The Renaissance Fair's In Town!

I apologize for the long gap in between blog posts, but hopefully this one will more than make up for the delay, because for this post, the Renaissance Fair is in town!

Now, let me preface this post with the statement that my interest in Renaissance Fairs and the culture surrounding them is very much a newfound one. I've only ever been to one Renaissance Fair-type event ever in my life, and it was a very small Medieval Fair event in Salem, Virginia back in around 2012 or 2013. The venue was okay but very small and mom-and-pop, not like the large carnival-like events that most people associate with the Renaissance Fair and the subculture surrounding it.

Mainly it was a bunch of small vendor tents and some people in period costume, not that much in terms of events or grandiosity. Now, that's not to say I didn't have a good time at the event, because I did. It's just that it was a small and localized affair, that's all.

Though I did buy a cool Tarot deck from there that day, so that is always a bonus.

But I mention the concept of the Renaissance Fair because I am interested in the scene as of late, and I do want to discuss how it is tangentially related to the main subject of this blog, which is role-playing games, of course.

The early history of Dungeons & Dragons has always been fascinating to me, it is what drew me into the OSR movement after all, and I really like the game as it existed in the 1970's and early 1980's. It is sort of worth mentioning that according to Gronan of Symmeria, an RPG Pub user and one of the surviving playtesters of Original Dungeons & Dragons back in the 1970's, D&D was apparently never meant to be an accurate simulation of Medieval society or even "Medieval-Authentic" fantasy, which should be obvious to anyone, but the interesting part is that D&D was supposedly partially influenced by the early Renaissance Fair culture of the 1960's and 1970's, taking on the more idyllic and whimsical view of Medieval and Renaissance Europe and combining it with the more obvious influences of High Fantasy and especially Sword & Sorcery fiction. And that caught my attention.

Most Renaissance Fairs fit into one of two categories. Either they are devoted to a very specific and idealized view of Elizabethan Britain, usually basing their aesthetics and culture off of 16th Century England or Scotland, as opposed to Italy or France, where most of the great innovations of the Renaissance actually took place.

Or they are a generic blend of Medieval, Renaissance, Elizabethan, Jacobean, and sometimes even fantasy tropes put into an idyllic and whimsical setting that is primarily focused on entertainment. In these Ren Fair settings, you may find a hodgepodge of Medieval and Renaissance archetypes, a collection of anachronistic stuff such as Vikings, Pirates, Belly-Dancers, Knights, or even fantasy archetypes such as Elves, Faeries, and Wizards all in one place, where fun and enjoyment is placed before adherence to historical accuracy.

I'd assume that any influences that Ren Fair culture may have had on D&D probably came from the latter category.

I wouldn't mind running a D&D game in the near future with the whimsical and idyllic view of Medieval and Renaissance archetypes often found in Renaissance Fairs, along with the slew of anachronisms blended together and of course, the fantasy elements as well.

Ideally, the best system for this type of game would be Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, either First or Second Edition, at least in my opinion.