Roleplaying

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.