Doug Millington-Smith (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
magicaddict) wrote2013-04-16 11:32 am
magicaddict) wrote2013-04-16 11:32 am
As I'm Not Allowed To Be This Divisive On The Boards...
...I'll say it here.
Out of interest, what's it going to take? A broken limb? Someone being knocked unconscious? Brain damage?
Or just someone more influential's eye almost being put out?
We are, as a society, not safe enough with our fighting. We need a strategy to improve it across the board, from the most experienced players to the least, and we need it now. Simply assuming people will know what to do from five minutes of conversation and thirty seconds of practical demonstration, then being shocked and shouting at them when they demonstrate they don't, is not enough. It's being demonstrated over and over again.
I am not willing to wait until someone is permanently blinded before climbing on my soapbox. It's everyone's responsibility, it's everyone's lookout, and positive action needs to be taken, not dragging of feet at the prospect of actually having to do something, or indignance at the idea that you might be part of the problem. I am, and you are too. We all bloody well are. Get over it.
Safety workshops and weapons practice is one idea, and I think it has merit. I also think it should be mandatory until you can demonstrate that with each weapon type, in a range of different situations, you aren't going to have a brain fart that causes someone else to collapse while clutching something important of theirs. I also think that until you can demonstrate this, what right do you have to be swinging what has, over the past twelve months, proven to the world and their spouse to be a weapon perfectly capable of doing really unpleasant damage to the human body when wielded unsafely?
I don't care that I'm crap, I just want to be safe. Sign me up, every day until I am accepted as good enough not to hurt other people.
Anyone else? Any other ideas?
Out of interest, what's it going to take? A broken limb? Someone being knocked unconscious? Brain damage?
Or just someone more influential's eye almost being put out?
We are, as a society, not safe enough with our fighting. We need a strategy to improve it across the board, from the most experienced players to the least, and we need it now. Simply assuming people will know what to do from five minutes of conversation and thirty seconds of practical demonstration, then being shocked and shouting at them when they demonstrate they don't, is not enough. It's being demonstrated over and over again.
I am not willing to wait until someone is permanently blinded before climbing on my soapbox. It's everyone's responsibility, it's everyone's lookout, and positive action needs to be taken, not dragging of feet at the prospect of actually having to do something, or indignance at the idea that you might be part of the problem. I am, and you are too. We all bloody well are. Get over it.
Safety workshops and weapons practice is one idea, and I think it has merit. I also think it should be mandatory until you can demonstrate that with each weapon type, in a range of different situations, you aren't going to have a brain fart that causes someone else to collapse while clutching something important of theirs. I also think that until you can demonstrate this, what right do you have to be swinging what has, over the past twelve months, proven to the world and their spouse to be a weapon perfectly capable of doing really unpleasant damage to the human body when wielded unsafely?
I don't care that I'm crap, I just want to be safe. Sign me up, every day until I am accepted as good enough not to hurt other people.
Anyone else? Any other ideas?
no subject
Basically, fighting with weapons is dangerous. If you do it properly, people die. But, of course, we don't want people to die.
So we try to reduce the risks. There are broadly 4 ways to do that, dealing with the 4 main areas of risk - make the weapons safer, make the attacker safer, make the defender safer, or make the environment safer.
One approach, often the one chosen by re-enactment, blunts the weapons, does lots of training & weapon competancy tests, insists on helmets & padded gloves and normally fights on flat open ground.
One approach, from the SCA, is to use wooden weapons, train lots, wear lots of protective armour including full face protection and normally fight on flat ground.
The LARP approach sometimes focusses on reducing the weapon risk but not on dealing with the other 3 areas - we fight with foam weapons but the attackers often don't know how to fight, the defenders aren't wearing decent armour, and we're skirmishing in trees... This means that if a weapon is unsafe but no one picks up on that, there sometimes isn't anything that's stopping it becoming a complete clusterfuck. The other approaches have tried to tackle multiple areas of risks, so there's more redundancy?
I think all of them have something to learn from each other, but ultimately each system has to decide where the acceptable risk line is.
I've seen many more injuries from people tripping over in re-enactment and larp battles than from being hit, though - I think that terrain is the real risk to tackle if we want to reduce dangers. But woodland is so pretty and atmospheric to fight in, I'd hate to lose it.
And the risk of tripping on top of a dead person, battlefield awareness risks, would still be high.
no subject
I think you make excellent points.
I'd like to think that terrain training might alleviate the worry about losing the pretty settings? Our site is a nightmare and no mistake - if we could be suitably trained on that, I feel it might allow us to become the epitome of ground awareness, rather than the laughing stock of it.
There's a movement afoot to do workshops, and I think that increasing sure-footedness along with spatial (and peripheral) awareness would constitute an excellent start and address at least some of the issues you raise, beyond simply improving weapon safety technique which is an ongoing issue. Incidentally, it might also get away from the horrible idea of anyone who wants to LARP being forced to wear protective headgear. I agree that armour is there for more than just the hitpoints, but if it ever got as far as that, I may accept that the pastime is too dangerous for my liking and back out.
no subject
There is just as much truth in the idea that people need to be aware of how to dodge or parry, how not to stand so their head is the prime target of wild swings, how to react sensibly if someone runs in from the edge of vision - and I'm trying to get that organised, but I'm not going to be able to do much until June because, y'know, wedding and shit.
And our terrain is lethal, but I love it anyway.
no subject
no subject
no subject
Other ideas, and potential issues:
1) More practise.
