Reacting to the Past, a series of rigorously reviewed and meticulously designed historical roleplaying games, has been gaining more traction and attention for the ways it can engage students in the study of history. As the boilerplate for all Reacting manuals states, students in these games must do all the standard academic work of historians: read and analyze primary sources, write persuasively about them, and deliver formal speeches on those sources. But when students are asked to enter a simulation of the past, assigned a historical figure to roleplay, and tasked with achieving the objectives of that character, all of this work becomes more immediate, more intentional, and more purposeful. Classes focused on the European and global Middle Ages, rich as the era is in ritual and performativity, are particularly productive spaces for Reacting to the Past games. This presentation will start by covering the games and resources that are available for the medieval classroom for instructors that are unfamiliar with Reacting. Then, based on various playthroughs of a variety of these games, it will explore a phenomenon familiar to all Reacting instructors: the tendency of students to break character and indulge in moments of intentional anachronisms. While such moments do risk breaking the spell of immersion, this paper will also explore the ways in which such anachronisms can be productive for students, serving as moments of translation that highlight the distance between the modern and medieval worlds and yet paradoxically also bring the students closer to medieval culture. Finally, the paper will consider ways in which instructors wishing to design games can create fruitful spaces for students to straddle the border between the medieval and the modern.
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