First introduction to roleplaying

[Starbleme]

Wow, the nostalgia! I think my first ever roleplay attempt was around age 13 on the Neopets.com forums? It's hard to remember. I recall coming up with a zombie character who was somewhat based on Emily from the Corpse Bride. I also came up with a male character named Curtis… I think literally his only character traits were being nice and being shy? Honestly, as I write this, I'm realizing that my taste in characters is still pretty much still the same, which is kind of mind-blowing. I never went for playing a super gorgeous and OP type of character.

But yeah, RP is addicting. There's something about having to wait around for, and collaborate with, another person — the "unknown" element — that spurs me to write and obsess over stories in a way that I just can't do alone.

 

[Lisianthus]

I got into roleplay when I was around...nine? So six years ago give or take. I was a bored kid who spent most of my time just reading, and I picked up roleplay while playing one of those virtual pet sim games. The community was pretty active back then, and there were lots of roleplay groups.

Chuunibyou kid I was, the thought of playing a magical wolf or just a fantastical character that I could make ridiculously OP was extremely appealing, so I got really into it (until I unfortunately had to stop because of school and stuff).

Six years later, now that the holidays are in full swing and I have a ridiculous amount of free time, I thought I'd pick up the old hobby that had been lying in the back of my mind for a long while, and it's been really exciting getting back into roleplay!

I cannot wait for my holidays as well, where I can concentrate on writing and reading.

 

[Lisianthus]

So I was doing a lot of "playing pretend" my entire life even as a we child, not ever realizing it was roleplaying!

My first roleplaying experience with others was in the Sailor Moon Universe chat rooms, where at the time I didn't realize that it was roleplaying, but I was playing a character with other people who were being characters and we were having a blast. That was for years in the late 90s and the start of the 00s.

One day someone on the forum side of the site invited everyone to do a Sailor Zodiac roleplay on a threaded forum system! And that was my first introduction into writing based roleplaying and learning what It was! I played Sailor Virgo and it was THE GREATEST THING TO HAVE EVER HAPPENED TO ME. As it combined writing stories (something I loved to do) with the super COOL unknown factor of playing with other people. I was hooked.

I immediately started my own roleplay forums. That was Moonwings in 2001. Years down the line after Moonwings closed I was kidnapped as an Iwaku admin in 2008 or 2009 I think?

And here we are in 2022. 8D I'm still roleplaying and it's still the bestest most awesome thing in the world. I want to do this forever.

That is such a long time. I never knew that roleplays was even a thing back then. Wow. I do hope that you get to continue your passion. It's amazing how long you have been doing this. This must be why you are Owl Mum.

 

[Lisianthus]

Wow, the nostalgia! I think my first ever roleplay attempt was around age 13 on the Neopets.com forums? It's hard to remember. I recall coming up with a zombie character who was somewhat based on Emily from the Corpse Bride. I also came up with a male character named Curtis… I think literally his only character traits were being nice and being shy? Honestly, as I write this, I'm realizing that my taste in characters is still pretty much still the same, which is kind of mind-blowing. I never went for playing a super gorgeous and OP type of character.

But yeah, RP is addicting. There's something about having to wait around for, and collaborate with, another person — the "unknown" element — that spurs me to write and obsess over stories in a way that I just can't do alone.

I agree with the unknown. It is unpredictable. And that's half the fun of roleplaying.

 

[Timur]

Amino! I joined it all the way back, at the beginning of 2016. I had read a ton of fantasy, some horror and watched a number of various animated shows by that point and it only seemed logical that I should try my hand at writing. Long story short, I joined a few communities (Gravity Falls, Kingdoms Roleplay, etc.) and had a pretty good time till roughly 2019 when the app started "dying" out (a lot of people I knew at the time and enjoyed writing with migrated to discord).

This left me with no choice but to seek alternative faucets for my writing needs.

 

[Lisianthus]

Amino! I joined it all the way back, at the beginning of 2016. I had read a ton of fantasy, some horror and watched a number of various animated shows by that point and it only seemed logical that I should try my hand at writing. Long story short, I joined a few communities (Gravity Falls, Kingdoms Roleplay, etc.) and had a pretty good time till roughly 2019 when the app started "dying" out (a lot of people I knew at the time and enjoyed writing with migrated to discord).

This left me with no choice but to seek alternative faucets for my writing needs.

I have heard of Amino before, and I checked it out once, but the app left me confuzzled, so I dropped the whole app.

 

[Timur]

Amino! I joined it all the way back, at the beginning of 2016. I had read a ton of fantasy, some horror and watched a number of various animated shows by that point and it only seemed logical that I should try my hand at writing. Long story short, I joined a few communities (Gravity Falls, Kingdoms Roleplay, etc.) and had a pretty good time till roughly 2019 when the app started "dying" out (a lot of people I knew at the time and enjoyed writing with migrated to discord).

This left me with no choice but to seek alternative faucets for my writing needs.

I have heard of Amino before, and I checked it out once, but the app left me confuzzled, so I dropped the whole app.

It's primarily a fandom app. I like the colorful aesthetic but its text formatting tools are absolutely awful.

 

[unanun]

I was reading a manga called Hellsing, and reached the end of the translated chapters. Thirsty for more content, I googled 'Hellsing', found this weird site where people were .. writing .. as characters? Some kind of .. roleplay? My sign up date was 2004.

 

[ImaginationGoneWild]

World of Warcraft. The year? I don't remember.
I had just noticed that servers were divided into types; PvE, PvP, RP.

So I asked my brother what RP meant and he explained it to me badly. Because I completely misunderstood its meaning. I though it meant I somehow unlocked a story-mode. I remember being disappointed that everything still looked the same and asked my brother to explain again what roleplaying was.

I was just goofing around on the server doing quests when I spotted roleplayers in the wild...roleplaying. And I rudely interrupted them: "ARe u guYs Ruleplaying?" They were spying on something based on the information of my eavesdropping and gawking at them, lol.

They were friendly people who took the time to give me some beginner pointers and then off I went to a seedy bar to sit in a corner *glancing at people and sipping my Ale* While consuming 1 silver coin's worth of ale to get a drinking animation.