I carry no phone An aspiring Luddite In a wired world.	Jeff Berry is an early adopter of the Internet and the Web, a late adopter of Twitter, and declines to adopt Facebook. With the death of Google+, he's experimenting with federated platforms. He admins a medievalist Mastodon instance, and can found on t he PlusPora diaspora pod. He hates cell-phones.

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The Viscountesses' Challenge at Saint Bede's Fair Saint Bede's Fair was a few weeks ago, and in the run-up to the event, we needed to decide on some tourney formats. We wanted something which would be single combat rather than anything melee, and ideally something other than the sort of default tourney styles of either round-robin (of some sort), or a bear-pit (of some sort). My suggestion was a challenge tournament, with some of the ideas harkening back to the early days of the SCA. The first prize I ever won was for 'best death,' and I thought it might be nice to revive that old tradition as well. After some cogitation, this was what we came up with. Viscountesses' Challenge Rapier Tournament Short description: Over the course of the tournament, each fencer will make a set number of challenges, challenging any other fencer they desire. The bouts will be resolved before the Viscountesses, and the assembled crowd. Once all the fencers have completed their challenges, the Viscountesses will confer and will, at their sole discretion, award prizes for: best death most chivalrous best dressed Viscountesses choice (one per Viscountess), based on whatever criteria the Viscountess wishes (As it happened, we ended up as a Viscountesses+ tourney, with a countess and a duchess joining the gallery.) This format has some nice bonus features. The number of challenges per combatant can be varied in order to adjust the length of the tournament. The overall number of fights is simply the number of fighters times the number of challenges. I believe we had seven fencers and five challenges, for a total of 35 fights. For comparison, that's about the same as a nine person round-robin, which would have 36 fights. Since challenges need not be the standard 'to the death' you can get some more interesting fights; although most were standard, we had a couple to first blood. Since 'best death' was a prize category, it was generally clear who had won and lost. In general, since simple number of victories was not a criterion for, well, anything really, the display and spectacle became more important. We did full salutes for every challenge, for instance. It was a far more spectator friendly tournament than many. The nature of the tournament also meant that people, especially some of the less experienced fencers, could relax a bit more. No one would be eliminated, and everyone was in the running for all the prizes. It's less overtly competitive than many tourney formats, which can make for a nice change. It's a tournament format that adapts well to other situations. Baronial (or other regional) Champions work nicely this way - the Landed Nobility, and any others they care to invite, serve as the gallery, and select their champions based on whatever criteria they choose. And, of course, it works for heavy combat as well as rapier. (We intended to run a heavy tournament with the same format, but the weather did not co-operate.) The fencers seemed to enjoy it. Our gallery seemed to enjoy it, although that might be due in part to the prosecco they brought to sip on as they observed the skill and chivalry that was on display. Overall, a successful tourney, and one that I expect we shall see again next year.