tags, laminations, and battleboards

B

Balryn

Newbie
I know this is blasphemy... but I wanted to start up a thread to discuss the benefits and cons of doing different tag systems. Some of the more experienced players have used with things like laminated tags and battleboards, and I'm really wanting to present a good, complete system for the owners to vote on.

Now that there are less chapters in total, it may be possible to get an alternate method of tagging through the system. It has been presented several times in the past, and has always met with some heavy resistance in the east coast chapters. Now that there is Seattle and Oregon, we are only outwieghed by 2 to 1, rather than 5 to 1 ratios.

I personally am very fond of the Battleboard system. We ran several battleboard events under my administration at the beginning of NERO Seattle, the staff loved it, and almost all the players liked it. Unfortunately it received smackdown from high above and came to a brutal halt.

I have also played in a laminated tag system for several years of NERO Northwest and NERO Cali, and while it had drawbacks at times, it also seemed to run smoother than the paper tag system used currently.

I am willing to reconstruct the one-sheet battleboard style system and use it for some test game days or such similar events to familiarize people with how it works. If anyone wants to really dig in, I could even run an actual Non-NERO sanctioned fighters day just for fun so everyone can see it and brush up on some fighting skills.

In any case, the battleboard system turned logistics into a literal one minute process. No tags, just a quick flip of a pen here and there and an official logistics signature and you were out the door. I think it would be cool to have the level of speed back in the logistical side of the game.

Any comments and ideas are highly welcomed.

~Barry
 
It's true that it may be a good time to bring up alternate tag systems again. Personally I hate the tearable tags - such waste, so much time lost in Logistics.

I must say that I'm not a huge fan of battleboarding. It has some of the same drawbacks as tearable tags - a fall on the wrong pocket in a puddle during combat and poof, your sheet might as well be destroyed for all the good it's going to do you now. Additionally, writing utensils are *required* to be carried.

NERO NW and Twilight Vale's laminated tag system with inactive and active rings was the best compromise I've seen. Far less waste, much faster logistics (many casters just flipped their inactive spent spells back to their active ring and were ready to go), and no special utensils necessary. Additionally, you could swap tags in the pouring rain with impunity.

-Bryan
 
I really, really like the laminated tags idea. It allows for less use of paper, better maintenance of tags in our wet environment, and far more efficient logistics... it has also been shot down before by the Alliance.
 
The other benefit to laminated tags is reduced maintainance times both at events and gamedays. You can have one tag that has their character name on it, collect the rings at the end of whatever game, and simply leave the tags on them. If people want to change spells they can review the ring and swap out the appropriate tags (since I know a lot of casters will just take the same things over and over again.)

You might propose a hybrid system. Laminated tags for tags that can get reused (skills, spells, body) and tearable tags for one-shot items (production).
 
Laminated & Tag

Alavatar;17808 said:
I am intrigued, but I don't know anything about these other systems you describe. Can you elaborate, please?
Click to expand...


Okay- here is a basic description of the two. Anyone else feel free to elaborate if I missed anything.


Laminated tags- pretty much what it says. You don't 'rip' anything. You receive a set of permanently laminated tags very like the paper ones you have now. Rather than rip, when you use an ability you take a spell from you 'active' ring and move it to an 'inactive' ring. Some players keep a 'defense' ring to. At logistics, you can simply reset yourself by moving all your tags back. The only tags you need to replace from logistics are ones that you handed to someone else. (Example, if you cast a spell shield, you would take it from your active ring and give it someone else to place on their 'defense' ring.)

The key advantage- quick logistics. Players can typically be done with everything within 2-3 minutes. Fighters and non-caster types that use the same skills every day take about ten seconds to do logistics for. Once done, your character skill tags are kept by the game, and everything is ready to go from game to game. They are also resistant to getting wet, and they typically have a good life span.

The downfall is they are laminated and there is a slightly higher cost to create them to start (but they are paid for after 2-3 games, if less). If you have abusive players, they can also make extra garbage laying around the woods and horde tags (running cost up).

