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Just a Game, Part Two
Feb. 10th, 2014 07:50 pmI was going to respond to a bunch of comments from earlier, but I think a second post will be better. Especially since I've had an extra day to ponder and get my jumbled half-formed thoughts a little more organized.
Let's imagine, for a moment, a society that promotes the re-creation of medieval skills and knowledge. There would be arts, crafts, and martial training. The group would have events, both locally and in larger regions. However, people in the group do not have anything like a separate persona, and there would be no requirement to dress or act medieval (though one could if they liked - to demonstrate one's talents in creating costumes using period techniques for example). The winner of a regional armoured competition would simply the winner of a tournament. In this group, you would simply be you.
The skills fostered in this group would be real skills. The relationships fostered in this group would be real relationships. All exactly as real as the skills and relationships in the SCA. Clearly this hypothetical group would not be the SCA. Probably wouldn't be nearly so fun either.
If you take the SCA and subtract out that hypothetical group, what are you left with? You're left with the form of the SCA - a group of people pretending to be medieval. It can only be pretend of course because we don't actually live in the middle ages. At the end of the weekend we pile into our cars and go back to our mundane lives.
It's not strictly re-enactment either. Our personas are not historical people - there is no King Arthur in the SCA, no Eleanor of Aquitaine. I have never seen anyone attempt to re-enact a real battle in the SCA, though I suppose it's been attempted at some point in the last 48 years.
We have different names from the modern world. We dress differently. We have achievements that, while based of real skills and activities, don't translate out into the modern world. That all looks like role-playing characters to me. I have a persona separate from myself that has clearly "levelled up". I'm quite proud of those levels, and all of them took the application of real-world effort to achieve.
The main argument I've seen against it being a LARP is that it promotes the honing of real skills. I don't know that that's a good argument. Games don't have to have purely artificial skills associated with them. The athleticism in a professional sport is not in any way a virtual skill - it's very very real. I think that because many LARPs have virtual skills there's a belief that they must have them - that something without virtual skills cannot therefore be a LARP. It's like saying that because birds fly, things that don't fly (penguins, say) cannot be birds.
There's more to the SCA than just the LARP aspects, but that doesn't mean the LARP aspects vanish - there's still an element of play-acting to the whole thing. Not everyone is necessarily good at it though. On a scale of one (doesn't play-act at all) to ten (balls-to-the-wall re-enactor who won't respond to you out-of-character), I'm probably about a two - I bow and use milord and milady. I could probably give a basic persona outline if I had to. But I don't have to be Olivier to participate.
Take the LARPing out of the SCA and you're left with the hypothetical group I describe above. No Kings or queens. No lords or ladies. Just the relationships and skills. And yet that seems a little boring doesn't it? It's like the LARPing aspect - the pomp and pageantry, the use of archaic titles and new identities - they're what really bring the SCA to life.
I don't mind that it's a LARP, even though I'm crap at LARPing, I have no problem with it being a LARP because I see nothing wrong with having fun in the context of a game. Nor do I see games as being necessarily frivolous things. People get out of them what they put in, and some people pour their very lives into the SCA.
Don't object that the SCA is a LARP. Object to the viewpoint that games don't matter.
Let's imagine, for a moment, a society that promotes the re-creation of medieval skills and knowledge. There would be arts, crafts, and martial training. The group would have events, both locally and in larger regions. However, people in the group do not have anything like a separate persona, and there would be no requirement to dress or act medieval (though one could if they liked - to demonstrate one's talents in creating costumes using period techniques for example). The winner of a regional armoured competition would simply the winner of a tournament. In this group, you would simply be you.
The skills fostered in this group would be real skills. The relationships fostered in this group would be real relationships. All exactly as real as the skills and relationships in the SCA. Clearly this hypothetical group would not be the SCA. Probably wouldn't be nearly so fun either.
If you take the SCA and subtract out that hypothetical group, what are you left with? You're left with the form of the SCA - a group of people pretending to be medieval. It can only be pretend of course because we don't actually live in the middle ages. At the end of the weekend we pile into our cars and go back to our mundane lives.
It's not strictly re-enactment either. Our personas are not historical people - there is no King Arthur in the SCA, no Eleanor of Aquitaine. I have never seen anyone attempt to re-enact a real battle in the SCA, though I suppose it's been attempted at some point in the last 48 years.
We have different names from the modern world. We dress differently. We have achievements that, while based of real skills and activities, don't translate out into the modern world. That all looks like role-playing characters to me. I have a persona separate from myself that has clearly "levelled up". I'm quite proud of those levels, and all of them took the application of real-world effort to achieve.
The main argument I've seen against it being a LARP is that it promotes the honing of real skills. I don't know that that's a good argument. Games don't have to have purely artificial skills associated with them. The athleticism in a professional sport is not in any way a virtual skill - it's very very real. I think that because many LARPs have virtual skills there's a belief that they must have them - that something without virtual skills cannot therefore be a LARP. It's like saying that because birds fly, things that don't fly (penguins, say) cannot be birds.
There's more to the SCA than just the LARP aspects, but that doesn't mean the LARP aspects vanish - there's still an element of play-acting to the whole thing. Not everyone is necessarily good at it though. On a scale of one (doesn't play-act at all) to ten (balls-to-the-wall re-enactor who won't respond to you out-of-character), I'm probably about a two - I bow and use milord and milady. I could probably give a basic persona outline if I had to. But I don't have to be Olivier to participate.
Take the LARPing out of the SCA and you're left with the hypothetical group I describe above. No Kings or queens. No lords or ladies. Just the relationships and skills. And yet that seems a little boring doesn't it? It's like the LARPing aspect - the pomp and pageantry, the use of archaic titles and new identities - they're what really bring the SCA to life.
I don't mind that it's a LARP, even though I'm crap at LARPing, I have no problem with it being a LARP because I see nothing wrong with having fun in the context of a game. Nor do I see games as being necessarily frivolous things. People get out of them what they put in, and some people pour their very lives into the SCA.
Don't object that the SCA is a LARP. Object to the viewpoint that games don't matter.
