Fantasy games
 
If you go into the park today, you’re in for a big mythological surprise Published: The Globe and Mail, December 26, 1992, FOCUS BY DEBORAH JONES/HALIFAX IT'S a lovely day: seagulls circling in the autumn air, boats bobbing at anchor in Halifax Harbour, families, joggers and dog-walkers dawdling in nearby Point Pleasant Park. Suddenly, into the golden silence they come - orks, wizards, catpeople, a space monkey, monsters, griffins. They screech magic spells. They brandish long swords. They maim and kill. Somewhere in the park melee, a hapless centaur is slashed in half. Good grief. We are witnessing the Fantasy Field Trip Society at full shriek, 30 grown men and women decked out in medieval and mythological garb, embarked on ordered mayhem and having a wonderful time. Steven Fox, 31, when he isn't wearing a monster suit is a supervisor with a Halifax pharmaceutical company. Mr. Fox started out this day as a griffin with a mission. His assignment, as described in the script (all Fantasy games are loosely based on scripts) was to deliver a hat to another creature and try to stay alive while doing so. As a griffin (an eagle-lion creature of Egyptian lore), Mr. Fox found things didn't go very well. "I had this nice little straw hat with a flower in it and a little pin on it that I was trying to give back to a little furry guy who kept running away. I ran across one particular team and the first thing they did when I went, 'Squawk,' was go, 'Halt.' They killed me in two very quick combat rounds." Mr. Fox was then reincarnated as an ork, then slain again. Now, in mid- afternoon, he is another ork, the older brother of the dead ork. (Don't ask.) He adjusts the breastplate of armour that protects his hand-made fluorescent, green and black, polka-dotted, polyester body suit. Although the costume somewhat resembles a spacesuit without the helmet, it is Mr. Fox's conception of the large goblin character created by J. R. Tolkien in Lord of the Rings. A fashionably dressed couple and two young children walk past. The couple steadfastly ignores the polyester ork. The children gawk. OVER the past decade, park visitors in Halifax have grown used to ambling along idyllic paths and stumbling upon sundry monsters engaged in shouting matches and battles. Even quietness is no sign that the unholy have left: a creature of mythology may be chanced upon sitting in solitary silence, guarding an amulet tied to a bush. Fantasy Field Trip Society was established a decade ago by games- playing Dalhousie University students who wanted to create a physical version of Dungeons and Dragons. Peter Dixon, a 31-year-old Halifax artist and one of the founding members of the society, says inspiration also came from the novel Dreampark by Larry Niven and Steven Barnes, a book that describes a theme park in which people play adventure games. The Fantasy Field Trip Society has grown from a handful of members who held one game a year to as many as 70 people - aged 16 to fiftysomething - who plan, make costumes and conduct six to eight full-blown games yearly in parks and campgrounds in and around Halifax. Offshoots are springing up in Wolfville, N.S., Ottawa and Toronto, organized by university students who have moved away from Halifax. There is a non-aligned group in Alberta. While the Halifax society is independent, many of its members belong to the Society for Creative Anachronisms, an international group that stages tournaments based on the costumes, cooking and music of the Middle Ages. Halifax Fantasy games, which cost $10 a day to play and may take up an entire weekend, are a strange combination of orienteering, treasure hunts, guessing games, physical endurance and oneupmanship. While they owe their lineage to Dungeons and Dragons, all the lethal-looking weapons are phonies, and actual fighting is prohibited. Some participants are not happy about the connection with the popular Dungeons, created in 1974, because of several high-profile crimes that have been committed by North American teen-agers who played the game. The object of the Fantasy competitions is, of course, to defeat opposing teams. To do so, players use their wits to trick one another into giving up information or orjects like weapons, charms or magic spells (pieces of paper with codes written on them). The question of which is more powerful, a weapon or a magic spell, is up to the games mistress"master, who writes the script and, as the day progresses and events overtake the script, decides a player's fate by the roll of dice. (Mr. Fox's third life, as the polka-dotted ork, was bestowed by the ruling of today's games mistress.) Several referees who patrol the field of action may also rule - via dice - on stand-offs between players. Since 8 a.m., three teams of five members each have been in hot pursuit of pieces of magic in the form of a three-dimensional puzzle that is scattered throughout Point Pleasant Park. The mission of the team called the Hullabaloos is to find all the pieces, put them together, then destroy the magic because, says today's games mistress Chantal Boudreau, "they don't believe that people should be able to use magic because it's too powerful a thing." The Masters team, on the other hand, relishes wielding power - as the script requires - and wants to control the magic by finding it and keeping it in the hands of an elite. The third team is the Renegades, who believe magic should continue to exist but be free. Fouling up the plans of all three teams are trouble-making monsters who can help or fight team members, and who are scattered throughout the woods alone or in small groups. Still another set of characters present teams with the problem of deciding if they are deadly enemies or potential helpers who, if coaxed correctly, will provide information leading to the pieces of magic. Sarah Mills, a 16-year-old Halifax high-school student, appears in the guise of January Frost, a member of the Hullabaloo team and a combination mage (a magus), thief and rogue. As we come upon her, this pale young woman in a long robe is poised to plunge a knife into the back of an opponent. "This rogue here has been after our magic all day," she complains as he moves away. "And someone stole my lock picks. There's no honour." Beside January Frost stands a man who boasts he has the power of a wild mage and can cast spells with his long staff. Enemies encountering the business end of this staff will be slowed down, veiled in darkness or burned in a firestorm. "I usually don't like role-playing games, but this is more realistic - and it's not Satanic or anything like that," says the mage. In real life, he is Kelly Leahey, first-year arts student at St. Mary's University. Ms. Boudreau, the games mistress, concocted her script and presented it to the society's governing council for approval several months ago. A 21- year-old student who is taking a year off studies before completing a masters degree in English, she writes science-fiction stories in her spare time. Creating and orchestrating fantasy games "is almost like being published, for those of us that aren't that successful in getting their stuff published." Fantasy participants believe the games benefit them in real life. "The relations that I've had to pretend to have have helped immensely in some of the seminars I've had to take through work," says Mr. Fox. "Before, I wasn't good at role playing. Having to get into a different character and stay there for an entire day or weekend helped boost my confidence a lot." Several years ago members considered spreading the cause across Canada and incorporated the organization federally. But Michel Jeanrie, the 21- year-old president of the Fantasy Field Trip Society, says the council decided to keep it small: "We want to keep it for fun - it's our recreation." A one-year membership costs $10. The single expansion planned is a fantasy game the society has agreed to put on for a Nova Scotia scout group this summer in which 500 kids are expected to take part in zany method-acting games. As the shadows lengthen, the Fantasy Field Trip Society decides the Hullabaloos, who have managed to collect all the pieces of the magic, have won the match. But it is not a clean win. The Hullabaloo leader made a wrong move while trying to destroy the magic and - metaphorically speaking - the pieces of the puzzle were scattered to the winds. So look out. There's magic still out in the woods, ready to lure more monsters of the Fantasy Field Trip Society. Deborah Jones is a frequent contributor to The Globe and Mail. Copyright Deborah Jones 1992 About this website: Text and photos by Deborah Jones except where otherwise noted. Please contact me for reprint rights. All material copyrighted ../About.htmlshapeimage_1_link_0
Beware the griffin with a mission
Home    Report    Think    Explore    Essay    Play    About