Battleboards- Imagine a character sheet like many RPGs. If you have seen a Storyteller system character sheet you have a good visual. All spells and effects are put onto one sheet of paper, with eight dots next to each one. Each dot represents a use of a skill, spell, or ability. At logistics, you take about sixty seconds to line out the dots you shouldn't have.

During game play, as you use abilities, you line out another dot. If you cast a spell defense on someone else, there is a spot for initialing dots on their card.

The key advantage is that everything is one one sheet. You can see all incants and verbals, you know what spells you have for a fight, and you can quickly gauge what you have left. At logistics, an official simply checks your battleboard card and signs the bottom. (logistics this way should be done in about two minutes, except for characters who create items). The database can also be authored to pre-print your specific character. The initials for casting spells onto people also grants a wee-bit of checks and balances on players keeping track of things.

The disadvantage- everyone needs to carry a pencil. (personally, I always carry a pencil, so not a big item). Everything is on one sheet. You lose it, you feel the pain (just as if you lost your life and regular tags right now).



****


As I have played all three versions (paper, laminated, battleboard), I can say that the battleboard is my preferred choiced, with laminated tags being second (and our current paper tags last). It is fast, has relatively few problems, and a technical smarty pants like me can even hook it up to the character database to print off a card that matches your characters skills (reducing the logistics time even farther).


In both cases, tearable tags still usually exist for one-shot items (potions, alchemy, scrolls, etc). But I've also seen a few events ran with no tearable tags working in tandem with Laminated or Battleboard systems.
 
Laminated tag systems -
Typically, these run in two varieties - Basic and Active/Inactive

The basic lamtag system is that all tags are laminated. Body points are individually tracked (rather than the long tags) and tags are turned in to the NPC or other target as appropriate.
Pros - less waste, long-term less cost (in theory)
Cons - can't stick them in vials, greater up-front cost, greater replacement cost, can't differentiate between used spells that are cast on you and spells you have in memory. Overall bulkier.

The Active/Inactive system has each player carrying two tag rings (usually connected). As body points are burned, spells are cast, and protectives are used, the player moves them from their Active ring to their Inactive ring. If they regain the use of a tag, either by having a new protective cast on them, or rememorizing, etc., they move the tag from Inactive to Active.
Pros - usually a shorter second-day logistics, less waste, easier to use
Cons - clunky double tag ring set, lends itself to mistakes and cheating

Battleboards -
Basically, you have a single card which lists all of your per-day skills, effects, and items, and mark them off, either by hole punch, marker, or pen.
Pros - quicker to reference (most battleboarders put them on their shield or bracer), much less paper used, excellent for preventing mistakes
Cons - need to carry a marking device

Personally, I prefer the battleboard method. While cheating is possible, I don't see it as any more or less possible than with tags. While tags are a decent way to keep people from cheating, the excuse "I handed it to so-and-so" is just as effective, particularly since NPCs and staff people tend to just crumple them in their pocket, or toss them in the trash. I like having a board I can glance at as I get into battle, as opposed to having to track tags, particularly when I play a big caster like Gregor.

Added - and this is what happens when I start a post, have to do work, then come back to my post.....
 
I prefer the battle board system.
I know that, in theory, after every battle we're supposed to hand each other the tags we cast on our fellows, protectives, healing, damage, and all, but this generally doesn't happen. Casters tear off their spells and throw them out, and no one takes a healing tag because they always remember how many body they have anyways. I try to make a point of handing any pre-cast tags I use out, but half the time the person I hand them to either used it in the fight or just throws it away anyhow and remembers it.
My point is that the intent of the tag system isn't how we're actually using it in most cases. Most of the time we're using the honor system and assuming that if someone calls "Spell sheild" that someone tore a tag at some point, even if this person doesn't have the tag on them.
I basically use my tags to remind me of what I have in memory. As I tear them off, I know I can't cast that anymore. That's why I prefer battleboard, it's basically the same idea, but I can look at everything at the same time without having to flip through a ring (if I'm lucky enough to have hole-punched tags).
I don't like the laminated tags as much since that doesn't resolve my problem of having to look through a ring. If we're really stuck on people having to use tags, then the problem comes up when I have a Cure Mort and I use it on Jimmy P who's got 8 body. Can't tear down the tag, and the other solution is to carry around 30 individual 'body point' tags for every mort I could cast.
(Actually, I just thought of a solution to that, you don't actually have the healer carry the 'body' tags, casting the spell on someone would then allow that person to move the body points they're missing from thein 'inactive' ring to their 'active' ring, meaning that each person would only ever need like five "1 Body" tags, one "5 Body" tag, and however many "10 body" tags they needed to make up the rest. (Or possibly a number of other combonations, for people who have weird amounts of body, of if other amounts are more efficient.) Anyways, I still prefer battleboarding.)
You can still make "one shot" items have paper tags, or 'per day' items have a ring of their own or something I suppose. Battleboards are just so much neater.
 
