Most of the reasons given so far seem to be summed up with
LigH's comment...
For the "better second life".
Interestingly, that does not match my allure to the genre. To me the characters have a life of their own. It is not a
second life for me. It is
their life and the dice (on traditional rpg sessions) let them express that life. Perhaps it has been my experience of running an rpg world that has allowed me to see that the dice do, in fact, tell the story if we are open to listening to them.
If the dice are listened to, then the
characters express
themselves. To me the player is like a fortune teller to the characters. The fortune teller does not live their life through those whose fortune they are telling; yet helps only as a guide. To me, the character is not doing the things that would normally not be my choice to do in life; but are doing what they
want to do. What the dice tell us they
desire to do.
The
second life concept is not foreign to me. There is one player in my world that goes from one Knight/Fighter/Beserker to the next playing countless numbers of the same alter-ego over the years. He enjoys it and finds great entertainment in it. He plays them well as he is playing his alter-ego. It is not my intention to dismiss that style or put it down. Yet to me the art of rpging is to find the life of the
character; not to give them the life one has never had. To let the dice tell you what the character desires and by listening to the dice they will tell you who the character is. Oft times it can be a great surprise as the dice helps the
character define
themselves.
Once we know them well; then we can play them well; as we know better what they would say and how they would act. Yet that phase of
getting to know the character; by how the dice define them; is my great attraction to Role Playing.
