![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Royal Rounds and Rules Lawyering
Mar. 21st, 2016 04:42 pmAs a long-time role-playing game organizer, I have a love/hate relationship with Rules Lawyering. On one hand, it's often obstructionistic, and is more about squeezing an unearned advantage out of a situation or just proving that you're more of a know-it-all than the person running the game. In that regard, it is widely held as somewhat negative. On the other hand, sometimes a rule just needs to be lawyered.
There's been some rules lawyering going on in that giant RPG I call the SCA (someone's going to object to that. My advice is don't get sidetracked by my little gibe). And it's been in the part of the SCA that's nearest and dearest to my heart, the archery community.
Some background: Royal Rounds are a method the Society uses to compare archers from across the world. It's a largely standardized (there are regional variations, but they're small) shoot consisting of four ends:
Montengarde, aka Calgary, where I am, has a giant advantage in the archery community. We have what is possibly the only indoor range that can handle a royal round in North America (I say possibly because I've always treated the Calgary Archery Center's claim that they're the largest indoor range in North America along the same line as a diner claiming it has the best cup of coffee in the world. Really, who checks these things?). We certainly have the only indoor range capable of it in Avacal (Alberta and Saskatchewan). The other branches of Avacal do not have that advantage. At best they have a combination of 20-yard indoor ranges augmented with the occasional use of ad hoc outdoor ranges when the weather and private land owner permits it. Finally, most outdoor events in Avacal also have a range capable of doing Royal Rounds.
So Montengarde has a huge advantage in regards to Royal Rounds, but it's not insurmountable. People can and do become great archers outside of Montengarde. But there's no denying it's not exactly fair.
To that end, one enterprising fellow observed that the rules say nothing explicitly about having to score at longer ranges. In fact, it explicitly says you can opt not to shoot any end in a Royal Round, taking a score of zero for that end. That's where the rules lawyering comes in: He started holding official practices at a 20-yard range and only counting the two twenty-yard ends. By the rules, as written, there is nothing wrong with that. It certainly goes against the spirit of the rules, but by my reading, it's not actually against them (though more on that in a moment).
Those practices stepped on some toes and that lead to some friction in the community. Finally, the Royal Archer (the guy who acts as their Royal Majesties final word on all things archery) clarified the intent of the rule: The range must have all distances present, even if you don't opt to use them. You cannot have a Royal Round at a short range, even if you're willing to short change yourself. This of course puts people in the opposing camp into the same situation as a Rabbi arguing the Talmud against God Almighty. You can do it, but you'd better tread carefully. The Royal Archer wrote the rules, and he's stated what his intent was, but despite that, the rules don't actually spell out that intent. As I mention above, the spirit is clear, but I think the loophole exists regardless of the spirit.
So why would the enterprising fellow want to hamstring himself with a lower score? The Calgary Archery Center does not allow crossbows, the shorter range does. If you want to practice with crossbows, you have to go to this other range. This puts crossbow shooters into the same boat as regular, non-crossbow, archers who are not in Montengarde - they have severely limited opportunities to get Royal Round scores.
So what are the issues surrounding this:
It's the law, so suck it up.
People who know me, know that that argument never works. People will abide by the law, but that doesn't mean they have to like it; nor does it mean they can't advocate to have the law changed. In the end we're discussing whether this is a good law, and if not, how do we make it so.
People need to have the option of scoring all ends, even if they don't take it.
I personally don't see much of a difference between choosing to not shoot 30 and 40 at a range with same, and choosing to shoot at a range lacking a 30 and 40. People are still making a decision based on the options available to them. I would be pissed if someone said there were Royal Rounds at a range, and the first indication I couldn't shoot 30 and 40 was when I arrived. To that end, I'd simply say make that point known when advertising the practice.
These are archery practices, not Royal Round practices - they're not synonymous. That some people have way more opportunity than others doesn't matter because that's not what the practice is for.
Point taken, but consider this: There is a huge amount of peer pressure to do Royal Rounds. I've been guilty of this myself, pushing everyone to do them (I also push them not to, if I think they're becoming hyper-focused to the point of not enjoying archery anymore - this is supposed to be fun after all). Last season, there were sufficiently few official Royal Round averages that we thought there was a problem that needed addressing, and we pushed harder. We shouldn't push people, then slap their hand.
Also consider this: Royal Rounds aren't just a way of comparing ourselves to each other - we've also made it a competition. People get medallions for placing in the top ten. High enough scores are recognized in Court by the King and Queen. Shouldn't competitions be as fair as we can make them?
