MSCA, OPel, OLA, OPA, etc., etc., the co-founder of the Kingdom of Atenveldt and its first king. I have also done nearly every job in the Society from marshal to herald to seneschal. I have founded several SCA groups, some of which survive. My experience with the group goes back to the 1968 World Science Fiction Convention in Berkeley.
First, these opinions are my own. No one died and made me God.
However those opinions are the result of almost 40 years of experience around the Society, both as a high-ranking member and an exile by choice, and then as a member again. I think I have a pretty firm basis for these beliefs and attitudes.
I admit to being an idealist about the SCA. I believe that this organization was supposed to be about something, not just a medieval themed costume party, or worse, a way for a few people to lord it over others by virtue of made-up rank or privilege.
Of course, being an idealist in the SCA is a good way to end up bitterly disappointed, and I have been that in spades.
In spite of it I hold to those ideals and I greatly admire the men and women in the SCA who share those ideals and strive to uphold them. There are enough of those individuals to keep me going.
Please note that almost all my SCA experience has been in and around the Kingdom of Atenveldt -- both as it was originally, stretching from the Colorado to the Atlantic, and as it is now, essentially the state of Arizona. Which means this is frequently Aten-centric and some of the comments may not reflect practices in other areas.
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