What does role-playing mean to you?

What does role-playing mean to you? 

In the circle of friends I have, it's a way to explore our love of writing with a variety of characters being able to interact with others of like idea. A way to reduce the stress from our every day lives and also meet some amazing people.

Now I realize that there is also the version of role-play that's associated with sexual fantasies and games, but that's not the subject of today's topic. We'll leave that for another day. *WEG*

So today I'd like to talk about the role-playing community. I have met some incredibly talented people along the way over the past 4.5 years that I've been participating in the fun filled activity. I've connected with people from around the world and had the opportunity to learn things about their culture that I would have never thought to explore via google search.

This genre, which to me is a hobby, opened up my creative side more than anything else has over the years which poured over into my inner author goddess giving me the nudge to publish my first book. Something I probably would have never had the guts to do if I wouldn't have started out in the RP world first.

I ask you this, is there anyone being harmed in the world of RPing? Definitely not physically. Mentally? That depends on what boundaries you've set up for your characters. If you've created a character that has a sarcastic sense of humor, then others need to realize that before they interact with you. If your character is something of the vampire variety, then those who write with you need to know you might bite (virtually, that is).

My point is this is something completely up to your own imagination and those with whom you interact. It's open for exploring any avenue or subject matter.

For those who are familiar with the world of RPing, you know that Facebook has been on a rampage to zap accounts. I understand their policies and procedures, but my question is, who are these role-players hurting? Feelings? Maybe. But most of all, if they would look closely I think their advertisers would realize that RPers make up a vast majority of FB accounts. What are they going to do when they lose all of those people?

So where to people who want to continue these RP scenarios go next? I've been scrolling through the sites today and have found none, so far, that resemble the abilities of FB. There used to be one called RPForever, or something like that. It was the original FB platform and did okay, but there was some inner management conflicts from what I understand, so it folded.

Is there a site out there that you play on? One that is open for you to create multiple characters while doing free-flowing interaction with other characters without having to worry about necessarily having the PG-13 rating on your content?

What are your thoughts? I'd love hear from you.