the occasional poll. You can find the page HERE.

This week I’ve also been uploading to my YouTube channel. There are videos from both Saturday and Sunday. They are unedited but I think they might still be worth watching. I have a pretty still hand and I think I kept the action relatively centered. You can see the channel HERE or click on the link on the side panel if you’re viewing it on a desktop. Now on to the happenings of the weekend.

Silvermoon

I arrived at Silvermoon shortly before the Encounter ran by Torg. The scenario this time was to cleanse the land. The people of Silvermoon was able to hire an old magic user that could cleanse the land. They had to escort him to four various spots while a necromancer and his minions tried to stop them. The adventurers were successful.

Afterwards there was a game of winners/losers, which I recorded and uploaded to my YouTube Channel. Then there was a ditch, which I participated in. It went on for a decent amount of time for our park. My lack of mobility is still a limiting factor but I did alright, the important part was I had fun getting some exercise.

The next game was a bridge battle organized by Torg, although he played in it to make the sides even. I was the time and score keeper. It was a basic capture the flag battle with a bridge over a canyon. The gimmick was the death timer. It was an instant spawn at your base and every 5 minutes the death timer went up by 10 seconds. It ended 3 to 1. If it were to be done again I’d suggest changing the timer to 1 minute. The rounds went fairly fast and the timer was only invoked once.

After a water break there was another ditch, which I got video of. I did put down the phone to join in but as soon as I did the ditch died. There wasn’t another game after that. It was a fairly short day. There was a lot of visiting. After most people left Dab and Critias showed up. They got in some sparing, which I uploaded to YouTube for their review. We chatted for a bit and then broke up and went our separate ways. The day ended around 4:30-5.

Dusk Hollow

Sunday was such a nice day I wanted to spend another day outside so I made my way to Dusk Hollow (Dallas, OR). I also heard word that there was going to be food and it turned out the word was right! There was a smokey, creamy chicken noodle soup, although the water absorbed all the water so it was more casserole like. There was also fixings for sandwiches as well as chips and pop. I had myself some chicken noodle, a sandwich, some Cheeto Puffs and a pop. It was a nice lunch for a nice day.

The first game was a militia ditch but because people got annoyed with throwies it quickly ended. The next game was a two man forever class battle game where everyone was a level 2 caster. This took some time for people to get ready as most people were playing a class they had never played.

Once it started people had a blast. It lasted for a little over half an hour. I recorded almost all of it. If you want to watch a whole battle game you can find it on my channel. There are some good moments. People were mostly pretty good about the rules but some people were confused and they were corrected. The goal Savage had in running this game was to have people to play magic and get people used to the rules, which I think happened.

Following the battle game was a bearpit tournament. It had three brackets, single sword, two swords and sword and shield. I recorded the first bracket, single sword, which again, you can find on my YouTube Channel. The two swords bracket I sat out but I did play in the sword and shield bracket.

I didn’t do to bad. I didn’t die to newer people but I did die to Darb and Hyde, although we usually simoed. So while I did’t place I did stop streaks. It was pretty fun but to my surprise my body ached a little bit. I think it mostly had to do with how I was holding my shield during the down time while in line.

There was a court afterwards, but it was for announcements. Sadly I forgot who actually won the bearpit. (Edit: Hyde won overall and Darb placed second overall) They haven’t posted it on their Facebook group for me to check. That was pretty much the end of my day. I had forgotten that I was to meet up at Uriel’s place to watch Hell in the Cell, a WWE pay per view. I’m not a huge pro wrestling fan but it’s fun to watch with friends. So I left instead of going to afters with everyone.

There was a striking difference between the Silvermoon practice and the Dusk Hollow practice. While we had similar numbers this weekend Dusk Hollow had a lot more energy than Silvermoon, I was slightly envious. I guess that’s the difference between an older park with older members and a newer park with newer players. The day at Dusk Hollow was a lot more energizing.

Sep 30 2019

Service Households

Houses in Amtgard can take many different forms and serve several different purposes. A House could be created for the purpose of fostering leadership, or positive change. A House could be created for something as simple as the promotion of a healthy diet, and exercise; one could be created for the dedication of service in the game. 

