Wooden Shields

I heard a rumor at St Wolfgang’s that They were thinking of banning wooden shields. Can I ask:

Is this true?
Who are They?
What the reasons for this would be?

I’m assuming that this would be a St Wolfgang’s rule rather than an nzLarps one, since that would otherwise be a bit draconian.

If people are interested in putting together some guidelines for weapon and shield construction, I’d be interested in helping.

I agree, it should be a game-by-game rule. Just like rules about headshots etc, it’s up to the game organisers to set the safety parameters.

That being said, no game I run will ever allow wooden shields. This is because wood is hard and more likely to result in accidental injury, and because of wear-n-tear on weapons.

The alternative is simple: use corflute. It’s cheap and safe. The only drawback is that painting is not as easy as wood.

Regardless of what you make the shield from, a covering of fabric (ideally linen or cotton) glued to the shield gives a good surface for painting on.

Edges on wooden shields can be padded to reduce wear and tear on weapons (and people).

Then you will have to pad it really-really well, and not just the edges but the whole shield.

I’m personally totally against using wooden shields in larps. Wooden shields are evil things, the smack hard no matter if it’s the edge or the middle of the shield. In fact, if it’s the edge and it’s not padded with a thick pillow you can loose couple of teeth (oh, those horrible NAAMA stories!).

Now, larpers, raise your hands who is ready to sacrifice couple of teeth for the sake of… for the sake of what, by the way? I don’t really get the idea WHY you need wooden shields, not the softer ones?

And now I’ll say another nasty thing: steel fighters use wooden shields, they fight carefully and still get injured. Larpers do not fight carefully. Well, maybe some of them do, but most of them, in fact, smack really hard. The reason is that nobody see the foam weapon as a really dangerous thing. The blows are often much harder than those people use with steel weapon.

Now, how are you going to explain to them that with wooden shields they have to be much more careful? In fact, it’s not about explanation, it’s about learning the appropriate degree of control.

But even if the fighter with wooden shield does have the appropriate degree of control - how can he control other larpers rushing into him? They will bump into the wood and hurt themselves. Oh hell, yes, that will hurt a lot.

That was all a total imho, as you understand :unamused: An imho from someone who knows what it’s like to bump into a wooden shield.

From experience with Mordavia I probably wouldn’t allow wooden shields at any future larps I run either. Mass combat, sometimes in the dark, with some inexperienced fighters, with the possibility of shields changing hands. All that isn’t compatible with heavy shields.

It’s worth noting that the Roman shields we have are pretty heavy too.

Given that a lot of combat takes part in the dark, in woods, running at high speed and not in a the comparably safe environment of a sunshine lit tournament open field, it is inevitable that people are going to come into abrupt, violent contact with shields. This will likely involve some degree of pain and injury.

Having said that, I still think they’re as likely to poke an eye out on a tree branch, sprain an ankle falling down some steps or graze their hands tripping on a gravel path. We can’t pad the whole world.

There are a lot of materials and objects that may or may not make good shields. The big blue plastic drums used by the Undead Roman Legion spring to mind. This 5mm sheet plastic could cause injury in a similar way to plywood.

Rather than just banning wood (which I’m fine with by the way) can I suggest some kind of guideline like, “if dropped from 1m onto a naked foot should not cause significant pain” (???)

Another question on shields. If a shield was constructed almost entirely from camp-mat, could it also be used as a weapon?

NZLARPS does not put any restrictions on what GM’s want to allow or do in a game, so the use of woodern shields is a totally by game decision.

Personally I agree with Mr Troll Feeder and I think they should be allowed, as I think you are more likely to trip up as poor lucy did than get hurt with a shield, ie a shield may course an injury but no worse than anything else that unluckly happens when people are out having fun.
Also if someone is going to all the effort to wear 15 kgs of armour, why can’t they also have a woodern shield

That said creating a larp shield is easy to do anyway and is much lighter.

Agreed, but we can reduce the risk profile of a game, and that’s why I won’t allow wooden shields.

