Making Battlegames Better
[05/01/2003] [Dalos]Here is a little write-up I did to encourage attendance for the weekly parks in the Celestial Kingdom. These ideas should help people have more fun each week. First, tell people in advance what games you will run that weekend. Use the internet and put up a website for your group. Update it weekly with what you plan to do, which leads me to number two. . . Plan your battlegames. Plan them in advance and have everything you need for the battlegame on hand. Do not take up valuable game time trying to organize the game. If it is a game with special rules, print them and hand them out to people as they arrive. This will have everyone ready by the time you want to run the game. Attempt to balance the teams. This is a very difficult issue we face. Try to either pick the teams youtself or pick competent captains who will pick good teams. Feel free to change the teams if they are unbalanced. Getting slapped around or even totally slapping someone around is not really fun for either team. Run games that both the flurbs and the stick jocks enjoy. The football game that is posted on e-Samurai and the Celestial Kingdom website is a good example. Have goals for a game in mind. Typical flag battles and mutual destruction skirmishes have run their course in Amtgard. Try games with unlimited lives and a set goal instead. Maybe even try a game with a very low death count. All of these thing encourage people to want to play more. Even the flurbs love a good competetive game. As much as it pains my soul to say it, encourage spell casters. It's better for us if battlegames don't just turn into a ditch with some throwing weapons and armor. As a note, be very careful with game balance and casters. Raid. Get all the pipe-swingin mofos you can muster and visit some other park. Tell the people you are raiding in advance so they can hype their own people up for it. Communicate this to your own people a month in advance so they're ready, too. Make sure everyone knows that this weekend you plan to go smash another park and salt the earth behind you. Above all, have fun. Embrace the part of Amtgard that you enjoy the best and help other people enjoy it. Since I enjoy fast moving, non-stop action games, I encourage the playing of said games. If you enjoy role-play, come up with some sort of quest or battlegame yourself and ask your local champion if you can run it. Ask well in advance so he can plan it and post it on the website. Finally, guildmasters should actually do something, especially the ones who are caster guildmasters. Have good, reusable spellsheets available for your guild. Rath has some very good cheatsheets at his website.
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