Many of the casters I know battleboard even with a tearable tag system. It's generally the best way to take a quick look at what you have available and start casting. Battleboards are often attached to the backs of shields where they can be easily viewed. I personally feel that tags are a bad system for anything but items, Battleboards are the way to go. In truth anyone who want's to cheat can probably do so easier with a tag system than without.
 
I think I like the idea of the battleboards for spells/abilities/character attributes, the paper tags for bottled alchemy/potions, and laminated tags for everything else (items, estates in the hold, etc.).

I am totally willing to try new tag systems as well. They sound fun besides the fact I don't like perusing my tags to see what spells I have in memory or searching for tags after a battle.
 
Well there is something we can do to test this.
Staff can, at the next event, have a few people (less than 20,more than 5) who have both battle boards and normal tags. Then after the game do an audit on them and see A) how well the diffrent systems held up and B) Check to see which system was more honest (aka which system was used most in line with the rules and expectations.)
 
Kauss;17854 said:
Well there is something we can do to test this.
Staff can, at the next event, have a few people (less than 20,more than 5) who have both battle boards and normal tags. Then after the game do an audit on them and see A) how well the diffrent systems held up and B) Check to see which system was more honest (aka which system was used most in line with the rules and expectations.)
Click to expand...

While a good idea in theory, both A and B would entirely depend on the specific players. An experienced player used to pulling his tags after each fight would also probably be fairly active at checking off a battleboard. I don't think there is really any test you could come up with to check 'honesty' of a player. They either have it, or don't. The systems have no real difference in terms of cheating or honesty affect.

However you could check logistics time to see which is faster. That would be fairly easy to do.

You could also check to see if a player preferred one over the other, as that is simply a matter of personal opinion.
 
Can a player laminate there own tags?
such as spells and tags you use everyday like weapon tags etc?
I guess I am asking if laminated tags are legal at this time if a person wants to put the money inot laminating the tags themselves?

THese are the tags that you have for every event.
Or things One can use at all game days where paper tags are not used.
Shop tags, property tags etc.
 
You are allowed to laminate your item tags so long as they don't have expendable things on them. For example, people have been laminating their magic items for years now. However, laminating your spell and expendable item tags is pointless, since you have to give up those tags after each spell or item is used. The current system requires that all tags be destroyed (or turned in) as they are used, so you'd just end up wasting money by laminating tags, since you'd have to throw them out after you used them. At this time, it is not legal to hold on to expended tags so you can 'just re-use them later'. It's a waste, which is why people are talking about getting it changed. Keep in mind that Nero Seattle doesn't have the ability to change this rule on it's own, that it has to be allowed by the national Nero. That's why it's being discussed now.
 
In order to be able to make a valid argument for this amongst the alliance owners and with the ARC, it is going to be necessary to have good, solid data. This can be difficult to get, since the randomness of an event can make for spotty data checking, and incomplete experiments which are not free of subjective analysis.

Staff is discussing how to gain this knowledge in a more controlled and stable means. What this means is that we would have to assign people to have laminated tags, battle boards and the like. It would have to be amongst volunteers, but you would not know which one you were getting until the day of the event. In short, it would have to be a large enough sdample across a large enough time to be able to prove to those who can make the decision that it really *is* a good idea, not just that we *feel* it is a good idea.

It would also have to be run alongside the tag system to maintain the legality with National HQ, which would mean more work for those people in question. More as we are able to set it up...
 
