How did you get into roleplaying?

[Dessa]

I'm curious to hear how you guys got into roleplaying. How old were you? Who did you roleplay with? How did it make you feel?

Follow up question: Why do you roleplay today?

My story:

I played my first Roleplaying game when I was in middle school, maybe 6th or 7th grade. I'd heard of them, but I had never given them a serious thought until some kid invited me to play in a game. We werent besties or anything, we were just mutually bored and happen to share the same recess period (this school was in the middle of the city, so recess there was always indoors).

The game was D&D second edition, and while I thought it was kinda neat as I read through it, but the true potential of roleplaying games didn't dawn on me until I came across a picture of a thief -- a female thief. I realized suddenly that RPGs gave me the opportunity to be something I could never be (or so I felt at the time). Now, to clear up the confusion some of you might have: No, I wasn't always a girl. WHile there was always something in me that I couldn't put a finger on, that image in D&D awakened me to a longing I didn't realize was there.

This being middle school, I suspected that the idea of playing female character with random schoolboys wasn't going to go over well, and I was right. I tried to play it coy at first, but I caught some heat for a while.

That first D&D session didn't really go anywhere, and I was turned off of the idea of making female characters for a while, but I was still entranced by the notion of being someone or something else. As I continued through middle school, RPGs got more and more popular, until probably a third of the school was into them (I was blessed with a very geek-friendly middle school, and I loved it!). We even had the teachers getting in on it, with one of the recess periods (you could choose which class to take for recess) being set aside for Role-Playing Games, with sessions run by a goofy-fun loving teacher.

Around that same time, my best friend Chris started GMing a Star Wars campaign in small groups that, if put together, might count to 20 or 25 students altogether. Chris was an arrogant prick, but effortlessly confident and very creative. I'd meet up with kids I barely knew, and we'd compare our characters' adventures in this Star Wars campaign, and somehow, Chris kept it all together and managed to build a whole GALAXY that every character got to see a different part of. Eventually, our lives went on and the magic of those early days became harder and harder to maintain or recapture, but since then, I've loved RPGs. There's just something special about seeing life through someone else's senses.

For years after middle school, RP was for me much what I imagined it to be for other people, but with the added personal element of gender exploration. In many ways, it kept the demons at bay, and helped me through what might have been much more difficult without the escapism. These days, I'm LIVIN THE DREAM BABY -- I'm a woman now, so that element of RP is no longer necessary, but I still love it. From whence, then, its continued appeal? What does RPing offer me that's special and specific to my life? I don't know, but it's fun to explore.

Okay, now it's YOUR turn. Go, take a moment to gaze at thy navels and regale us with tales of youthful yore!

[MyLittlePonyTales]

Somehow I got roped into it on Facebook with the Warrior cats series. No wait, before I even knew what I was doing I was on a forum for my church youth group. We did Pie (Star) Wars RP, someone started a Cowboy Bebop one, jazz... I don't even remember all the RPs we had going.

[ZeroHero]

Pokemon pretty much got me into anything internet related, so I'm sure that was my first RP too, lol. I RP for the same reason, more of less. Instead of gender exploration in particular, it's just imagining being something that isn't human that I overwise couldn't experience in real life.

[Lux]

I used to LARP (Live Action Role Play). I'd dress in real armor and fight hordes of undead with foam swords (trust me it's a very physically demanding game).

While doing this I was in a Star Fox RP with my character Kato, a cousin of Krystal (if you know Star Fox lore).

However the RP died and I then switched to ponies. I was previously on two sites, but one closed and the other I left due to some drama going on. On one site I had five chatacters and the other I had five. Some overlapped but it still was interesting balancing between the two.

Now I'm here and having fun!

