Viewpoint Why do you RP?

[Caffeine Freak]

Are you bored? Procrastinating? Do you want to try out different writing styles? Meet new people? Have an insatiable and crippling addiction that drives you to pour hours of your day into typing out, deleting, then re-typing sentences? What exactly do you get out of it? I'm really curious to know!

 

[Curls]

At first I started roleplaying because my friends where doing it, maybe it was because I didn't fine the right people but it just went down the hill for and I began to dislike it. Later, I'll create this character and just stare at it for awhile and wonder how it would be to pretend to be them. Story ideas would start popping up and I'll be itching to write them down, so I decided to pick it back up again.

Now it's to fully understand my characters and to escape from ever day activities and just pretend to be someone else.

 

[thorsayingyeet]

honestly, i cant remember how i got into roleplaying, but i guess it was just for the fun of it. a couple years go by, and im kinda starting to get the hang of it, but the moment i created my first character, i felt really sucked into roleplaying. throughout the years, i still considered roleplaying to be a really fun activity to do, then i started forming friendships with people all over the world, unfortunately, there's a lot of people i haven't spoken to in a while, but whether they stuck around or not, i'm glad i got to interact with em. i miss the guys who i used to roleplay with, and i hope they're all doin alright

now, much like the first reply, it feels like an escape from reality, and also getting to know what it's like to be in my characters' shoes, and 10 years later i'm still gettin a kick out of it, and i probably still will be for a long time

 

[Onmyoji]

As a (mostly) Fandom roleplayer, I just wanted to be my favorite characters

 

[FloofWhispers]

As a writer and roleplayer, I love to roleplay with tons of different people and create storylines, plots and just communication in OOC!

 

[LORD SHAXX]

my life sucks and i got nothing better to do

 

[Curls]

my life sucks and i got nothing better to do

Aw, I hope it gets better for you! Here, have a cookie!

 

[LORD SHAXX]

*crams it im my gas mask*

 

[ONI]

Covenant hasn't started glassing us yet, there's no Jedi to force choke, the IMC isn't hiring pilots and I don't see zombies to hide from.

 

[Curls]

Covenant hasn't started glassing us yet, there's no Jedi to force choke, the IMC isn't hiring pilots and I don't see zombies to hide from.

Wow, that makes sense in so many ways and I kinda relate?

 

[thorsayingyeet]

Covenant hasn't started glassing us yet, there's no Jedi to force choke, the IMC isn't hiring pilots and I don't see zombies to hide from.

 

[ONI]

View attachment 913731

 

[Curls]

Big brain

 

[Lorsh]

better question, why arent I roleplaying

 

[Jannah]

Because I like to write. That's about it. I can't draw or anything like that so for me it's a creative outlet.

 

[eloise]

Because it allows me to be a different person. Being somebody else in a completely different world, time or era is so interesting to me.

 

[DisneyGirl]

I love to write and I just adore the roleplaying community. It’s a fun way to escape into another world and I’ve made some amazing friends along the way!

 

[0w0]

roleplay is just a great way to express yourself. i love writing because i love reading. when i read, i get to imagine all the things happening in my head. so with writing, i think i was just really enamoured by the creative aspect of it all. creating your own world seems like a dream! getting to share it with others also just make it all the more enjoyable!

it could also be therapeutic and can be a stress reliever to just let go of a stream of consciousness ~

 

[Idea]

My primary reason is as an outlet for my creativity. My brain churns out all these random ideas, sometimes forming whole complete plots over a couple days of particularly boring classes... And well, I wanna share them. I wanna share the things I come up with and create, be they philosophical ramblings, bad jokes, or most relevant in this case, stories, characters and worlds. It's not like I just wanna dump it out into the ether though. One of my favorite things in RPs is reading people's responses to my posts because I love seeing how they react, what they do and feel given what I've shared with them.

This was combined with my love of writing. I am not the type that generally loves the process of writing itself, but I do very much enjoy the structural phase in thinking and planning it, and most of all I love the end result, I love seeing what comes out of that effort (though it's not like I'm never disappointed I didn't do better).

That combination was my motivation when it all started and over time hasn't left me, though it's also expanded towards a sense of community. To me roleplaying has also become a way to know people and form friendships, and to expand my horizons in who I interact with and what kind of things I explore. And regarding RPN in particular I had really come to love this community. I don't know how to explain it too well... But yeah. Point is, other people in a shared interest is also part of my reason for roleplaying.

