Role-playing
Role-playing refers to the changing of one's behaviour 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 role-playing as "the changing of one's behavior to fulfill a social role",[1] 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.[2]
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Social science
In social science, role-playing is historically a reference to Psychodrama and Sociodrama, and more recently to Drama Therapy, which were originally created as a methodology for studying role theory by the social sciences. The study of role-playing was modeled after theater and includes many counterparts. To roleplay one enacts various motives, attitudes, and postures.[3] The protagonists are the participants who improvise their actions within a situation normally simulated about them. They hold the usage of all special traits, abilities, and possible inventory at their disposal to see how they react in certain environments. The auxiliary egos are anyone else who performs to place the protagonists within the situation. The audience is any onlooker who may provide feedback. The stage is wherever the practice is performed or perhaps fictionally set. The director is the expert who guides the exercise.
Training
Role-playing may also refer to role training where persons rehearse situations in preparation for a future performance and to improve their abilities within a role. The most common examples are occupational training role plays, educational role play exercises, and certain military wargames.
Simulation
One of the first uses of computers was to simulate reality around its participants in order to roleplay the flying of aircraft. As early as the 1940s, flight simulators used computers to solve the equations of flight and train future pilots. After World War II the army began full time role-playing simulations with soldiers using computers both within full scale training exercises and for training in numerous specific tasks under wartime conditions. Examples include weapon firing, vehicle simulators, and control station mock ups.
Entertainment
Historical re-enactment has been practiced by adults for millennia. The ancient Romans, Han Chinese, and medieval Europeans all enjoyed occasionally organizing events in which everyone pretended to be from an earlier age, and entertainment appears to have been the primary purpose of these activities. Within the 20th century historical reenactment has often been pursued as a hobby.
Improvisational theatre dates back to the Commedia dell'Arte tradition of 16th century. Modern improvisational theatre began in the classroom with the "theatre games" of Viola Spolin and Keith Johnstone in the 1950s. Viola Spolin, who was one of the founder the famous comedy troupe Second City, insisted that her exercises were games, and that they involved role-playing as early as 1946. She accurately judged role playing in the theatre as rehearsal and actor training, or the playing of the role of actor versus theatre roles, but many now use her games for fun in their own right.
Role-playing games
A role-playing game is a game in which the participants assume the roles of characters and collaboratively create stories. Participants determine the actions of their characters based on their characterization, and the actions succeed or fail according to a formal system of rules and guidelines. Within the rules, they may improvise freely; their choices shape the direction and outcome of the games.
Role-playing can also be done online in the form of group story creation, involving anywhere from two to several hundred people, utilising public forums, private message-boards, mailing lists, chat-rooms, and instant-messaging chat clients (e.g MSN, Yahoo!, ICQ) to build worlds and characters that may last a few hours, or several years. For some, romance and sex (though more often the former) are key elements to publicly-viewable roleplays, with the majority of such play taking place in chat-rooms or so-called "1x1" (one-on-ones) and very small groups, with other elements taking a back-seat in terms of importance. Typically, for medium and large groups of roleplayers, and large roleplays, the reverse is true, with romantic sub-plots taking a back-seat to story and setting development and action scenes, yet when it does occur, it is often (and in some cases expected to be) of a far less blatant nature.
There are different genres one can choose while role playing, including, but not limited to, fantasy, modern, medieval, steam punk, historical, etc. Books or movies can be, and often are, used as a basis for roleplays (which in such cases may be deemed "collaborative fan-fiction"), with players either assuming the roles of established canon characters or using those the players themselves create ("Original Characters") to replace - or exist along side - characters from the book or movie, playing through well-trodden plots as alternative characters, or expanding upon the setting and story outside of its established canon.
Sexual role-playing
Sexual role-playing is form of role-playing in which partners take parts in a drama with a strong sexual theme. These might include a teacher and pupil scenario, or an employer and maid, boss and secretary, besides other scenarios. These are common in BDSM and are integral to many pseudonymous or anonymous forms of cybersex.
Sexual role-playing may also be involved in various online games. This is a generally less accepted type of role-playing in an online community, though opinions about it vary. Social acceptance and attitudes to sexual role-playing differ within various communities, often dependent on the community's genre or purpose (e.g., adult BDSM and fetish communities not only accept this behaviour but promulgate it as the main activity around which the online community functions). It is also not uncommon for players to form a personal attachment or friendship with the persona assumed by their role-playing partner.
The above mentioned example is generally better accepted in an online environment than role-playing a character that involves sexual-related content in public or in above mentioned adult-themed role-playing games.