A Scoutmaster's Blog

I would guess that Capture The Flag has been a popular game among Boy Scouts since the beginning of the Scouting program. I do not recall playing it as a youth so when I discovered the game in a Scouting game book I introduced it to the troop. Since that first game in the 1980’s it has become one of the most popular games to play while we are camping, especially when we go to Camp Watchamagumee.

I am not going to go into all the rules of Capture the Flag, but it involves two teams chasing each other through the woods while trying to find the other team’s flag. It is a great game for getting the boys to burn off some energy.

Being 50 now I prefer to sit in my lawn chair and watch the boys run by, but in my younger days the other adults and I would play with the boys. There is one particular game that I will always remember playing.

The game took place one fine afternoon at Camp Watchamagumee. The side boundaries were formed by a beaver pond on one side and the top of bunker hill on the other. The road into camp was the end of one territory, the stream marked the end of the other. The dividing line was the path from the beaver pond to the campsite on bunker hill. One territory was completed wooded, but the other one had a small swampy pond in the middle of it.

Once the boys had divided into two teams Dave, the assistant scoutmaster, and I joined opposing sides. He joined the team with the swamp pond in its territory.

The game was going well. Everyone was having fun. I ran into the other team’s side once again to find their flag. Suddenly, Dave appeared between me and the safety of my side. He ran toward me, planning to catch me and put me in “jail”. I had no intention of being caught so I took off running, away from my territory and safety. I ran toward the swampy pond.

Dave was not far behind me when I reached the edge of the swamp. I did not have any time to think about it or react. I ran into the swampy pond. I thought that Dave would not follow me into the pond. I also thought that the water would only be about a foot deep.

I was wrong on both accounts!

The water was nearly to my waist after only a dozen steps or so. It was too late to change my mind, especially since Dave had decided to follow me into the swamp. We both ran through the pond, losing speed and energy as we drenched ourselves.

When I reached the other side I noticed that it was uphill to the road, the end of this side. I was getting tired but I summoned another burst of energy and ran up the hill. I planned to get to the road, run along side it for a short distance, then run down the hill on dry land back to my team’s territory, safety, and a quick rest.

Unfortunately, Dave was determined to catch me. He followed me up the hill, along the road, and down the path. Our wet clothes and water filled shoes were weighing us down. But he would not give up!

I was half way back to the safety of my territory when my adrenaline finally gave out. I slowed to a walk. Dave caught up with me about three steps later. He grabbed my arm, and through deep breaths said, “Caught. Caught. Caught.” I was going to jail.

As he was leading me to the tree stump that was the jail he turned to me and said that if I had taken only a few more steps he was going to let me run free. He had also reached the end of his energy.

(This is part 2 of an article about the Boy Scouts of Troop 68 and the role playing game of Dungeons and Dragons.)

To many of the Boy Scouts who have played Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) in my fictional world of Tenne the countries of Givemea, Acirema, and Minta are almost as real as Brazil, Germany, and Egypt. They know the cities of Givemea, Pleasantville, and Dogrum almost as well as Sauk Centre, St. Cloud, or Duluth. Games have been played in the forest, the desert, the plains, and the mountains.

When a new player begins playing I will usually start him out with a human character. Once he has joined in several games and learned the basics of the game he may chose to create another character of a different race. Elves and half-elves have been the most popular, but there have been dwarves, halflings, and gnomes. There have even been a couple half-orcs. My world is based on the first edition books so there are probably fewer races available to players then the current fourth edition books.

One feature of Dungeons and Dragons that I like as both a gamemaster and a scoutmaster is that the boys usually have to work together as a team to accomplish the game’s objective. They have to help each other battle the monsters. They have to brainstorm ideas to solve the riddles and traps. They need to protect each other through many situations.

Sometimes I like to add a special theme to a game to see how the boys will react in different circumstances. Some of those topics have included racism, chauvinism, homeless children, and slavery. It has been interesting to see how they handle these topics.

It has been fun to watch the development of villains in my world. Most of them only last for one game, but two villains have become legendary. Brutus, the human, and Gary, the green dragon, are villains that were designed to be in only one game but somehow became bigger, badder, and more villainous. Each became so powerful through various games that each were around for nearly a year’s worth of games before they were finally defeated.

Several of the boys have taken the time to write stories based on their character’s adventures. Those stories have been posted to a subsection of our troop’s website and to a special forum that has recently been created so the boys can post the stories themselves. The stories can be found HERE (site) or HERE (forum). Take a moment to read them. The boys have written them from their characters point of view.

I was nineteen when I was introduced to a roll playing game called Dungeons and Dragons (D&D). A couple of my high school friends and I would get together on weekend when we were home from college and play a game at Chuck’s house. He had been introduced to the game by his college friends and he was eager to introduce this world of fantasy role play to Neil and me. We had a great time hanging out with each other during those games.

After I became an adult leader of Boy Scout Troop 68 I wondered if the Scouts would be interested in playing D&D. I talked to a few of them and they thought it sounded like fun, so I learned how to be a dungeon master (game master) and began to create dungeons and a world they could explore.

