Tournaments in Covid Times

Yesterday at D6 games in Rochester Mn we held what was now our second Flames of War tournament during the pandemic. Are we nuts?  Possibly.

The Rochester area is where the Mayo Clinic is located. The medical institution is one that pulls in quite a number of visitors from the outside world. The locals groan about it, yet the term “Destination Medical Center” is an apt label.

Rochester has had a mask mandate even before the state of Minnesota issued such orders. No matter where you stand on mask mandates, they are a fact of current life in our area and a critical piece in being allowed to run a tournament.

I’m someone that works with numbers in my day today. I am not an expert in epidemiology. I’ve been keeping a very keen eye on the raw data in our area which has been a major deciding factor if I would even run a tournament.

Again, due to the Mayo clinic in our community, we have a clearer picture as far as how, and rates things are getting spread around in our community.  Some takeaways from the data, after the mask mandate, new cases dropped 40%.

Of the new cases, the major areas of spread have involved gatherings where people had thrown caution to the wind: graduation parties, a downtown bar, all without masks. You get the picture.

If you pull those incidents out of the numbers, where risk was not being mitigated, the seven-day rolling average drops quite low. To put it into Flames of War terms, mitigations and rules seem to be adding modifiers that reduce risk.

We’re all for that.

The second factor we have in our favor at our local game store is space. Lots of space. Tables need to be far enough apart so that players are not stacked up next to each other. With the luxury of space, we’re able to make that happen.

The third factor is the players. Will they show up? Depending on family situations there are real reasons for some not to attend. In some cases, no risk is acceptable. This is certainly understandable. It’s an individual choice for all.

The fourth factor is the terrain. As part of the rules, for the tournament, we have to entirely bring in all-terrain that will be used. We’re not able to use in store terrain as part of the pandemic. This is because the store is required to clean all items. This isn’t likely good for certain types of terrain and it would be a very big burden on the store. As a long time player of Flames of War (and other rule sets too), I certainly have plenty of terrains myself, yet supplying it all for a 12-16 person sized tournament isn’t viable. This is where members of your community can really help out. We’re fortunate in our area, plays will happily contribute a table of terrain, set it up and take it down. I owe them a big hearty thanks.

With these variables in play, we’ve gone ahead in July and August, which resulted in a 14 and 12 person tournaments. The July tournament was set in EW and August MW. It’s been a good experience, thus far. For many, it was the first games they’d played for some time. The aspect of getting out of the house and seeing friends for the first time in quite a while was probably better for our sanity then we’d all like to collectively admit. Last, there is a fair amount of newly painted lead/plastic people are eager to get on the tabletop.

In closing, putting together a tournament these days is especially complicated. I’m not advocating you should. I’m not advocating you shouldn’t.

I’ve listed the factors we considered locally if we should or shouldn’t go ahead. We might have missed something we should have considered. You might have your own unique issues to consider. Depending on what is going on in your area, holding something just might not be wise.

Stay safe, be smart, and most importantly, it may take a while, yet times will change. We’ll get through this.