A mechanism for doing royal rounds exists. If people want to do them, they can make the effort, even if it's more difficult for some of them.
I am mindful that's it's hard to argue for making things easier, when the target audience includes a lot of people who busted their asses to get where they are. Still, I'm going to do that: That people can shoot rounds at a handful of outdoor events, or that they can drive 300 Km from Borealis to Montengarde, shouldn't be an argument for the status quo. We have a solution that allows these people to participate, albeit not ideally, with a major facet of SCA archery. Ultimately, enduring a 300Km car ride really has nothing to do with how good a shot you are.
Miscellaneous Considerations
It occurred to me while writing this that the Kingdom might want to restrict this for it's own reasons rather than for the individual archers. Namely, a small amount of high-scoring archers will produce a higher Kingdom average, than a large amount of low-scoring archers. So if Kingdoms are comparing their scores, they might want to artificially restrict low-scoring archers. I have no idea if Kingdoms actually do that, and if they do, it's trivially fixed by only comparing the top X shooters.
Another pro-restrictive argument (and to my mind, the only really compelling one) is if the Society-wide rules already restrict this. If they do, then we can still make the argument, but the kingdom level is not the place to do it - we'd need to get all the Kingdoms involved.
So I had a look. The Society doesn't seem to address this (i.e. the loophole exists almost everywhere). Of the kingdoms, only Ealdomere specifies that the range have all three distances for the Royal Round to qualify. While I disagree with the rule, I will give them that it is clear and obvious.
Summary
I was asked my opinion about this when it came up over the last few months, by several people. My opinion is simple: If people want to shoot ham-strung royal rounds at a short range, let them. It's not ideal, but I'd rather more people participated in an uneven way, then didn't participate at all. I want more people to come to archery. I want fewer non-Montengarde archers driven away (ideally none).
Late Addition
So while I was writing this, they closed the loophole, and now you have to shoot at all three distances for it to be considered. You can't even opt to take a zero now (though I suppose you could just hit the 20-yard butt and say you missed by a lot if you really wanted to, but there still needs to be 30 and 40 yard targets for you to miss. Kinda wish I'd seen that before researching/writing all this. Sigh.
I think the King and Queen have to sign off on this, but it would surprise me if they didn't.
There's been some rules lawyering going on in that giant RPG I call the SCA (someone's going to object to that. My advice is don't get sidetracked by my little gibe). And it's been in the part of the SCA that's nearest and dearest to my heart, the archery community.
Some background: Royal Rounds are a method the Society uses to compare archers from across the world. It's a largely standardized (there are regional variations, but they're small) shoot consisting of four ends:
- six arrows at 40 yards.
- six arrows at 30 yards.
- six arrows at 20 yards.
- a thirty-second timed end at 20 yards, where you try to get as many scoring arrows off as you can.
Montengarde, aka Calgary, where I am, has a giant advantage in the archery community. We have what is possibly the only indoor range that can handle a royal round in North America (I say possibly because I've always treated the Calgary Archery Center's claim that they're the largest indoor range in North America along the same line as a diner claiming it has the best cup of coffee in the world. Really, who checks these things?). We certainly have the only indoor range capable of it in Avacal (Alberta and Saskatchewan). The other branches of Avacal do not have that advantage. At best they have a combination of 20-yard indoor ranges augmented with the occasional use of ad hoc outdoor ranges when the weather and private land owner permits it. Finally, most outdoor events in Avacal also have a range capable of doing Royal Rounds.
So Montengarde has a huge advantage in regards to Royal Rounds, but it's not insurmountable. People can and do become great archers outside of Montengarde. But there's no denying it's not exactly fair.
To that end, one enterprising fellow observed that the rules say nothing explicitly about having to score at longer ranges. In fact, it explicitly says you can opt not to shoot any end in a Royal Round, taking a score of zero for that end. That's where the rules lawyering comes in: He started holding official practices at a 20-yard range and only counting the two twenty-yard ends. By the rules, as written, there is nothing wrong with that. It certainly goes against the spirit of the rules, but by my reading, it's not actually against them (though more on that in a moment).
