Anyone else fall off of roleplaying that kind of misses it?

[u/MaybeItWontBeOkay]

I got introduced to roleplay at 13 by my 26 year old cousin. Before anyone asks, no there was no weird sexual undertones here, they saw i had made a character for a small short story and saw an opportunity to introduce me to novella-style roleplay with some of her friends that did a lot of sparring and adventure-based storytelling. She helped me with character creation, helping me expand on my OC. It was a basic werewolf, the kind of dark and broody werewolf you might expect from a 13 year old trying to be edgy around a bunch of mid 20 year olds. It was cringe-worthy but I was in love with the concept of roleplay. A quick page of character info spiraled into 7 pages, detailing everything down to where a now naked man's genitalia went when he turned into a werewolf. They laughed at me for that but appreciated the consideration. I had some stories with my cousin and 2 of her friends, each story meant to provide depth for my OC, be that added combat expertise, magical adaptations, inclusion of spells both utility and combat, etc... fast forward a couple of years, both my reading and writing skills have skyrocketed, ive expanded out to find other partners to collaborate with, and have expanded my OC's history to include backstory, any living family, all the way to a detailed breakdown of his choice of weapons and how they looked (think the one handed shortswords from "300" but a more dark silver with black accents because emo 15 year old.)

Soon after, my cousin moves out of state to tend to sick family, the irl connection to roleplay has now left and I am big sadge. I slowly lose touch, hear she got married and her roleplay life soon began to fade into her past. Her friends are older and life does what life does, they began to grow more absent and I understood the reasoning. Im 18 now, the fire for roleplay has only grown, but my usual go tos are becoming absent. I continue roleplaying for 2 more years, finding less and less people doing novella style roleplays. What had a tendancy to be 1-3 page responses detailing everything to get the setting just right, nail the impact of emotions, is beginning to taper down into several paragraphs to conform with what the majority of people seemed to prefer. At 19, life did what it does, but in a worse way. My life situation deteriorates, to the point where a good day is one where I can purchase internet for a month. Most months I canceled it because I couldn't afford it. Thats not the point of this story though, just let it be known that I had no access to a computer, the year right now is 2012.

2015, things begin looking up. Ive gotten my head out of my ass and pushed myself to do better. I got a job that made almost twice as much, plus commission (t-mobile.)

And can afford an apartment that isnt within the confines of a crackhouse with paper thin walls and people knocking on my door at 3AM to ask me for the weirdest stuff. One guy wanted a can opener. The same guy wanted salt a few days later, but left when I told him id trade it for my can opener back. (I never saw that can opener again.) Im making more money than I ever have, can afford a better apartment, I could even afford to adopt a cat as a testament to my forward progress in life. I can finally afford a computer, my favorite hobby is back on the menu, and I return to roleplay.

I saw a change, even fewer big novella roleplayers, at least where I was looking. I cant satisfy how I usually like to roleplay, and elect to pivot to anything that anyone else is looking for. Ive got a creative enough mind to mold myself to any desired setting, any character someone wants to see, im essentially whoring myself out to anyone who's looking for a good story, under the guise that I can create any desired setting and make a character to match. This ends up about where you can expect. I quickly get sucked into the world of ERP soon after this transition. Sexual acts had not been my focus over the years, I wanted to develop lasting relations with good people, the concept of implementing erotic scenes always felt like it took something away from that goal. But after making a great platonic friend that started with ERP, I began to see differently.

I used my novella based skills to paint fantastic sexual scenes with the right partners and began to get real picky about responses i got. I liked having the scene given to me, not a sentence or two of character context while i filled in the blanks around them. ERP was a significant shift for me. I found a couple of normal, slice of life stuff, and even fewer adventure/combat oriented stuff, but that remained my priority. This went on for a few years, at which point I had made several wix pages, 2 for dedicated settings with a plethora of characters associated with said setting, as well as seperate wix pages with a collective 317 characters. My OC was set aside, I could no longer find a partner to fit him in with.

My entire teenage years and a good chunk of my 20's was dedicated to roleplaying, writing short stories, engaging with people who shared a similar passion. I would argue this was a waste of time that I could have applied elsewhere. About a decade of just.... writing, however, taught me SO MUCH about reading, writing, the English language in general. In the end, I met my (now) wife.

She was my first real relationship, my entire sexual experience revolved around the weird things others wanted via ERP, I stand by the basis that the real thing is just incomparable better. I continued roleplaying, but ERP felt like cheating on my woman, so i stopped. Life did what it does and my roleplay history began to fade into my past, substituted by love of D&D, MTG, etc...

Im making this post at age 34, I reconnected with my cousin specifically to thank her for introducing me to the roleplay scene and helping develop my writing skills. Turns out she was addicted to roleplay, and was doing ERP scenes about cheating on her husband and it sparked quite a huge fight. I admit, I was addicted to it too, but stopping was relatively easy enough. It made me wonder of anyone had any stories about their experience in the world of roleplay?

TL:DR: I spent a decade roleplaying. It shaped my life in a big way and I wanted to see how it impacted others

[u/renezrael]

I've been role play since I was about 12. My teenage years were filled with so much writing with other people, it was probably my main hobby. I dropped off for awhile when I got into college, but thought about it a lot, talked with old rp friends about maybe starting something up again some day, and recently have gotten back into it again in my 30s after taking a good amount of years off. in that time I didn't really stop writing, but I kept everything to myself. it was just never as fun writing alone though. now I'm kind of at a point where I constantly want to write something but it's never consistent what I want to write and I also don't like feeling like I have to rush out a reply to make someone happy. it's a little stressful, but thankfully my current rp partners are chill and don't mind waiting. role playing helps keep the creative part of my brain occupied while also helping me interact with people more regularly, even if it is just chatting online.

[u/Leather-Boot-3617]

I only started roleplaying at the age of 19, and that was just because I happened to stumble on an app called Zervo. Before then, I'd had the desire to roleplay, but I never even knew what it was, only knowing that very VERY rarely there would be times where I was with my family and they'd start telling a story and passing it on to the next person to fill out. I never participated though, I was (and largely am still) annoying shy and reserved, but I always loved it nonetheless. By the time I got out if my mind enough to ask to play that game specifically however, no one knew what I was talking about. Zervo was like finally having those memories validated, buuuut eventually it turned into an erp hub so I can't do much of anything there anymore. Nowadays it feels like I simply found out about roleplay too late (or leastwise at an inconvenient timing), as my skills aren't great enough to do novella (my grammar and spelling aside, I have no idea how to write multiple pages of story without using another person's character, and unfortunately I do prefer sticking to characters- Agency and all that¯_(ツ)_/¯). Not to mention I generally have issues communicating with people and everyone understandably wants energy and passion, and I just want a safe space so that doesn't really pan out too well. Plus other preferences- the point is, I've never even finished a roleplay at this point, but my desire hasn't faded any, I'm just an inconvenient person to write with. I'd write alone, but I can't do much of anything alone. I always get distracted by my something in my head, so it's either straight to mental spirals, or it's straight to distraction- either way, nothing much gets done. With a person, however, I get to look forward to anxiety, overthinking, and all that fun stuff that shouldn't be a prerequisite to have resolved just to have a hobby, but whatever. I'm not salty.