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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Nork" data-source="post: 5285583" data-attributes="member: 59879">I'm going to share my armchair theory on this subject.Some people self-identify with their characters in a roleplaying game.  They view them as extensions of themselves, and a means to do things that they want to do but can't (be it the literally impossible, like throwing fireballs and fighting dragons, or merely things that are out of their personal reach, like fighting in a war or being a hacker, or have unacceptable costs or consequence, being a criminal is fun if and only if it is literally impossible for any party to be harmed, which is possible in fiction).  On some level I think the major appeal of RPGs for this demographic is a sense of empowerment and escapism.Some people do not self-identify with their characters in a roleplaying game.  They view them as interesting character studies and hypothetical 'what if' scenarios, almost like thought experiments.  Their interest lies in "what actions do I think someone with this background and personality would choose when presented with this situation".  I think for this group the major appeal of RPGs is similar to that of reading a biography or watching a documentary.While neither group is "doing it wrong", there is also the reality that there is a maturation process in people, and you live a part of your life where you master understanding things from your point of view before it really hits you that things can be understood from another, external, point of view.  Meaning that some of the people in the first group (especially younger people who haven't had the time to develop the pathways), just are not equipped to understand the second group. To their mode of thinking, someone with a character that is of a different gender means to them on some level that the player wishes they were that gender.  Which I think is typically not the case, and seemingly incongruent information distresses people, which I think leads to all the "I can't understand why someone is  playing a character that isn't their gender" threads you see for RPGs.I'm not meaning to imply that one group is 'better' (or 'higher level' if you will) than the other, or that there is a quantum leap between types, or that a person can't or shouldn't shift back and forth between groups as their mood suits them.  All I'm saying is that there are different motivations for playing RPGs, and that the development process in people means that at some point they will understand one motivation without having achieved an understanding of the second motivation.</blockquote>

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