 

[cuzn]

i started roleplaying back in elementary school, mostly because for a large portion of my childhood i was selectively mute and my issues with mental illness made it harder to find friends in real life, so i eventually started looking online. i've always loved writing stories especially, so pretending to be someone that i wasn't and being the "main character" in a story that other people could join in on was perfect for me. it was always a way for me to escape the stresses of reality, socialize with other people (which i was largely unable to do in real life), and practice writing stories that i loved all at the same time. roleplaying was basically the biggest help i had to make it through middle school.

of course, life is still pretty rough and writing is a big way to help me cope with that, but now that i see myself really growing and improving practically every month, i can say with confidence that i've fallen in love with writing, and with the english language itself at this point. words are the best possible medium i have for self-expression, but they're difficult to speak out loud sometimes, so why not write it down?

(also: because how else would you get to see your OCs interact in your favorite fictional universes? drawing comics or writing solo is fine and all that, but with rping, it's not entirely scripted so i don't lose interest as quickly as i would otherwise)

 

[Ambiloquous]

I had ideas, thought the only way to express them was to write books and that somehow led to RP.

At the time, while I had some desire to create illustrations or comics out of those ideas, my drawing muscles had atrophied since my golden elementary school years, and I also had no idea RP existed beyond uh, yeah. Unfortunately, my tendency to lose motivation in planned projects over a lengthy period of time did exactly as stated, so when I heard about text-based RP-ing, I moved to to the first related site I found in hopes that other people would a) force me to continue writing (since I'm a lot easier to keep in check when other people have expectations of me) and b) keep my interest in writing by being more spontaneous than pantsing — which didn't help all that much due to the fact that I started with an idea and quickly lost steam because I had no idea where to go, while writing planned stories got boring quickly because I knew all the points I need to hit. I've realized that RP is really no different in those cases, but back then I thought it was a cure-all for my habits and went straight into it without even bothering to figure out much other than the fact that it was collaborative writing. After a while, I got used to the RP-ing format and made some pretty nice friends, so even if it didn't always fulfill the points above, I think I'll still be sticking with it for a while.

So me trying out RP-ing was very much out of selfish reasons, but now... I think it's still pretty selfish? But I care a lot more about the people I write with and what they write than when I first started out, so that's good, I think.

 

[ayejaye19]

Roleplaying is my therapy. I can escape to the fandoms I know and love, and immerse myself in a fun adventure, and make new friends. Over the years, it’s significantly helped me overcome my mental issues. I couldn’t be more grateful to have discovered roleplaying.

 

[TripleThreatGay]

Are you bored? Procrastinating? Do you want to try out different writing styles? Meet new people? Have an insatiable and crippling addiction that drives you to pour hours of your day into typing out, deleting, then re-typing sentences? What exactly do you get out of it? I'm really curious to know!

For me I RP for 2 reasons:

1) To find and make friends who are interested in the same things I am. This is the case (usually) when I actively seek out a specific fandom on here, but don't list scenarios/starters or don't go on omegle/rolechat with pre-made starters. (Sometimes I go on omegle/rolechat without pre-made starters, in which case it's this thing)

2) Often times, if it's with a pre-made starter on omegle/rolechat or list out scenarios, it's because I want to develop a fanfic idea (usually an AU) that I want to write. Often with this I end up deciding that the idea is better suited for RP for X reason (too many variables for how the story could go would be one example) or, alternatively, I decide that I like the version that I did in the RP best and don't want to modify it, in which case I'll ask my partner if it'd be okay for me to post it as-is on AO3.

Alternatively, I'm a masochist, and this is just me trying to justify it. That would explain why I always get into horribly dead/nonexistent fandoms to begin with, RP or otherwise

 

[Hootle]

When I find those once in a lifetime type of partners, it is not only a fun thing to do but I am challenged to do better in my writing. Plus, I enjoy making different kinds of characters and worlds. As I mentioned above, finding the right partner makes it all worthwhile.

 

[VermilionBird]

I like creating characters and seeing where their lives go. The process of stringing words together creatively is also really enjoyable. I prefer RP over writing fic because having another person fleshing out the story really gives the hobby that extra spice.