Running the Pterodactyl Hunt
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No matter what I try to do, how much I want to streamline things and incorporate Panic Book pages into the rest of the wiki, some form of this page will have to exist, because there's just too much stuff involved in running the Pterodactyl Hunt, and too much advice people have tried to give over the ages. Hunt Wizards need to know stuff. And, since Hunt Wizards are usually sophomores, they will never know everything.
Here goes. This page will be written primarily for presidents and wizards. --JillianWaldman 01:22, 24 Sep 2005 (EDT)
| Table of contents |
Who runs the Hunt?
The Pterodactyl Hunt is organized by a coalition of the Hunt Wizards, the Hunt Committee, and the Hunt List, with some slight input from the rabble. If you are care enough to read this document, you are probably one of the above, have been, or ought to be.
Wizards
Hunt Wizards are selected at SWILmeeting sometime in the spring, and are nominally in charge of running the Pterodactyl Hunt. This consists primarily of making sure that everything gets done. They have access to a virtually unlimited supply of advice, aid, and snarking in the form of older non-members, but final decisions and legwork are generally left up to the Wizards.
Among the (many) things that should be decided by the Wizards after discussion with the Hunt Committee/List are:
- Layout and Scheduling of the Hunt
- The list of Monsters that will be used (including discussion of new monsters)
- Rules of the hunt
During the Hunt, the Wizards will wander around the Hunt, making sure things are running smoothly. They will be assisted by as many squires as they can recruit.
Note: If you talk to alums about what it's like being a Hunt Wizard, they might have a really different picture of what the job entailed - at one point there were "organizers" and "wizards" - one group to do all the logistical stuff beforehand, another to referee and run the hunt. Modern Wizards "get" to do both. Yay.
Hunt Committee
The Hunt Committee was originally envisioned as a group of knowledgeable SWILfolk, primarily former (and current!) Hunt Wizards, who would be able to handle most of the legacy aspects of the Pterodactyl Hunt. This includes all of the things that are passed on from year to year - the complete list of available monsters, the rules to be used in the hunt, the knowledge involved in the construction of weapons, and the care of the weapons themselves. The Hunt Committee has two functions - first, to relieve the Wizards of some of the burden and work of planning the hunt, and second, to make sure that all of the necessary knowledge gets passed on to the wizards, monsters, etc. The Committee generally consists of the Wizards, the Presidents, and a lot of interested current students and alums, many of whom are past presidents or past wizards themselves.
The Hunt Committee holds meetings to discuss planning of the Pterodactyl Hunt. There's generally a meeting or two in the spring, to figure out what work needs to be done over the summer, a lot of meetings in the fall, in the weeks leading up to the Hunt, and a debriefing immediately after the Hunt. The easiest time to gather everyone in one place for them is generally right after SWIL Meeting, since everyone is already in one place.
Hunt List
In 2003, at Ben Newman's suggestion, Josh created the hunt list [1] (http://www.swil.org/lists/#hunt). It permits communication among the members of the hunt committee, both pre-hunt planning, and inevitable long, drawn-out discussions of the theory of the hunt. In addition to area alums and current students, the Hunt List contains many non-local alumni from past eras, who offer historical perspective and lore. Orientation documents, the rules, new monster ideas, etc, should probably all be sent to the list for discussion, improvement, and general approval.
Current students who are sure they don't want to be hunters, and are interested in learning about and tweaking the mechanics of the Hunt, are welcome to join the list.
Pre-planning
Wizards should meet outside of Hunt Committee at some point to discuss how they plan on running things among the [however many of them there are] in the weeks up to the Hunt, as well as one the night of. Some good topics of discussion might be:
- What will be your primary source of advice for the Hunt?
- Discussion amongst yourselves (has the benefit of encouraging cooperation, might confuse old-timers)
- The wisdom of the Panic Book and the Hunt list (generally sound, represents vast amounts of experience, can be out of date)
- Personal judgment (fine for things like making prop, bad for in-game questions)
There are a lot of things that the Hunt Wizards need to get done: agreeing on what authorities you will be appealing to will ensure that, should you not be able to always work as a team, at least your independent efforts will be somewhat consistent.