There really is no limit for why a House could be created. The only possible limitation could be for fighting, as that is in Amtgard, traditionally, the job of a Fighting Company. Still, you could, for example, have a House dedicated to the teaching of fighting. The sky’s the limit. 

For this article I will be talking about Service Households, although many of the principles could apply to any type of House or even Fighting companies. I will be discussing the various forms a Service Household could take, what they could focus on, how they can function and how they could be organized. This article only gives my thoughts on the matter and should not be taken as all inclusive. There are countless ways a Service Household could function and I can’t cover them all.  Often I’ll be using my Service Household, House Gravy as the example. 

The Example House

House Gravy is going to be the typical example I’ll be using for this article. It’s the Household I built and I learned a lot from running it. I figured a little background would be useful. It’s located in Northwest Amtgard and it started in 2001 as a House dedicated to feasts. It had no structure and only three members. In 2015 we decided to revamp the House. We changed the focus to all service and added a teaching element. We also created a system to incorporate new members and opened the House up to new people. 

When we talk about the various elements of Service Households I’ll go into more detail about House Gravy. If you’d like additional details about House Gravy I wrote a blog talking about it’s history, initiation practices and its future; that blog entry was the inspiration for this article, you can read it here.

Service and Goals

Narrowing down a Household to a Service Household does eliminate some of the possibilities of what the House could be, but there are still several options. You could be hyper focused and just focus on one element. House Gravy used to fall into that category, focusing only on Feasts. You could also go to the other end and focus on all aspects of service in Amtgard, which is House Gravy’s current focus. There is lots of room in between these two extremes. 

There are countless service options. The best bet is to narrow down your focus to specifics. You want to inspire leadership, what type of leadership? Leadership in office or leadership out of office? If it is in office do you want to focus on specific roles such as the holders and their responsibilities or do you want to open it up to the other offices such as regent, prime minister and champion?

Once you’ve decided on the service it’s important to distill it down to its simplest form, when asked what your House does you shouldn’t have to give a complicated explanation. If it’s just feasts, you don’t have to elaborate more. If you say all service it might be a good idea to break service down into different elements.

For example House Gravy have broken down all service into five categories, Feasts, Events, Games, Leadership, Support. Having all service broken down into five different categories informs the House how they approach the different services within Amtgard. It also allows me to describe the House in a concise manner.  

Along with deciding which service or services you wish to focus on you should also think about your goals. They pretty much go hand in hand. If your focus is Feasts, your goal could be just to do quality feasts. It could be to elevate the feasts in your area, or it could be to create reliable feasting crews. It could be one or more of these. These goals can be concrete goals, targeting something specific or more open ended, or a mixture of the two. 

For House Gravy we currently only have one goal, it’s fairly broad and open ended. It’s to create a group of informed individuals capable of volunteering and running volunteer positions. 

Once you’ve decided on the service you wish to focus on and the goal or goals you wish to accomplish, it’s time to decide on the direction you want to take with you House. It’s time to create a Mission Statement.

Mission Statement

The next important thing you should focus on is a mission statement. What is the philosophy of the House? What is your guiding principle or principles?  It should be basic, it should be narrowed down to one or two sentences. This should be your guiding principle that directs you in all things. 

House Gravy’s Mission Statement: House Gravy is a learning and services oriented Household with a heavy focus on food related activities and aims to continually elevate the quality of LARP events wherever possible. 

In the example above there are a few good elements and a few unnecessary elements. For example the comment about the focus on food related activities is probably unnecessary. I mostly put it in the mission statement as a nod to our past but as it’s included it makes us focus on the food aspect. It’s something I should consider changing. The two key elements are the “learning and services” and “aims to continually elevate the quality of LARP events”. Those are two actionable philosophies. 

Those elements are guiding principles. It states we are dedicated to learning and to service. It also highlights that we are striving to raise the status quo in those areas wherever and whenever possible. Those are principles that can guide a House in all that they do. 

Structure

The next thing that should be considered is what structure the House should take. This can be as simple or as complicated as you would like. The key thing is to be consistent. To start you on this process you should create a list of questions to which you will answer. For example, how do you handle new members? Is there an initiate process? Are there levels of membership? How fast do you want your House to grow?

