Why did you begin Roleplaying?

[DikkeVetteVlinder]

Because it seemed like a lot of fun. I was eleven, I think, and I was active on some now long dead Harry Potter fan site and at some point I noticed the roleplays. It was just the kind of stuff where actions were put in between asterisks, but it was fun all the same, even though I cringe at the thought of the stuff eleven-year-old me came up with.


And from that I just kind of naturally moved on to other sorts of writing. First only in Dutch, but in the last four to five years it has gradually progressed to English as well.

 

[Sibylline Oracle]

I started roleplaying because I like to read and make up stories. I don't have the self-discipline for fanfiction so roleplay was a way to explore my creative side without having to stick to a single narrative that I planned out on my own.

That I can definitely relate to. Besides, seeing how others creatively develop an initial idea I made tends to be more interesting and entertaining than just writing it all out by myself. ^^

 

[mammon.]

I started roleplaying when I was in the 6th Grade, I was entering a depression and felt as though my writing skills were inadequate compared to my peers. I stumbled upon a roleplaying forum on this super old site that doesn't even allow roleplaying anymore, and my skills just improved from there.


Still best friends with one of the first people I ever roleplayed with, good times

 

[RainbowReindeer]

I started because the cool kids in the pet game I was on RPed. Things spiraled from there and I was writing my own original fiction and fandoms but no motivation so I stuck with just RPing. It's fun, especially when you make some really close friends. :'^3

 

[Caragia]

I started because back when I first started being on the chat IMVU, I popped into a RP room just by chance. I thought it was very cool and I've been hooked ever since. I'll say this, RPing on there is VERY different from forum.

 

[o 7 o]

I think I started roleplaying with my friends when I was either 10 or 11? We didn't roleplay online, though. We'd go into the backyard and get fake swords and guns and we'd walk around, assigning various landmarks in my backyard as locations in the game. For instance, the trampoline could've been a general store in one roleplay, and then a safehouse in the other.


We would always tell each other about our characters before we got started, so everyone knew who was what and what kind of person they could expect to interact with. Then, as we got started, we would literally say out loud "my character does this," as if we were telling a story. It was basically one-line roleplays brought into real life. We looked super goofy running around with foam swords and NERF guns screaming and saying things like "[my character] glares at you and shakes their head" rather than bothering to do the action itself. It was fun, though, and my love for roleplaying sprouted from doing it.


I've been roleplaying for about ~7-8 years ever since on various platforms (sometimes in games, sometimes on forums) and it's one of my favorite things to do in my spare time!

 

[CHIMNY]

I started playing text based games like TORN. (Mail me if your gonna play it, I want referral prizes ) and it got me hooked. Then shortly after I got into anime and manga, mainly Naruto. I started semi-binging and it made me imagine my own characters and stuff, thats when I found a Naruto based roleplaying forum. I thought it was pretty cool but my CS kept getting denied due to my terrible writing at the time xD . I soon got bored of rewriting the same thing over and over so I played a text based Naruto game and several other forum RPs (which I dropped out soon) After getting bored of Naruto and taking interest in AoT and tokyo ghoul, i found RPnation AND ITS PERFECT!


Edit: When I was 5-8ish I constantly "LARPED" with my friends even though we didnt really know about it. We had fantasies of superheros, spies, military, etc. I guess that was when I first actually ROLE-PLAYED.

 

[Nyxione]

Wellllll, I actually started role playing for very selfish reasons that hardly relate to writing at all xD


I joined this site Otakuzone way back in 2009. It had avatars and a points and gold system. You use gold to buy items in the shop for your avatar to wear. To get more gold, you either a) buy, b) trade in points for gold. Now, every post in the forums for that site was worth two points. Inside the site's forums was, yep you guessed it right, a role play section. I was a shy person back then, even online. Well, I still am, but I'm no longer as shy as I was before online. Anyway, I needed points to covert to gold cause I wanted to buy more items for my avii. At first I made do with the other methods of earning points such as adding friends (which was worth 2 or 3 points I think? I can't remember), writing reviews, etc. I eventually grew tired of writing reviews since I realised that I sucked at it. So around the start of 2010 (I joined December 28, 2009. And yes I remember the exact date; the join date is displayed under the person's name in their posts at the forums), I told myself to get out of my shy shell and start posting in the forums for points. Started with a few posts in the Art forums, then I moved to the General Discussions and finally I found myself in Role play land. I first observed what it was like to rp and then thought that, 'hey, it's just writing! I can do this. Easy points!' Thus, I started role playing XDD While the allure of making points easy was what motivated me to start rping, it was the overall experience that made me stay. I enjoyed it, had fun and now here I am. Still role playing after 6 years (though I would say that it's only roughly 4 years since I had a 2 year break from role playing thanks to the site's deletion; can't remember why the company pulled the plug on it, I think it wasn't generating them as much money as they would've liked)