- What kind of Hunt do we want to run?
There is a theory that the Hunt is not meant to be easy. This has all sorts of implications for pricing, monster behavior, and the rules in general. If you feel that some rules are too harsh, and that this is likely to lead to frustration among the Hunters, you and your fellow wizards might want to adjust the rules somehow. However, if you have major disagreements about the Theory of the Hunt, you definitely want to find out sooner rather than later.
- How collaborative do we want to be?
Experience suggests that, for whatever reason, there is often one Wizard who ends up doing a large amount of the pre-Hunt work. If this is likely to be the case in your year, you'll probably know who this person is going to be. This may or may not be something that will bother you, but it is also a good thing to discuss.
Squires
Squires are the Wizards' minions during the Pterodactyl Hunt itself. If you recruit a head squire early, you can probably get them to do some of your legwork, but nobody's done it before. Most of their responsibilities will occur during the hunt.
Layout and Scheduling
These should both be done well in advance of the hunt, so that we can claim things before anyone else reserves them, and the rest of campus will have to work around us.
We need to pick a date for it. This can be handled by the Wizards or the Presidents, but should be discussed at SWIL Meeting, to give the rabble the illusion that they have input. In actuality, Swarthmore's fall schedule usually only provides one or two possible weekends for the Pterodactyl Hunt. Early October is about right, preferably before fall break, so it won't be so cold, but as late as possible, so you have time to construct equipment.
The Hunt is traditionally on a Friday night, with Saturday as the rain date. In 2005 we tried having it on the Saturday night a week before October Break, with the Saturday night a week after October Break as the rain date (those being the only two possible dates for the hunt), to encourage alumni and others to come from out of town to attend. We'll see if this works.
the hunt will have a set of boundaries, determined by the wizards. the wizards should try to choose areas of campus which are not under construction at the time. as well as fighting boundaries, the wizards need to choose locations for hunt central (doubles as hunter regen), monster regen, and the oracle/black knight area.
after you've selected boundaries (or even before), you should "reserve" the space (circle outdoor areas on a campus map to designate which space you're using), by e-mailing space@cc. this will let the college know we're holding the hunt, as well as getting it in the space master schedule and the weekly news.
Check Hunt History for a list of past layouts of the Hunt.
Supplies and Funding
Before the hunt, you should amass quantities of stuff. Budget committee will pay for Hunt supplies (assuming you ask them for money and hand in receipts later). They'll pay for stuff that the whole campus uses (supplies), but not for things only individuals profit from (prizes). There's a line item in our annual budget for the Pterodactyl Hunt, so you don't have to go to SAC and request funds for the event. Ask the Treasurer if you don't know how much is left in the budget, and make sure to get receipts for all your purchases to give to them.
You'll need:
- n glow sticks to serve as "glowing hearts", where n is the number of Pterodactyls in the Hunt. Usually, n=3.
- String to affix glowing hearts prominently around the 'dactyls' necks.
- n water guns, one per 'dactyl.
- Armor: White trash bags for hunters, black trash bags for monsters. Enough for all your monsters. Having a limited supply of trash bags to give out to hunters is a good way to limit the size of the hunt.
- Equipment for all the special monsters, including 'dactyl wings, orc longswords, hydra flails, jabberwock head, etc. See each monster's wiki page for more detailed info (if it ever gets put there).
- Equipment for all the hunters and regular monsters. You should do an inventory of the hunt supplies in George sometime before the hunt (ideally, the spring before the hunt, once Toys R Us has summer stuff, while you can still get budget committee to pay for fun noodles.) If you need more swords, shields, etc, buy supplies early, and hold swordmakings in the fall. Supplies for making foam swords include:
- fun noodles (green or yellow)(1/3 per sword)
- cable ties (5 per sword handle)
- duct tape (lots)
- someone wise ("weapons master" or "apprentice") who knows how to make swords. Or those sheets of paper with instructions that exist, somewhere.
- a cutting implement (knife)
- minions to make the swords
- A laptop (borrow, rather than buy) for the banker to keep track of funds on.
- Poker chips (in three colors - prices should be scaled, generally white is worth 1, blue is worth the highest value).
