(I know, I know. Denam seems to harp on this every time he plays the game. But I think this is important, and so should you.)

It has come to my attention that the definition of "playing a role" may be misrepresented. Playing roles is about immersion; it's about saying and doing things that pertain to your character and environment, rather than saying and doing things that pertain to the player. In a lot of games, the rules of playing a role are defined by admins. In MafiaReturns, the admins have allowed us to define our own rules of playing roles. I've provided a very complete definition of playing a role and some brief pros and cons pertaining to its implementation. I urge you to read the whole thing and provide at least a brief comment in favor or in rejection of this type of role playing.

Some definitions:

• Player - The person at the keyboard. You are in the year 2015, you play on a phone or computer, and you click and type things.
• Character - The person in the game. You are in the year 1920(ish), you live your life through petty crimes, felonies, drug deals, and your interactions with other characters. You are a member of the mafia, and you behave as such.
• When the player logs in, he/she becomes the character. This means that actions taken in-game should reflect that transition from 2015 to 1920. The game is a means of entering your character.

Role Playing has two protocols:

• Acting out a role with in-game actions. This means responding to mails, posting in RP forums, and generally behaving like a member of the mafia. This is necessary for an RPG.
• Writing out a role. This means writing a fictitious story about your character to outline some of the details pertaining to him/her. This is unnecessary for an RPG, but highly encouraged.

Most people who claim to RP participate in the latter while utterly ignoring the former. This is the MR-crafted definition of role-playing; to type in italics and write up stories for your character. There's absolutely nothing wrong with it (as it helps immensely in developing a character), but if you aren't playing the game like a member of the mafia, why write a story as if you were?

Why bother?

This is the most-asked question I get when talking about RPing. There are some beneficial consequences of RPing:

• Fun: It's more fun to RP a character. Often times, playing this game gets old and boring. If you come back to the game each time reinventing yourself as a different personality, you will never tire of it. You will always find a new way of making things interesting in the game; and that will make it more exciting and more rewarding. One account you could be a raging lunatic. One account could be a pothead. One account could be a seasoned hitman with nothing to lose. These characters give you the ability to do and say things that you (the player) could or would never do. 
• Buffer: If you are wronged by another player (they shoot you, they mug you, they cheat you, etc.), you can respond in a manner suitable to your character. If your character dies, that's the end! You now have the freedom to create a completely new character with a completely new personality. This provides a buffer between players that enables them to have certain liberties that would otherwise be impossible; this social buffer is often times the only way to enjoy this game. The lack of this buffer results in a very stiff, very strict environment with OOC social rules that govern much more strongly than they should. You are not governed by 2015 social conventions; yet we play the game like we are. We feel betrayed when people make a power play because we've cropped up modern social concepts and allowed it to govern our actions.
• Perspectives: One of the most important lessons I've learned from playing RPGs in general is the concept of viewing a situation from multiple perspectives. Being able to "enter the mind" of your character and think, speak, and act as he/she would is a very very valuable trait. One of the most difficult social skills to acquire is the capacity to see through someone else's eyes; and RPing absolutely helps establish that.
• Fulfillment: I'm not going to go all abstract on you, but it is more fulfilling gameplay when you RP. Logging in day-in and day-out can be frustratingly dull; but when you approach the game each day with a perspective separate from your (player) own, your actions carry more weight. You can live in the moment and make decisions that you as a player wouldn't. Some call this escapism; but I call it freeing. It's fun to explore the decisions you can make as a character that ordinarily aren't kosher as a player. I think this is one of the most rewarding components of RPing; and the one that most people look for when they beg more players to RP. Being able to transport yourself into another world full of people playing roles allows you to create a story with them. And it is so much FUCKING FUN. Hell, I'm excited just thinking about it. I remember doing an RP where I was a Muslim during the Crusades. I slaughtered my friends and we had so much fun doing it; but that would have been impossible if we allowed ourselves to be bogged down thinking like 2015 college students.
• Creativity: It's a damn challenge coming up with stories for yourself. Things may even overlap once in a while between characters (for instance, every character I've ever designed wanted to be an innovator; that's one universal trend to every account in my bloodline). But I can guarantee you; as long as everyone is trying to build their own unique character, the game will always be different every time you sign up. We can craft oppressive environments, liberating environments, wild-west free-to-do-your-own-thing environments, etc.
• Role Playing Game: At the end of the day, this is a role-playing game. Is it fun when people join and play a game, completely ignoring its premise? Its social structures? No. You may call people "nerds" for committing so fully to RP, but we enjoy it. When you play this game with no intention of assuming the role of a member of the mafia, you're actually doing it wrong.

Why not bother?

It's also pretty tempting to simply ignore all of these benefits and focus on why no one really plays roles. These are completely reasonable, but they must be challenged if we want to return to playing roles.

