Why do you role-play?

I'm surprised I had missed this tread. First of all thanks for Fate for starting it, it such little admissions on here that make this place a true family away from my own.

Well I suppose I have been interested in RPing since I decided to not just read books but to try my hand at writing my own. I've been writing short stories, novels, poems since I then, but it wasn't till my discovery of sites like these that I saw the possibilities of RPing.

I suppose the most fascinating thing about it to me is the depth of characters that can be found in really well done roleplays. Writers, even the best ones, have a bad habit of having a very flushed out main character, while the others becomes, well ghost. In RPing EVERY character is the main character to their writer, each post usually isn't a simple fill to expand or move along a novel. It is the close psychological thinkings and workings of characters.

Not only that but it is a bit of an escape as well. I mean who would not like to close their eyes, believe they are in a completely different world and life? And not only that but pretend you are living that like and having other characters, who are not those in your own head, communicate back? This can also be very powerful tool, I remember many years ago, I was in a military RP. Not the special forces, "I'm a cold blooded badass" kind of one mind you, but a war one. Our characters were meant to be drafted kids, whose homeland (which we all had a hand in creating in some way) was attacked and invaded. It was a very....surreal experience, especially since my uncle (who I was very close with) was in the Marines for his entire adult like and had seen many fields of battle. I thought, I understood him a bit better.

In the end I roleplay because of the fun it is and the powerful experience it could be.