Approaching Festivals and Teaching Tafl Games

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Tuireann
Posts: 30
Joined: Fri Mar 04, 2016 8:44 pm

Approaching Festivals and Teaching Tafl Games

Post by Tuireann » Tue Jan 31, 2017 5:52 pm

I am looking for advice from anyone who has previously taught/demonstrated Tafl games at viking/cultural/historical festivals/markets. There is a Viking Festival taking place near me in central Ohio at the end of April and I want to approach them about possibly teaching the game and I am curious about experiences anyone has had doing demonstrations/teaching sessions.

altti
Posts: 3
Joined: Thu Sep 22, 2016 12:09 am

Re: Approaching Festivals and Teaching Tafl Games

Post by altti » Thu Feb 02, 2017 5:23 am

I started with Ard Ri, followed up with Tablut, then directed the players to the pamphlets with the many variants printed out. I also made about a dozen Brandubh/Ard Ri/Magpie, Tablut, ect... boards, each with a flipside (7x7 with and without throne/corner, 9x9 with and with out throne, 11x11 with and without throne/corner). After the Tablut game the older players were eager to learn more variants.

Sigurd
Posts: 10
Joined: Sat Mar 14, 2015 10:12 pm

Re: Approaching Festivals and Teaching Tafl Games

Post by Sigurd » Wed Feb 08, 2017 11:29 pm

I've done workshops & tournaments over the last 2-3 years at Asatru community events that were typically 3-5 days in length (Asatru - Reconstruction of Viking era religion).

The workshops I've done were 60-90 minutes in length. When I started, I taught & used Copenhagen rules, as some people there were already familiar with tafl corner escape vairants and had 11x11 boards. Otherwise I would have went with Tablut due to being more historically accurate, better balance & simpler rules. With the formulation of Historical Tafl & balanced 11x11 layouts for it, I've switch to presenting the Historical Tafl rules.

When presenting the Historical Tafl rules, I've used the Tablut flyer from http://tafl.cyningstan.com/ along with a picture of the 11x11 through 15x15 layouts. At a few events, I've had people play & learn on the 9x9, though it's usually been the 11x11.

I've tried Altti's Ard Ri -> Tablut teaching model, and found it worked well for explaining the game.

I've tended to focus on teaching how to play & having people play, with a brief presentation of historical background at the beginning.

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