Talk:Live roleplaying
"The main distinction is that there is no moderator or game master in these types of groups and no overall scenario or plot."
I disagree with this statement. If you are simulating the Battle of Agincourt, there is a scenario or plot. You have a role that entails you being a French knight, English archer etc in a recreation of the armies and the battle. If you are in the SCA, you are being a medieval noble in a pseudo-medieval world. The more you play your persona, the more you are live roleplaying. It is still roleplaying, even if there is no winning or losing or judging of your performance. - Cian Gillebhrath 12:02, 13 September 2006 (EST)
However, roleplaying usually makes a disctinction between a combat and less violent forms of interaction and a scenario or plot involves a little more than "win" or "take this position", "hold them off until the cavalry arrives". At best these could describe battles or wars as "events' within a scenario.
If however, you were a french noble, and were negotiating your wy into commanding large sections of the army, and renumeration for the same or a mercenary group organising your terms of service or someones else being hired to switch sides, then this would be more akin to the roleplaying that I believe the orginal entry describes.
My concern was that the original article, and Cian's comments above, are an overbroad generalization about what the SCA in particular is and how it works. I'm in the SCA and yet I am not playing a role any more than I am when I am at my office doing my job. I realize this is something of a meta-discussion, and ties into how individuals view the SCA and the whole "high persona vs. low persona" debate, but when I'm at an SCA event, I am most definately not playing at being a medieval noble, nor are most people I think. When you ask people in the SCA who they are, in my experience the answer is rarely, "I'm a twelfth century Norman," the answer usually is more like, "I'm a member of such and such a group in such and such a Kingdom serving as such and such an officer and do such and such activities." Or to put it another way, SCA folks aren't usually pretending to be someone else, they are just people doing things in an unusual setting. AlexandreDavigne 23:45, 13 September 2006 (EST)