For example, Apex, a Household in the Pacific Northwest which is dedicated to health and fitness has little to no structure. Anyone can join, provided they follow the group’s rules and guidelines. There is no initiation or levels of membership. They can grow as fast as they would like. House Gravy, on the other hand is more complicated. 

In House Gravy there are four different levels of membership. There are the Initiates, Apprentices, Full Members and Founders. Not including active and inactive status. When creating these different levels I kept in mind the Mission Statement. For example to advance from Apprentice to a Full Member they are required to join one of the five schools and pass a test, the goal at that level is to learn. 

Furthermore to keep active status in the Household individuals have to volunteer at various service activities throughout the year. It advances our goal of service listed in our Mission Statement. It helps make sure members are actively serving in Amtgard. 

There is a lot going on with the House Gravy initiation process that I’d like to unpack. How it’s structured naturally limits it’s membership and slows down it’s growth, which was intentional. We don’t limit the amount of initiates we take, it’s a simple vote of Active Full Members. However the requirements to move up in status increases the amount of time it takes to become a full member. The average time as of the writing of this article is 18 to 24 months. 

Why do this? There are a few reasons, it gives a chance for our members to grow and learn before they become a Full Member. It also insures that the people who are pledging the house are a right fit. It gives time for all the members to get to know each other and creates a stronger bond, making us a stronger house in the process. 

When creating the structure of your House it’s important to envision what kind of Household you’d like. It helps informs the members as to the culture you’d like to create and it helps dictate the House’s growth. 

You should also consider if you have voting members and what the requirements are to vote. These requirements can help dictate the culture of your House. It also helps reinforce your mission statement.  For example for House Gravy one element to keep active status, which is required to vote, is to participate in volunteer activities. The other requirement is to attend House Gravy Business Meetings. To vote, you also need to be a Full Member. 

By making one of the requirements to vote to volunteer, it helps fulfill the Mission Statement. The second requirement, attending business meetings, is to help make sure that the members keep involved with the House and its goals. The third requirement to vote, that of being a Full Member, is there to make sure that the people who are able to vote have gone through the learning process and are more fully invested in the House. 

The example of the House Gravy structure is just that, an example. It’s discussed so you can see the thought process behind the structure. It’s up to the person or people constructing the service house to decide what kind of structure is best for their house. Throughout the process it’s important to go back to you goals and mission statement and see if the structure is inline with them. 

Activities

Once you’ve got your goals, mission statement and structure it’s time to think about what your Household actually does. I’m sure by this point you’ve already put some thought into but now it’s time to outline it. 

For some households you don’t have to put too much thought into it. For example Apex is basically just a discussion group. They maintain a Facebook group dedicated to people sharing their personal fitness journeys, sharing resources and being an open community for positive feedback. 

House Gravy on the other hand is a lot more complicated with their activities. When it comes to targeted volunteering they pick an activity such as gate and try to get as many of their members to volunteer for gate. The targeted activities tie into their active status of the group. They can target any activity. Another example would be targeting tournaments at an event. Provided a member is running the tournament, they’d help organize it, keep scores, and reeve. If a member isn’t running it they would volunteer to keep score and reeve. 

It’s up to you to decide how to organize the activities of your House. You can make it as simple or as complex as you like. You can tie it into your how your House is structured or you can keep it slightly divorced from the structure. The key is to keep it organized and in line with your goals and mission statement. 

Growth

One thing I didn’t plan on spending much time on is gaining members. That should be something built into the structure of your house. I think recruiting people is rather personal to every household and it’s really down to philosophy of the House. Each House will have their own criteria and it’s pretty individual but I have a few thoughts. 

When you are looking for people to join your house it’s important to choose people who you believe will hold to the values of your house and further the mission statement. It’s important that they understand what your household is about. 

I can’t count the number of households that have just created a Facebook group and said “join it”. Those are a dime a dozen. They often didn’t put in the thought to create a foundation for growth, they just assumed people would join it. They usually haven’t taken the time to create something of quality and don’t quality check the people joining their House. 

Another factor of growth is finding a niche. If you’re doing something other Households are doing it will be harder to convince people to join your House over another person’s House. That’s not to say it isn’t possible, but if you are able to fill some sort of niche, then people are more likely to take notice of your House and therefore have more people interested in joining. 

