Graham D., “Roleplaying,” June 2005. Undergraduate Term Paper for “Ethnography of Massively Multiplayer Online Games” Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas Questions to Graham can be directed to Aaron Delwiche (
[email protected]) Introduction When I began playing on the Silverhand server, I was aware that it was designed for roleplayers, yet I saw few visible signs of roleplay, and I certainly wasn’t roleplaying either. What did it mean to roleplay, exactly? I had a vague and probably inaccurate idea, but wanted to explore this idea further. It seemed kind of scary to me because I though maybe it was like giving up one’s true self. How in-depth did people go? I knew there were varying degrees, but wasn’t sure the extent. Were some people just acting, while some unconsciously became their alter-ego? I knew there was more to it than just putting on a phony Elizabethan accent in the chat channels, and I wanted to find out what this alien practice was. After a few misguided attempts, I finally arrived at a research question: “What do gamers identify as their motivations for roleplaying?” This question would help get to the “why” of it all by looking at internal factors that lead people to roleplay. So what is roleplaying anyway? Making an operant definition of this term is extremely difficult because there are literally hundreds of slightly different definitions out there. It seems better to look at a few different ideas in order to get a general picture. In As LARP Grows Up—Theory and Methods in LARP from Knudepunkt, a Nordic live-action roleplaying convention, various schools of roleplaying are represented, and each gives their definition of roleplaying.