Serious Could you still see yourself roleplaying in later life?

[Northgate]

Genuine question. I understand a lot of us have moved on from roleplay, returned, maybe still active - however, I'm curious on the question if you'd still see yourself roleplaying in 10, 20 years. By roleplay, I include any kind of game where you play a character, doesn't matter if Text / Voice.

I personally think that the answer for me is, probably. I've roleplayed since I was like 13 and I've always enjoyed it since. It's just something that's dear to me in a sense: I don't even think it's escapism or anything like that for me, I genuinely just love the act of roleplaying as someone else and find it's the easiest way to connect to people. Never got into acting or theatre and probably not quite made for it, so this is a fun alternative to that, honestly.

What I'm also very curious about is how roleplay will develop. I mean, with the rise of LLMs which are quite alright at roleplay, I'm really curious where we're headed to. Who knows, maybe over the years we'll see a massive rise in interactive characters in videogames.

I'm not sure how many "young ones" still do roleplay, to be honest. Like, it's surprising sometimes to hear from who still does it, but I'm really curious if we'll see a stagnation in roleplay or if we'll see a massive growth. Honestly? I'm super curious how it'll go.

 

[Ricsow]

Maybe, honestly I only play HL2RP and rarely GTA 5 in terms of TextRP and I've never done VoiceRP. If those two die out (which I don’t see coming for quite some time tbh, there’ll always be a niche community somewhere), I probably won't continue. Although after Rockstar Games bought FiveM, I could see RP being a official part of GTA 6.

 

[constantdisplay]

yea i probably will

and really, rp is not dying any time soon. people of basically all ages still actively play stuff like dnd! the mud community is still around doing text rp and thats primarily people over 25-30 (and young people are still getting into it). even technically, young people are doing discord text rp a lot (lol), shit like roblox even

new gmod hl2rp servers leaning towards voicerp are doing well and being played primarily by younger people, and some of those people will always end up being pushed towards more serious text rp instead. i think the only reason theres any doomerism about rp here is because its a semi-niche subsection (serious textrp) of a niche community (hl2rp) - which is split even further because like EVERY server wants to approach the setting differently

 

[bilack]

Maybe if something as nostalgic and fun as Impulse comes along again

Otherwise? On Gmod? Naw

 

[MaXenzie]

i will always be playing D&D

 

[Flop]

Maybe if something as nostalgic and fun as Impulse comes along again

Otherwise? On Gmod? Naw

Bro got the nostalgia glasses on, Impulse was not fun except to just keep your hands busy and chat with friends

 

[bilack]

Bro got the nostalgia glasses on, Impulse was not fun except to just keep your hands busy and chat with friends

It was very fun, actually

Hunting ghosts, shooting cops, big raids, big holdouts, mafia deals, trolling cops, trolling rebels, committing fraud, suicide bombing people, sneaking into the nexus and hijacking the broadcast, raiding the nexus, trading with people, running a fraudulent storefront as a facade for cannibalistic, murderous, criminal acts, and so much more

Yeah it was updated once a year but looking at it in retrospect, you miss it deep down because you know damn well shit was fun.

 

[Flop]

Yeah it was updated once a year but looking at it in retrospect, you miss it deep down because you know damn well shit was fun.

no. Either-way I'll keep from flooding the thread and to keep on topic? Honestly? I don't know if I'll be RP'ing, years down the line from now. Whenever HL2RP goes down? That's probably where I'll vanish of the gmod scene, outside of messing on sandbox with mods.

 

[Alexander The Great]

 

[Luft]

lol no

 

[Andrew]

yea
best part is i know i'll permanently have a drive to play darkrp too so once gmod goes through its second golden age and people dev for it again i'll find a new darkrp server to meme on

 

[Mute]

would probably pivot to dnd type stuff with close friends rather than online stuff

 

[Zarail]

Maybe?
Studies and life in general is the main reason keeping me from serious RP as it can be a big time investment, but also because of waning personal interest.
The reason I jump in on the GTA server occasionally is because it feels a lot more casual and less time-consuming compared to HL2RP and that it's easier for me to be dumb on the mic than writing /mes. I guess in that regard it's less actual roleplaying and more just having fun by messing around.
Maybe when I'm done with studying and if other stuff doesn't get in the way, I might try serious stuff again. Maybe not on gmod but at least on something.

