This past Sunday, Folkestone ran a simple tournament event at WPI. The subtitle was "back to basics," reflecting on the fact that we focused on combat and combat alone. It was low frills: decorations consisted of two banners. Snacks were not intended to be elaborate (though Liz Butler did bring some yummy mini cupcakes in honor of Mathias' birthday). There was one modest prize. The individual tournaments run were all basic limited individual combat.
Considering the above, it might be easy to dismiss this event as overly simple and miss the level of thoughtfulness that went into many of the decisions around it. It is possible that you didn’t notice the few simple changes to the typical tournament format, but they were made for a specific reason that I would like to bring to light.
The reason is that I have come to the conclusion that, as a broad generalization, newbie tournaments are negative for our game. There are of course exceptions. In particular I love that one is run at Queen of Hearts, to give those who are newer a chance to represent their team when they would be unlikely to be an entrant in other individual competitions. I also like the fact that at the same time the best in our game are inspiring others, newer players are being given a chance to compete in a new player tournament at Order of the List.
This might be a shocking opinion to hear from me, as I ran a 6-event newbie tournament series three years ago. It was through doing so that I began to notice a potential problem with them, and have come to believe they shouldn't exist as a part of most tournament events.
I feel like newbie tournaments mistakenly giving the impression that new players belong in one ring and veterans in another to the detriment of both groups. For the new players, we build in an intimidation of fighting the best when in reality it would provide newbies with an opportunity to get to know them and to learn about combat from them. Many, many players seem to come in, fight in newbie tournaments, and then when they "age out" of those stop fighting completely because they've never reached the point of mentally feeling ready to be "in the ring" with the vets. Our segregating them and providing a playing field where they can "be competitive" also implies that the point and value of fighting is winning rather than bettering yourself through participation- that it is better to be a big fish in a small pond then dive into the ocean.
On the other side of the coin, veterans lose the opportunity to get to connect with new players. Many countries regularly look to new players for growth. Many veterans stay interested and energized about the game through connecting and passing on their passion to newer players. Additionally, newer players benefit when they are exposed to a variety of people and ideas before forming official ties, be they national or knightly. The more they get to connect with vets the more likely that they are hearing a diversity of opinions and the more opportunity vets have to make sure their countries and tutelage is considered by new players before they form lasting commitments.
Fighting with new players also often seems to bring out the best in our vets. At the moment I can only speak for what I saw Sunday, but it seemed as though many people went out of their way to be friendly, encouraging, and to have good combat etiquette. They also had their combat skills challenged a time or two by the unorthodox newbie or got caught off guard when someone they'd never seen before was better than expected. There were some genuine upsets and those are good for the vets. They can help keep them from mentally or physically stagnating.
The one aspect of newbie tournaments I would have initially said were valuable were some of the non-coms: trivia, learning about currency/heraldry/nations, scavenger hunt searches to meet people. However, upon more consideration, this too segregates people. A lot of people come into game thinking they are only interested in specific aspects and are far into their careers when they decide to learn new things. Feeling that you are able to keep expanding your interest and knowledge in game can be valuable in retaining players as it is a great way to prevent burnout. Yet in the same way that newbie combat tournaments give the impression that they don’t belong in the combat ring with veterans, specifying that learning about in game topics is intended for newbies prevents a veteran from starting with the basics later in their career. I think those tournaments could benefit from being divided into rounds of increasing difficulty or having basic, mid-level, advanced level non-coms run.
There is an additional question about new player tournaments. What really is a new player? We say length of time, but we know it is isn't that. A new player who makes it to practices every week isn't the same as one who walks in off the street. A new player who events once a month differs from one who does so twice a year. We have newbies that have played for a decade and those that move out of that stage in under two years. We know them when we see them, but we look for a more objective way to allow or disallow entry.
I don't think we generally should or need to be segregating, but we should recognize that motivating new players to get in the ring with vets can be hard, and put a lot of thought into how to do so. Some conscious choices we made in that direction were to put the event in a location with a significant body of new players, and to offer nothing but combat and to be VERY clear on that would be the case in advance. We wanted new people to come but we wanted them to come prepared to fight and to avoid the well-meaning distractions of games, non-combat tournaments, and even role playing. While all of those things have value, I truly believe a core element of our game is combat and everyone should be able to be in it without fear and be able to appropriately take their hits. Unless medical issues prevent them from doing so, everyone should be able to combat NPC at at least a base level of proficiency. It is wonderful that EHs recognize the variety of interest and abilities of people that come to game, but sometimes I think it is appropriate to communicate the message that combat is an important part of our game and if you want to be fully involved in the Realms you should be participating in it.
(As an aside, I understand that the preceding statement is strong, and I also know that people will point out that you can be involved in combat via group battles, casting, and questing. In my opinion practices or controlled tournament events are where you can best learn combat basics and most importantly to correctly call shots, and those that avoid them because they don't fit their character or aren't what they enjoy the most frequently miss the basics and become overly dependent on one weapon style.)
The second thing we tried to do was to make it easier to sign up for all the tournaments then be selective. It was new, there were a few bumps, but basically if you wanted to selectively sign up we made you write out your cards. If you wanted to compete in all the tournaments being run, we let you sign up on a list then took care of writing the seven cards needed for you.
We also provided a motivation for newer players to sign up for every tournament, in the form of a free weapon, not for winning but for fully participating.
We were clear on expectations during reading of the rules. We expected controlled fighting. We expected vets to remember new players make mistakes and if they did get angry to pull themselves. We were VERY ready to pull anyone if they were "mad or uncontrolled" and to talk to them if they had crappy etiquette. We were also clear with new players that they would make mistakes and people would tell them if they did. That said, everyone was awesome and I'm sure that was primarily because we have amazing people, BUT I also think upfront clarity on behavior not being acceptable makes it less likely to occur.
The final thing we did was to call out and publicly recognize the newer players who did the best. I’m not saying there was an expectation that they'd win overall, but it is important to note excellence among those who are newer to combat, and increase visibility for those who do well so they can help inspire others.
We do plan to make this an annual event. My hope and intention is that this model will be adopted by others, and ultimately influence the number of new players joining the ranks of tournament combatants.