Pioneering Your Imagination #2 - "Why?"

Role-playing is a mind-boggling activity. Spending time in a game, but not actually playing it? Why would anyone one do it?

It's quite simple. To role-play is to descend deeper into immersion. You're investing the time to communicate with your peers in a fresh, unpredictable way and you're taking active steps to appreciate the world you're surrounded by. Granted, Granado Espada might not have the richest back-story, but it is nonetheless unique to the retail role-playing scene. There's plenty of interesting ideas and concepts embedded within the New World, bits of yummy intrigue and depth scattered throughout this relatively small MMO.

There is also incentive besides being a cognitive conquistador. On occasion, IAH hosts the "Dark Lord" events, which are basically RP events with a small judging staff. From what I could gather, what deters most people from participating in the contest is simply being unaccustomed to thinking, acting and ultimately being a roleplayer. If greed motivates you, the Dark Lord event prizes should encourage you to at least attempt at understanding roleplay. The competition isn't particularly fierce, and as long as you command the English language with reasonable proficiency, you can entertain the thoughts of winning.

But really, RPing is rarely about winning. Competition can be healthy or monstrously destructive to role-playing in general simply because it's a pastime that promotes group harmony. In-character conflict is good, but in all honesty, evaluation of style and form isn't necessary. As long as you're fleshing out your characters and contributing to the flavor and feel of a session, you're role-playing correctly. Still, putting up prizes for play is an acceptable practice in GE simply because the RP-community has no motivation to engage except for some form of reward.