I would like to make a distinction here, because I think the term "Role Play" has become a bit blurry in this context. Role play, in my mind, has a primary and secondary application to the game:

• Primarily, "playing a role" represents the concept of embracing a character in your thoughts and actions as that character. This involves responding to things as your character would, rather than how you as the player would. When there is no distinction between player and character (or between characters), you are not playing a role; you are simply playing a game.
• Secondarily, "playing a role" represents the body of literature created by the community in context of the game. These works of fiction are designed as a way of "advancing" your character where the game offers no features to do so. This also allows you to express a greater amount of detail in your character than in the primary application.

These are both important conditions for role-playing, but I fear we have only embraced the secondary definition of playing a role and not even considered the applications of the primary definition. We are here to behave like members of the mafia; that is the nature of a role-playing game. When we sign up, we inherit the behaviors and preferences of a Civilian with the ambition to rank up in the underworld.

Spunky could you speak to that primary definition, and perhaps how that impacts how you play? Do you agree with these definitions? If not, should there be any additional method to how players "play"; more than just as a 2014 person on a computer?