 

[Ond]

Open ended RP and servers that aren’t on an application or whitelist basis (events, limited time open servers) will with 90% certainty not be of interest to me anymore

The quality of the average player and their loyalty to the character/ability to portray it is just too varied and sub-par for the most part for me to enjoy it

The latest iteration (No fault of the staff) was a shining example of people being okay, sometimes ecstatic, with doing stuff that would terrorize real people for the rest of their lives - and it was just too jarring for me

The worst part is definitely people just not being willing to lose as a means to let other people drive forward their story in a meaningful way

 

[Postal]

yes

 

[FreeSpy]

Yeah.

I play DND and other tabletops for this reason. It helps me fuel my literary inspirations (I have a bladerunner story telling the story of a casefile where most characters were playee by real people, that brought me to tears in the ending we created)

It helps me explore my thoughts and the nuances of life and I don't think I'll stop any time soon

 

[abcdefg]

Roleplaying on garry's mod - no, i think rp on garry's mod is in a dreadful state

Roleplaying elsewhere - maybe? idk. would be fun to actually try DnD sometime

 

[Blackquill]

I think what draws a lot of people to RP and what makes it something still worth exploring as a hobby even later in life is how it is essentially a creative group writing exercise. When you remove other people, RP just becomes regular writing really but adding in the element of other people and their writing styles and ideas, that's what makes it interesting to me.

There's also no real limitations to it, outside of the format you choose or your own imagination. That's kinda why GMOD and HL2RP can get stale really quickly for people - it's held back by the limitations of the outdated engine and the adherance to the game of which it's based on. It doesn't even matter how flexible you are with it, it's still limited by HL2.

The most crucial part of any RP experience though is the feeling of it being a journey of some kind. I've been playing a lot of JRPGs lately and they def capture this feeling.


One final thing though, a good story is only satisfying once it reaches a conclusion - this is why people would willingly choose to end their characters in our servers or why many look back fondly on our server despite the various flaws people mentioned at the time.

 

[Rabid]

Yeah, sure. I've been RPing in one form or another since I was 11/12. I like writing. I probably won't stick around on Gmod forever, but I don't see a reason to stop writing.

 

[Mangiyko]

I think what draws a lot of people to RP and what makes it something still worth exploring as a hobby even later in life is how it is essentially a creative group writing exercise. When you remove other people, RP just becomes regular writing really but adding in the element of other people and their writing styles and ideas, that's what makes it interesting to me.

There's also no real limitations to it, outside of the format you choose or your own imagination. That's kinda why GMOD and HL2RP can get stale really quickly for people - it's held back by the limitations of the outdated engine and the adherance to the game of which it's based on. It doesn't even matter how flexible you are with it, it's still limited by HL2.

The most crucial part of any RP experience though is the feeling of it being a journey of some kind. I've been playing a lot of JRPGs lately and they def capture this feeling.


One final thing though, a good story is only satisfying once it reaches a conclusion - this is why people would willingly choose to end their characters in our servers or why many look back fondly on our server despite the various flaws people mentioned at the time.

For me, your first paragraph really hits the nail on the head. One of my favourite things about picking up a book from an author I haven't read before is experiencing a new writer's voice. Different diction/vocabulary/experiences that inspire them. All of these new things can help inform my own writing. That holds true for RP, as well.

As much as I love writing things for myself, like you said, adding other people and making it a collaborative writing thing makes it loads more fun. Just like with D&D, one of the most fun things about RP are the emergent situations/narratives. You have x idea for your character and log on with the intention of doing y, but you had no way of knowing that z would happen, and now you're reacting in real time and exploring your character's response to events that you had no way of anticipating. RP is a lot like improv, and that's timeless.

To answer the original question, I can't really see myself ever giving up roleplay. I've been writing/RPing/playing D&D for the past seventeen or so years at this point. There are billions of people in the world and a lot of them can show me something that I haven't seen before, so 🤷‍♂️