[Ashton]

I got into DND when the 2.0 eidtion came out and there was a write-up of it in a local paper, but despite my interest and love there just was not much around me for DND... even though I kept up with it and would occasionally get to throw out a session, for the most part it was just reference material for stories I wrote... (Sadly, my whole life's been this way, I've probably only had like 30 or fewer DND sessions in my whole life... note I said SESSIONS not games!) I did get a nice 6-8 sessions of SWRCD20 (Star Wars Revised Core D20) when I enjoyed (though nobody *really* RP'd there, everyone cared more about XP than plot... and yes this WAS an in-person game)

Forum-based RP I got into in the mid-late 90s. I stumbled on a site while looking for music (this was back when you had to actually search the web long and hard to find anything but MiDis...) and stumbled on an RP, on a whim I joined, not actually expecting much from it, and was shocked when I did get responces, and I hopped around several sites for a while, once I knew what it was, I started looking for it more and more...

Then came AvidGamers

Many of you will have no idea what AG was, it only lasted a couple years, but it was a site built around easy-to-use FREE forums with painfully easy to create variables for site use. In short it really opened the floodgates for people who didnt know how to set up their own sites. Unfortunately, though, it also died after a couple short years and it's replacement never took off. From what I can tell Forum-Based RP had it's only big hurrah during AG's time, because since then the number of RP sites has been minimal, and most of those are on the two extremes of "I likez ta typ3 lik3 diz!" or where they expect a minimum of a page per post... (And for those wondering, yes, I tried about 10 times to set up my own RP sites, and I never got any real activity on them... I finally gave up)

Excluding a few CATS (yes the musical) RPs that I got roped into, my history has gone something like this:

Sonic > Megaman/X>Furry>Pony (with a short stint in there on Neopets when it was first opened and there were more than 100 words NOT blocked by the censor... I mean you cant eve say "Pass" (like "can you pass me the salt?") on there!) I've done a few other random ones with friends when I got desperate but that's about it

[Rosewind]

I used to RP a lot in the early AOL days. I was part of a big RPing guild called Order of the Crimson Star. I haven't done much RPing around here, though!

If you really want to get technical, we're roleplaying from a very young age , as part of a natural learning and growing process. Doing it for fun or fantasy, I believe, is an extension of that.

[PonyHooves]

It all started when I was twelve years old. It was a lazy summer afternoon. My dad was working and it was during the summer holidays. I couldn't go hiking on my own as my dad wouldn't allow me to go out only to get lost in the middle of nowhere. I was trapped in the house. There was nothing on tv that caught my interest and I had lost my favourite board game, Snakes and Ladders. So, I sat by the computer. I just happened to be typing random words into google search. I browsed the odd web page and then returned to google search. But then I found a web page that I wanted to stay on...

I had typed into google the word 'wolf'. I then clicked on the first link I saw. It was the link to a text based role play website. It was about wolves. The role play website was known as Blossom Forest. I had to fill in a wolf form, and wait to be accepted before I could role play my wolf character. When I had been accepted, the joy of role play had begun to set in on my heart. I role played with people from different parts of the world. It felt as though we were writing a story at first. But as we role played together more and more, the role play began to feel real as if the character I was playing, was who I really was. It felt amazing and my features lit up before me as I sat at the keyboard and typed. It was as if I had found my calling.

Though as I grew up, I discovered my true calling was to be with the animals. I may have been gifted with a large imagination and good control over the use of an artists pencil, but I knew I could still enjoy role playing.

I role play today because I enjoy role playing. It helps me release my imaginative energy. It also helps me to clear my mind when something is troubling it. I still get that feeling of becoming my character every time I type my part of the role play like I would if it was my turn to tell the story over a camp fire in the woods on a hot summer night.

[RarityDash]

The RP here is probably the most involved I've ever been in RPing.

I don't have an extensive history with it. Before here, I did a little RPing with a few friends on a small forum, but before that, there really wasn't much. Certainly only ever really done the online variety of roleplaying. So yeah, sadly, I don't have some great roleplaying story to tell.

