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Let's Put More 'Roleplaying' Into 'Roleplaying Games' 

Victoria Rose Updated: Posted:
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Editorials 0

Roleplaying games have come a long way in creating immersion for its players as they become more technically impressive. However, despite the higher potential for that immersion, it feels like the MMORPG community as a whole doesn’t actually like to emphasize that opportunity through any scale of roleplay, neither to its own players or to outsiders—a trend I think is a shame given it’s persevered through the history of MMORPGs.

RPGs as video games were originally a lot more constrained before the Internet, but that doesn’t mean game creators necessarily locked into the focus of gameplay systems. Many of these games did try to tell stories and be immersive, letting players customize their characters to some good extent. 

To a number of players, that’s where the “immersion” really ends—and it’s certainly where it ends in the mainstream imagination of an RPG, even as games slowly slip in more and more ways to “be” in these games. That’s where I think a lot of issues with “games representing oneself” stem from: this really shallow idea of what you can actually do in an RPG, and especially an MMORPG, per the technical limits of the game. 

Since their inception, at least single-player RPGs are bridging that gap quite well, giving a lot more opportunity for players to not only step beyond a self-insert of sorts, but express ideas into their character builds. There are more classes and customizations than ever, as well as more options for story, romance, and dialogue and interfacing. 

Beyond this, though, a subset of players have always wanted some connection through that immersion, which is to say the more common modern definition of “roleplaying.” This is especially as far back as Neverwinter Nights in the early 1990s, when players used the world as tools to create a community that one early 2000s writer claimed was more important than the game itself, culturally speaking. 

There are some threads between then and now, but the “roleplaying” aspect—the immersion, the “playing pretend,” the storytelling—is still often left unspoken for, or at least shoved off as an aside of sorts instead of part of the potential of what MMORPGs can offer. Roleplaying can be anything from in-character casual chatting to paragraphs-long back-and-forth events (whether in-game, on Discord, or on a forum), or even just giving a character a simple backstory. 

If you talk about some of the biggest practical roleplaying platforms to exist to date, such as Gaia Online, Second Life and VR Chat (or old BBS forums), you’re gonna solicit a cringe. And given the state of certain games, that’s a bit warranted! But it’s not all lewd interfacing, as much as many communities may joke about their lewd epicenters. Unfortunately, though, I think this is one of the major reasons why it’s gotten such a bad stereotyped reputation over the years.  

The dismissal of immersion roleplaying does the hobby a disservice, especially given its persistence despite the ebb and flow of both gaming and the World Wide Web on all platforms and, stubbornly, whether an MMORPG technically has the tools for it or not (and it’s rare that it doesn’t). Today more than ever, it’s important, exciting, and even permitted to be creative, to get into escapism and to contribute an innovative perspective into the things you engage with. TTRPG players have found as much in the current boom of popularity, and fanfics are no longer an inherent taboo, but MMORPGs and other online platforms are slogging behind in widestream acceptance. 

That reputation isn’t for a lack of effort. World of Warcraft famously has roleplay servers that used to be a tightly-monitored ordeal, but those have quietly drained out over the years. There and elsewhere, community efforts through events, social media, and third-party tools do attempt to bridge that gap for those looking for immersion. Unfortunately without the widespread knowledge of what roleplay actually entails, outreach can only be so effective. 

The seeds are there, though, as players often get a bit attached to their characters. There’s a joke in Final Fantasy 14, for example, that you can start a character named “Bonzo Tacoman” from the sticks trying to be a celebrity, and you’ll come out crying about him losing certain friends and enduring trauma connected to childhood struggles while saving the world. People want to make things they care about, even if it’s just a toon in an MMORPG! 

In short, here’s hoping the burst of increasingly flexible RPGs, popular TTRPGs, and more MMORPGs give the “RP” in “MMORPG” a bit more credence. There are some really cool worlds being made out there, and it’s pretty damned delightful to get lost in them with others.


riningear

Victoria Rose

Victoria's been writing about games for over eight years, including small former tenures with Polygon and Fanbyte. She mostly spends time in FFXIV, head-deep in roleplay campaigns or stubbornly playing Black Mage through high-end raids. Former obsessions include Dota 2 and The Secret World (also mostly roleplaying). Come visit their estate: Diabolos (Crystal DC), Goblet, Ward 4, Plot 28.