Other Why do you role play?

[Anamnesis]

Why do you role play and how did you come to find it? I stumbled across open world Rp in an mmorpg years and years ago and was enthralled by the idea of group story writing and designing a “person” who would then interact with others I had no control over.

 

[rae2nerdy]

So I started on chicken smoothie as an extension of a pixel pet shop.

I made this elaborate world and backstory for my shop then decided to offer tours where customers could “explore” the shop world.

It was my staff that got me into roleplays from there.


Now why I roleplay today? Similar reasons honestly I love to create worlds and then work with partners to explore them through plots

 

[MafagafoGirl]

I started roleplaying on a Spore discussion forum, they had an entire session of the forum dedicated to a nation roleplay kind of deal. You had a thread that was your capital world and the hub for your species lore and interaction with other empires, as well as a bunch of threads that would work as planets, stations and others that we could colonize, negociate with other users, and things of the liking. People even went to wars and battled in a dice rp-like scenario moderated by forum mods and admins.

It was just a fun thing I did with internet friends after school at the time. Once I took a passion for writing, I started to get into roleplaying as a way to develop my writing and my characters, and that's why I roleplay today. I like constructing a story with other people, shape a relationship between characters and see them change and adapt to each other, as well as me and my partners do. The expectation of how the other person will react, if you're on the same page about how the story would develop, everything makes me very eager to roleplay.

 

[Sibelle Grey]

I love to tell stories. I have so many of them to tell, and roleplay gives me an outlet for all that creativity and keeps me actually writing instead of just daydreaming about them. And doing so with a partner is so much fun— their characters, their ideas, the fresh and unexpected parts. Every new reply, I’m excited to see what they’ve come up with, what their characters are doing or saying, how it furthers the plot, how the narrative is slowly unfolding. Tossing the ball back and forth. It’s like you start with a set of blocks and a vague idea of a structure you want, and along the way, you build something really special, greater than either of you could have made on your own because of that collaborative aspect.

Concerning the social aspect, there are partners I know well and partners I know little about. The collaborative aspect is vastly more important to me than the friendship aspect in a roleplay. 1x1 for me is less about filling some kind of social need and more about spinning a great story with someone else. Partner affection and friend affection can overlap, either can be pretty deep, but to me they’re not one and the same. I view my partners as writing buddies first and foremost (whose writing I admire, some of them are really good omg), and if they turn out to be friends, too, then that’s awesome but it’s not something that’s necessary to my role playing experience. I don’t need long chats and personal talk from my partners to enjoy roleplaying with them— if they can be fairly pleasant and open when we do talk OOC, further the plot and write compelling characters, we’re golden. The people I meet through roleplaying are, essentially, the people I like on-site— a lot of the friends I’d say I’ve made through roleplaying aren’t people I’ve ever roleplayed with. Being on RpN is a social experience because I get to meet people with similar interests and one of the hobbies few people advertise offline, but my individual roleplays don’t have that as a key purpose.

So basically, roleplaying is the only activity I’ve come across where writing, my favorite hobby, is an interactive game. I can build worlds. Explore characters and circumstances. I can do that with other people who also want to do that. And I love it for that reason. In part, it holds me accountable for continuing these storylines I love without dropping them to chase after the next plot bunny that hops by, which makes for richer worldbuilding and character development. Also, I’m not doing it by myself, which adds depth through the partner’s ideas. And overall, I love to look back on what we’ve made together, kind of like knitting a whole scarf and remembering when you barely had two rows of stitches. There’s a feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment. So, worldbuilding and collaborative storytelling.

 

[justaweirdo]

I love writing stories with other people. I love writing but feel as though I get bored when I start stories with only myself. I lose creative juices. Writing with others gives me inspiration. I can feed off of them and their energy and thoughts to think of new ideas.

I also like meeting new people and making friends! I originally started roleplaying in 2007 on a website called baltosource. I started off roleplaying as wolves then kept on going from there one of my best friends actually is someone I met off that site who introduced me to roleplaying!

 

[something tookish]

When you're ten years old and everyone is screaming at you to grow up, to drop your childish ideas of going on adventures and being a hero... Roleplay's pretty appealing. It's a hobby that my parents were fine with since I was you know, developing my writing skills in the process. It just turned out that I liked it enough to continue it into adulthood.

Now though? Roleplay is an escape from all the trails of being a young adult. At the same time, it almost helps me work through them. It's almost embarrassing how many life lessons I've learned throughout the years that came not from my parents or relatives, but from a roleplay situation.

 

[Orikanyo]

Its fun, or at least I try to make it so.

Those who cannot devote themselves to a theme and world have no use to me.