[Bright Glow]

Well I haven't really started to role playing yet since my original plan to entering the game was to finding for my character Ice Cream Surprise a housemate/roommate in ponyville since she would move there afther she just finished her sdtudies as a baker. I hoped I could someone who would accept her moving in and living with his/her pony in Ponyville as room matres but I couldn't find anyone yet. My other plan was about finding job as a coworker of Pinkie Pie in the Sugarcube Corner so I sent her owner a pm but no answer yet.

Anyway I just decided about a mnonth ago to start playing RP even I have never done yet.

[SilverSwirl]

Well, it started in my sophomore year of high school. I had a friend who was a GM for 3.5e DND and I had been interested in it for years because my mom told me stories about her DND playing days in the late 80's. I had my character all ready to go but then my Confirmation classes got in the way so I couldnt play. I did play one session of White Wolf's World of Darkness and got into an RP at SFC that I played a Scholar who could use his mental powers to dodge arrows and attacks on the fly using his lightning fast mental math. Not to mention he was a bit like a Calculator from FFT. Then I found this place and fell in love with the Roleplaying community.

[Corsair]

When I first got onto the internet (1999ish) One of the main places I hung out was in the SciFi Chatroom on Yahoo. At the time, I'd been reading a ton of "The Dragonriders of Pern" series by Anne McCaffrey. My chat room name at the time was Corsaith_Brown_Dragon (my own OC dragon). One night, a girl came into the room and her chat name contained "Weyrwoman," also a reference to the series, and she was starting an RP-by-email Weyr. I had applied to a much larger Weyr, and, at the time, the amount of traffic they generated was overwhelming and I never did any real PR there. This new, smaller group was perfect for me.

I did Pern RP for probably 4 years after that, eventually becoming one of the staff members. I ended up meeting many of the other members in person at a Pern-based room at Dragon*Con in Atlanta. After that long though, I lost my motivation as I grew tired of the books the RP was based on.

I didn't start RPing again until a year ago when ponies happened. I actually joined this forum just because, at the time, you had to be logged in to view certain images. Then the pony insanity grew, and here I still am.

I mostly view RP as a creative writing exercise rather than escapism. I've never actually played a pen and paper / dice RPG, unfortunately.

[Frosty]

I first roleplaying experience in the 6th grade, but I didn't really get into untill my high school years. It all started with simple chat with firends, doing simple actions and such, untill I started writing too much. I didn't really rp awhile until problems started to happen, high school, life drama, soical drama, you name it but I seem to remember Roleplaying seem to tear me away from such things and allow me to think calmly about my problems. I normally rp with close friends on DA before I moved onto Forums.

Rps make me feel a lot better about my life, as I could express myself without much hassle and plus it was loads of fun to boot but sadly I sometimes have trouble finding Rps, because I don't want to pester people or annoy people for them.

I guess the reason why I RP nowadays is the same reason's I've always rp, to help express myself, get a break from real life drama and to simply have fun.

[PortalToVoid]

about 8 years ago is when i got into D&D played the same char for 8 years hes not fit for games anymore hes too powerful i end up still dueling people but that's about it meh but what can ya do

[AllThatChaz]

I started acting when I was 11. It was a hobby I had fun with throughout my teenage years. I took part in summer programs where I starred in a number of shows and even got to assistant direct a couple times. I was accepted to a theater program at a university but decided against it, opting for an academic degree instead. After college I got into D&D when a few friends wanted to try 4e when it came out. I had never played D&D before but always wanted to try it. We only played a few sessions but I enjoyed it. I soon moved away from there. In my new location I found D&D nerds and I've been hanging with them for the past three years. I've played in two 3.5 campaigns, two d20 Modern campaigns, two Pathfinder campaigns, and I've been GM'ing a Pathfinder campaign of my own for the past year (it ends on Friday omg!). I've played all sorts of characters in these games - men, women, old, young, different races, etc.

Canterlot is actually my first internet RP experience. I've been going for a few days and have a few posts in a Fillydelphia thread. It's pretty fun.