I will never forget the first game I hosted. Two of the Boy Scouts played. We created their characters and began the game, which only lasted for fifteen minutes before those characters were killed by monsters. I learned a lot about being a game master during that short time. I had managed the game by the rule books. I needed to use the books more as guidelines and fit them to the gameplay. Once I began doing that the games lasted longer and they were more fun. More boys wanted to get in on the action. Nearly 100 boys have played in my world during the last thirty years.

The realm of Tenne, the world of my D&D games, has grown to have quite a history. While many games are the simple explore the dungeon variety, there have been quite a few quests and other types of adventures. Villains have come and gone, giants fought, and dragons killed. There have even been wars between countries and gods. Some of the player’s characters have become legendary. Some of the games have become a part of the lore of Tenne, passed down from one group of players to the next.

To this day I am still amazed at how the boys, and sometimes myself, can get caught up in the game. They become very attached to their characters. They can recall events from past games that I have completely forgotten. When the guys who played in the 1980’s get together, they talk about their games with such clarity that it almost seems like it was a Scout camping trip they attended. Many of them still have their character sheets just in case they get the call to play again when they come back to town.

Most of the D&D games I host begin at 6:30 in the evening and end near midnight. Of course, there have been shorter games and some that last quite long. The longest game was a twelve hour marathon. We all got so caught up in the adventure that no one was watching the time.

Sometimes I have to remind the Boy Scouts that D&D is not a part of the Scouting program, but I have been known to use the promise of a game as incentive to get the patrol or troop to earn advancement or complete a project well. There have been many times while sitting around a campfire that the boys have discussed past games and strategies for future games.

(…to be continued.)

If you are or have been a scoutmaster you may have had young boys in your troop that really look up to you. Everything you say is truth. Everything you do is amazing. You are their “Scouting Idol”. They will follow you everywhere, do whatever you tell them. As I scoutmaster I try to do my duty as well as I am able. I admit, at time it feels great to be truly awesome in the eyes of a young Boy Scout, but it is pretty tough to live up to that standard. Here are a few examples of my “awesomeness” this year as a scoutmaster, at least in the eyes of my Scouts:

– hitting the black center of the target with all five shots at the rifle range during summer camp. Most Scouts are happy to hit the center of the target with a couple shots.

– hitting the apple with an arrow at the archery range. Although, to tell the truth, three of my Boy Scouts did this last year, but none of them did this year.)

– getting a hole in one at the first green of the miniature golf course, to which one of the Scouts commented about how playing a game with me was so unfair.

– teeing off on the camp’s disc golf course and throwing the frisbee so well that it flew through a grove of trees to land only ten feet from the basket. The boys were simply amazed. (So was I, to tell the truth.)

But then, reality crashed in and the awesomeness leaves me, like later on that same miniature golf course when it took me seven putts to sink the ball on one hole. Or when I missed the target at the archery range. Those type of things bring a scoutmaster back down to earth.

A huge reality check came not long ago when I was playing disc golf with Sergio, an alumni of Troop 68. He and I were playing at a local course for the first time. The first several holes went well for me. Then we discovered water traps in the form of streams, marshes, and bogs. My game suddenly became all wet, literally. It was like the water had a strong magnetic pull on my discs.

To make a long story short, by the time we finished the eighteen holes my socks and shoes were caked with mud. I tried washing them off at the park but ended up throwing the socks in the trash. I drove home barefoot because I did not want the smelly shoes back on my feet. The worst part of the game was when I lost one of my throwing discs in a bog with shoulder high grass. After ten minutes of searching I finally gave it up for lost. It was literally like throwing ten dollars away.

On the up side, I still won the game, even if by only one throw. Even after the reality check I guess I proved I was still awesome. Don’t you agree?

The CNNMoney.com site has a quiz titled “Are you smarter then a Boy Scout?” It has ten questions about finances based on the personal management merit badge. I gotta tell you, a couple questions could be a little tough. I just took the quiz for the fun of it, and was doing well until the tenth question. I did not take the time to think it through and got that one wrong. My final score was nine out of ten correct.

Take the test yourself and see how well you know your stuff. It can be found at
http://money.cnn.com/quizzes/2009/moneymag/boy_scout/index.html
Post your score here so I can see if I am smarter then you.

It was game time during the troop meeting and the Boy Scouts were ready to play. It was a beautiful evening in the city park. The Scouts needed to burn off some calories. Unfortunately, the boys in charge of the game forgot to bring the gear needed to play it. One requirement of being a scoutmaster (though it really not listed anywhere) is the ability to think fast and create a plan B on the spot. That trait was about to come in handy.

The troop meets at the city’s Jaycee Park during the summer months. We would gather in the back of the park near the outdoor hockey rink. The tall pine trees provided us with shade. A small clearing gave us a spot to play various games.

I walked to the back of my car and opened the trunk looking for something that could be used by a couple dozen boys to play a game. There was not much to chose from, just a tennis racket, some tennis balls, and a few frisbees. As I stood there and looked at the hockey rink I had a moment of inspiration. I grabbed the racket, a tennis ball, and the frisbees. An idea was forming in my head. It was time to play Tennis Baseball.

