Order of the Argent Bear

May Revel "Ladder" Tourney

11 May 96, Barony of Eskalya

Sponsored by:

Barony of Eskalya

Organized by:

Lord Alfonso d'Strada

Description:

A ladder tourney is where each combatant has small (about 3") shield placed on a 'ladder'. They can then challenge those above them for their place on the ladder. While not a period tourney form, the event copy was written to emulate a period style and part of the intent was to experiment with something between a Pas and a round robin.  For a more complete description of the setup, please see the tournament notice.

How it Went:

About 10 combatants participated. There was lots of fighting and people had fun. There were fewer outright speeches or shtick than expected - most people picked the opponent three above them and then took to the field much like a standard tourney without discussing weapons or reasons.

Lessons Learned:

For a ladder tourney, we found that it's important to start everyone out as well ordered by skill (best to newest / bottom to top) as possible. Otherwise 1) a great fighter who starts too high may quickly gain the top and not face enough opposition before the tourney ends and 2) a newer fighter who starts to low in the list will get hammered and never face enough fighters of their own skill level to have fun.

Along with this, we found that this tourney should be given more time than one might expect to be necessary, with about 2 hours for 10 fighters not being excessive.

As mentioned, there weren't many spoken challenges or other spiffery. It seems that something needs to be added to how the tournament is set up or run in order to encourage a more period feel.

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Comments or questions should be mailed to truffa@alaska.net , please include the words 'Argent Bear' in the subject line.