I know you can learn things and use what you learn, but to me it’s pretty clear we all have different talents. If I tried to be a linguistic or a mathematician, I would not enjoy myself at all because I think differently, my thinking mechanics are different. To me that’s amazing, how diverse we are, how differently our minds work. And how we can find our own way of thinking and learn to appreciate our own talents. (I know this is probably a given, but I think it’s JÄNNÄÄ. )

Diversity makes role playing interesting to me. I think one of the most important things for me to learn was that I can choose a group and a GM and not feel bad if I find that I am not a good fit in some other company. Because I think we should all do what we really enjoy and rpg’s give us a lot of room to find our way. It does not mean we should stick to just one way of gaming. But if someone wants to “find treasure and fight” and someone else wants to “feel what the character feels” and a third person wants to know every detail about their surroundings, and they prioritize the combination of those so differently, that they would rather play in separate groups, that’s fine.

If you are able to combine all of this with playing with the rules, then great. I think we all enjoy finding new things in the rules but doing it in a very inclusive way would be difficult for me. My strength is elsewhere, juggling the rules can be difficult for me, just like math and linguistics . It’s a good thing we are different and we have room to make choices.

I started role playing from the wrong end of things, in a way. I started with larping, having to literally be the character. I respect larping and understand the point of it, but to me the fun in gaming is stepping into someone else’s shoes as well as their mind. I don’t want to be the worlds shortest amazon if I want to play an amazon warrior. ;D I want to feel 2metres tall.

Now that I am learning about DD, ADD and soon getting introduced to the world of the first rpg, I feel like I am finally becoming part of the tradition for real. So on that regard the off game stuff matters to me, I can appreciate the different styles of gaming and the different sets of rules. I just do not want them to be in a too demanding role during the game, because to me juggling things like that can be stressful. I do however try to keep in mind that the character is different from me, I can’t forget the character sheet an play a conservative brick (my own nature sometimes) if my character is a jolly good chaotic fellow

Oh and wanting to play with the rules and being able to juggle with the boundaries of them in a big way is interesting to me, just like mathematics, even if I am not very good at that myself. . I rather watch tennis than make Wimbledon the most boring and annoying place by playing myself

With a group where, like you said, everyone has a good trust bond with the GM, it can really be a bliss. And honestly, the best games I’ve been in have been the type you describe, where the character sheets are forgotten for most of the time.

As a very loosely related sidenote: I was laughing at the new D&D’s Player’s Handbook just a moment ago. It said something like “D&D is a roleplaying game, but not interpretive theater” – basically implying that a “role” is something that dictates what sort of route the character would take in non-combat situations. Something like “diplomatic” or “brutal” or something like that – it’s not an instruction that you should act or try to “be” the character.

I doubt I could ever play a game for long that distances me from the character that much