Teaching my first class!

[Courtesan Brigitte]

I'm teaching my first class this weekend at Highland War in Caid. I'm doing a period games & gambling class. I'll be talking about the development of gambling from around 10000 BC to the 16th century, and teaching several dice and card games in class. I even made little booklets with rules to Tali, Hazard, Liar's Dice, Alouette, and a simplified version of Tarot, so students can take them home and share them with their own camp (or just not forget the games entirely by the end of war). I also made a timeline of historical gambling, noting key cultural and technological advancements and charting their movement across the globe. It's actually less impressive than it sounds, but I'm still glad I put it together. It really helped ME understand the evolution of gaming.

I feel really, really prepared, but I'm also nervous. I've never presented a class in the SCA before. I know some of you guys are completely awesome and do this kind of thing a lot. What pointers can you give on presenting a good class?

And if anyone here attends a lot of classes, what makes a class memorable or helpful?  

[Courtesan Brigitte]

Oh, and since I typed it up, here's my timeline:

Timeline of Historical Gambling*

In the beginning... Cave drawings depict gambling with marked seeds, fruit pits, and stones, as well as rudimentary guessing games like "how many sticks am I holding?"

Around 6000 BC Astragali (knucklebones) buried in Egyptian tomb

About 3000 BC Earliest known six-sided dice developed in Mesopotamia

2000 BC-ish Six-sided dice show up in Egypt, and five-sided dice show up in India. India popularizes c**k & ram fighting as a gaming event

1000 BC or something China adopts c**k and cricket fighting, and develops dog and horse races

496-406 BC Herodotus claims Greeks invented dice. Probably lying. Greeks also gamble at c**k fighting events and bet on Olympic games

No later than 79 AD Earliest known loaded dice found in Pompeii. Romans also liked to bauble, and it's said that Roman soldiers played dice for Christ's robes.

6th Century AD Chinese gambling games start combining elements of luck and skill

8th Century AD Korea develops paper cards

9th Century AD China develops dominos based on western dice (they also get really excited about the idea of paper cards, and start printing paper money)
Hazard is developed during the first Crusade, either by English soldiers, or by Saracens. The rules for most SCA baubling are closely related.

11th Century AD Dicing popularized among English clergy. They probably baubled too.

1350s AD Playing cards reach the West, giving Europe something to do OTHER than dying of the Black Death. Immediately death tolls drop and soon after, the Renaissance begins.

1425 AD Rules for an early form of Tarot are recorded. Around the same time, lottery is introduced in England.

15th century AD "Mad Queen Chess" (essentially the modern version) is popularized. Previously the rules were mostly the same, but the queen was weak.

*gambling was underground, unacknowledged, or illegal for a large portion of its existence in various cultures, and most of my research was underground, unacknowledged, and online. Most of this information is generally true. Probably.