roleplay

Overview

Roleplay (also written as Role-play) refers to the changing of one's behavior to assume a role, either unconsciously to fill a social role, or consciously to act out an adopted role. While the Oxford English Dictionary defines roleplaying as "the changing of one's behavior to fulfill a social role", the term is used more loosely in three senses:

• To refer to the playing of roles generally such as in a theater, or educational setting;
• To refer to a wide range of games including computer role-playing games, play-by-mail games and more;
• To refer specifically to role-playing games.

Some roleplay games are more structured than others with rule books and other tools to assist decision making. In essence 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 playing a role.

History

The term role playing was originally coined in the 1920s by Jacob L. Moreno, a Viennese psychiatrist who surmised patients gained more from exploring their problems by acting them out than by talking about them. Moreno first tested out his ideas by forming the Theatre of Spontaneity acting company in 1921 and two years later publishing his theories in a book of the same name. When the practice became popular in business and educational institutions twenty years later the problem solving aspect shifted towards the learning of a professional role for later real life assumption.

"What astronauts do in their practice for missions; what pilots do in learning to navigate in flight simulators; what thousands of soldiers do in the course of military exercises--it's all role playing. Teaching salespersons to deal with customers, teaching doctors to interview patients, teaching teachers to deal with difficult situations, all these require some measure of actual practice and feedback."

After its inception into the realm of business, role playing has steadily flourished for over fifty years expanding into multiple areas of public and private life. Formal examples include: teaching (especially in the development of social skills, communication skills, and interpersonal skills), self-help groups, organizational management, leadership training, professional training, scientific research in the social sciences, and even sports. Less formal examples have also arisen including: role playing games for entertainment, and sexual roleplaying practices. Now in the 21st century, role playing as a form of personal entertainment may be overtaking in numbers the more formal practice of educational roleplay.

Therapy

Role-play is often used as a tool by mental health professionals (especially drama therapists), teachers, and trainers as a way to explore social situations and work through the possible actions and consequences.

For example, Peace Corps trainers use role-playing to prepare volunteers for entry into an unfamiliar culture. For another, marriage counselors may ask a husband and a wife to play the part of each other in a communication exercise

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 (D&D). However, role-playing also covers a genre of computer games like the Final Fantasy series, or the massively multi-player online role-playing games (MMORPGs) like EverQuest, Ultima Online, 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.

Online Roleplaying

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.

Confusion can occur in translations between English and French, where the name "jeux de rôle" is applied both to game and psychodrama.

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