MIT Mock Combat Club


Boffer-sword Oriented Sparring and Roleplaying at MIT

Who Are We?

We are a new group of MIT students interested in boffer combat, whether it is for exercise, roleplaying, or competition. We vaguely grew out of the MIT Assassins' Guild, but we are a separate group.

What the Hell Is "Boffer" Combat?

Boffers are padded swords, usually made with a PVC or fiberglass core and foam pipe insulation for padding. They don't sting much when they hit you. Boffer combat is, well, combat using boffers.

What events are you doing soon?

We're running weekly practices (see below), and hopefully some longer games over the summer.

What kinds of weapons are available?

Basically any reasonable weapon you can conceive (and make) is allowed. The common types of weapons are:

In addition, we've used spell-packets (small bundles of birdseed) to represent mage spells in our modules. If you want to make swords, we can often give cheap prices on materials. In addition, since weapons need to be OK'd for safety reasons before being used in combat, it's probably best to have us help you build stuff if you want to hit us with it. Talk to us.

What the Hell Is a Module?

A module is a roleplaying scenario based around boffer combat. Please stop shouting.

Oh, ok. Sorry.

Quite all right.

What if I haven't ever picked up a weapon in my life? I still want to play...

That's ok. We can teach you some stuff. Nobody here is a 12th Dan Black Belt of Ti Kwon Leap or anything, but some of us have trained in fighting from other places... kendo, jujitsu, SCA... We can adequately teach you how to fight with pretty much any of the weapons listed above. Then, you can learn by sparring and learning how to fight while doing so!

So where and when do you guys meet?

We meet Sundays at 3 pm, though this may change. We usually meet on the Dot in front of building 54 (or in 66-3 if it's raining). Typical practices start out with some single combat sparring and 'degenerate' into team combats and mass melees.

Can I Join?

Please do. Show up to a combat night and/or email combat-ops@mit.edu to join.


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