| Role-Play is, at it's base level, the art of Playing a Role. If you don't roleplay, then you usually tend to treat virtual worlds as simple games, with no consequences. Unfortunately, this isn't true. Virtual worlds are social situations. The avatars are controlled by other people, as real as you. If you interact with these avatars outside of Role-Play then you are dealing directly with that person, and any unkind words or gestures strike through to them. Role-Play is where you don't treat the avatar as a part of yourself. Instead, it is almost a puppet, and you are the string-puller. It has an animation of it's own, you see through it's eyes, you move it's limbs, but it has it's own life. You are simply the actor that says the lines, and expresses the personality. With Role-Play, you can set up a life for the character within the virtual world. They may come to be known by other characters as a mighty sage, a whimsical bard, a dispicable thief, or even a lowly barkeep. Whatever the outcome, by playing a character, and creating their own life, you then have far more context for their actions, and a lot of lasting fun as well.
 | RPer's Ramblings on VR Role-playing
| | This is a long, many sectioned paper, containing many suggestions, do's, and don'ts for better role-play in virtual worlds. Also available at the authors home site here. |  | Quick Start: Is this MUD for Me? | | This article, written with the Turning Point MUD specifically in mind, is still ideal for an introductor to any Role-Play Intensive world. It highlights the key issues and considerations you need to face as a player, when first stepping out into a virtual world. | |
| A Brief History of Roleplaying, Part One | | This, the first in a series on the evolution of Role-Play looks at where we have come from, at the origins of the modern roleplay systems used by near enough every world. | | A Brief History of Roleplaying, Part Two | | A second look at the history of Role-Playing, with more in depth coverage of how the different types of system which encourage role-play have evolved over time. | | A Brief History of Roleplaying, Part Three | | A look at the third kind of structure for Role-Play, that of the story-driven world, where less emphasis is placed on the characters, and more on the overall idea. This article looks at the evolution of this strain of virtual world over time from the first ancestors, to modern versions. | |
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