Battleboards are easy enough to setup. I'll talk to Eric and Leigh-ann, I'm sure we can have anyone that prereg's for the January event set up with one to go with their tags.

My one feeling is that a battle board with tags doesn't test the feasibility of using battleboards, it tests the feasibility of using battleboards with tags.
 
You are absolutely right, but the tags must at least be issued so we are complying with the central authority. What it can also give is a measure of ease of use and accuracy of use. Are the people who have the battle board along with their tags more accurately accounting for their used spells, etc.? Is there less instance of mistakes?
 
From the alliance chair regarding this topic -

Battleboarding, and laminated tags are often brought up to the board. Historically several of your predecessors have broached this subject. Unfortunately many of us old timers remember when this was implemented pre-split and saw the major cheating that occured. Could perhaps you guys come up with a system that would work? Sure ...

So to answer your first question:

Can you playtest it? No, we do not allow playtesting. You are allowed plot and variations on a limited basis for a limited time in your game however, we insist as the alliance you adhere strictly to the rules and the logistics elements of the game. All games must be the same in this regard and follow the rules and policies. No variations are allowed.

Can you submit a proposal to the Alliance to discuss a way to do this that we might consider allowing this? Yes. (See Below) However it needs to go through alliance rules and alliance logistics, and when and if your submission process gets through them it must be ratified by all of the owners. We all go in the same direction together ... I wouldn't say it isn't worth while pursuing I would just think you should prepare yourselves for the following.

- We haven't seen a proposal yet for permanent tags that has worked - but perhaps there may be an answer out there some place. There are alot of us that are anti laminated tags, so it would have to be one hell of a submission. To quote samuel jackson from Pulp Fiction "It would have to be one hell of a charming mfing pig."
- There are less issues with battleboarding, or mega sheet like tags ... but the important thing is that players need to interact with each other and skills must be consumed and it must be verifiable. So far we haven't found a system easier then "You threw a flamebolt at me, may I have a tag." A system that took the tag and recycled it, would inevitably deal with tag loss ... and if the tags cost say 3 cents a piece ... and you lose say 200 tags a weekend ... you lose six bucks and now you have non biodegradable tags laying around on the ground.

However the process I would prefer to see is this:

1) Write up your concept, present it to the Alliance. I will have the rules and logistics folks look it over.
2) Both committees will review and present their opinions to the Owners.
3) You may present it for a vote among the owners.
Click to expand...

There is also an option for proposing a limited play test to the owners which would be voted on if seconded and is subject to veto by Mike V.
 
- There are less issues with battleboarding, or mega sheet like tags ... but the important thing is that players need to interact with each other and skills must be consumed and it must be verifiable. So far we haven't found a system easier then "You threw a flamebolt at me, may I have a tag." A system that took the tag and recycled it, would inevitably deal with tag loss ... and if the tags cost say 3 cents a piece ... and you lose say 200 tags a weekend ... you lose six bucks and now you have non biodegradable tags laying around on the ground.

Sounds like the logistics/rule team has never really looked at the actual cost of paper tags. Right now we have a system of tags that cost $5 - $20 a weekend and don't 'bio-degrade' on the ground either. If anyone is dropping tags on the ground at any of the parks I've played NERO at, its called littering, and the group gets charged for it. In counter-balance, they are fighting for a system that costs more and promotes littering.

It would be nice to do a proposal, but I think this will remain an issue of opinion for them. I think right now we see more cheating with paper-tags than I did fifteen years ago. I don't think the paper tag system has ever really worked for NERO at all in comparison to other LARPs using other systems. As far as 'major cheating', tags do not create cheaters. Dishonest, bad sports create cheaters. I could play NERO without any tags and be perfectly honest about what I have. I think most of the players in NERO could do likewise. Having a half-dozen people abuse a system doesn't mean the system is broken (this is the same idea when NERO Seattle did some group tag pulls a few years back). Either trust players, or don't let them play. (because this game is all about trust)

The purpose of the tag system should really be to promote a way to help keep track of what you have (aka, fighting memory), rather than trying to fight cheating.
 
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