Free Leaving Mundania by Lizzie Stark

opponent’s stat is higher, my attempt fails. The way such issues get resolved depends on the type of rules system used and the game.
    Dungeons & Dragons was not the only role-play-based subculture that reared its head in the 1970s. A few years earlier, in 1966, a group of friends gathered in Berkeley, California, to have a party. The invitation to this gathering announced that it was a tournament and ordered “all knights to defend in single combat the title of ‘fairest’ for their ladies.” 24 Everyone enjoyed the event so much that they decided to get together again, and the Society for Creative Anachronism was born. News of the SCA spread by word of mouth and through science-fictionfandom. In 2010, the group had more than 31,000 paying members on five continents, though it’s likely that more people participate in the many SCA events held each year.
    The SCA is dedicated to the reenactment of the medieval world as it never was. Participants take on a persona situated in history, for example, a fifteenth-century British peasant or a thirteenth-century Chinese monk, and costume that character. Unlike in larp, in the SCA there is a premium on historical accuracy, on doing and wearing things in the same way that they were done in a particular medieval era. On a metalevel, however, the community doesn’t precisely replicate medieval life, since the SCA doesn’t hew to a particular medieval time and place—characters from different medieval places and times mingle. While actual medieval societies were full of lots of peasants and a few rich and noble gentles, SCA personas tend to be nobles rather than commoners. The SCA has many guilds and other groups dedicated to specific facets of medieval culture, such as dancing, calligraphy, heraldry, brewing, and music, all done in the old way. SCA members fight with rattan (wooden) weapons, and participants can gain status within the community by excelling on the battlefield, earning titles such as lord, prince, and even king. The “known world” of the SCA is divided into kingdoms, each with a king and queen, and from there into principalities, baronies, shires, cantons, and so on.
    While the SCA and larp both involve taking on a persona, the two groups have very different aims. In the SCA, staying in character is only minimally required, while in a larp taking on a character, playing that character, developing that character’s story, and leveling up one’s character is the ultimate aim. Leveling up entails attaining enough experience points, which are doled out for successful adventuring, to increase one’s statistics, number of skills, or skill proficiencies. The real point of the SCA is to find community while learning about and practicing past ways of living. The SCA has different sizes of event, from grand festivals such as the yearly Pennsic War, a multi-week camping trip that draws tens of thousands of participants and features combat and culture, to smaller local events, a medieval dancing class, for example, with as few as five to ten participants. At the end of an SCA event, a member may have defended a title onthe battlefield, milled around in a pretty costume, or learned how to create an illuminated manuscript or brew beer at home. Ideally, her real-life knowledge has been improved, taught, or at least practiced. In contrast, at the end of a larp, ideally, my character has developed further—maybe that character’s long-lost mother has returned to town for an emotional scene, maybe someone taught that character how to throw fire-balls and there is a new skill on my character card, or maybe I’ve simply hung out in a costume and had a good time with my friends. Members of the SCA, or SCAdians (pronounced “SKAY-dee-ens”), as they’re sometimes called, can win honor and titles inside the organization by demonstrating excellence or persistence in a real medieval skill, sort of the way that Boy or