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Light Weapons and Realism.

The following diatribe was inspired by someone's lament about light weapons in Amtgard, why they lack realism, and why they should be banned.
 
> This is supposed to be a renactment group.
 
It is? Hurm. I must have missed something in the rulebook, corpora, contract, or the waiver I signed. Could you please tell me where this fact can be found? How do you renact the "Fantasy" genre? (Put on a play?) What role do "classes," 15 second healing, and multiple lives have in this renactment game you think we play?
 
On a more constructive note...
When I play Amtgard the name I go by is Rath ... NOT David.

• Rath sometimes dies hundreds of times a day.
• David never has died. But studies show I'll probably only do it exactly once.

 

• Rath is a well muscled and physically fit specimen of the human race who can carry three friends to safety on his shoulders while skipping up a mountain.
• David sits around all day talking to people like you on a computer and gets tired loading up the Truck when preping for a event.

 

• Rath can walk across the Sahara without breaking a sweat.
• David wishes there was some way to turn on his Truck's Air Conditioning BEFORE he got into the vehicle.

 

• Rath thinks Highlanders are wusses because they stop fighting after their heads are cut off.
• David regularly gets muscle cramps while watching TV.

 

• Rath shall always be 24 until just before retirement. Then he'll magically become the village elder who looks older than God and twice as wise.
• David seems to get a bit older every year until one day he'll try and collect social security only to find that it ran out years ago.

 

• Rath works on his swordsmanship for 26 out of 30 hours of every day using a medium sized rough-hewn tree as a practice sabre. (He'd practice more, but he needs time to fashion replacement sparring equipment.)
• David (if he's lucky enough to not have cut himself making it) swings a $4 collection of plastic and cloth at a friend for about 2 to 6 hours each week.

 

• Rath sometimes manages to fight 10 people at one time without receiving a scratch.
• David sometimes finds it ill-advised to play with a de-clawed cat.

When I go to Amtgard I'm not there to be myself. I go there to live a fantasy. One where I might, possibly, sometimes, be the "hero." My swords "really" weight 15 pounds. It just looks like it's 3 ounces because I'm strong enough to wield it like it was.
 
What does your "character" do that you don't, can't, or won't do in "real" life? Leave mine alone.
 
If it really bugs you, perhaps you should look into the other Amtgard-like games out there might suit you better. Dagorhir, the game from which Amtgard can be considered to have evolved from, is still played regularly, has no fantasy elements, and has a 12 oz wieght minimum on ALL their melee weapons.
 
NOTE: Those last two paragraphs are not meant as an attempt to tell people who want to change Amtgard to "go away." It's pointing out that there are many other games out there and that no one game can be all things to all people. Check out the LRP and Laser Tag Index for an idea on just how many variant live action games are "really" out there. It even has breakdowns by region that can show what games are currently being played in your area. I constantly visit other games mentioned on that site to see if I might "like them better" and I keep coming back to Amtgard. Thanks to the occational foray into Nero, HFS, and Dragoncrest, (or the rulebooks of other systems), I continually discover and appreciate aspects of Amtgard that (I believe) have made it the largest and most widespread of the boffer game systems

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