 

[BlueClover]

A friend of mine, once asked, me if I wanted to rp, I agreed not knowing anything about it, we did play a few times but as this years go's on it gets harder 3 days ago I decided to see if Rp'ing is something popular, I found this site and BOOM know I am here.

 

[Tiny Turtle]

I started roleplaying when I was 11. I was in grade seven at the time. I had joined these forums that are related to this avatar game I used to play (I was being pretty badly bullied so I didn't have any friends I could really talk to since they were the ones who bullied me. It was a super small school). I had been going on the forums since grade six, and seen the roleplay section but didn't think I was good enough. One day though I saw a Hunger Games roleplay, run by someone who is now my best friend. I had joined it and was very scared at first, but fell in love rather quickly. Once the roleplay had ended I waited a couple weeks and talked to the owner of the roleplay (my current best friend) and they convinced me to make my own. It all fell into place after that, and I became super motivated to roleplay, and joined waaaaay too many (I now know my limits). Roleplaying for me has been a form of therapy since I suffer from depression along with stuff like general anxiety... etc. and part of why I fell in love with it so much is because I felt more free. It gave me room to experiment with my writing, characters, and my views on the world and myself. I don't know if I'll ever stop roleplaying, although I really hope not since it keeps my creative juices floating. But yeah. Since I started roleplaying I haven't really stopped. Only taking a hiatus when my depression got super bad and the site I used started to die out, but since my internet friends showed me this one I've felt really at home again.

 

[Cloudburst]

I started when I was 12/13 on neopets. I probably saw the subsection on the boards and stumbled in, but what an awful environment for a newbie. The community was really rude and unforgiving of mistakes (dunno if it's still like that) and the forum character count was so tiny that you had to split your replies over three or four separate posts. So eventually this pushed me into creating my own site with a friend, and then onto more established communities specifically for RPing. I always fell out of it and then back into it; I did start with RPing, but I felt like I needed more control and started writing original fiction and fanfiction instead. It's been a back and forth thing for the last decade.


A few months after I started university, looking back I'm pretty sure I developed some sort of anxiety disorder. I worried over stupid things to the point where I barely ate or slept, isolated myself from friends, and couldn't pay attention in class. I blamed it on midterm stress, then on exam stress, and then once exams were over and it didn't go away I really had no idea what was wrong with me, but didn't realize it was something I could seek help for so I never did. Then one night when I couldn't sleep, I started writing, and it put me to sleep surprisingly quickly. I started writing every night - just random things, fanfiction, eventually got back into RPing - and I honestly got my life back thanks to writing. Once I could sleep again I did much much better without any sort of medical help. And so... for the last four years, I've written every single night before sleep. Nowadays I can barely get a few sentences in without nodding off, it's honestly awesome. xD So that's why I started, and why I still write today! Different reasons for everyone, right? lol

 

[DeadnotSleeping]

I started when I was 10. As I was always a bookworm, doing and writing something like my favourite characters and authors might was fascinating. I had a small group of very dedicated friends, and it was so much fun! I was instantly hooked. I still am.

 

[Mythee]

It was a natural transition from live action games of pretend, the moment I first hit the Neopets forums.

 

[MiracleKa]

Honestly, I got into roleplaying thanks to Neopets.