Those practices stepped on some toes and that lead to some friction in the community. Finally, the Royal Archer (the guy who acts as their Royal Majesties final word on all things archery) clarified the intent of the rule: The range must have all distances present, even if you don't opt to use them. You cannot have a Royal Round at a short range, even if you're willing to short change yourself. This of course puts people in the opposing camp into the same situation as a Rabbi arguing the Talmud against God Almighty. You can do it, but you'd better tread carefully. The Royal Archer wrote the rules, and he's stated what his intent was, but despite that, the rules don't actually spell out that intent. As I mention above, the spirit is clear, but I think the loophole exists regardless of the spirit.
So why would the enterprising fellow want to hamstring himself with a lower score? The Calgary Archery Center does not allow crossbows, the shorter range does. If you want to practice with crossbows, you have to go to this other range. This puts crossbow shooters into the same boat as regular, non-crossbow, archers who are not in Montengarde - they have severely limited opportunities to get Royal Round scores.
So what are the issues surrounding this:
It's the law, so suck it up.
People who know me, know that that argument never works. People will abide by the law, but that doesn't mean they have to like it; nor does it mean they can't advocate to have the law changed. In the end we're discussing whether this is a good law, and if not, how do we make it so.
People need to have the option of scoring all ends, even if they don't take it.
I personally don't see much of a difference between choosing to not shoot 30 and 40 at a range with same, and choosing to shoot at a range lacking a 30 and 40. People are still making a decision based on the options available to them. I would be pissed if someone said there were Royal Rounds at a range, and the first indication I couldn't shoot 30 and 40 was when I arrived. To that end, I'd simply say make that point known when advertising the practice.
These are archery practices, not Royal Round practices - they're not synonymous. That some people have way more opportunity than others doesn't matter because that's not what the practice is for.
Point taken, but consider this: There is a huge amount of peer pressure to do Royal Rounds. I've been guilty of this myself, pushing everyone to do them (I also push them not to, if I think they're becoming hyper-focused to the point of not enjoying archery anymore - this is supposed to be fun after all). Last season, there were sufficiently few official Royal Round averages that we thought there was a problem that needed addressing, and we pushed harder. We shouldn't push people, then slap their hand.
Also consider this: Royal Rounds aren't just a way of comparing ourselves to each other - we've also made it a competition. People get medallions for placing in the top ten. High enough scores are recognized in Court by the King and Queen. Shouldn't competitions be as fair as we can make them?
A mechanism for doing royal rounds exists. If people want to do them, they can make the effort, even if it's more difficult for some of them.
I am mindful that's it's hard to argue for making things easier, when the target audience includes a lot of people who busted their asses to get where they are. Still, I'm going to do that: That people can shoot rounds at a handful of outdoor events, or that they can drive 300 Km from Borealis to Montengarde, shouldn't be an argument for the status quo. We have a solution that allows these people to participate, albeit not ideally, with a major facet of SCA archery. Ultimately, enduring a 300Km car ride really has nothing to do with how good a shot you are.
Miscellaneous Considerations
It occurred to me while writing this that the Kingdom might want to restrict this for it's own reasons rather than for the individual archers. Namely, a small amount of high-scoring archers will produce a higher Kingdom average, than a large amount of low-scoring archers. So if Kingdoms are comparing their scores, they might want to artificially restrict low-scoring archers. I have no idea if Kingdoms actually do that, and if they do, it's trivially fixed by only comparing the top X shooters.
Another pro-restrictive argument (and to my mind, the only really compelling one) is if the Society-wide rules already restrict this. If they do, then we can still make the argument, but the kingdom level is not the place to do it - we'd need to get all the Kingdoms involved.
So I had a look. The Society doesn't seem to address this (i.e. the loophole exists almost everywhere). Of the kingdoms, only Ealdomere specifies that the range have all three distances for the Royal Round to qualify. While I disagree with the rule, I will give them that it is clear and obvious.
Summary
I was asked my opinion about this when it came up over the last few months, by several people. My opinion is simple: If people want to shoot ham-strung royal rounds at a short range, let them. It's not ideal, but I'd rather more people participated in an uneven way, then didn't participate at all. I want more people to come to archery. I want fewer non-Montengarde archers driven away (ideally none).
Late Addition
So while I was writing this, they closed the loophole, and now you have to shoot at all three distances for it to be considered. You can't even opt to take a zero now (though I suppose you could just hit the 20-yard butt and say you missed by a lot if you really wanted to, but there still needs to be 30 and 40 yard targets for you to miss. Kinda wish I'd seen that before researching/writing all this. Sigh.
I think the King and Queen have to sign off on this, but it would surprise me if they didn't.
