It’s a perfectly Quakerly game that just happens to resemble millennia of bone-breaking melee combat.Amtgard is the official sport of the Yachting Club. The goal is to score hits on your opponent’s body with foam weapons such as swords and clubs. Games take place in front of Hege Library every Sunday.

While the game’s core premises are constant, there are many game varieties like Ditch, Arena, Vassal, and Monk. Newcomers tend to enjoy Black Knight, in which a player cannot be killed, only immobilized once all their limbs have been cut off.

Fans of historical reenactments can watch the players rediscover Greek phalanxes, Saxon shield walls, Chinese spear tactics, and many other such maneuvers.

“(Amtgard contains) good physical exercise, a healthy sense of community, and a great time,” said yachting club commodore Mitchell Hamilton, sophomore.

“Many non-Yachters take part in the games, and students who have never played before show up every week,” said Hamilton.

Nathan Murdoch, a 2009 alumnus and five-year Amtgard veteran, spoke of the game’s openness to the rest of Guilford and his personal desire to recruit more players.

“I’m twice the age of some of these kids. They need to come out here and beat the old man,” said Murdoch.

Although the majority of Amtgarders are men, women are welcome as well.

“It’s not just a guy’s sport,” said sophomore Lauren McClure with a grin. “I don’t think they’ve been any gentler on me than anyone else.”

Outside of Guilford, Amtgard is a worldwide live-action role-playing game (LARP) with a complex system of character types and ranks. A player can advance in rank by showing skill in the combat games, but generally does so through any action to benefit the Amtgard community, such as making weapons or providing food at an event.

“We think what (the larger Amtgard community does is awesome, but it’s a little serious for us,” said Paul Facknitz who graduated in ’09. “(At Guilford,) it’s not role-playing, it’s exercise.”

Despite Amtgard’s typically benign nature, the game has occasionally been used for events of grave importance, such as the Dec. 8, 2006 duel between seniors Erik Belmont and Adam Waxman. Waxman had insulted Sylvia Toth, Belmont’s fiancée.

It was the first duel on Guilford’s campus in over a century.

Though the sport seems rough, the importance of strategy over brute force prevents most matches from becoming too savage. Ideally, a player feels no more bloodlust than he or she would in a game of chess.

Sophomore Richard Johnson, who is in charge of taking care of most of the weapons, talked of his plans for expanding Amtgard in the future.

“It’d be nice to have a weapon-making (demonstration) at a Yachting meeting,” said Johnson. “People are more likely to come out and play with something they’ve made themselves.”

See you on the field of battle.