Run practise/warm up sessions before games? It doesn't have to be a long time or structured, it just has to be practise - play war games, put people through endless games of Rabbit, or circles of treachery, the sort of shit we used to do with the CP weapons practise for an hour or so. And be strict about it. No, you may not come along to chat. No, there will be no spectating. You are there, you pick up a weapon, and you swing. If you do not wish to do the latters, get your arse back to the carpark. End of point.
Issues with this: Chances of getting people to turn up earlier on a Sunday morning? Minimal. You'll probably only get those who are keen already, and if they're that keen, chances are they aren't the ones to worry about. You also risk alienating people if you insist on it for new people, as one of the reasons start time for games is set when it is is so people can easily get there by public transport. Arriving earlier, especially if you come from out of the city, might not be doable. And making it mandatory for people who persistantly cause problems is all good and well but if no one else is there for them to practise against - or worse, only people as dangerous as they are turn up because they're made to - then there's no point as they won't improve.
2) Negatives anytime you cause an incident.
We don't care if it was an accident. We don't care if it was a one off. We don't care if your weapon was harder than you thought/you got carried away/your hand slipped. You caused it, you get a negative. If it was a genuine accident, then it shouldn't happen too often, and everyone will end up with about the same number of negatives. If you're getting more negatives than you like, maybe its time to start thinking about the situations in which you have these 'accidents' and avoiding them.
Issues with this: It might lead to a hostile environment as people become more defensive about blame or insist it wasn't them, which will lead to blow up arguements. There also is the potential for blaming the wrong person, as it's not always the person with the weapon who is being unsafe - example situation, a scout has snuck back to the party and steps into a skirmish having concealed themselves previously. Due to their actions, their party is not aware they're there, and they get caught by a backswing as they do so. At that point, it's the scout's fault for not having more battle awareness, not the weapon wielder, because they'd been as aware as they could be. You could cut across this by having a general rule of 'involved in a safety incident? Get a negative' regardless, but the idea of handing punishments to people like Weeza who are injured as a result of others doesn't sit well with me.
(continued)
no subject
Implement a rule that if you get x (say 3) negative points in a 6 month period for unsafe fighting with the same type of weapon, you can't use that weapon anymore until you've proven you're safe with it at practise sessions. If that happens to be the only weapon your character uses, tough shit.
Issues: Dependant on regular ish practise sessions, and also only a way of dealing with people who are unsafe with weapons, not those who don't take care with terrain or their behaviour around other weapons.
4) More danger, more regularly.
People often don't get out of the way because IC they can take it. Which means more blows landing and being returned. More blows = higher probability of one landing unsafely. Additionally, as we have fewer character deaths from long involved fights nowadays (deaths seem to come a lot from 'whoops, touched the wrong lever!' sort of incidents, not 'took on death knight, death knight won') so when the pressure is on, people feel it more and swings go wild. Have more high pressure situations, more character deaths, more monsters doing stupid levels of damage that people are more worried about STAYING OUT OF THE WAY OF so such an attitude carries over to OOC as well.
Issues: Will lead to more character deaths, and make games distinctly elf-unfriendly, as they've only got the 3 in TL, and those 3 really don't go all that far if you die even just a couple of times in your initial year, and we'll go back to the times when every third character was a barbarian.
no subject
Not sure about 2) for the reasons you have cited.
I like 3), seems like a great idea. To be proposed for the next AGM?
Not a huge fan of 4), and I've though more about why I don't over the course of the day and I have a more rational and less precious response than previously.
A very large number of characters' stock response to something that is stronger and more capable than them is, unfortunately, to run away. It's used in jest, but is a stark reminder that we're playing a game and that the immersion has just gone out of the window. To buggery with the cause or the people they're fighting on behalf of, the survival instinct is strong enough in most characters that they'll simply turn and run, Earth Merge, Withdraw, Blink etc, and leave it to others to fight it, because they don't want to risk character death.
My opinion is that greater threat wouldn't teach those people to fight safely - it would teach them, even more, not to fight. The same people would die, the same people would survive, and safety wouldn't improve overall (or would only for the demographic that stand their ground).
no subject
Ah, but given the introduction of things like the Wardens and such, a larger proportion of characters can't just run away these days. Or if they do, there needs to be severe IC consequences for such an act. Which is a different debate.
no subject
I don't see the threat level thing actually being of any value - Kobayashi Maru just makes people hack the test. People have to know how to react so when things go horribly wrong they don't flail. They also have to learn that everyone is responsible for everyone's safety, including their own.
Or, you know, we just cut a finger off every time someone causes an injury. That would get it across pretty quickly.
no subject
Yeah - possibly we just need to get them to keep their excitement levels under control, so things like games might be a good one - push their adrenaline levels up by fun, rather than by fear? We could maybe introduce people to Juggerball? Or work out some games where the entire point is to parry and dodge and treat the opponent's weapon like something dangerous to be avoided, rather than an inevitability so hell may as well get it over with *proceeds to lead with head*.
And er, not too sure in the long run fewer fingers would be better for weapon stability, really, however satisfying it may be :P
no subject
Something like 1-hit circles of treachery with forfeits? Or a duel after which one press-up/sit-up is required for every time you got struck? Something with an embarrassing, I-want-to-avoid-this endpoint, to hammer home how an excellent way to avoid dying (and more efficient than running away to boot) is pointy end strikes bad guy while avoiding bad guy's pointy end striking you?
it gets a little childish, but the message is clear and correct.
no subject
no subject
no subject
Give me a schedule you'd like to see, and I'll see if I can do it. Or find a group of people who can share it. It might require some kind people to provide crash space on said occasions, however.
no subject
PJW
no subject
no subject
It could even be done by a monster during game time or something like that.
Knowing just what your individual strengths and weaknesses are might make a world of difference in this case?