- Hunting licenses (these should be in George)
- Water for hunters and monsters is a necessity. Can be bought from Sharples (go through and ask the people in their offices behind the servery). Give this out at Hunt and Monster Centrals.
- Supply of water (in buckets?) for dactyls to refuel
- Signs for Hunt Central, Monster Central, explaining the rules, etc.
- Pizza certificates as prizes. Buy from Renato's. As noted above, you can't receive college funding for these, though it might be worth asking the deans.
Some of this stuff is in George. Check first.
- Costumes for the wizards. Something distinctive, preferably not black, preferably wizardly. Staffs are impressive and distinctive. Flashlights might be useful if you're playing somewhere dark.
Monsters and Advertising
Special Monsters
Non-members of swil and their friends are recruited to be Special Monsters, since Special Monster positions are awarded by seniority, and people not associated with SWIL generally don't have any. we do not advertise all-campus for monsters, since we got too many monsters and not enough hunters when we tried that. get monsters by sending a signup sheet at meeting and e-mailing it to curswil. if multiple people want to be a particular monster, wizards decide. seniors get preference.
- Well, in advance of the Hunt, the Hunt Wizards need to pick the set of monsters that will be on the signup list when it's passed around at meeting. This tends to involve theory discussions with the hunt list, since there are logistical issues with some monsters. Not every monsters needs to be in every hunt every year, but some of them have strong bases of support and people clamoring for a turn. The full list of monsters that have been used (or conceived) is on the Pterodactyl Hunt page
- A few weeks before the hunt, send an email to the fun list informing people that next meeting, you'll be holding monster signups. Tell people to email you (or the hunt list, unless it's members-only) if they want to be monsters or squires and won't be at meeting. (This lets us recruit all those frosh who sleep through meeting, but are interested in SWIL.) Pass a signup sheet around at meeting. Let people sign up for a first, second, and third choice monster. Encourage people to be orcs and squires, emphasize that seniority will count in assigning monsters. It might be a good idea to have them list past hunt experience, when they sign up.
- Assign monsters to people. The seniority rule for current students is as follows: people who have participated in more hunts get priority over people who have participated in fewer hunts; people who have participated in their hunts as squires or wizards get priority over those who have been monsters, who get priority over those who have been mere hunters. 'Dactyls usually go to senior presidential-types. Alums generally fill in positions that need to be filled, rather than joining the seniority battle over popular monsters.
- It's important to assign an Orc King and Hobgoblin King early, and send them each a list of their Orcs or Hobgoblins about a week in advance, so they can plan costumes, find/write songs, have team-building activities and racial picnics, etc.
Advertising for Monsters
After you've held signups at meeting, and realized that there's no way SWIL contains enough people to supply 40-50 orcs and hobgoblins, and 10-15 Squires, prop campus asking for monster signups. The "Horde of One" campaign has been successful in the past (since 2002? 2003?).
- Try to send someone to Double Star meeting at Bryn Mawr a few weeks before the Hunt, to recruit monsters and squires. Double Star meeting occurs at thursday dinner in Erdman.
Advertising for Hunters
since it is our biggest campus publicity activity, the pterodactyl hunt would kind of suck if we didn't recruit some people who aren't us to participate in it. it's a good idea to have the hunt not conflict with anything major on campus, so try to keep your ear to the ground about other things going on (although scheduling to coincide with peaslee helps reduce the risk of this, since they use space on campus, so fewer things can be scheduled against them).
most of recruiting is the job of, you guessed it, the miniprop (though the hunt coordinators can choose to prop it themselves). there should be some posters a few weeks before the hunt, and a really large number of posters in the week before the actual event. something should go up on the swil board as soon as a date is determined, if possible. also, swilfolk should spread information about the hunt as much as possible by word of mouth.
all prop and advertisement should give the time of the hunt as the time when hunter briefing starts, not the time fighting starts, and should give the location of the hunt as parrish parlours. (if people want to join late, they'll find us.)
the night before the hunt, it's traditional to chalk campus. we have chalk in george, if we run out, buy more. chalking should be dictated by the campus chalking trends of the time, though the rule has been "anything goes" since [chaos was] at swat. as a matter of courtesy, don't chalk anywhere rain doesn't reach because it won't wash away afterwards. also, if someone else has chalked already, feel free to add hunt chalkings, but resist the urge to parody theirs -- no good will come of it. [We parodied slogans for the 2004 hunt, and no harm but only great amusement came of it. I don't know what the rest of campus thought of us, though. I think it was mostly Living Wage chalkings. --JillianWaldman]
The Night of the Hunt
Typical Hunt Schedule
6:00 Preparation
- Hunt wizards and whoever's helping them meet in Parrish (or wherever George is) to get out all the stuff that will be needed for the hunt.
