Hi All,
Me and a few of my friends are establishing a Navarr Striding called ‘The White Foxes’.
Any advice or tips one can provide, from Navarr or other nations, would be greatly appreciating.
Cheers,
John / Kaddoc White-Fox
Do you want general advice for starting a group at Empire, or specifically with a Banner?
Not navar. But my friends and I started a new house in dawn last session. We had an established theam (monster hunters), a standard/ heraldry, an established hierarchy or rolls (in not sure how navar work but we had our nobles and yeomen and their roles so we had an idea how the group worked both on the field and in down time).
Most importantly we had a goal going in. And just worked towards it. In our case it was earn respect. So we went on skirmishes, entered torniments and was helpfull to new players.
We also made friends both before hand on Facebook. And on the field and made connections, offered help and favours so they could be called in later. This helped us dive right into the deep end rather than skirting around the edge of the game.
It’s all anecdotal stuff. But it worked for us. I hope you guys do well.
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Both sound equally helpful, if you don’t mind!
A couple of articles that are at least somewhat relevant:
http://larphacks.tumblr.com/post/122343423354/process-hack-being-a-responsible-group-member
and
Also, I’ll second the advice about having goals to work towards. Consider trying to set things up so that OOC you can have a good time even if you don’t get anywhere with the IC goals: otherwise you’re taking a risk by tying IC success to OOC enjoyment (but hey, it might pay off).
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A few tips: (sorry if duplicated above)
Banner note: Having a Banner group means that likely, you’ll be fighting under it. You may want to look into magical banners (artisan recipies), and see what would give your group the best buff. You will also, to get the best results, have an actual banner prop, and take it to battles with you. This can be a significant IC and OOC investment, so choose carefully. There are benefits even if you don’t fight under it, as several rituals allow extra banner members to be cheaply included (eg, my group uses Lure of Distant Shores a lot. Casting it on multiple members of the same Banner is cheaper than casting it individually).
The OOC stuff:
Decide in advance about group tents and logistics. Also funding and contributions. Everybody should be able to make some sort of contribution, be it time or props or tents or food or transport or money.
Have some method to organise, discuss things, plan between events. A private Facebook group, a website, a regular meet-up, whatever.
Decide who’s doing the OOC organisation. Including camping, food and transport organisation.
The IC stuff:
I only ran into this when I joined a carefully constructed group for Empire, but a social contract for the group is a good idea. What do you want to do, what sort of characters do you want rattling round against each other?
A band of relatives, or united by a common goal? All old friends, or newly met?
A surprising distinction I ran into was “knives”… “Knives out” = no-one to turn against the group, ever. “Knives in” indicated that there would be a certain amount of in-group pvp, up to and including murdering each other (some people like that sort of thing). A good solution was “Knives out at character creation”, stipulating that everyone started out loyal to the group, but might change depending on play. So in the event of giving Bobs character the crappy jobs and routinely confiscating his shinies, he might snap and run off/betray you/sink a knife in you one dark night… Which makes things more interesting 
Not so much of an issue in Navar as in Dawn, but decide on colours, symbols and insignia. Oh, and name.
Try to work out what you want to do, as a group, IC. If the group is just where you all meet up for fighting and camping together, that’s one thing. But if some want to go around as a group on shopping trips, perform rituals together, and generally hang around as a group all the time, that’s something else.
Sort out IC roles: who’s handling the cash, who’s in charge, who’s doing any craftting, and so on.
What goals do you have as a group? Rituals? Skirmishes? Politics? Parties? Check everyone is on the same page, and be prepared to compromise or set up a rota
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, check everyone is having fun. This is an expensive hobby, in time/energy/cash/emotional input. Make sure everyone feels that it’s worth it.
Hope those help, and perhaps I’ll see you on the field!
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