 

[Onmyoji]

To remove my writer's block because I wasn't able to write stories for a few years until I went back to roleplaying. Now I write every day and have a lot of ideas for other stories.
It's also fun and I get to meet new people who are into same things as I am, because I rp in rare fandoms ^^

 

[Tabby]

To be honest, it's a bit of everything from the poll, but the biggest part is collaborative story writing for me. It adds an element of freshness and unexpectedness that no amount of dice bullshit or surprise plot twists can match; I can be surprised by how my own characters react for sure, happens as they develop into legitimate people in their own right, but seeing how other people's characters react adds a pleasant sense of discovery. ESPECIALLY when they are as good/better at writing than me, or at least very good at writing a type of character I might not be.

Obviously not dissing standalone writing or anything - I love and do that too - just that I still RP 'cuz of the collaborative aspect.

Does require you to have good partners, though, have learned THAT much the hard way time and time again, so I tend to be pretty picky about joining RPs or exploring things with new people. Not AGAINST it, I still try to keep an open mind. But I'll typically be a bit more conservative with my more weird/creative/broken character and setting concepts with new folks.

 

[jaylen]

Righty, so, the reason I roleplay and became so invested is that I've always had a wild imagination. I love to create worlds in my head along with different characters to experience them. I don't feel I have the experience needed to write a novel or series based around my ideas. Along with that is also the joy of creating a world and story with other people. Everyone gets to participate and broaden the view. It's pretty awesome.

 

[Lorsh]

cuz im a fuckin loser

 

[jaylen]

cuz im a fuckin loser

mood

 

[MechanicalSnake]

Cant choose, all of the things in the poll and some more.

 

[Pthenora]

It is in a way therapeutic, not to mention a lot of fun, helps improve my writing, lets me use my (sometimes wild) imagination, lets me meet likeminded people or at least people with similar interests and other reasons I can't think of right now =)

 

[cran]

I really like creating characters and worlds. I write and draw in my free time for similar reasons but collaborating on a story with someone can be really fun and also really validating if you're someone like me who wants to share ideas and creations but doesn't always know how. There's something very special about being like "this is my story idea/character idea/etc" and someone else actively wanting to be a part of that creation. Even when I have to drop an RP for whatever reason or I just don't click with my partner(s), I always feel kind of honored that someone would want to be a part of that process with me in the first place. Maybe I just don't get out enough lol but it feels like a very special connection to me.

 

[Idea]

Spoiler: Little World of Warcraft Reference, couldn't resist

Why do we roleplay? That's like asking why the leaves fall. It's in their nature. Perhaps, there is a better question.
Why do we roleplay? To protect home and family. To preserve balance and protect harmony. For my kind, the true question is what is worth roleplaying for?

The reason I roleplay is simple: To share. True, there is an element of escapism to it, and sometimes I make roleplays or characters because I want to emulate or continue something that I can't find more off from existing sources, but ultimately to me it's more than anything about the being able towork with someone else in crafting stories and sharing those ideas my brain keeps concocting, the worlds it makes, the stories it wants to tell. I love writing but it's not worth it without a reader who is invested.

There is another aspect to this sharing too, the social one. In my time here, RPN has become like a second home to me. I cherish my time here and the many things that I've done and accomplished, and especially the wonderful people I met.

To me, giving up roleplay would be to seal away teh creative part of me and to give up my home and all the people I've there and the memories made with them. It may sound cheesy but it's the honest truth.

 

[FreakshowFtW]

I started role playing on the Steven Universe Amino to build up one of my original characters. After that it became fun and less of a hassle to make more original characters so I did just that.

 

[Nobelia]

Exercising my constant, and overwhelming thirst to write -- without having to go through the stages of developing a novel.

Call me lazy.

 

[Sylvio]

Basically all the choices you polled lmao

But the main reason why I got into roleplay was because as a writer like many on this site, it's good to see what works and what doesn't. I see it as exchanging tips and ideas for writing

 

[KindOfStupid]

I started in 3rd grade on the doodle club app haha. I’ve been in love ever since.

 

[Im_just_here]

Quite simply, because I'm lonely and want to interact with people

 

[Sara Sidereal]

It's been too many years to remember why or how I started; as for why I continue, the only reasonable conclusion I can come up with is that I am an absolute, irredeemable idiot, utterly immune to the reality of online interaction, who is determined to participate in at least one thread that survives past the intro phase before I die - and I will almost certainly fail. Knowing this, the actual explanation can only be masochism.

 

[Morskoy Strelok]

I remember my first exposure was this website called Public high school #552 maybe 15 years ago. I always had a thirst for writing, and it always helps to do it with someone you enjoy writing with.

 

[Morlock]

I enjoy telling a story with someone and seeing where they take their character and the story itself. It makes it more realistic as in real life the outcome is often not just up to ourselves.

 

[Contingency]

I role play to I guess just express some ideas/imagination that can't be expressed with out writing them, the people irl would thing my stories are really *censored* so it's also pretty comforting to be able to post it anonymously online and have maybe the chance of other people appreciating it.

Plus I do it when none of my gaming friends are online.