Why do you RP?

[Dolerman]

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?

[Ruby]

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.

[potatochipgolem]

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.

[Sunflower]

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.

[Darkraven]

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 Roleplaying is obsolete compared to even simple writing-stories-for fun because of tons of reasons, as I discovered: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.

[Vilageidiotx]

Shits and giggles, mostly.

[Mirandae]

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.

[Dolerman]

@potatochipgolem profile pic is awesome

[Shoe Thief]

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.

[Keyguyperson]

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.

[Dinh AaronMk]

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.

@Vilageidiotx

And this too.

[NuttsnBolts]

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.

[nichinichisou]

I have nothing to do late at night.

[Hank]

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.

[Mortimer]

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.

@Dinh AaronMk

>ninjaed

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

[Mixtape Ghost N]

Because I'm fucking bored, and overly imaginative.

[Shohmyoh]

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

[TimeToRP]

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

[Impaqt]

My overly honest answer:

This is something I've thought about a few times. A question I've asked myself on more than one occasion when I log off and think, why do I bother with this? It really doesn't do me much good, and some days it can quite literally consume my day away, when I have such little available time anyways. Though, it's always been pretty tough to really nail the exact reasons.

Largely, there is a part of this that is sentimental to me. I practically grew up in forums and chat rooms like these. I've made countless friends, and experienced loss of those friends as they've moved on, or I may have. I can recall stories and characters that are now just mere memories as their pages have been eradicated from the net in more than one occasion, and yet I still write hoping to recreate some of those, that I can never really get back. But, to hopefully create new memories as well.

The community is something I typical adore as well. Even in parts of some forums, namely the Arena sections, where things can often get very intense and cumbersome, there is something about the bonds that form that keeps me coming back for more. Which is really weird in some cases, because some of those same things is where some people could look and want to run away. On every forum I've ever been on, the Arena has been my absolute favorite place, because as much argument that goes on in that one small section, there is a brotherly connection that forms between you and the others that you simply can't quite reach in some other areas of RP forums. These guys and the occasional gal are my brothers and sisters, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Yes, there is the escapism aspect. My life is filled with ups and downs and straight out roller coasters, and even when it can get that way roleplaying, there is this ground that is present, that I can hold onto whenever things get just a little too shaky. Furthermore, I have never had much of a sense of self. Roleplaying has allowed me to explore that. Specially when in life, there are so many things that can hold you back from just straight out being yourself, I can come on here and really just be whoever I want to be, and no one really cares or judges me on that, unless I'm just being a complete jerk and then they have no issues calling me out on it. Haha. For real though, I can come and lose myself in writing and not really have a care in the world about what is going on right beside me.

And of course I do love writing, though my favorite part is character creation. I can spend all day on characters if I had the time. Characters are so diverse and complex and I can control how I want them to be and how they develop and grow. Stories can be the same way, but I think it goes back to that sense of person. In exploring these idea characters in my mind, I develop a further understanding of my own sense of self. Heck, some of my characters are more elaborate than what you can tell from reading a character sheet, because, how can you really define every aspect of a person without also having the aspect of trial and tribulation? Anyways, I'm just rambling there.

And sometimes it's just a sense of relief. The ability just to sit here like right now and just type whatever comes to my mind, instead of keeping everything locked away, constantly trying to keep those around me happy while I'm completely and utterly miserable. Sometimes it helps just to write. It doesn't even matter what it is about. It's almost like a form of therapy (as much as I hate to apply that word to it.). It's sometimes just what I need to do, to be able to get myself through the day. Just Write.

[AlteredTundra]

I have always wondered that about myself. Like, why do I roleplay? Do I do it to escape reality? Do I do it to further expand my imagination? Do I do it just to create a world? I've never thought about it seriously...until now.

To answer this question, I had to scale back to exactly why I started roleplaying in the first place, and to do that, I have to think back to 2008 when I joined my first official forum. It was a Kingdom Hearts Fansite by the name of Khinsider. It's rping section is pretty much dead now, so I have long since given up on it, but at the time that I joined it(early 08'), Rping wasn't the main reason. I joined it originally for something on there called the RPG Inferno. I guess in a way it was a roleplaying experience, but it was, on its core, a browser game. A lot of people played it and there were frequent pvp moments. I don't know how it happened, but one day I found myself going through KHI's roleplaying section, and I became interested. Now, mind you, I was really noobish then, so I had no idea what I was doing. However, what I didn't know at the time, that one decision to venture into roleplaying would change my life forever. Okay, I get that sounded really cheesy and corny, but it's the truth.

As I joined more rps as the months went on, I soon found myself becoming so immersed into the lives of my characters. Eventually, my own self was integrating into them and I found that creating these stories with friends and fellow roleplayers was something I enjoyed doing quite a bit. It even got to the point where I would venture into the territory of making my own rp. When I think back, the first couple of tries were failures. I guess that's to be expected considering not all great stories are successful on the first try. One has to go through several tries before one finally sticks and after the fifth one, I found success...for a while, that is.

Outside the initial interest of creating a story and the characters in it, Roleplaying for me was an escape. You see, my life wasn't what one would call glamorous. Actually, it was pretty shitty and writing with like-minded individuals brought me a certain amount of comfort and acceptance that I couldn't get in my real life. From that shared interest, I found myself making some of the best friends I have ever had in my entire life -- online or otherwise. I went on to creating stories and writing them out with them and only them. I guess in a clique of sorts. Never thought I would have one of those, but here it is.

I guess at the end of the day, Roleplaying has become a mix of exploring my imagination, creating worlds, expanding my writing capabiltiies, and escaping real life. I still find joy in doing all of those things. I'm even finding new ways to further my imagination by joining more and more rps. I think I'll probably keep on doing it as long as I can. Either until I start my career as a writer -- yes, I plan on doing that -- or I die. Probably the former when you consider realism lol.