Loaner Weapons

Yes the dead horse has returned. I'm here to beat it to death again.

We need realm administration to manage loaners and collect donations for them. No more pvc. We need lon lasting loaners. We had to trade out newbies every other death because we had no loaners today just personas.

I spent 150 dollars on loaner shields and 90 on sword in the past 6 months. Most have been sold as persnals but as new blood joins the field we need to manage it.

How long have these newbies been playing. Some where new that day, some have been playing awhile. Maybe someone could take them under the wing and get them to buy materials and then have a weapons build the day before practice or during practice. We need loaners, yes, but we need newbs who have been involved a month or so to start making their own weapons.

Loaner gear that last long is more expensive than loaner gear that doesn't. Who foots the bill if noone is donating anything. We also have an event coming up, our own I mean, not just Samhain.

konradr

...Has anyone ever thought to charge for loaner weapons? It's not very much, encourages people to buy their own kit, and raises a bit of money to make more. Treat it like you do the water you guys sell on Saturday, a buck and you can use whatever two things you want from the pile?

I've thought about it and so has Phoxly and Smithy and Taco. Trouble as I see it, if we sell to someone who then doesn't come out again. Then we've lost a weapon.

What if we charged a rental fee? Well then we loose the kids who don't have a job and can't afford anything.

Konradr

We just need to get some of the new people to want to make their own prefered kits and if it's more advanced like a spear or a red have someone help them make it. Most of our "loaners" that we've been giving out lately are personal weapons which would have the new people confused if we started renting or selling loaners.

I didn't mean let them take them off the field. If you guys (I'd say 'we' but I don't think it'd be appropriate) can make an appropriate amount of [lasting] loaners, and say "If you give me two bucks, you can use any two things from that pile for today," the weapons'll end up paying for themselves. As long as you have a pile, and you make them aware of the fact that they go back in the pile when they're done with them (or want to switch), you won't even need to mark them, as long as you don't care who uses them (IE, personal weapons).

I'd say there were at least five newbies today? $40 a month to create and/or replace weapons, with the remaining going in to whatever sort of Barad'Dun funds you guys seem to be trying to stock up for. That's also not counting Black Lions/Royal Army extra practices, or the guys that aren't done testing all of the loaner weapons. They pay a buck, they get to see if that new 12" diameter shield or that heater work well with the new sword they made.

After a while, they'll begin to realize, "Huh, with the $16 I spend at Dagorhir every two months, I can just make my own sword!" and eventually end up with their own preferred kit. I've been here two Saturday practices, and I'm still trying to figure out what that would be. All in all, I don't see why a newbie would need to make their own kit. The same way they don't need to make their own garb. Give them a monetary reason, and they're likely to feel more inclined to get materials on their next stop to WalMart.

We don't expect the new people to build weapons as soon as they come out, but if they've been with us for a month or so we do expect them to atleast have a blue weapon and minimal garb. One of the reasons that we do play this game is to dress up and beat people with foam weapons and it's better to do that with your own gear. I didn't have any weapons for like 6 months or so cuzz I didn't have the money to build any weapons and my sword failed. It sucked. One of the only reasons we need loaner gear is for people that haven't been playing for a while or if some of our people that we have aren't new and there weapons fail and they want to borrow them for a few practices or so.

Learning to build a basic blue and a basic blue foam shield really sets you up for the rest of your Dag life. I'm not opposed to charging a rental fee for loaners on a monthly basis, like $5 a month for shield+sword kit, but honestly $10 you can make a sword yourself.

Grek has been out 3 months now, he has 3 shields and 3-4 swords. His first two things he made failed, he fixed them, came to a build day I think... now he's golden.

Our newbies are verrrrry interested in learning to build, it's a great skill to have and know how to do. I've only made maybe 4-5 swords in my 2 years. If you build them well they last a while.

maybe do a weapons build AT the park during practice and maybe the people without weapons can learn how to make a weapon and help in the making of their weapon and pay like 5-10bucks for the MATs. It wont be high quality stuff but will work for a bit until they get more into it. That way they learn how to make them have a weapon of basic construction and can decide to make more on their own or just pay someone like Taco or Phoxly to make them if they can afford that route.

Having a weapon build day at the park would be good especially when alot of new guys don't have rides to someones house.

Talking of lifts for garb builds...
I can give lifts on friday for the garb build, provided you pm me in advance and can throw a couple of bucks my way for fuel.
I live in Summerlin and am happy to pick up anyone in the NW half of Vegas (sorry if you live down Henderson way - but I aint driving an hour there for an hour back... I need stuff built at the garb/weapons day too - plus I bet I am slaving away at my sewing machine) so let me know if you want a lift and I will try to deconflict people/places/times as best I can.