Arts and Sciences
Contents
The Cultural Arts
Often referred to as A&S, the Arts and Sciences are the cultural aspect of Amtgard.
What are they?
Examples are crafts, armor-making, weapon-building, fine arts, and writing. Promoting A&S is one of the responsibilities of the Regent. Everything you see on the field, was typically made, or purchased by the player from another artisan. A person who excells in the areas of Arts and Sciences might eventually be honored with a Master Dragon, Master Garber, or Master Owl. One of these masterhoods; extreme skill, willingness to teach, and to set positive examples might eventually bring recognition as a Knight of the Serpent
Art & Sciences Tourneys
A&S events include cultural tourneys of many kinds, such as Dragonmaster, and workshops. A&S competition is an important part of Crown Quals and Olympiad. Read About Arts and Sciences Tourneys.
Some category examples:
- Accessory Entries; Court Accessories, Field (Or Fighting) Accessories.
- Armoring Entries; Bracers, Greaves, breats plates, Chain mail, Leather, Laminar,
- Artwork Entries; 2-D and 3-D.
- Banner Entries; Can be combined with Sewing, 2-D art, Passive construction, or Accessory.
- Bardic Performances; Singing, Oratory, Instrumental, Dance.
- Brewing Entries; Sometimes combined with cooking; Mead, Wines, beers. These do not have to be Alcoholic.
- Cooking Entries; Appetizer, Main Course, Dessert, Vintner, and Writing.
- Construction Entries; Passive, Active.
- Garbing Entries; Fighting, Court, Other Outfits, Monster, Accessory, Favors, and Jewelry.
- Photography Entries; Usually combined with 2-D Art.
- Sewing Entries often combined with garbing entries, but can include Quilts, Banners, Tents, and Bags.
- Rose Entries Anything that is made specifically for donation to the club.
- Weapon Smithing; Sword, Shield, Polearms.
- Writing Entries; Factual, Fictional, Poetry, Publications
How to run an Arts and Sciences tourney
As an Arbiter, or the person who runs a tournament it is your job to advertise in advance, as much as reasonably possible. Most experienced entrants will plan their entries around the method on which the tourney will be judged. You must advertise the following; The date, the time sign ins will start, the time sign ins will end, what style of tourney you plan to have, a listing of the categories, and what is permissible to enter (for instance, the things you can enter in a quals cannot have received an award in a lower tourney and must have been finished in the last six months), any limits on number of entries or number per category, And how the entries will be scored.
Choose judges a head of time, and nail them down again two weeks prior to the tourney to make sure they are still available, or if you need to find replacements. Make sure that your judges understand that telling you that they can't make it is fine, but that they need to tell you.
Bring to the tourney extra paper, sign ins, and lots and lots of pens.
Judging Methods
There are three main scoring methods; Tourney style, Flood Style, Limited entry and Top three. These each of them have variations, but generally follow the same structure.
The most common style of Judging Arts and Sciences by a pool of the Thirteen Kingdoms is the 'Top Three' style. Basically each contestant is allowed to enter as many items into the tourney as they like, but only the top scores, or score, is taken from each category and awarded points. Sometimes in the over all scores extra points are granted for taking first or second place in category. Other times the numerical score is simply added and compared to that of all the other contestants to determine the over all winner.
Flood style was often used in the past but has generally fallen out of favor in the central Kingdoms. In this style the entrant is given points for each entry which entry that scores above a certain level is is given a point. This generally favors people who enter the largest amount of entries.
The rarest major style in use as the tourney style. Structured like a fighting tourney, each entry is pitted against each other a winner is chosen by the judges and moves into the next round. The outcome is generally random, but is still used in certain kingdoms for special tourneys.
Example Scoring and Judging : For Olympiad XXI Culturals
This event will be scored on a BTA (Better than average) 3.5 system. Ideally, the competitors will have diverse talents and score well. The object of this scoring system is to keep people from winning the cultural tournament by flooding one category or entering a lot of poor quality entries in order to increase their score. The cultural winner will be the person with the highest combined score from entries that meet the following requirements; only the entrant’s two best entries in any given category will count towards their overall score. Entries that achieve a score that is a 3.5 or lower will not count towards the entrant’s overall score. Only scores OVER 3.5 count. Flyer for the event.
Scoring Systems
Most Kingdoms with the notable exception of Goldenvale use a best of 5 scoring system. 3.5 being an average score and 5.0 being the best you can achieve. Points are added and deducted for merit; usually in by increments of 0.5.
In Goldenvale a similar system is used but on a ten point scale.
Links
Styles of Tourney
An overview
Flood to Win
Best of the Best
Limited entry
Limited scores
Some listings for craft supplies and instruction can be found on the Amtgard Resources page. To read bout folks opinions of A&S tourneys or to write your own, check here
