----
In 'roleplaying', participants adopt and
act out the
role of
characters, or parts, that may have personalities, motivations, and backgrounds different from their own. Roleplaying is like being in an
improvisational drama or free-form
theatre, in which the participants are the
actors who are playing parts, and the
audience.
People use the phrase "role-playing" in at least three distinct ways:
★ to refer to the playing of roles generally such as in a theatre, or educational setting;
★ to refer to a wide range of games including
computer role-playing games,
play-by-mail games and more;
★ or to refer specifically to
role-playing games.
[1]
For learning, political goals and therapy
Simulations and roleplaying 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.
Roleplay 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".
[2]
Since the 1920s, roleplay simulation has been used in politics and international relations contexts, including model League of Nations organizations, which gave rise to model
United Nations simulations. Mock Trials, and model legislatures, such as the
YMCA Youth in Government program, are good examples of political role play too. Typically educational goals, real world political goals, and entertainment goals have all been important to political role play.
Project ICONS and
Fablusi role play simulations allow role play simulation designers to model human relationships using different rights structures in communication environments, differential information and amount of wealth.
Roleplaying has been an important part of military training for centuries. The Prussian term for live-action military training exercises is ''
kriegsspiel'' or "Wargames", a term that has entered English as well, although the contemporary military prefers to call them
military exercises.
Roleplaying is used as a form of
psychotherapeutic intervention in several approaches, with
Drama therapy using it as a primary therapeutic intervention. Often, conflicts with others will be acted out and embodied by a client or clients, providing insight and promoting sympathy. These techniques originate with
psychodrama, a form founded by
Jacob L. Moreno which employs playing roles as well as other techniques. Role-playing is widely used in learning-based psychotherapies focusing on skill acquisition.
For emergency response
Role-playing is the essence of the
Incident Command System (ICS), which is widely used by emergency response agencies to manage response (particularly inter-agency response) to large and/or complex incidents.
For entertainment
Role-playing in the form of
historical re-enactment has been practiced by adults for millennia as well. 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.
Another role-playing tradition is the
improvisational theatre tradition. This goes back in some sense 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 1950's. 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, but thought of them as training actors and comics rather than as being primarily aimed at being fun in their own right.
Role-playing games
Main articles: Role-playing game
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.
There are many different types of role-playing games. Many, and particularly those that came first, are centered around characters being created in fantasy universes. Of particular note is the advent of such games as Dungeons and Dragons in the 1970's, invented and propagated originally by Gary Gygax and David Arneson. Many different versions of this game were developed, and other types of games were spun-off from this original template, causing what was first developed as a hobby to become a multi-million dollar business venture.
Many role playing adventure games are invented to support and advertise movie or book franchises (in much the same way that action figures, books, and fan-fiction might have done). In such games, the players are given a universe reflective of the original text (i.e. Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, Harry Potter, etc.) and allowed to make their own characters to continue the already established storyline. Other role playing games, such as Dungeons and Dragons, actually begin the popular media based on them (such as the movie that recently came out). The connection between role-playing adventure games in popular media is growing to the point where, just as a person might expect a video game to follow up a movie, now people can expect a role-playing system to follow up either one.
Sexual roleplaying
A form of roleplay in which partners take parts in a drama that provides sexual gratification; these might include a teacher and pupil, or employer and maid. Sexual roleplay is common in
BDSM, and is integral to most pseudonymous or anonymous forms of
cybersex.
Sexual roleplaying in online games
Sexual roleplaying also occurs, albeit rarely, on various forms of
online games. This is a generally less accepted type of roleplaying in an online community, though opinions about it vary. Social acceptance and attitudes to sexual roleplaying 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 personal attachments or friendships with the player that they roleplay with.
The above mentioned example is generally better accepted in an
online environment than roleplaying a character that involves sexual-related content in public or in abovementioned adult-themed roleplaying games.
See also
★
Applied Drama
★
Online text-based role-playing game
References
1. Andrew Rilstone, "Role-Playing Games: An Overview" 1994, Inter
★ Action #1 at http://www.rpg.net/oracle/essays/rpgoverview.html
2. Gredler, M. (1992), ''Designing and Evaluating Games and Simulations: A Process Approach'', Kogan Page, London
External links
★
Roleplay Simulation for Teaching and Learning
العربية
中国
Français
Deutsch
Ελληνική
हिन्दी
Italiano
日本語
Português
Русский
Español