I would classify these shields as being similar to wooden shields. They have hard edges. I would modify these by cutting them down in size and add a coreflute front sheet that extends beyond the edges. This would result in softer coreflute edging, making them larpsafe.

The best guideline is to disallow unsafe materials.

Trouble is, how do you tell which shields are safe to do this with ? What would happen if someone mistakenly used a non-foam shield like weapon ? Wouldn’t using a shield like this encourage shield-charging ?

If all shields in a game were made from foam, then this could possibly work. But that would mean re-making dozens of shields.

In a book “The Queen’s Necklace” by Alexander Dumas there was a very good phrase. They asked count Kaliostro how he managed to survive 3 thousand years even with the immortality brew, how he managed not to die of violence, like, not being killed. The count said “I take 99 chances away from the fate and I am aware of the hundredth chance”.

That means - no, you can’t make yourself completely safe from everything, but you can make yourself as safe as possible.

You can’t be sure there will be no brick to fall on your head tomorrow and to kill you. But you can avoid walking around the buildings where reparement works are in process, and that will make the brick falling possibility minimal.

Now, about my yesterday gravel rash: this is exactly the example why everyone should put as much efforts as possible into safety. The reason I fell was that I stepped on the edge of my dress which was beautifully and authentically long. I had discussion about it on St Wolfgang forum some time ago with a bunch of people, and they persuaded me I should go authentic as it will not be a problem to run around in long dress. I’ve been an idiot to let them persuade me though I knew I’m not really capable of doing it that way (yes, I know some people can, but I’m not one of them). Well, I’m punished enough for my stupidity (damn, that hurts, but at least doesn’t bleed any more… I think so…), so next time I will either forget about authenticity, or try to find an appropriate authentic option that will make me comfortable - cross-dress, for example.

In this case I have no one to blame apart from myself. However, if I get hurt in larp because of someone’s unsafe shield I will sit down and cry, and I will complain about how badly I’m hurt with the shield, and the most possible person to listen to my complains will be Carl. Now guess what he will do next :smiling_imp:

Ok, back to serious talk: why exactly you guys (since there are more than one person infavour already) want to use wood, why you are unhappy with existing safe option? I’m sorry I dunno what is normally used to make them, but I think people are usually quite ok with them, so why not use safe stuff?

Hi everyone,

“They” would be the St. Wolfgang’s GMs, or more particularly, me. This would definitely not be an nzLARPS wide edict.

I am pushing to have wooden shields banned for several reasons. The people who usually bring them are re-enactors who already have them on hand from re-enactment fighting and for this reason, the edges are usually not padded, not being designed for larp fighting.

I am aware that some (if not most) schools of re-enactment fighting involve some degree of fighting with the shield which is fine in a setting with steel swords and adequate armouring but in a night time larp combat situation where the NPCs are often armoured with nothing more than a thin black robe, being smacked with a wooden shield is very painful.

In addition, I am aware of how panic inducing night time combat can be when you’re on few HP and the fiends of Satan are rushing you, since I’m more often than not a PC myself. Panic is natural and expected, mistakes happen, and while hitting too hard with a foam sword has no particularly disastrous consequences, the same cannot be said for instinct kicking in and whacking someone with a wooden shield.

It is not only the issue of padding the edges which re-enactor shields don’t tend to have anyway (corflute shields need foam padding on their edges to make them safe too) the issue is with the relative heaviness of wood and corflute. While there are a lot of people who attend pseudo-medieval larps that are familiar with medieval combat and used to the risks, there is at least an equal amount who aren’t, especially newbies, and larp combat needs to remain relatively unintimidating. Wooden shields weilded by panicked PCs in the dark are definitely not unintimidating.

I realise this decision will put some people out but realistically speaking, it doesn’t take a lot of effort, time or money to make a fantastic looking shield out of corflute. Setting up an assembly line between three people, you could easily make four or five shields in about three hours (not including painting)

[quote=“adam”]
Also if someone is going to all the effort to wear 15 kgs of armour, why can’t they also have a woodern shield[/quote]

Because your 15kgs of armour is far less likely to hurt someone than a wooden shield, short of you throwing yourself on top of them (which you shouldn’t be doing anyway, since that counts as grappling) or hurling the armour at them (again, a no-no)

Does anybody know where to get corflute from without stealing real estate signs?

