#empiresgrove

[tegus-j-betraygus-blog]

How to improvise your Amtgard quests pt. 1

If you’re like me, you like to run quest every week at your local Amtgard chapter. If you’re not like me, this probably sounds grueling and impossible, with all the planning and resources that would need to be involved. Regularly, this would be absolutely correct; the amount of planning that goes into a standard quest would simply not be practical if required on a weekly basis. My workaround for this particular problem was to STOP PLANNING and run things by ear. Now, this is both easier and harder than it sounds, you still have to prepare, but in a different, more spontaneous way that lends to being flexible and accommodating. If the formula I’m about to share works for you, you too might get to the point where you can run weekly quests.

Run a smaller group with smaller stakes

-Don’t get the pitchforks out yet! I am aware that the tradition in Amtgard questing is for more or less the entire park to partake in quest, either as NPCs, or a giant, bristling mob of murderhoboes. I’ve never seen the reason behind this; I feel it trades off inclusivity for a much worse group dynamic overall. If the goal of a quest is story and character development (Which it should be), how much meaningful dialogue do you expect to get out of 10 or 15 different characters? When’s the last time you had a 9 person Dungeons and Dragons campaign? The less characters in a given scenario, the more chance each has to make an individual impact upon the story. If the Fellowship of the Ring had travelled in a giant pack for three books instead of splitting off into different, smaller  groups, their characters would have been much harder to distinguish from one another, therefore much less developed and memorable.

Changing the group dynamic of quest implies a lot of changes upon your content; I prefer to skew lower numbers of players toward lower stakes conflicts.Give the demons and vengeful gods a rest; have your PCs help a merchant back to their town, or find a missing cat! You as the Quest master have the narrative power to make even these mundane tasks exciting and meaningful experiences for your players, for the Spice of Life is what happens between point A and point B. Also, players are able to role play more easily in situations with which they can resonate, i.e. mundane scenarios.

Part 2 coming in a few days!

[tegus-j-betraygus-blog]

Improv Amtgard Quests pt.2

Be an active narrator

-The traveling from point A to point B constitutes a journey. Should something epic happen between here and there, it would be remembered by your players as an adventure. A lot of Quest Masters I know seem to be in the habit of creating either an open world or linear scenario, planning the encounters and elements of the quest within said area, and letting the players free within the scenario, with much of the context and narrative being directed by the NPCs and prepared visual elements.

This method has many strengths, but often requires too much preparation in order to effectively show (and not tell) elements of the story.. On a rapidfire basis, it can be hard for a single player to coordinate and organize stories using this method, which requires such meticulousness that quests can easily fall apart if not planned with the proper care. I’ve seen this method fail in that often, NPCs forget to convey to the players essential pieces of information which would not have been left out by the quest’s original designer, leaving the players lost, confused and disengaged. In short, they’ve lost the plot.

As the QM, BE the plot.

When questing, I stay close to my group of player characters, roleplaying the monsters and NPCs in the world around them, as well as serving the function of a referee. In addition, I will narrate what is happening in the world, as well as convey unto each individual character the insight they have on the situation. I will often have a bag full of a variety of weapons, as well as 1 or 2 flexible NPCs around to do my bidding and become either monsters or NPCs at an improvisational pace. Through a combination of these elements (active narration, improvisation), as well as travel through physical space (walking is epic!), we are able to generate the world the players are going through as we travel through it, giving the world an illusion of life and size.

Also, as an active narrator, you as the quest master have much more power and impact upon the world, as what you say must be taken as fact. This way, you are able to add elements to the world as needed.We all know that a rule of thumb in Amtgard questing is to suspend your disbelief, so use this tool to set a precedent for needing to use one’s imagination. The negative trade-off of narration as a quest element is the weakening of immersion, in exchange for flexibility and clarity.

Example- A player had stolen a large amount of in-game money from the park’s coffers, and was openly bragging about it, killing any PC who tried to get the money back. I, as the QM, narrated up 10 (imaginary) members of the town guard to subdue and restrain him, as that is likely what would happen, were this world living and breathing.

[tegus-j-betraygus-blog]

On the craft path

This weekend is my park’s midreign. As is standard with an Amtgard midreign, we’re going to have an A&S competition, a tournament and court, where awards will be given to our deserving members.

