Role playing in the SCA

Ok so how many of you saw the word role playing and immediately envisaged that YouTube clip with the guy running around yelling "lightning bolt!" at people? (If you haven't seen it yet, prepare to be amazed...).

That clip is of an actual live action role-playing (LARP) game (and yes, they're really playing a game, it's not just a joke). When I watched this, and after I recovered from fits of uncontrollable laughter, I was struck by the terrifying thought that I might just be as strange as these people. I mean, the SCA wants you to create a persona right? And you're pretending to be that person in a make believe kingdom right?

Oh dear, I'm a LARPer!

How do I regain my dignity? Well in a shameless attempt to convince myself that I am marginally cooler than LARPers* I put together a list of things about SCA role playing that make it cool (well, cooler than running around pretending to throw magic at people).

1. There are many acceptable levels of role playing - All the SCA really requires is that you "make an attempt" at pre-1600 clothing and have a vaguely period name. This means there's room in the SCA for the guy who chucks a ratty t-tunic over their jeans as well as the guy with 60 pages of back story, a meticulously researched period garb and 20 years study in Middle English.
2. The SCA only role-plays the better parts of the middle ages - So we're role playing people in the middle ages huh? Ok, dysentery for all! Not so in the SCA. The basic tenets of the SCA seem to be, do things from the middle ages that are cool. If something plainly sucks (e.g. coffee was an unknown quantity) then we will 'creatively' ignore it (I LOVE the 'creative' part of the society for creative anachronism).
3. There's little rigidity in the setting - Ok, some people like the idea of recreating something down to the minutest detail and have a very defined era (e.g. let's recreate the town of blah in the month of November, 1067). This is not so in the SCA. Hello Mr. Samurai, why of course you can chat to that Tudor Fop over there, Elizabethan? Go talk to Mr. Viking over there. The SCA doesn't recreate a particular time so much as anything from the whole period and we 'creatively' ignore the fact that Mr. Eastern Persona should be trying to kill Mr. Crusader right now.
4. There's little rigidity in persona - So I'm a 12th Century German Crusader. But I also fence (generally 15th century onwards). And I'm making a Cotehardie (14th Century garb). Shock, horror, disbelief! And I don't speak German! And I don't murder anyone who looks at me cockeyed. Oh the shame of it all... Except in the SCA that's normal. If you feel like being an English dandy from the 16th century one day and a murderous Viking the next, go ahead! (Just don't mix the costumes, vikings in pumpkin pants aren't cool... well no-one in pumpkin pants is cool).
5. Less reliance on imagination - Ok this sounds really weird but what I mean here is we don't pretend to throw lightning bolts at people. We don't hit each other with paper swords and mime a grievous injury. Most of what we do is physically observable, with changes made for safety's sake. So I'll hit you with a piece of furniture cane rather than a bloody great big knife. Ok I didn't kill you but at least the visceral thrill of combat is preserved. We have enough to do suspending our knowledge of the mundane world, we don't need to complicate it with elves and dragons and magic.

So for me the best thing about the SCA is flexibility and the fact that there is a place for most people, no matter their aversion to role-playing in general. My lady Cinara always says that she enjoys wearing funny hats and silly clothes with friends and that's the level of role playing she's interested in. In the SCA she's found a home whereas in a LARP she'd just be laughing at the guy insisting he just killed her with a fireball. Geeks don't like being laughed at, she'd probably get an equally non-threatening disintegration for that one...

The SCA - Role playing without D20's, pixies and wool-knit chain mail. Gotta love it.

Bechtold (who is starting to worry that his hatred of pumpkin pants borders on the pathological...)

* My apologies to any LARPers out there. I'm sure you're actually really cool. Keep striving for that dream. May all your rolled up paper balls representing unimaginable magical power be on target.