Ring a real estate agency and see who they use to print their signs. Then ring that company and see if they have any corflute wastage you can have.

Or get involved in a political party and at the end of a campaign (such as the local body campaign that is ramping up at the moment), get permission to recycle some of the billboards. My current stock is from the Green Party.

Perhaps you could offer to help take billboards down in return for harvesting the corflute. They’ll likely snap up an offer like that since there is usually a tight deadline by which the billboards need to be taken down (such as the night before the election).

If you do have corflute that has questionable ownership, make sure you paint out any signage. A friend of mine was doing court protest for NORML (with purpose-built plywood placards), and some anti-abortionist protesters were there as well with some real-estate-sign placards. Cops arrested them for theft…

Oh Boy, wow lots of very good points, probably too many to cover, so i will just give my POV.

Sheilds are a risk no matter what they are made of, too rigid a material like wood and you have the danger of being smacked by one that has just been swung by someone not able to control it.

too flexible material and you get no protection from the sheild which defeats the purpose.

I have used Corflute sheilds a lot in Larps, and will never use them again since the last one i used at a Mordavia game tore MY knuckles to peices after one of the enarms (Straps) was torn from a blow.

I was using a wodden sheild at STWVH and in the end I ditched it, it was unfamiliar to me and heavy which meant i was not sure how it would behave in combat, the risk was too great so I ditched it and switched to case.

safety with a sheild comes down to the skill of the user, just like any weapon, if you use it in an unsafe manner then it will be unsafe, if you are careful and use the sheild safely it will be safe. Now of course you cannot count on the actions of others, but as far as I am concerned if some muppet decides to perform DIY dentistry on the edge of my sheild then it is thier problem.

The best sheild i have ever used is the one i have in my room, It belonged to Steve, it is an East German Riot Police sheild, flexible ABS plastic, with thick soft rubber edging, light, strong, easy to use, and safe.

Derek used a wooden sheild the whole weekend and did anyone have any problems with the way he used it, did he hurt anyone with it?

take it at a case by case, game by game basis by all means but dont just automatically default back to Corflute, in my experience it aint that safe.

You knuckles weren’t torn up because the shield was corflute, they were torn up because the strap wasn’t up to the job. Corflute shields can be made very robust if they’re properly constructed.

I’ve also found corrugated cardboard to be an acceptable (and free) material for shields.

My corflute shield has been through a number of weekend larps and many battles with no problems at all. It has 3 layers of corflute.

The worst that has happened to it is when the cat attacked the foam mat padding round the edge.

You knuckles weren’t torn up because the shield was corflute, they were torn up because the strap wasn’t up to the job. Corflute shields can be made very robust if they’re properly constructed.

I’ve also found corrugated cardboard to be an acceptable (and free) material for shields.[/quote]

Sorry carl i have to agree with the general trend here, although wooden shields in proficient hands are probably as safe as corflute, i personally don;t want to risk my expensive implant false teeth on an accidental shield hit to the face. I also would not allow wooden sheilds in any game i ran.

as for corrugated cardboard, its good enough i have found in my early days, hell one of my shields stille exists in a freinds garage (been there 12 years) but i found that when they got damp that was the beginning of the end for them. Corflute by far is the best material, and as a precaution i always edge mine with carymatt.

the straps were fine, it was the corflute that let go and cut my hand up.

If it was a Mordavia shield then it may well have been poorly constructed, as many of them were. I’ve had the same experience of a corflute shield scratching up the back of my hand.

Raw corflute edges are sharp, they should all be taped (including the slits for handles) and if the corflute surface is damaged exposing the interior it should be covered. Best to pad the whole arm area in the first place.

In the UK many shields are made entirely from layers of dense closed-cell foam (denser than camping mat). That sounds a bit more expensive, but would cover most safety concerns.

Ryan, where did you get your gray foam from?