Right, first of all, you need five ten-sided dice and a character sheet.....Oh, hold on...SCA Role-playing....ummmmm......let's try again;
So you have a feast to go to; you have paid the autocrat in advance, your garb is ready, your feasting gear is packed and you have a bottle of mead to share with your friends (Lets ignore the unreality's of these words for the moment, shall we? It's just an article!) You look at yourself in the mirror...and that's where it can all fail, because it's still you, just with some fancy icing. The Dream, as some call it, works differently for everyone; we all have our own desires and get our fix in different ways from the Society, but the real dividing line between Dream and just another facet of mundane life is in the adoption and playing out of a period persona. I will attempt to provide you with a few mental prompts you can use to separate the day-to-day you from the Medieval you, so that walking into the feasting hall can be a wondrous and special thing, and not just a stroll into a room full of fancy drapes.
The first step, of course, is having a period name (and registering it with your local Herald, hint hint!) Answering to a different name at SCA events can help widen the gap in your mind between mundane and medieval. Rather than just 'being' Lord Prattus von Splodgemoor at a feast, and still answering to Joe/Jane Smith, doesn't really help. If people who know you mundanely slip and call you Joe/Jane, correct them first rather than ignoring them, with something disarming like "My sincerest apologies, my Lady, but I do not believe that Gentle could attend this even. Perhaps I, Period McName, can assist?" OK, so it sounds kinda stupid, but you get the drift, and eventually people will stop thinking of you as Joe/Jane and start thinking of you, in an SCA context, as your persona. There is another problem which may develop, however; that you become known mundanely to your friends by your SCA name. This can ruin the feel just as much, because there is no transition from mundane to Society. If you have lots of SCA friends you associate with mundanely, make an effort to call them by their real name, unless they tell you otherwise.
Next up comes the persona's history. So you've hit the books and come up with a name for an 11th century Moldavian beetle-harvester who traveled to Far Cathay hidden in a camel's hump (or was it rump?). Fine...but what does that mean? Do 11th century Moldavians say "Cool!" to everything? Do they do the thumbs-up to their friends across the room? Or perhaps, they say something like "Zounds!" and lick their companions forehead in greeting. Who knows? But the point is, if you make an effort at avoiding the colloquialisms and gestures of the modern age, everyone around you will get into the mood more easily. This technique is known in the Society as 'speaking forsoothly' and often involves much more flowery and eloquent language than the non-committal grunts we use today. If you want to go one step further, as well as finding out turns of phrase common to your era, try a slight accent. This can be as easy and familiar as a broad Scottish brogue, or as subtle as changing how breathy or sibilant your words are, so that you sound just different enough that people will make a mental connection to the fact that you are not you, you are your persona. Plus, it sounds neat.For the really advanced student (Hey kids, try this at home!), actually converse as your persona, about things which do not relate to mundane life. It's fine to cloak mundanities by using 'wagon' instead of car, or 'high-speed scribe' instead of e-mail, but you can talk about that sort of thing another time, if it's not urgent, and people will mentally translate 'dragon' into aeroplane anyway, thus thinking mundanely, thus detracting from the medieval feel. Of course, if your persona would spend all evening complaining about that broken wagon wheel, or those blood-sucking usurers who charged 5 florins (5! Sink me!) for the cold and unappetising burger of ham you had on the way, feel free.
(Warning! Gratuitous plug!) The next thing to consider is your device; registered, of course, with your friendly neighbourhood herald. You have spent months designing your personas crest; Purpure, in chief three tribbles leapant argent, in base a shark circlant famishant or. Great! Wonderful! So where is it? On the device submission form. Oh...I see. Where else? Your shield? But you're at a feast. How can you have a long, and to you quite interesting, conversation with some poor Gentle about how your ancestors were given their lands because they chased away all the small furry things that were annoying the king, when you can't proudly present them with the aforementioned device lovingly engraved on your codpiece?
The same goes for garb. Would a Spanish dilettante wear a t-tunic and fur gaiters? Did the prunemongers of Sicily ever prance about in curly-toe shoes and braid gems into their hair? If you don't know, try and find out, and when money, time, and inclination allow, kit yourself out to suit your persona. It's too easy to waste the effort you put into creating all of the above effects to highlight your persona if you become a happy little middle-period tunic-and-long-belt wearing clone. Unless you are a middle-period tunic-and-long-belt wearing clone. (Huzzah for 10th century Wales!) Creating the effect does not have to be expensive, if you do your research and talk to people in the Society who have been around a while. Remember, though, that this is your Dream, and if you want to add a bit of garnish to your outfit that could be dodgy, but that is still generally period, go with it! Be aware that some people may want to tell you that you have a clash of periods, or that something in your costume is amiss, but not all of them will be doing it to show off and be period nazis; they may genuinely want to help, so stay polite, listen to what they have to say, and then decide for yourself.So, let me summarise: Name, Mannerisms, History, Personality, Garb. This can be easily remembered with the mnemonic NMHPG. I don't profess to follow any of these slavishly, or even loosely, but when I do I have a lot more fun, and I don't tread on the toes of others who are trying to do the same. So the next time you're at an event and a friend comes up and says "Yo, dude! Catch the Footy last night? Way cool!" you can look puzzled and say "My dear and worthwhile friend. Are you stricken? For I declare you are speaking in tongues! Perhaps the Chirurgeon has a poultice for your peculiar oral malady!"
Lord Gruffydd ab Ieuan ap Cynan,
Faux pas pursuivant extraordinary (acting).