Final Thoughts

Service Households can be a great addition to Amtgard. Each one brings a little bit of life to the game and helps create a backbone for the community. The better organized they are the better they can help the community. 

No matter if you are creating something formal or something more informal you can create something worthwhile.  By keeping in mind the goals, mission statement and structure of your service household you can create something focused and longer lasting. 

Sep 29 2019

Out of the Darkness

Saturday was an Amtgard Kingdom Level Event at Silvermoon (Salem, OR). It was a very special event centered around an important issue, suicide prevention. It was mostly organized by Blargiest. It was broken into two parts.

The first part started at 9 in the morning at the Capital building. It was a walk to prevent suicide. The goal was to raise awareness of the issue as well as money for American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. You can find more about the event on their Facebook page here.

A group of Amtgarders, lead by Blargiest walked in the event. Sadly I was not one of them but I do support the cause. I don’t talk about it often but I’m a life long suffer of Major Depression and it’s a topic that directly affects me.

I got to the park on time. There were already people setting up for the day. The plan for the day was to have opening ceremonies, an althing, then the Pie in the Face auction ran by House Gravy, then a battle game and finally a quest ran by Blargiest centered around suicide awareness.

After garbing up and saying my hellos I went and helped Darb set up his battle game. It was a air pirate themed game. It had one large airship and three smaller airships. We only got the big airship and one of the smaller airships built before we had to go to the opening ceremonies.

King Akryn gave a heart felt and personal speech about the subject of depression and suicide before opening the floor to Blargiest to talk about the subject and the plan for the day. Then there was a brief althing, which new business was brought forward. There will be polls concerning Orders of the Crown and someone proposed that we up dues to $20 from $12.

After that it was my time to run the Pie in the Face Auction. We were raising money for Food Fight and initiating Darb and Fritz into House Gravy as Full Members. Along with those two we were auction off pies for Akryn, Torg and Blargiest. We raised $125 which I would call a success. You can see a video of the pieing on my Youtube here.

After the Auction I finished helping Darb set up the battlefield and then the feast was served. It consisted of bread, a pasta salad, a light coleslaw and beef brisket. The brisket was the star of the show, it was delicious and very tender. It was cooked very well.

After the food Darb organized the game, I was one of the reeves. The game was a take on a kill the captain mechanic. There were two teams, one team was the defenders, on the large boat and the second team were on the smaller boats, attacking. The defending team had a team captain which had three lives and the attacking team had three captains, each with one life.

The three captains on the attacking side were each in a boat and could not leave the boat. Once the captain died no one could spawn in that boat any more. If all three captains died there would be no more spawn points. The same went for the defending team, if the captain shattered out then the defending team couldn’t spawn either. The goal was to shatter out the opposing team.

After the first round the teams switched positions. Both teams scored a point as the defending team. There weren’t any overall winners. the game was just for fun. It went over well, although it was hard to keep track of of the boat lines because people kept accidentally moving them.

Right before the game Gustav surprised me by showing up. I didn’t expect to see him. He joined a side and played in the game. After the game we spared, rather than playing in the Quest. We did some short sword sparing.

He won more than I did but that was fine. I did something that I hadn’t done in a long time and actually moved and not just a little, but actively advancing with speed. It took some effort, my body really wasn’t used to it, but it paid off. I was able to get into Gustav’s guard and kill him. It took a toll and I got tired quicker, I also found that I was clenching my jaw when I was doing it. I need to learn to loosen back up when doing that.

Afterward Gustav, Darb and I visited for a while until the quest ended and then there was a ditch. I didn’t do to well in the ditch but I didn’t lose the tactics side and managed to maneuver myself into stopping flanks and to flank. I did poorly on the actual fighting though.

After the ditch they called for another battle game, but it was after 5 and I had other plans that evening so I opted out of the game and packed up. Overall it was a pretty good day and I believe everyone enjoyed themselves. We managed to do good things in the community and to raise money for some good causes. All in all a big win in my book.

Next week I plan on being at my local park. Next month I will probably be making a trip up to Green Wood Keep (Lacey, WA) in the Kingdom of Northern Lights. I also have another article coming out in the next few days focused on service households.