I don't believe Roleplaying will ever go Mainstream, for various reasons.
Roleplaying at large can be a great source of inspiration; an exercise in writing prowess, something to inspire you to learn a language (I've learned English predominantly through roleplaying), To 'broaden' your horizon by exposing yourself to conflicting ideals and ideas. The moment you commit to Roleplay a scientist you may end up reading up on mathematics, equations, and the likes. The moment you play a religious purist, you will confront theology and the likes. Philosophy even. Play a revenge tale, criminal, whatever, and you are constantly pushed and proned to explore different facets of the mind. Sometimes it's simply a mirror-image of what pop-culture teaches us about these things, some people take it further and take a more realistic 'inspiration' towards these character tropes.Â
Roleplaying in a way emulates real life, or atleast the interpretation of real life that comes through fantasy, depending how 'deep down' the rabbit hole you go. And this is where the crux comes in;
Escapism. Roleplaying, as much as it can be a productive and 'harmless' thing to do, is and remains a form of Escapism from what we all would call the 'real world'. Some of us try to reason that it's a novel exercise, that it has purpose, and is not just a pointless hobby to escape reality. And those that advocate it as such are half-right. The other half however speaks in certain facts we simply can't ommit;
1: )Roleplaying consumes a massive amount of time,
2: )It brings you nothing productive whatsoever, there's nothing to be gained from it, except in terms of inspiration.
3: )It makes you isolate yourself from the 'Real world'. Sitting infront of your computer screen for hours on end after school/work is 'not' as natural and normal as most of us would like it to be.
In the end, I'd say Roleplayers are nothing else then the more defined, glorified and evolved version of what once used to be the daydreamers, or comic book fans, with their minds constantly swiveling around 'other worlds' where they indulge in the fantasies they cannot live out in real life. The Hero, the Successful businessman, the Villain that gets away with more then we could in our own lifes. But it is also why it's never going to be 'mainstream'. Our societies do not glorify hobbies, they glorify competitive exploits. Racing, MMA, Olympic Sports, Poker. Even Video games begin to gain credibility as mainstream material, 'ASLONG' they're competitive (Starcraft / MOBA's / etc)
So a world in which Roleplaying would be 'mainstream', would be a world where we'd flip that upside down and glorify non-competitive material. You'd see TV channels covering people knitting, Authors write their books, and so on.
This all may sound very anti-RP to most, but it really isn't. It's simply my personal, honest take on it. It is a nice 'indulgence', but it conforms to a niche of people that prefer isolation towards the outside world. Introverts, mostly. Knowing that, I would never want it to be mainstream. Roleplaying can be like a drug, in the way that, without moderation, it takes more of your time then you feasibly should invest into it.
Roleplaying at large can be a great source of inspiration; an exercise in writing prowess, something to inspire you to learn a language (I've learned English predominantly through roleplaying), To 'broaden' your horizon by exposing yourself to conflicting ideals and ideas. The moment you commit to Roleplay a scientist you may end up reading up on mathematics, equations, and the likes. The moment you play a religious purist, you will confront theology and the likes. Philosophy even. Play a revenge tale, criminal, whatever, and you are constantly pushed and proned to explore different facets of the mind. Sometimes it's simply a mirror-image of what pop-culture teaches us about these things, some people take it further and take a more realistic 'inspiration' towards these character tropes.Â
Roleplaying in a way emulates real life, or atleast the interpretation of real life that comes through fantasy, depending how 'deep down' the rabbit hole you go. And this is where the crux comes in;
Escapism. Roleplaying, as much as it can be a productive and 'harmless' thing to do, is and remains a form of Escapism from what we all would call the 'real world'. Some of us try to reason that it's a novel exercise, that it has purpose, and is not just a pointless hobby to escape reality. And those that advocate it as such are half-right. The other half however speaks in certain facts we simply can't ommit;
1: )Roleplaying consumes a massive amount of time,
2: )It brings you nothing productive whatsoever, there's nothing to be gained from it, except in terms of inspiration.
3: )It makes you isolate yourself from the 'Real world'. Sitting infront of your computer screen for hours on end after school/work is 'not' as natural and normal as most of us would like it to be.
In the end, I'd say Roleplayers are nothing else then the more defined, glorified and evolved version of what once used to be the daydreamers, or comic book fans, with their minds constantly swiveling around 'other worlds' where they indulge in the fantasies they cannot live out in real life. The Hero, the Successful businessman, the Villain that gets away with more then we could in our own lifes. But it is also why it's never going to be 'mainstream'. Our societies do not glorify hobbies, they glorify competitive exploits. Racing, MMA, Olympic Sports, Poker. Even Video games begin to gain credibility as mainstream material, 'ASLONG' they're competitive (Starcraft / MOBA's / etc)
So a world in which Roleplaying would be 'mainstream', would be a world where we'd flip that upside down and glorify non-competitive material. You'd see TV channels covering people knitting, Authors write their books, and so on.
This all may sound very anti-RP to most, but it really isn't. It's simply my personal, honest take on it. It is a nice 'indulgence', but it conforms to a niche of people that prefer isolation towards the outside world. Introverts, mostly. Knowing that, I would never want it to be mainstream. Roleplaying can be like a drug, in the way that, without moderation, it takes more of your time then you feasibly should invest into it.
![[Image: afvXOt2.png]](http://i.imgur.com/afvXOt2.png)