6:30 Monster Orientation
Monster orientation occurs before the hunters show up. The Wizards should do a general orientation, in which the rules are discussed. Monsters and Squires need to know the rules and layout well enough to resolve the inevitable disputes with the hunters.
- All monsters should leave Orientation with a supply of gold (poker chips) in appropriate denominations. Each monster should be issued a black trash bag and the appropriate weapon (if any).
- Special monsters should know their roles.
- Special monsters should know their abilities before the hunt, and prepare thematic costumes, weird things to shout, etc. Special Monsters are listed on the Pterodactyl Hunt page, with descriptions and rules pertaining to them. Very martially skilled monsters should be prepared to fight incompetent people, and should practice somewhat.
- Determine what you want to do with the monsters - spread them out on the field to await hunters, or have them enter with a big charge, or whatever. This depends on the layout of your terrain.
- Race Kings, Pterodactyls, and the Squire Master should brief their minions, if they haven't done so already. This can occur after the Wizards are finished talking to everyone.
7:30 Hunter Orientation
Hunters are traditionally oriented by being divided into small groups (<10) and read a copy of the rules. People should be picked ahead of time who're willing to orient the hunters -- you probably need 5-10 orienters. Orienters should be people who know the rules of the hunt well, plus all of the other intricacies. It's a good idea for the wizards to prepare a sheet with the rules on it so that all the orientations are uniform, and have the orienters read it in advance. It should include the basic rules, boundaries of the hunt, objectives, etc. Hunters in groups of no more than six, target area is the torso, if you hit someone's head you die, etc.
After the rules are read, orienters should ask if there are questions, and answer any that arise. It might be a good idea for the orienters to figure out which (if any) of the "secrets" they're going to mention, so that this is uniform. (Explaining the Oracle is probably a good idea; explaining the Cat, Werewolf, etc, should be left to the Oracle, though it might be worth saying that things without armor are killed (if at all) in weird ways. If there exist quests, eggs, etc, figure out whether you're going to mention them. Mention that Dactyl venom kills. Emphasize that monsters are referees in the field. If there are SAC-provided snacks, mention where they are. Etc.
Creating a Hunter Orientation Video, in the style of an airline safety video, has been suggested (2005), and would simplify things greatly, since we could then put all the hunters in a room (SC 101?) and give them all the same information at the same time. And then latecomers could catch up on the rules without taking any monsters out of the hunt to orient them.
Hunters should leave Orientation with a sword and a white trashbag (armor). When you run out of white trashbags, the hunt is full and no more hunters can be accepted. (This is the de facto way to limit the size of the hunt).
~8:00 Pterodactyl Hunt
The Hunt should not begin until after all hunters have been oriented, and all white trashbags handed out.
- The beginning of the hunt should be denoted by something loud and clear, like a trumpet or bagpipes. The SWIL megaphone is not sufficiently loud for this purpose.
- Monsters can commence the hunt, either with an initial charge (if the playing field is small), or by entering from a number of entrances around the field (good for populating a large area).
During the Hunt
During the hunt, wizards should wander around resolving disputes, looking for problems, receiving and dealing with complaints, and generally trying to make sure things run smoothly.
- If nobody's buying hunting licenses an hour or so into the hunt, wizards can reduce prices at Hunt Central. It's better to charge too much for things and have to slash prices, than to charge too little and have the hunt over too quickly.
