Role-playing

In role-playing, participants adopt characters, or parts, that have personalities, motivations, and backgrounds different from their own. Role-playing is like being in an improvisational drama or free-form theatre, in which the participants are the actors who are playing parts.

Games

A role-playing game (RPG) is a type of game where players role-play by assuming the role of a character in a fictional story. Its origin is in miniature wargames, with rules for individual combat and the use of magic spells in fighting (hence the focus of many role-playing games on combat).

The term refers properly to "paper and pencil" games like Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest or the multi-genre GURPS. However, role-playing is also a genre of computer games like the Final Fantasy and Deus Ex series, or the massively multi-player online role-playing games (MMORPGs) like EverQuest, Ultima Online, Runescape, and the new World of Warcraft. An emergent form of the RPG is the live action role-playing game, where participants act out their characters' actions, often using elaborate costumes, fake weaponry and other props. (See the gamemaster article for an example of role-playing within a paper and pencil game).

For learning

Simulations and role-playing exercises are one of the oldest of educational methods, having been used in ancient times and from young age. (Young children role play "doctor" and "nurse", "customers" and "shop owners" etc.) They have been used extensively in vocational training situations and in vocation-oriented higher-education courses (e.g. Law, Medicine, Economics) since the 1960s.

Role-play simulations fall into the category of multi-agenda social-process simulations. In such simulations, participants assume individual roles in a hypothesised social group and experience the complexity of establishing and implementing particular goals within the fabric established by the system. (see Gredler, M. (1992), Designing and Evaluating Games and Simulations: A Process Approach, Kogan Page, London)

Since 1950s, role play simulation has been used in politics and international relations contexts including model United Nations simulation , Project ICONS and recently Fablusi role play simulations allows role play simulation designers to model human relationships using different rights structure in communication environments, differential information and amount of wealth.

Further resources: Role Play Simulation for Teaching and Learning

Online

Online text based role playing games have become much more popular online over the last decade or so, with message boards being one of the most common formats.

When role-playing on a message board, the player controls a character, and works them into the plot along with other characters controlled by other players. The end result is an unpredictable story that may or may not finish, depending on the length of story and devotion of the players. These RP's, as dubbed, are divided into many different genre, topics, literacy-levels, and can even be divided based on the sexual orientation of the RP characters (not to be confused with Sexual RP'ing, where 'cybering' or other various forms of sexual gratification are the sole purpose).

Sexual role playing

Sexual role-play is a form of role-play in which partners take parts in a drama that provides sexual gratification; these might include a teacher and pupil, employer and maid, or parent and child. Sexual role-play is common in BDSM.

Sexual role-playing also occurs, though not often, on various MMORPGs (see cybersex). This is a generally less accepted type of roleplaying in an online community, though opinions about it may vary. Some people think that sexual interaction is a natural part of life; thus can and should be a part of role-playing too, only if done privately like most people would do in real life. Other people think it's wrong and doesn't belong online, especially where underaged teenagers also spend their time.

Sexual role-playing is typically performed by characters who love each other, although this can have different meanings for each role-player. Some have no problem going all the way, others draw a certain limit. This can depend on the player, but also on the character. It is also not uncommon that the players get a personal attachment to the character and / or player they role-play with.

The abovely mentioned example is generally better accepted in an online environment than role-playing a character that involves sexual-related content in public, such as a prostitute. This also generally goes in conflict with the policies the MMORPG in question.