[Bryn-gwlad] Persona Play

Fri Aug 3 09:56:18 PDT 2007

Greetings Eule!

  This is most helpful.  I am in the same boat as Sophie, with the exception that I have never spent any time being anyone else before, so persona play is a challenge for me.  I would love to see that paper, too, when you find it!

  Sigriðr / Michelle

Eule <eule at ecpi.com> wrote:
      Oh, goodie (rubs hands together)!

  I prefer to think of persona play in levels.  The first level *is* simply not talking about server reboots and HP (or anything else blantantly mundane).  However, that alone gets pretty boring pretty fast.

  The next level is the challenge of actually talking about something modern but without indentifying it as such.  For instance, "I got your email the other day about the football game" can easily turn into "I received your message about the tournament".  You both know what your talking about and you've stayed "in persona" (in a basic way).

  The next level (and above) reaches more into the specifics of your period and place.  For instance, I always like to hear Pendaran and Leon talk about the battles of Crecy and Agincourt.  Hearing them have that conversation makes me feel like they were really there.  Of course, they both know that period *very* well and not everyone can do that (well).  A fellow who is, unfortunately, no longer with us (Master Ragnar), was a brilliant Norse skald (hope I spelled that right!) who got most of his best and memorable material from Aggie and Polack jokes.  He just changed them up to sound more "period".

  The other aspect that fits into all of these various levels is your regular SCA life.  You can always have non-mundane conversations about the tournament, the populace meeting, the trip to the site, what you're eating, the politics, the Peer cirlce, etc. without ever mentioning server restarts and HP. Those are things your persona would talk about too.

  Also, something to think about in these various levels is don't think of your persona as someone else ...they are you (i.e. don't speak of your persona in the third person).  For instance, while walking around an event, I wouldn't say "Eule is a 16th c. Dutch nobleman" but more something like "the road from Liege was especially hard to travel today.  The Spanish had cordoned off the road again so I wasn't able to visit my tenants."  That gets the same basic info across and opens the door up for us to have a conversation.  You might then ask me "where's Liege"? or, "why are the Spanish blocking your road?" or depending on where/when you are from "What is a "Spanish'?!".

  Pendaran and Jehanne wrote a wonderful paper (for various persona classes over the years) on how to develop your persona.  It helps you with the basic info (where, when, what social class), to the intermediate levels (what religion are you?  How do you make your money?) up to the more advance levels (who is the Pope?  What did you have for breakfast this morning?)  I'm going to dig around for it and see if I can find it.

  Basic persona play is really not all that hard.  You don't have to be a thespian to do it.  And please don't be afraid to approach those who are really good at it....just like anyone else, they love to share what they do with others.

  Thanks for asking.

  Eule/Steve
  Unus sed Leo

  -----Original Message-----
From: bryn-gwlad-bounces at lists.ansteorra.org [mailto:bryn-gwlad-bounces at lists.ansteorra.org] On Behalf Of Samantha Smith
Sent: Friday, August 03, 2007 10:14 AM
To: Barony of Bryn Gwlad
Subject: [Bryn-gwlad] Persona Play (was Re: Quick & (mostly) Cheap Armor... )

Speaking of which!

A curious problem, since I have spent a lot of time being someone else, but I have felt rather anxious and incomplete when it comes to persona. I have an idea of what I want to be like, of who I want to be and where I want to come from, but I have trouble staying 'in character', as it were. I would like to contribute to the feeling, to what I've heard people call the Dream, but I am uncertain how I can improve this in myself beyond "let's not talk about server reboots and the latest Harry Potter book"... 

~Sophie_______________________________________________
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