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Message: <blockquote data-quote="howandwhy99" data-source="post: 4608704" data-attributes="member: 3192">This is obviously my mistake.  Here is the roleplaying entry in the World Book Encyclopedia from my living room:Erroneous Wikipedia entries does not mean those entries' assertions are now true.  There is a reason the site isn't a credible reference source in schools and universities.Actually, Gary Gygax and others in TSR argued hard in the early 70's against fellow wargamers who claimed D&D was no longer a wargame as well as the role playing community who claimed D&D was theatre and not role playing at all.  That D&D was bumped out of the wargaming community and included in the role playing community may have something to do with what was said at that time. To the best of my knowledge, the wargaming community generally held the DM's position was too influential on the outcome of the game for D&D to be a wargame (as the box originally advertised).  However, D&D was and is still a simulation about war, so I think it still holds some credible overlap there.  The role playing community (quite a bit larger then than now) argued that D&D was about playing fictional roles, which amounted to training for nothing.  Or at least thereabouts to the best of my knowledge.  I'd love to find the original discussions as I know at least Gary went and changed the title of Character to Persona in both his subsequent gaming systems.  He and others for generations held role playing as something other than theater and on that point at least they were correct. Ignorance of a term's actual meaning doesn't not make faulty beliefs true.  Role playing is no less now what is was 20, 40, or 60 years ago.  But claiming that a term can be so broad as to encompass both changing one's behavior around others and pretending to be another person is serving no one IMO.  The second definition is commensurate with theatre acting in every way.  Actors don't refer to themselves as role players because most actually know what they are talking about.  Pretending to be someone else is acting.  Playing a role is role playing.  Is there some crossover? Sure, but the recent fad of claiming they are the same thing is just general ignorance, not "richness" of language. Here's a question: Do computer role players get to still lay claim to being "true" role players?  The current fad in tabletop RPG theory is to remove all ties to computer role playing and it's massive lot of role players because the games have be redefined out of the hobby either by, again, ignorance or intellectual dishonesty to redefine role playing into theatre and storytelling.  In truth, every CRPGers has an honest claim to role playing, while folks who act in plays do not (improvisatonal plays or otherwise).  Theatre games have never been considered role playing until recently and any good theatre professor would tell you they are not the same.  When actors role play the role they play is: actor.  They are training during rehearsal to be better in the social role of actor, not role playing the character they will portray on stage.  The phrase "role playing a character" makes no sense whatsoever.</blockquote>

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