- Once hunting licenses have been issued, each wizard (or a referee) should lurk around the 'dactyls, to make sure the kills are fair. Make sure Hunt Central (or the wizards) gets the names of the people who slay the 'dactyls, since it's kind of embarrassing when the Phoenix asks and we don't know who won. Get the pizza certificates to the winning teams somehow (either that night, or through campus mail).
After the Hunt
After the hunt, clean up everything and order pizza for the monsters. It is also generally a good idea to hold a hunt post-mortem at the same time, in order to track what did and did not work in the hunt this year, and to take notes.
Things Monsters and Hunters Need to Know
the hunt should be scheduled to begin at some time, say 8:00pm. hunters should be instructed to meet at 7:30pm, and monsters at 6:30pm. i'm not sure of the exact times, but the point is that you want about one and a half hours between when the monsters are supposed to meet and when the hunters are released onto the playing field. for either north or south campus hunts, parrish parlours is a pretty good place to have the briefing.
at the monster meeting, the wizards should make sure all monsters are present. they should determine substitutions or alternate rules if any monsters don't show up (if the fishmonger is missing, just don't have one; if the black knight is missing, upgrade someone else -- basically, use your judgment). announce all monsters and have them stand up so that everyone knows who/what everyone else is. the monsters need to know:
- the basic rules of fighting
- the hunt boundaries
- the identities and behaviour of the other monsters (the best way to do this is to explain each monster's task to him with other monsters listening)
- what the hunters are being told about them
- how much gold they should get (varies by monster) and where to get it (hunt central)
- the fact that, as final arbiters of all battles, they are responsible for making sure hunters enjoy the hunt, enforcing rules, making sure nothing dangerous happens, and reporting anything bad to the wizards
the monsters should be released onto the playing field before hunters start to arrive, though it's fine to recruit some monsters to help finish setting up hunt central. monsters can hang out by hunt central and chat for awhile, but they should spread out around the playing area 10-15 minutes before the hunters arrive. a squire should run around the playing field yelling ``the hunters are coming! when the hunters are about to be released from briefing.
after this, the hunters will be briefed. it is important for all hunters to receive some briefing, even those who come late, so the people manning hunt central should make sure latecomers know the basic rules before giving them a trash bag. the hunters who arrive at parlours on time should be told:
- the basic rules of fighting
- the hunt boundaries
- hunt central and buying things
- what prizes exist and how to get them (see section 3.8.2)
- the identity of wizards and squires, who should be informed if anything goes wrong.
- the fact that monsters are final arbiters of battles, etc.
- a few facts about monsters, including: the location of the oracle and how to fight the black knight (especially the part about single combat), the fact that there's a difference between the vampire and the shadow, the fact that monsters which don't wear armour can't be killed by a hit on the torso.
explain to the hunters how to poke holes in their trash bags, then pass around trash bags for them. it's a good idea to have enough swords for the initial wave of hunters in parlours, so the hunters don't immediately need to swamp hunt central. then send them out to fight.
What wizards and squires do during the hunt
squires primarily run hunt central during the hunt. thus, they keep an eye on all supplies stored there and sell items to hunters. they can also act as an xp bank, writing down how much xp each player has so players don't have to carry that many poker chips around. this year's squires found that it was reasonable to give each player a number when doing this, to make bookkeeping easier.
wizards and extra squires, if there are any, walk around the playing field and keep an eye on things. they can collect extra swords from monsters and monster regen and make sure monster regen is stocked with extra coins and water.
they should keep an eye on the progress of the hunt, and make adjustments if things are unbalanced: allowing the troll to waylay monsters as well as hunters, disbanding the dactyl guard late in the evening, etc.
also, they should keep an eye out for bad things. one common bad thing is ville rats hanging around the playing field. recruit a monster with elaborate costumage to go have a little talk with them -- it works wonders.
more serious bad things are hunters (or even monsters) who repeatedly ignore the rules. talk to them and make sure they understand what the rules are first, but if they persist in doing anything that makes the hunt dangerous for anyone, kick them out. several years ago, there was an incident in which some hunters showed up with swords with unbent coathangers in the middle. basically, just look for anything suspicious. it is not a bad idea to talk to public safety in advance and let them know that the hunt is happening. we are running around campus in the dark hitting each other with swords, after all -- make sure no one gets hurt.