I’ve always had an aversion to entering the Arts& Sciences competition; I always felt like I hadn’t prepared enough. There were times when I brought stuff in, only to pull it from being judged, or I’d finish, have to do a write up on the item, and deliberately neglect to do so as an excuse not to enter.

This time around, I organized a concise list of stuff I aimed to make, and am doing pretty well. Two days left now; I’ve picked up a few unintentional projects along the way, but I guess that’s some of the fun

Stuff I’m making

-A violin/ bow (madu/ dagger combo)

-Arrowheads

-Quilted fabric

-A quest writeup

-A gun-dagger

-My throwie for the throwie contest

-A sword if I have time.

I’ll post pics come Sunday, Until then, back to the grind!

[tegus-j-betraygus-blog]

apg.pdf

The Advanced Players Guide for Amtgard

I found out about this nifty little splatbook about a year ago and have gotten some serious mileage out of it. Crafted by a player, Gorin, it is meant to demonstrate how one can roleplay almost anything they desire with the classes given. The idea is that all of the classes listed are in reality 6th-level spell lists. I’ve been letting some players level up these classes as if they were levelling up the corresponding caster class, but only if becoming apprenticed through roleplay. I’m going to be introducing the quest path for the first Alchemist’s apprentice this weekend at my park. I hope you get some use out of the .pdf. 

[tegus-j-betraygus-blog]

Post-Yule Post! Also, I snuck a quest.

I’ve been getting a good amount of mileage out of the herbalist minigame I shared with you all a few posts ago. I think I definitely made the right decision in opening it to all classes more like a trade skill in an MMORPG.

Long story short, I was at Goldenvale’s (excellently run) Yule Event selling weapons and accessories. However, on Sunday morning I made this post on the group Facebook:

(Rp)-

Hey, adventurers! Yorgo here! A client of mine is in need of herbs I don't currently have. I need you to gather- 1 jayroot 1 robins foot

If you bring these things to me, I'll make it worth your while!

Yorgo

This apparently resulted in about 8 players wandering off from park for about an hour trying to find the right herbs. I got an earful about it from annoyed (blindsided) officers when I got home.

Hey man, gotta stay relevant, amirite?

[tegus-j-betraygus-blog]

Retention tactics! Making Amtgard “stick”!

-Onboarding

To an average outsider, our hobby is visually intimidating. Especially during class battlegames, our hobby at face value can appear nonsensical. A shy but moderately interested individual would simply walk on by, our park being none the wiser to their existence.

BUT WAIT!

That shy individual is Amtgard’s lifeblood! That kid could have been a knight or a king someday. Such a shame all that potential was squandered; if only we had an articulate, amicable spokesperson to explain this mad game to interested onlookers!

Enter the greeter.

The greeter is a player who, during battlegaes, sits to the side, engaging onlookers who seem interested. The greeter should be an experienced player, well versed in the rules and culture of the game. More importantly, the greeter should be able to communicate well to strangers and paint an appealing picture of what it is we do. In addition to this, it should be the greeter’s duty to hand out business cards, administer waivers and explain the rules/ rulebook.

-How to train your Newbie!

Now that you’ve attracted a newcomer to your park and your greeter has explained the rules and had them fill out a waiver, it’s time to throw them into their first ever game in Amtgard!

DO NOT throw a new player right into the middle of a class game.

Do not. Do that.

I guarantee you the majority of people will either be really confused/ sensorily overloaded and never return, or ignore the rules and depreciate the general quality of the battlegame. If the newbie arrived just as class games are starting, the greeter should hang out with the newbie on the side and explain what’s happening. When that gets boring, spar with them a bit or help them figure out a persona or class!

The best games to put a newbie into for their first foray are games which help them learn the mechanics of our system; ditching helps get one used to the physical aspect of Amtgard, while two-man forever is a low-stakes environment in which the new player can acquaint themselves with a variety of classes, either through play or collaboration with another.

(Small) quest is in my opinion the best way to immerse a new player (who isn’t obviously all about the fighting). If your park has the resources to run a quest for under 10 people while everyone else does something else, there are few better ways to make a new player feel included. This should go without saying, but let them speak! Throw them some plot! Have them befriend an NPC! Here they will have a chance to interact with their soon-to-be-parkmates, as well as develop their backstory a bit more. Most importantly, it will give the new player something to think about between this week and the next, prompting them to come back in the following weeks.

