I’ve been roleplaying since I was 13-years-old. My brother got me into it when I found out he downloaded IMVU on my first computer and damn near gave it a virus. I was so angry at him, but eventually I made my own account to see what all the fuss was about. Turns out it’s pretty fun. You know how sometimes you read to escape your reality? Well, roleplaying is something like that. It’s a chance to escape reality for a bit and focus on this little universe you create with your partner. You feel godly in a sense.
I should start off by saying there’s several types of role play. The main one is sexual role-play, where you and your partner create a scenario to help enhance the experience you both are about to take part in. That comes with its own little sub-list: age playing, BDSM, etc. When I mention I’m a role-player that’s usually the first thing people think about, and I understand the association but it is rude to jump to that conclusion. If a person tells you they’re a role-player, please don’t jump to that conclusion. There’s another conclusion people jump to and that’s LARPING. This type of roleplaying is also associated with Cosplaying, which, to the best of my knowledge, is dressing up as a character from a book, movie or show. This is a slightly more accurate association, but I’ve never seen cosplayers break out into an epic fight for fake territory. It’s mostly a “who’s costume is more realistic” contest. I’ve actually LARPed before and it’s fun, but it doesn’t hold a candle to my love of regular roleplaying. There's a lot more physical work to LARP, verses stretching out your vocabulary by sitting down and coming up with completely new characters, worlds and situations.
So by now I’m sure you’re all asking what I mean by “regular roleplaying”. In this context roleplaying is going on to a forum website and working with other writers to create worlds, characters and storylines to play in. It’s a great communication exercise because, if both writers aren’t on the same page, the story can fall through the cracks. It’s actually quite relaxing, and, if you’re roleplaying with the right people, liberating. You tend to find people with common interests, and that makes the experience all the more awesome. If you’re looking for a new hobby, I suggest getting into roleplaying.
