#1 - Why Role-play?

When I tell non-players that I role-play, they have a hard time understanding what it is I do. Even if they have heard of it they sometimes ask, “Why is that enjoyable?” This is a big little question. I always have trouble answering it, the joy of Role-playing seems so obvious to me and the novelty of this is common. We are all role-players already. I see its practice and its usefulness appear everyday. Allow me to demonstrate. Scenario #1: Imagine you are at home cooking dinner. You hear a knock at the door. As you open the door you are surprised to find a plumber with a tool box. He says that he was celled in for a municipal emergency, and asks to enter your basement to make a inspection. What do you say? What else do you want to know?

Scenario #2: Imagine you are driving to your grandmothers for the holidays. As you are going across a bridge you feel a tire flatten. You pull off to the side of the road and replace the flat tire with your spare. You know you are not supposed to drive so far on spare tire the are stores are probably closed for the holidays. What do you do? How can you proceed to your destination? Scenario #3: Tell me about your million dollar idea! Surely, you must have had a bright idea to open your own small business. To create something beautiful and creative in your life. What is that thing? How would you do it? How do you wish create it and make it real?!

These scenarios are not that far fetched. Perhaps, you have been in them before. Even if you have not, you can certainly think of what you might do. This is basic role-playing. It is adopting an imaginary situation and responding to it. However, the real trick is not to imagine what you might do in a tough situation but to imagine what decision someone else would make. To adopt the role of another.

You already know what to do, if your car breaks down, but how would your brother react? How about your neighbor? Or your coworker? How about a stranger? How would fugitive Dr. Richard Kimble behave? Can you rationalize and empathize with another person? Follow their steps and thoughts? Can you imagine their purpose - what motivates them to behave the way they do?

In a role-playing game you will become an actor and a writer in an unfinished story. You will write your lines as it progresses, and you will assume their purpose. Adopting another's thoughts, feelings, and beliefs to respond to all to familiar Drama.

Finding another's purpose (and keeping it) is the magic of Role-playing. It is what allows us to assume another's role and contemplate their inner life. Whether you are a player or a narrator you will need this understanding and empathy. Please do not feel that I am giving you an onerous task. As I wanted to point out above, considering how you would react in a difficult situation is common. How uncommon can it be to imagine the life of someone else? Do we not value considerate people? If we want to hold others in esteem and understanding, role-playing is natural.

We all do this every day, whether we think about it or not. We go through our lives already with purpose, our purpose. The same skills we employ to be sociable and conciliatory allow us to adopt another's thoughts, feelings, and beliefs. We hold onto those wishes and for a moment we become them, we adopt a role. It is no different in a game, we still adopt new mindsets. We do so with new found purpose: to create fresh fiction. A role playing game is a response to whatever situation you want it to be, however fantastic. I've played game centered around politics, surviving winter, manhunts, and slowly going insane. How unique a chance to explore our own humanity. With the humanity of those around us.