I emailed this to you, Alvy, as well as Quarel and Tribs, but thought I'd post here so other folks can discuss the idea, and see my Gladiator School rules, which are what I'm proposing to use as the rules for the fundraising tourneys.

Since many folks have expressed, for a long time now, an interest in having an arena in Therengia, the sole province without an arena, a few of us tossed around this idea on the gweths this morning. I propose to hold a series of fundraising tournaments, using the Gladiator School rules I developed while I was with the ODS. I (and my team of organizers once I get them all together), would solicit donations of prizes from known forgers, fletchers and armorers, and then charge an entry fee, all proceeds of which would then be donated to building an arena in Therengia. I have asked Baron Gyfford a few times about an arena over the years, and his answer has always been that the funding was not there. So, here's a way to gain the funding for the arena, while giving folks an opportunity to contribute, and get the joy of beating one another to a pulp.

I have done these tournaments by myself in the past, but only for ODS members. I can run these alone, but I would be glad of help from anyone who would like to step up and lend a hand. Anyone interested in helping out, or donating either prize items or even just making a monetary donation, should email me at gordons7@play.net.

Here's my Gladiator School rules. Feel free to discuss them, and my fundraising idea, here or in emails with me.
The following are the rules for participation in Gladiator School tournaments. If you choose to participate in one of our tournaments, you will be held to these rules. We hope to maintain a safe, equitable and fun environment for adventurers to come and compete in combat situations.

-Tournaments will be held once a month, at locations to be announced within two weeks of the event. Each event will start promptly at the specified time, and run until there are no more combatants who wish to compete. A Judge will be present for each event. The Judge will be responsible for determining Tournament Rankings (see scoring below), and making calls on violations of the rules.

-All fights will be in challenge (spar) format to avoid untimely deaths. We will attempt to have sufficient Empath staff on hand for healing after your bout.

-Before each fight, each competitor will declare the weapon they will be using and then whisper the amount of ranks they have in that skill to the Judge. This number will be used to determine each combatant?s ranking. See scoring below. Once a weapon type is declared, a combatant may not switch to another type.

-Weapon types include all known categories of weaponry in the game, with the addition of offensive magic spells. The ranks of offensive magic will be the number of ranks of Targetted Magic the combatant has.

-Once the Judge has received via whisper the number of ranks in the declared weapon skill, the Judge will announce each combatant?s ranking. To arrive at a combatant?s ranking for these tournaments, the ranks of the declared weapon skill will be used. The combatant will be assigned a ranking based upon what circle that number of skill ranks would make the combatant if they were a Barbarian and their declared weapon were their primary weapon. For example, Combatant A declares Heavy Edge as their weapon and whispers that they have 78 ranks in Heavy Edge skill. This would give Combatant A a ranking of 19.

-Scoring for each bout will be as follows.
-For victory, 10 points, modified as such.
-Plus 1 point for every Ranking the defeated opponent is above the victor. Max 20 points.
-Minus 1 point for every Ranking the defeated opponent is below the victor. Minimum score 1 point.

Scoring Example-
Combatant A declares Heavy Edge with 78 ranks of skill. Tournament ranking 19.
Combatant B declares Longbow with 100 ranks of skill. Tournament ranking 25.

Should Combatant A win, she would receive 10 points for the win, plus 6 points for Ranking differential, for a total of 16 points.

Should Combatant B win, he would receive 10 points for the win, minus 6 points for the Ranking differential for a total of 4 points.

Points will be tracked for as long as these events continue to run. Leader boards will be posted in appropriate places. We will attempt to come up with some sort of traveling prizes for the top three combatants each month. We will develop more rules concerning these traveling prizes at a later date.

-Since these tournaments are designed to measure combat skills, and not combatant?s ability at hiding, hiding for more than 5 seconds as determined by the judge will result in forfeit. We realize that there are some guilds who use stealthy attacks, therefore we will allow 5 seconds of hiding, but no more.

-Using a weapon other than that which was declared will result in forfeit. This is to insure accuracy in determining and assigning Tournament Rankings prior to and during each match.

-Use of abilities is permitted, as long as the ability does not affect the other combatant, unless such ability is declared as the chosen weapon of the combatant using them. A prime example of this would be Barbarian roars. With the exception of bloodlust, no intimidation roars will be allowed. Dancing, however, since it affects only the combatant and not his or her opponent, is allowed. All other guild abilities will be allowed, unless they directly affect one?s opponent. Failure to follow this rule will result in forfeit.

-The organizers of Gladiator School reserve the right to change the rules without notice, as deemed necessary for safe, equitable, and above all, fun tournaments.

-The organizers of Gladiator School reserve the right to disqualify any combatant at the discretion of the Judge.


Rules updates: 9/29/03

-Since there seemed to be a bit of confusion between acutal weapon ranks and Glatiator Rankings, I've decided on a terminology change. Since this is "School," Gladiator Rankings will now be known as your Grade. They will continue to be computed in the same manner as stated in the original rules.

-After a particularly gruesome bout where there was a 19 grade difference between the competitors, it was decided that no bouts will be allowed where there is more than a 15 Grade difference between competitors.

-All weapons must be unloaded and stowed if you are not competing in the current bout. We had a couple of incidents last night, which were quickly and honorably handled.

-Each bout will not start until the Judge chants the go ahead signal. The actual signal is subject to change, but will generally be something like this: "Combatants! When you are ready, challenge, accept and begin!" I'll be working on this a bit before next month to make things clearer who is currently fighting.

-The Judge will compute the combatant's grade and announce the differential prior to starting the match. This will allow the Judge the opportunity to call the bout due to the 15 Grade rule above, and will allow the combatants to withdraw from the bout if they so choose.




Armsman Maulem~

"The truth is that ineffective, unfocused violence leads to more death. However fully thought through, well executed violence never leads to more violence because afterwards, the other guys are all dead." ~Commander Ternith Sjomah

Although I'm not at liberty to say which areas are being looked at for future arenas Maulem, the tourneys sound like alot of fun!


GM Alvy

Having a way or "registering" as a Gladitorial team (system wise) would be cool too. Espcially if bookmaking were financable by traders, possibly with theives doing the actualy book making. It could be a lot of fun.

What happens for this tournament if there isn't anybody around who has near the same skill as another person?

Player of Pormithius

Just curious, but how do you handle the scenario of mismatched offense/defense? Given two combatants both with 100 LE:

Bob is LE primary and his defenses are matched at ~100.
Joe is LE tertiary and has defenses at 200+.

Bob doesn't stand a chance even though by the grades standard they are equal.