1. Roleplaying can build friendships.

One of the best parts of roleplaying is the friendships that develop while participating in it. As stated before, the main part of roleplaying is being a part of a community. Each community is built up people portraying characters from a specific television show, musical, book, etc. In the beginning, the relationships are formed solely on the relationship between your characters. You spend time responding to each other threads (writings and dialogues between our characters based off a prompt) and coming up with ideas beyond the events that happen in canon (the main events of the original story).

As time goes on, the similar interests you have with the characters and fandom start to lead to other conversations outside of roleplaying. Eventually, you end up with a new friend that either is online only or also in real life. I met one of my best friends ever through roleplaying and I couldn't be more grateful.

2. Roleplaying is a great form of self-therapy.

This reason here is one of my favorite reasons as to why I enjoy roleplaying. It's a great source to release your inner feelings about the real world in a safe place. A lot of how your character is built and interacts is based upon on yourself, sometimes more than you realize. It goes back to seeing the connection between yourself and the character; which is also the reason you choose to roleplay them. In those interactions, you get the chance to release your frustrations and worries, letting your characters take those on for a minute. In the meanwhile, the interactions you're having with your roleplaying partner just may lead you to solve them. You just gave yourself free therapy, it has to feel great.

3. Roleplaying can build imagination and creativity.

A lot of the interactions that take place between characters are based on the main events of the original story. However, roleplaying is about the ability to let those characters live beyond their original conception. There's so much fun inventing a new backstory for your character that still connects to their own original story. In addition, we create different stories that are referred to as alternate universes (aka AUs) that place the characters in different stories, points in time, or basically anything you can create. Creativity is often something people only believe they need in school or if you're a creator. Contrary to popular belief, imagination is needed in all parts of life and careers. Imagination and creativity is a part of problem-solving, which is something you need in all walks of life.

4. Roleplaying can help build your skills as a writer.

In the previous point, I mentioned how roleplaying can build your creativity. If there's anyone that needs to build on creativity, its a writer. Roleplaying largely focuses on character building and development. Lots of writers tend to struggle with building characters that are fully fleshed out and complete. The story is built, but not the characters; this sometimes leads to lackluster in what could have been a great story.

Even though I tend to be a character-oriented writer, it has helped improved my character building skills as well. It forces you to take the time and think about your character and live life in their shoes. You begin to come up with details about their life, such as family, favorites, and specific events that shape them as a person. In addition, since the majority of roleplaying interactions are done with writing and dialogue, it can help to improve those skills as well.

5. Roleplaying helps you better understand yourself.

All of the character building and writing of the character eventually forces you to begin to analyze yourself. You start to notice qualities and characteristics that you may have never noticed before now. The journey you are taking with your character is one that you are also taking with yourself. It's the ultimate benefit of roleplaying.