RE: MR: Disc: Pay-to-Fight

[vnend%nudity@Princeton.EDU (David W. James)]

Poster: vnend%nudity@Princeton.EDU (David W. James)

> Greetings, Milord Edward,

> I believe I understand the position you are taking on this, you spoke
> yourself well, but I just cannot bring myself to accept your arguments.

	I am not Lord Edward, but I hope that you and he do not mind my
contributing to your discussion.

> I have recently become authorized to fight and I built most of my kit
> myself or picked up pieces at local sporting goods stores that sell used
> equipment for very little $$$.

> Considering, by our Kingdom Laws (as I understand them), you must own
> your own gear before your authorization, I spent the following money on
> the following items (these are the minimums I would consider any fighter
> to need and do not list all of the items in my kit):

> Total:	$231.00

	This you list as the cost of building your armor and weapons.  It can
be (or, at least, could be) done less expensively.  As I recall (and it
has been 15 years, so my memory may be lax) my costs were somewhat
lower, and spread out over a nine month period while I fought in
borrowed equipment at practices and local events.  As I recall, I spent
some $30 on leather (scraps) $10 for heavy nylon thread, needle and an
awl, perhaps $7 for small steel plates and $5 for elbow and knee pads.
$5 bought enough rattan for a sword and a mace (the foundation for my
armor was an old lab coat, and the leather and steel was backed with
free closed cell foam.)  It was minimal, but it worked.  That's $57 over
9 months.  My helm was a gift that required $20 worth of re-working to
be list legal (and it still is...) and my shield a hand-me-down from a
fighter who had been fighting a few months longer than I.  So, at least
then, you could get on the list field for a $77 investment at less than
$10 a month (the helm was a big expense for me then, even at only $20.)

	You probably couldn't do that today, (for one thing, armor standards
require a lot more now than then) but I suspect you could still save
at least half of what you spent, given time.

> If I've had to spend this much, at a bare minimum (and I've tried to do
> this as cheaply as I could). in order to fight, I'm not going to choke
> at spending less than 10% more, in order to be able to authorize.

> If the newbie / OP dosen't have $20.00 to pay for a membership in order
> to be able to fight, they surely aren't going to have enough money to
> put together their own kit, even building most of it themselves.

> YIS,
> Lord Gawain Kilgore

	Even given that membership then wasn't as expensive as it is now, I
don't know if I'd have been able to meet the cost.  (Yes, things were a
wee bit tight back then.)  My only other expense was $10 for the fabric
for a tunic and the occational site fee, which were, as I recall, rare
at the time (they had them for feasts, but those were at night, and I
worked nights...).

	This isn't that time, but the principle that has guided my
participation in the SCA since then has been that having people to play
with is fun.  Things that keep people away or deny them the opportunity
to participate are to be avoided.  Those gifts of armor and equipment
above were given for the simple reason that having another person on the
field was fun.  No one even mentioned sending money off, other than that
if you did you got this useful thing called 'Black Star'.  If you wanted
it, go ahead.  If you didn't, just come and play!  The more the merrier.
Which, several years later, got me an AoA for 'recruiting'.  And a lot
of fun along the way.

Kwellend-Njal
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