# The Role-Playing Paradox

LLMS index: [llms.txt](/dvw/en/llms.txt)

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Experienced players will sometimes speak of “wearing” a character, like they might wear a mask. The freedom of revealing less of their outer selves can lead them to reveal more of their inner selves. They can, therefore, learn more about their inner selves, and change their character so it fits more comfortably. Ultimately, their inner and outer selves line up, and character becomes persona.

This is often described as role-playing. It is not. Role-playing is about assuming a role and maintaining that role. The role doesn’t change; if the character changes, it’s only for reasons that make sense for that character, not for the role-player.

An actor on a stage is playing a part. Actors might put more of themselves into a part as they come to know their character, but they can’t change the part. A theatergoer might notice a distinct difference between performances six months apart in a run, but actors and their characters remain separate. Spending every night playing a poisoner may give an actor insights into the mindset of such a person, but it’s unlikely to turn the actor into a poisoner; crucially, it most definitely won’t turn the poisoner into an actor.

Players can adapt their characters. Role-players determine not to. Role-playing is therefore a sub-class of playing. Both are paths to fulfillment, and both have the same overall goal: Being someone else in order to become a better you. Unfortunately, the term “role-playing” is widely applied to all kinds of playing in virtual worlds—it’s even incorporated into the acronym MMORPG. Properly, though, it should only be used to describe fluid-player-to-set-character play. Much confusion flows from this.

I should point out that putting yourself in someone else’s shoes is a perfectly valid way to learn more about yourself; I’m not about to disparage role-playing here. What I am about to disparage is the misunderstanding of what role-playing is, and the design paradigms this misunderstanding has promoted.

Role-players map themselves onto a character. They don’t map the character onto themselves. In so doing, they can come to an understanding of what makes their character tick, which enables them to reflect on their own attitudes, beliefs, and ways of thinking. The key is that they change, but the character doesn’t. The default for virtual worlds is for both to change. As a role-player, you can only learn about yourself as you approach a character; once you reach the character, you can learn no more from it. You have to take another role if you want to go in a different direction.

This, then, is the role-playing paradox: As a role-player, you try to become your character; however if you succeed then you’re no longer role-playing.

In other words, the journey is the point of the exercise, not what you do when you get there.

So role-playing sets up the necessary conditions for immersion, but the harder you role-play the less immersed you get: Thinking about your character as a separate entity breaks immersion. The more you think about a line to decide whether it’s right for your character, the greater the distance you put between yourself and that character. The conscious post-editing of your character’s words means the subconscious separation of you and your character.

This isn’t how players and designers of virtual worlds usually see it at all.