I think the obvious answer could be escapism for most, but I genuinely RP to play in worlds and games that I cant access in video games, movies, or comic book, filling in the gaps of medium that don't exist yet.

I also like acting, quite a lot and this is good exercise of getting into a new characters head.

So why do you RP?

RP is my "for fun" writing. You know, writing not on a manuscript that no editor of mine will ever see.

Writing's always been a favorite hobby. That didn't stop just because being published became a thing in my life.

Although these days I'm also here just because of the community. I feel like an older soul, and it's fun to help both the community and new (or old) Guildies when such opportunities arise.

I want to keep myself from sounding illiterate when I ever need to use words, I'm already cursed with the frequent lack of charm or verbal wit - the least I could do is write like a decent human being.

Roleplay style of writing is a casual way of practicing that. I used to write very epic fight scenes in the arena because I had a knack for choreography but I soon found that to be incredibly shallow and childish, so I opted to write actual stories in forums while pursuing martial goals in real life.

When I first got into roleplaying it was purely to create characters and give them somewhere to belong. As I got older it became a way for me to get my ideas down without having to endure hand and wrist pain from drawing.

Now I roleplay because I enjoy meeting new people and creating worlds with them. It is a lot of fun to be able to communicate ideas with someone who has a totally different outlook on things. Plus it has done wonders for my anxiety.

It was originally just for practice, but now I don't really have a purpose to RP anymore. Roleplaying is obsolete compared to even simple writing-stories-for fun because of tons of reasons, as I discovered:

1) High mortality rate and shelf-life of roleplays. People just could just up and quit anytime, and usually for no good reasons. What this does to your practice is that it'd never come full circle and it'd never be as wholesome as writing a story-for-fun that'd be complete.

2) No single authorial vision. The GM could have vision, but the roleplayers would have their own. In the end, you don't get to practice writing a good story because there's no single collective vision of what the story should be (not that it's really possible), and neither can you impose your own vision (and you shouldn't either, in roleplaying). This can also lead to #1.

3) You write as a break from reality, or writing requires a break from reality. Either way, you record reality in the absence of its constant bombardment in some way or to express creativity. With roleplaying, you'd have to deal with the reality of working with people. While most of them are fine, don't count on all of them to be fine, and that'd lead to frequent distractions that'd compromise practice. Could also lead to #1.

4) Roleplays lack the 'purpose' of writing traditionally. Practice pieces aren't supposed to go nowhere. Even as you write to practice, you're practicing your craft (giddit? :D). Your practices pieces could easily be published somewhere, or they could be refined to be published. They're yours to do with, totally. With roleplays, the extremely different medium makes for poor storytelling in the traditional sense (for example, what a novel could do in 100,000 words, a roleplay does in a million, and good luck finding someone to edit that!), and as it's a collaborative effort, cannot be published easily. The publishing industry caters mostly to single-authored stories/novels/what-have-yous.

5) Roleplaying requires a bigger infrastructure to accommodate. You need a website, you need your internet, you need people and you're going to need SOPs, standard practice, rules, a social order and in addition to everything a traditional writer needs. Logistically, it's less sound than pure writing, which requires only a grand total of one person, one good location and a writing medium, and maybe some books, the internet and other people only when you're going journalist.

That's all I can think of for now. Coming on here is now only a habit, one that I've been trying to kick for years. I realise that I'm being negative, but I call it as I see it. This probably won't apply to most of you, because we're all living in our own worlds. In my world, that's how it is.

Shits and giggles, mostly.

I enjoy the possibility of multimedia expression. It's not just about the writing, but music and imagery as well, setting a specific mood that will evoke different feelings in the players.

@potatochipgolem profile pic is awesome

The reason I Role Play? Lots of reasons, the biggest one though is I am a fan of a good story, though sometimes I'd like to see a story from a different point of view, or maybe see how people would react in the same situation, just see how different it may be. Someone like me, I don't see a good guy or bad guy in stories, i see a protagonist, and an antagonist, though protagonist who could be an easy antagonist is a cool twist.

Another reason is beyond the fact that I love a good story, is making my own choices in a larger story, and it helps with things like writing my comics.

I used to roleplay to create a world, to tell a story nobody ever told before. Escapism came into it a while back (Okay, so I've only actually been roleplaying for three years), but now it's mostly a mix of escapism and wanting to improve my writing.

Because I'm bored as fuck and saying "I write" makes my time on the internet seem more worth it. Better to say that than "playing vidya for hours on end".

Shits and giggles, mostly.

And this too.

I like to be creative and design a world inside my head, while being able to get it all out onto a canvas of sorts. It's also a lot easier than forum sig making as writing text requires little in the way of additional tools and programs.

I have nothing to do late at night.

I got into roleplaying on a Jurassic Park fanforum, roleplaying as dinosaurs (and not Disney-style either). That eventually expanded into other fandoms and then original settings when I discovered the Guild.

Now I really only do it out of habit.

Because I'm bored as fuck and saying "I write" makes my time on the internet seem more worth it. Better to say that than "playing vidya for hours on end".

<Snipped quote by Vilageidiotx>

And this too.

>ninjaed

Yeah, this. Appart from doing it to kill time, I really enjoy and it helps a lot.

Because I'm fucking bored, and overly imaginative.

Because I want to create a story with other people. And I enjoy not knowing exactly how that story's gonna unfold.

I roleplay because I'm crazy and it expresses my craziness, without roleplaying I would be dead.