Back in...2001 or 2002, I think, me and my bestie at the time got into the site. I'd never heard of roleplaying, and I don't remember if I entertained any notions of roleplaying before that, but I was a huge reader and I loved the idea of telling stories. Thing was, oral storytelling was a bit of a no-go for me since I was always so shy. My friend introduced me to the roleplaying forums on Neopets some time after I introduced him to the overall site and...bam. Something clicked. I was going through a lot at the time, so it ended up being the outlet I didn't know I needed for a lot of my problems.


At first it was a coping mechanism, but it was also one I really enjoyed. Roleplaying was what lead me to the discovery that I wanted to write. I played as a few fandom characters at first, and then moved on to OCs rather quickly. I guess I can say I always had a talent for writing, but characters were a whole 'nother ballgame. I had a LOT of Sues in those days, and I didn't know any better about roleplaying etiquette. I've grown a lot since then, though.

 

[Usagisenpai]

I have only recently started to roleplay. I thought it would be a fun thing to do (since I have a bit too much time on my hands...) and I found this site so I thought. "Yeah, why not?" So here I am.

 

[SuppaStar13]

I first wanted to create my own stories on Wattpad, but realized that I did not have enough writing skill to create a successful piece. So, I started role-playing to get ideas, learn from others, and broaden my skills.

 

[Marta]

Just thought it would be fun to be able to play characters and live situations that will never happen in real life

 

[MISTER UN. 0W3N]

I discovered text-based roleplaying during a rough time in my life. In a time where I had absolutely no say or control, I felt like a God in roleplaying. Creating "life" and dictating what happens to them in an imaginary world helped me get through some of the worst parts of my life.

 

[jiminie]

I started about four years ago, so when I was fifteen. I had always loved writing. So, when I discovered the 'Writing Forums' on a virtual pet website, I was pretty addicted.

 

[Sandertp]

I originally started RP'ing on a site called ROBLOX, this was about a year after I had started LARP'ing out in the forest with a great group that I still participate with. I mostly just stumbled upon it, little me being confused that a level labelled 'RP' had nothing to do with RPG's, I quickly learned the ropes and I can now make the numbers go up on most RP games on ROBLOX just by joining them.

 

[Dragonblood]

I really only started just so I had a reason to make friends. I've been homeschooled so I didnt haven't anyone to talk to outside the internet when i was 12. Even then I was too shy to talk to anyone so I thought, "Why don't I rp? People are gonna come talking to me first."

 

[Mordecai]

I was ten when I began to roleplaying-- yikes, 15 years ago! I began to roleplay because English is not my first language and I wanted a fun way to practice. (:

 

[eclipsa]

I made a friend on YouTube through ppgz chat videos when I was around 10, and she had a roleplay character that she wanted a love interest for and that's how I got started. With awful anime color over characters. It eventually grew from that one character to like 50+ and it was wild.

 

[Unrlstic]

Well, I don't really have a good relationship with either of my parents, and I can never talk to them with anything. Plus, I bottle in my emotions a lot in general. #perksofbeingascorpio Anyways, I'm good at socializing but never the way I actually intend too. Writing has always been my go to. With everything. I'm happy, I write, I'm sad, I write. Literature was always my favorite in school and I loved creating stories. With writing I can get my feelings out better and more in depth. I have so many ideas and thoughts, and so I write them down. It helped me develop myself and it's a huge part of who I am today.


In my early years of middle school, I hit depression in the sixth grade, and then I wrote A LOT. And I mean, 24/7. I expressed myself with writing completely. Then In the 7th grade when I got out of my depression (god is good) I found out that my best friend secretly roleplayed and wrote as well, since she has family problems too. I ended up getting into roleplay because I realized that, whats better than writing and coming up with things than doing it with other people as, and if not more creative and imaginative than you are? And so here I am. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a loner, I have a lot friends, I'm always busy, and a very outgoing personality in real life, but it's in a way satisfying and soothing to know that I have a side of myself that I can rely on at all times, yano?

 

[Kernsyia]

It's been two or three years since I've started role playing and so far it's been fun and enjoyable. (Despite having to put a hold on rping for a while cause of life things) I have made good friends from rping which is why I don't regret starting! Rping is more of an escape from reality, like book Though this time I would not be reading how a world would unravel from an author's perspective but from my own with the collaborative effort from another person to create a new world filled with possibilities! It just... Was a good escape for me when I was able to set aside