The game would be played inside the hockey rink with its four foot tall wooden sidewalls. The frisbees became the four bases, with home plate located toward one end of the rink, and second base near the center. The rink would serve as our ball field. The tennis racket would be our bat. The tennis ball would be our baseball.

The game would be based on the rules of one-pitch softball, a game our Boy Scouts were already familiar with playing, but there would be a couple of rules changes. First, the ball had to stay inside of the hockey rink. If a player hit the ball hard enough to fly or bounce out of the rink before a field player touched it, then the batter would be out. Second, the ball was in play anywhere within the rink. There would not be any foul balls. If the ball hit a hitter’s teammate standing on the sidelines then the batter would be out.

The Scouts loved playing the game and it was added to the list of games to be played when we met in the park. Ten years later the boys would still be playing Tennis Baseball. Amazing what a little quick thinking and inginuity can do, isn’t it?

There are some people in our society that think children should play games in which there are no clear winners. They think everyone should be a winner so that nobody’s feelings get hurt. There are some people in Boy Scouting that share these same thoughts. Everyone wins, no one loses.

Sorry, but I do not share that sentiment. Life is made up of winners and losers. Just ask the guy that got the job that the other guy really wanted. Or the high school basketball player who missed the winning shot. Or the Cub Scout who won the Pinewood Derby.

Having winners and losers is not the problem. How we act when we win or lose is more important. Or, as parents and adult leaders, how we treat the winners or losers is the most important thing.

Professional sports is all about winning or losing. I can understand this since these sports are actually an entertainment business. Millions of dollars are on the line. But the players, coaches, and team owners do not always set a good example of graceful winning or losing.

I do not like that same attitude used at the high school level. I am not a fan of parents, coaches, and schools applying a “win or nothing” attitude on their teenage players. Get rid of that “only winners count” attitude. It can be extremely stressful to the players. Yes, there should be competition, and yes, there needs to be a winner and a loser, but how we adults treat the two will demonstrate whether we provide a harmful environment or a growing environment for the students and players.

In the Scouting program we try to provide a growing and learning environment. We do not want to provide an atmosphere where winners mock the losers. Ideally, we want the winners to help the others to do a better job the next time. We want the winners to help the losers become winners also! We want everyone to “do their best”.

We play a lot of games in our troop, both by team and individually. Each team and Scout tries hard to win. He does his best to win. Yes, we do have winners and losers. The difference is that we do not let the winners gloat over the losers. Oh, there might be a minute of high fives, or a couple of comments, but the boys do it in the spirit of fun, not out of spite. In three minutes they don’t even care anymore because they have moved on to the next activity. To tell the truth, there have been many times when the Scouts are playing a game when they do not even try hard to keep a score. They are more concerned about having fun than they are about a scorecard.

I guess you could say the boys have learned the lesson. Winning or losing is not as important as having fun and being with your friends is. And as adults we need to remember that how we treat the winners and losers is the the most important thing of all. Our attitudes can make winners out of the losers too.

One afternoon, many years ago at Many Point Scout Camp, the Boy Scouts of Melrose Troop 68 had some free time. Raymond, a Scout from Alaska who was a cousin of one of our troop members, was staying with us for the week. Raymond asked if they would like to play a game his home troop played called Magic Eskimo Counting Sticks. The Scouts thought it sounded interesting so they gathered around the picnic table.

Raymond quickly gathered five sticks of various length and thickness. He then would lay them in different patterns. The rest of the boys tried to guess what number from zero to ten the “magic sticks” represented. Of course, it was not as easy as it sounds.

I was sitting across the camp’s clearing from the picnic table were the game was being played. My lawn chair was comfortable and the book was good, but soon the commotion at the table caught my interest so I had to check it out. As I joined the boys, Raymond explained the game to me. I tried it several times but did not have any success in figuring out the patterns so I returned to my lawn chair. I sat down, picked up my book, but did not start reading. The game was still on my mind. I sat back and looked into the treetops above the table where they boys were playing.

After a minute or two an idea came to me. I walked back to the group to test it out. After a few times of being correct I realized I had discovered the secret to the Magic Eskimo Counting Sticks.

Of course, the boys started pestering me on how it was done. They had not figured it out yet, and Raymond was not telling anyone. I told the Scouts that the answer had come to me when I had been looking in the treetops. There was a sudden rush of Scouts to my lawn chair to look at the same trees that I had been looking at to see if they could find the answer. Of course, they did not find anything, but they had to check it out anyway.

I suspect that to the Scouts that day their scoutmaster seemed to be really smart. I promised Raymond that I would never reveal the secret to the Magic Eskimo Counting Sticks, that the Scouts would have to solve it on their own. However, I would give one clue to the boys. That clue was, “Think outside of the box.” Yeah, I know, it is a pretty vague clue, but it does make a lot of sense if you know the trick.

Over the years we have played the game many times. Some Scouts were able to solve the puzzle, but many more never did. And even after all these years I have never told any Scouts how to solve the game. After all, I made a promise, and a good Scout always keeps in promises.