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Role Playing is a leisure activity.
Today there are three main categories of Role Playing; Table top, Live Action, and Electronic.
In table top role playing a group of people get together to act out characters in a story. One person, called the 'Games Master', 'Story Teller' or some such creates the background. They are the arbiter of the characters actions, create the game world, and play the role of the myriad people and other things that make up the game world.
The other people play individual characters in the game world.
Often, although not exclusively, games use rules published by games companies the purpose of which is to help the story teller arbitrate on the actions of the players' characters.
If you were to walk into a living room full of table top role players the scene would resemble a group of particularly literate friends (there are books scattered all over the place) who have got together with the express purpose of consuming as much snack food as humanly possible. People playing table top rarely dress up, although I have been known to put my ether goggles on.
Live action games involve booking a space, dressing up and acting out roles. There are normally a group of referees to determine the results of less than social actions. In spaces that are open to the public live role players should take care not to use props resembling real world weapons, as that can lead to unfortunate misunderstandings with armed responce units. Normally though live action games happen away from public space and the public gaze.
Electronic games range from the 'Massive multiplayer role playing games' run by commerical companies, which include fancy graphics and a monthly charge, to a bunch of people chatting in character over e-mail.
Single player computer games can be great fun, but lack the essential interaction between people to, in my opinion, earn the name role-playing.
Jonathan
PS Role Playing is about as likely to lead to either Satanism or Murder/Suicide as Angling.
The link at the bottom of the page is to William J. Walton's website, an excellent web resource for anyone looking to counter some of the myths about roleplay.
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