Getting Started

General information, announcements, and discussions about Westmarch, Amtgard, and the LARPing life

Getting Started

Postby Rowan Peaceblade » Mon Feb 22, 2016 5:23 pm

Hello all,

For years I have been attending DunDraCon, and for years I have seen these really cool people dressed up and fighting, having a laugh, and building a community. I had always wanted to be a part of such a thing, but didn't know where to start. After looking through the con booklet I found the Amtgard section. Now, I have read through the Amtgard and the Westmarch websites as well as the 8th edition rulebook.

Unfortunately, there are no parks close to me - I live in Fresno. A couple of my friends are interested, so we could form a shire. But then we run into another problem: none of us have any weapon making or armor crafting backgrounds. Then we come to our next problem: what classes can we play as? I play a paladin in D&D, and would like to play a heavily armored paladin in Amtgard. In order to be a paladin, you have to be knighted. Does this mean start as a warrior and go from there, or choose a different class?

I also have a friend who is interested in the cosplay aspect of amtgard, but not so much the combat (or even the social interaction) as she's pretty shy. What would be the best place for her within the organization?

tldr; I don't live anywhere near a park. How should I begin, and can anyone give advice or links to weapon/armor making?

Thanks,

Rowan
Rowan Peaceblade
 
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Re: Getting Started

Postby Fiks » Tue Feb 23, 2016 12:39 am

Hi Rowan.

Glad you made it to the website. Lemme see if I can help you with a couple of the concerns and questions you got...

Rowan Peaceblade wrote:Unfortunately, there are no parks close to me - I live in Fresno. A couple of my friends are interested, so we could form a shire. But then we run into another problem: none of us have any weapon making or armor crafting backgrounds.

Yeah, Fresno is in a quite large blackout area. We haven't had much traction in the middle of the Central Valley yet, likely due to the harsh travel times between already established Amtgard lands. The best bet for getting a good feeling for the game and how a park operates week to week is to go visit one for a few weeks. Obviously that's going to be a bit of a pain with nothing really close to you. Searching on Google, looks like you're looking from anywhere from two to three hours to get to the closest parks to you.

Still, if you wanna give the game a go beyond what you saw at the demo, see if you can manage to make a trip with some friends. Getting out and actually playing the game is the best way to get to know it, and while you're at it, you can pick some of the park's leadership's brains on how they recommend putting together a fledgling park.

That said, there's a lot of tutorials to be found on YouTube and on other Amtgard websites. Do a search for Amtgard weapon making tutorials. Tutorials for making weapons for Belegarth or Dagorhir also work as well, though the weapons made for those games tend to be stockier than ours. As long as the tutorial was made within the last couple of years, the information is most likely to be up-to-date and will make for legal weapons. It's important that you check your work against the standards in the Rules of Play, otherwise you might end up with an illegal and potentially dangerous weapon.

My advice about construction is to worry about weapons and simple class kits first. And by class kits I mean sashes, spell strips, spell lists and spell balls. This will allow you try out a few different classes to begin with. See below. Before you get into worrying about armor, or archery, you should definitely travel around and see what the other parks are using and talk to some of the people who made the items in person. Armor and archery tend to be a lot more complicated and costly in production costs beyond making a simple padded tunic (see the Rules of Play for padded tunics details; they're the easiest armor to construct arguably).

Rowan wrote:Then we come to our next problem: what classes can we play as? I play a paladin in D&D, and would like to play a heavily armored paladin in Amtgard. In order to be a paladin, you have to be knighted. Does this mean start as a warrior and go from there, or choose a different class?

As you noted, Paladin and Anti-Paladin are reserved for those who have earned a knighthood. Knighthood is a long process that takes years upon years, if ever, as it is a recognition of those who exemplify a particular aspect of Amtgard. Common advice about knighthood is to not worry about it until you have a couple of years under your belt, at least, and have traveled around and seen who the local knights are and what they do. You'll then see the level of dedication to the club required for a white belt, and how long it can take.

As to what to play: feel free to play whatever strikes your interest minus Paly and AP. You're not beholden to a single class for your career. In fact, it's pretty common to find your interest jumping from class to class as you learn the game. A lot of people seem to choose to start with warrior for simplicity's sake, though quickly feel it's not as useful without the armor. Another common choice is to hop into a magic class (bard, druid, healer, wizard) at first, as you get some useful non-combat powers right off the bat, which is definitely handy if you're at park with many experienced fighters around. Monk is pretty simple as well, and allows you to ignore an enemy's verbal spell from the get-go and doesn't require anything beyond your weapons and garb.

A lot of the other fighter classes require more material preparation, such as armor and bows, to see the full benefit of the class, so they tend not to be as likely for new comers to try until they've been around for a while and have put together more gear.

To sum back up: play around with whatever interests you, see what sticks.

Rowan wrote:I also have a friend who is interested in the cosplay aspect of amtgard, but not so much the combat (or even the social interaction) as she's pretty shy. What would be the best place for her within the organization?

Well, non-fighter types in the club tend to be social folks, who hang around and provide "color" (see page three of the RoP) to the game. So acute shyness might make it a little hard to fit in if a person isn't interested in fighting either. Encourage the person to create. Especially with a new park starting up, the more someones that help create garb, weapons and other equipment, the more you're able to provide to all the new players to the game. Also, we have Arts & Sciences competitions every three months, for qualifications to run for park office and for the title of Dragonmaster at our midreigns three months after the qualifications. If you get a park started other there, they can show-off and compete locally and as their confidence grows (and shyness abates if possible) they can come enter their stuff into other park's or even the kingdom's competitions.

There's also officer positions that might interest them if they get accustomed to being around other Amtgarders. Not all leaders are fighters, after all. The least social-skills required of the officer positions (in my opinion at least) is the office of Prime Minister, who is in charge of doing all the paperwork that running a park entails. Making and printing up sign-in sheets, keeping track of club finances and member dues, counting votes for elections and such. Again, you can get a feel for what PM and other officer positions entails by visiting a park sometime. Drag the friend along if it won't kill them outright.

So the too long, didn't read version: it's a harsh drive, but try to make it out to a park. If you can't, well, you'll just have to try and figure out Amtgard on your own. Either way, check out the "Starting a Chapter" page on the http://www.amtgard.com website. That has the four step process for getting a park officially off the ground. But I wouldn't worry about that until you get some folks hitting each other for a bit.

Hope this all helps. Be sure to check out our Facebook group if you haven't already yet. Ask about starting a new, isolated group there to get some more folks' opinions on the matter, as easily more people see that feed day-to-day than the website here. Feel free to ask any follow up questions here too, and I or someone else will try to help you.

- Fiks
"How harmful overspecialization is. It cuts knowledge at a million points and leaves it bleeding."—Hari Seldon
Grass grows, birds fly, sun shines, and brotha', I hurt people. Bonk!
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