-Loaners or buyers

While it is important to have loaner weapons available for new players, it is just as important, if not moreso, to have easily accessible avenues through which new players can obtain their own gear.

Flashback to 2013; I had been running Live Action Role Play club at my college for close to a year and had finally received a budget, with which I bought 20 swords from Warlord Sports. My club saw a meteoric rise in numbers because of this, our club sometimes yielding a 30 to 40 person meeting. However, we noticed that a lot of those people were in the same situation; they never acquired garb or weapons, but came every week and claimed pseudo-ownership of the loaner weapons. After a while, club stagnated because we would run out of loaners supplying weapons to people who had been attending consistently for 3 or 4 months. This lead to us having to turn away new people. In addition, it made our club members totally entitled and not at all invested in the club. Club soon became reliant on the officers’ ability to collectively haul close to 50 weapons to and from campus weekly, exclusively for the use of established club members. My officers and I eventually wrangled them into getting and making their own equipment. While the club no longer exists, many of its members are now mainstays at our Amtgard Park.

Getting new people into their own gear quickly isn’t just easier on the officers of whatever organization you are running; it helps to generate a sense of ownership and investment in the new player.

It felt good to lay all this stuff out for anyone that might be interested in incorporating some of these methods at their parks! Thanks for reading!

[tegus-j-betraygus-blog]

Gone recruiting...

My park has been resting on its laurels as of late; after an unprecedented amount of growth last winter, our Amtgard chapter assumed we would be able to coast through the spring and summer months and maintain that same growth.

We were, of course, mistaken. While our retention has been pretty high (I’d say we’ve kept 60 to 70% of new arrivals who show up at least twice), I’ve definitely noticed that while the new faces have become familiar, there are no new faces popping up to replace them. This is what stagnation looks like and it has killed better, stronger larp chapters than ours.

Recruitment and retention in any Amtgard park has two main elements; outreach and engagement. Outreach is putting Amtgard out there in the public eye in the hopes of attracting new members. This includes public demos, posters, fliers, business cards and even community service. Engagement is what your park as a whole does to accommodate these new players and make them feel at-home enough to return on a consistent basis. This includes helping the newbie figure out what kind of gear they want and how to get it, as well as helping them to feel included in quests or battlegames. I feel my park adequately engages new players, but has been severely lacking of any outreach efforts as of late. This is an issue I intend to rectify with some good old-fashioned demoing.

New York City has one of the best public parkscapes in the country; picturesque, with loads of local pedestrian traffic. In other words, perfect for holding demos. I intend to run with anywhere from 4 to 6 volunteers from my park, on a weeknight or Saturday night, forming a solid rotation of public parks, running demos 2 or 3 times a month.

Tegus’ Demo to-do list;

-Hit system teacher- before anyone picks up a sword, they are given a rundown of our hit system.

-Exhibition fights between experienced fighters.

-Challenge the champion (Someone from the crowd challenges a demoer.

- Mundane Melee- have the demoers fight each other

-Archery range (?)

-After the demo, I’ll run a quest for all my dedicated volunteers!

-If any experienced folk have any suggestions to help me run a better demo, they are much appreciated.

The topic of recruitment and retention has been a long discussed topic within Amtgard. I believe my chapter sufficiently engages players both old and new(Once they know we exist, that is). In a future post I want to discuss engagement strategies which can be applied to any small-to-midsize park.

[tegus-j-betraygus-blog]

Empire’s Grove- Druid update!

Developing a minigame for druids in my park! It will reward them with potions and loads of cool RP opportunities.

Every druid will have a nature journal. Each druid’s nature journal will start out with completely unique content with at least one of each of the following;

-The recipe for a potion (Herb A+ Herb B= Potion A)

-Where to find a kind of herb (Herb locations are predetermined by the QM, i.e.- Mudroot@ the Tall grass at the edge of the pond)

-Detailed information on a kind of herb.

If a druid can verify that they have been to a physical location in their park AND have it logged in their nature journal, I will be distributing herb item cards, which can be traded in for free potions (recipe is also required to be logged in the nature journal), whereas other players have to spend kingdom currency to obtain the same potions. The REAL motive here is to encourage players to role play more; I foresee many nature walks and druidic circles in the future, as the druids attempt to master holistic alchemy!