[Halide]

IRC, Darkmyst.net, June of 2002, channel (now gone) called #JnV.

For a 12-year-old, I have no idea how I was. Looking back on the logs though, I'm amazed people put up with me back then. But, I learned to be less hyper and less ridiculous pretty quick, thankfully.

Joined in briefly on various forums, like Green Dragon and some random Lord of the Rings RP Forum. Barely remember that, but hey, still remember it vaguely.

After that, joined all sorts of channels across darkmyst, sorcery and esper. Started a few channels, helped run a couple other communities, still helping one of my favourites. But, felt like exploring Equestria a bit, simply because the 'feel' of the show was definitely there, and the consistancy of season one offered both stability and plenty of room for ideas.

But yeah, done a lot of things since I started, probably will continue doing bunches of things for the time to come!

[GreenshotApple]

((Allthatchaz....your name sounds so familiar, know of FFR??))

I start rp'ing back on Myspace in 2005 during junior year. Did Balto/LionKing rp there with many others using messages or the comments. Was good times there then got into Secondlife senior year doing Lycan roleplay. Seriously loved doing that for two years. In late 08, my mac laptop died and completely stopped doing rp up into last month when MLP came to my life and found this site. Basically, had to try and get my mind going again with being creative which I'm still progressing with. I still have no computer so I'm using my Nintendo Wii to reply here.

[AllThatChaz]

Oh God FFR kids found me. Better disappear forever >.>

Haha yeah I'm All_That_Chaz on FFR. Who are you on there? (Or just send me a friend request on there and I'll see for myself )

EDIT: Internet detective skills activated. Found you =p.

Edited March 29, 2012 by AllThatChaz

[Shivaree]

The first time I RPed was on Neopets. That was like...way over ten years ago?

After I got too old for Neopets, I started RPing on GaiaOnline. Since then, I've been RPing in forums and boards all across the net.

[Kaidyn]

Hmm...well, for me, I've first started roleplaying after going on a site known as Wolfhome only about four or five years ago. I'm a pretty big wolf fan so I got curious and when on it. Soon, I met some friends and began a part of their pack. Some time later, the pack would fall apart and I would spend about four to five months away from wolf packs and all that. However, during the meantime, I was roleplaying a fantasy RP with another friend just as a casual thing. It was fun and soon found a new wolf pack later down the road. Sad to say that the wolf pack had again some issues and I left that again too. That was only 3 or 4 months ago. Now, I'm here. A long journey of ups and downs written in a flash but it was all worth it. I still love RP'ing and I love this site.

[Eureka]

As a wrestling fan, I discovered RP'ing in the compettive e-sport of e-fedding. My RP tastes grew from there.

[korok132]

I think my first RP was on a forum called "Vagrant Epochers." The forum was supposed to be a sort of place for this one dude I watch on YouTube to interact with his viewers and stuff. They had a big RP world going on called "Legend of Hyrule" or something like that. It was basically what we got here, except Zelda: Ocarina of Time instead of ponies. And then I kinda lost a bit of interest because the DM guy would disappear for a week and then shenanigans would ensue between other players, and then everyone got really pissed about it for some reason (I think a "muffin button" was involved) then the RP stopped existing. There were some other smaller ones going on, but nothing I knew anything about, and were already pretty well under way, so I couldn't do anything. And then I stopped existing on the forum all together.

Two years later, while derping on the web looking for a Bass Clef cutie mark (for some reason) I get linked to a character app here (forgot the name) who was using a Bass Clef cutie mark picture that Google linked me to. A bit of lurking later, here I am with four characters and thinking about more.

I'm also part of a group on DeviantArt that does RPs, but the DM is basically non-existent except at the most inconvenient times for me and a friend of mine who's also part of it, so that kinda doesn't count.

[FrankT]

For me it grows mainly from RPG Maker games. Unfortunately I've never had the patience to finish any game I start.