I've been roleplaying in MMORPGs like WoW for 16 years, it's the reason I'm here writing this headline—and there's never been a better time to try it out yourself

It's bloody cold, grey, and miserable outside right now and, at risk of getting too personal with you lot: I'm not having the best time. The SAD lamp I've currently got blasting fake sunlight and the extra Vitamin D I've got flitting about my veins is only doing so much. I am, however, deeply thankful for one thing: Roleplaying.

Now before you point at me, laugh, and go "cringe!" (you can and probably should do this to me, just after reading this article) I'd like to explain what roleplaying actually is: No, it isn't going to Goldshire and /dancing for someone to get their jollies off, and no—it isn't RP walking everywhere with one hand on the keyboard and the other on your unmentionables.

Well, for some people it is those things—and more power to them, they're adults and they can do whatever they want—but that's never been it for me. Roleplaying changed my life, set me on the path I'm currently on, and has helped countless friends become happier, more developed people. It's literal magic, and I'm going to try and convince you to do it yourself while the weather's awful.

But first, roleplaying 101

If you've played D&D before, you have a good frame of reference: Roleplaying in an MMO is basically just a collective writing exercise. Just like D&D, you choose a name for a character, decide on a backstory, and use the chatbox to express what they're saying and doing "in character". The only real difference is that it's text-based, and there are fewer rules.

There's etiquette, mind—generally, you can't say you chop someone's head off without asking them first—but it's otherwise all improv. Roleplayers unofficially agree which hubs on which servers they'll congregate on, go there, and riff until they're three months deep into a plotline and weeping at their monitor.

Roleplayers don't just sit around in taverns, either—they create adventures, host markets, form guilds of travelling merchants, zealous paladins, militaries, wizard cabals, and cults. Do you miss the days of Star Wars Galaxies where you could interact with players as an Artisan or an Entertainer? The spirit's kept alive and well in roleplay.

I've roleplayed in World of Warcraft, City of Heroes, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Guild Wars 2, and Final Fantasy 14. I've been doing it for over 16 years. I've played more edgelords than you can fathom; Developed backstories so sad and so strange, they'd make Twilight look like a Wikipedia page on drywall. I'm not just cringe, I was born in the cringe, moulded by it.

No, literally. My time spent roleplaying as the edgiest Death Knight (causing lots of interpersonal drama for some very patient adults in Stormwind City) is what got me into writing in the first place. It's the very reason you're reading this exact paragraph, why I fell in love with words, and basically the template for my entire personality.

As an adult, all of my hobbies are linked to roleplay, somehow; I draw because I want to see what my characters look like; I run and play TTRPGs because they feel like a more advanced version of what I did as a teenager—with more rules, and loftier goals of both design and storytelling.

But more importantly, as I sit here wrapped in my heated blanket and cursing the weather, I'm reminded that it's what's kept me social and engaged in community when times are rough, because I'll be spending the evening after I edit this hanging out and writing with a friend I've been telling stories with for over five years, and I think that's pretty cool.

Counted blessings

That gratefulness for contact and comfort makes me think about Ibelin. For those who don't know, Ibelin was a World of Warcraft player who went by the real name Mats Steen. He had Duchenne muscular dystrophy, which gave him a life expectancy of 20 to 30 years. Steen died in 2014, age 25.

Before he went, though, his connection to his roleplay community touched dozens of lives. So many, in fact, that he had a documentary made about him: The people he wrote with weren't just strangers on the internet he make-believed drinking digital ale with, they were friends and confidants, several of which attended his funeral.

Crucially, for Steen, his connection to roleplay allowed him to forge friendships with people irrespective of his physical condition. In-character, he played a freelance detective who solved crimes—out of character, he convinced a girl's parents to avoid permanently damaging their relationship with their daughter, connected a mother to her autistic son, and helped countless others through hard times.

Steen's story made me count my blessings, first and foremost: I am able-bodied, I can speak to people I care about without a keyboard, my hands can play my favourite games without assistive technology and special controllers.

But it also spoke to me on a personal level because, as someone who didn't have the best circle of friends growing up, the hours I spent in the shoes of multiple characters helped me become the person I am today.

Roleplaying—whether you do it in TTRPGs or the chaotic, edgelord-filled streets of Ul'dah—is a great way to practice how to be a person. Don't just take my word for it, take Brennan Lee Mulligan's (who is currently DMing Critical Role's newest season) from a recent episode of Dropout's Adventuring Academy interview series:

"I came to D&D because I'd been bullied so badly in school, and put in trash cans … and then all of a sudden, you're sitting there being like: Well I'm gonna run a game for my friends, and we're gonna go on an adventure. That type of play is totally transformative … It's training, it's practice, it's [recreating] the steps of emotion of what it will mean to make the sacrifice, or make the choice, or do the brave thing."

The same applies to MMOs, too. I obviously didn't know Steen, but I would not be surprised in the slightest if his character (a detective, there to quite literally help people and solve problems) encouraged him to help people and solve their problems in his out-of-character friendships, too.

I've certainly broken off little pieces of characters I've played and taken them with me—and when my real life wasn't giving me opportunities to connect with people, forge friendships, be heroic, be funny or witty, learn from people? The characters I roleplayed gave me that chance. And lemme tell you, I goddamn took it.

They've also done the same for my friends, too. Most recently, a pal of mine discovered her capacity for self love—pushing past internalised self-hatred—after realising she'd been working through the steps with her character during the several years we'd been roleplaying together. It's incredible to watch, and it's why I'll be doing it when I'm old and grey in the beard.

Why you should do it, too

If you've got any interest in writing—even the most passive interest—I implore you to log onto your favourite MMO and try to get invested in whatever RP community is going on there. Seek out Discords, ask people how to get started, and then just start writing.

Now is honestly a pretty solid time to do so, too—while the centralisation of MMO communities into Discord is kinda unhealthy for the genre as a whole, it's great for roleplaying, providing folks out-of-game bulletin boards to advertise events on or plan adventures in. No matter what flavour of writing you're looking for, there's a group enthusiastically spinning it that'll be happy to have you.

And, as the MMOs that are still holding on continue to move in the direction of community-building and personal expression—with FF14 opening up its glamour restrictions and World of Warcraft adding player housing—these communities are only going to be able to do cooler and cooler stuff.

The ecosystem is alive and well, and as roleplaying in TTRPGs becomes even more popular, they're only going to thrive further. If you're feeling lonely, I implore you: Go be cringe in World of Warcraft, you might just learn something about yourself.