• Crowds: No one else really plays a role. So it's fair to conclude that you shouldn't either. It's like being the only person with a telephone; useless unless someone else joins you.
• Effort: It takes effort to enter a character. It's much easier to just play the game as a 2015 modern human being. It's much easier to interact with people like a normal person rather than a member of the mafia.
• Social Environment: You make friends. You want to interact with those friends out of character.

It is my intention to craft a guide to slowly move us from where we are now (casual gameplay) to playing roles. Before I do so, however, I would like to see what the people want. I want one to hear of the following from everyone who reads this:

• Fuck you I don't need your guide to RP.
• I endorse playing roles and I want a guide to help me get there.
• I prefer casual gameplay but I like writing story RPs.
• I stick entirely to casual gameplay.

If people don't want to play roles as I've described, then I will cease to push for it and no guide will be constructed. If people want the guide and want to transition into playing roles, then I will put in every effort to make that a reality. I do want to include that the effort required to transition into this type of RP will be much easier once I've made the guide. So please respond based entirely on what you want; even if it seems difficult or unfeasible.

I just want to highlight something here. Acting a role in a text based environment is actually writing. It's all in written form, as the acting can only be carried out in that way. I think what you may be getting at more is when people just write/act in character part of the time, and another part/majority of the time they are out of character.

I can log in and be the player behind the screen, yet when I write/act by posting in the appropriate areas I am in character. In the out of character areas I am out of character. I don't exactly sit at my computer and pretend I am a Mafioso in the 1930's, but I do base my in game decisions based on the character I have created to role-play.

When I log into my account I don't start pretending to be a Mafioso in the 1930's, because the game itself is largely an OOC click and rank game besides the actual specifically dedicated RP areas. Besides these areas, it would be hard to act/write as my character when I am mostly clicking to do petties, felonies, jail breaks, wack etc. over and over and over again.

So just to re-iterate, most of the game is played from a players perspective and when it's role-played/acted it's done in written form in either the streets forum or the business district. Besides that there aren't any other in character areas unless a crew designates the chat to RP. MM and IRC can be a mixture of both depending on the individuals.

In this sense and to answer your question based on your interpretation I would choose: I prefer casual gameplay but I like writing story RPs

Yet I don't prefer casual gameplay, it's just that the way MR is, it's a casual game with role-played portions.

If it were entirely a forum based environment without the click and rank mechanics, as in a message board like ProBoards, phpBB, vbulletin etc. then I would choose: I endorse playing roles and I want a guide to help me get there.

I'll respond to you in a bit Scarfo, but I want to include this as an easier way of accessing public opinion: http://strawpoll.me/3514136

Circulate this poll around as much as you can. I'd like to see where people stand on this. It's as easy as a few clicks!

http://strawpoll.me/3514136/r

Is this not a guide?

https://mafiareturns.com/comm/thread/516894#93872812

I enjoy roleplaying, I like creating a character and then posting on the streets and inside of the business districts with that character, almost all of these characters are portrayed as some form of joke, the bumbling idiot, or man who thinks highly of himself but is in actuality not very important; these types of characters are amusing to me, and I do not like the idea of being made to treat my character in a more serious manner just because it wants to become more like the mafia. 

If this game became more this is the mafia and we will act as such in all facets of the game then I believe it would become a much more niche place and lose a lot of the casual players. This would be good for some of the more hardcore players, but ultimately bad for business. It seems like there are quite a few crews which have cropped up lately that have taken this roleplay-first attitude and are passing it onto their members; even as someone posted here, Scriba worked pretty hard putting together a role-playing guide and there are plenty who agree with you that completely immersing yourself into the game is more fun; but those people are still few and far between. 

Just like everything else in this game, I think it should be up to the users and up to the choices that they want to make, if player "X" wants to roleplay everything from his mob mails to his crew chat, then I am sure he can easily find a crew which is into that sort of thing and will allow him to do so, and maybe one day he'll get his own crew and carry it onto them; I am almost certain no one would complain about any of this and he would most likely be commended for it.

However, if player "X" decides that he doesn't want to do any of that and instead just play as if he normally would, then he of course is free to do that too. I don't see why you would want to restrict this in either direction.

If I had to choose out of any of your answers, it would definitely be 'I prefer casual gameplay, but I like writing story RPs.'

Right there with you Ted... having played Some of the characters in my long career, very few of them were stereotypical mafia types

"I just want to highlight something here. Acting a role in a text based environment is actually writing. It's all in written form, as the acting can only be carried out in that way."

As I alluded to in your own thread Scarfo, this is something I strongly disagree with. This is a text based game, but there there are several actions which I can take that have nothing to do with writing. The way I respond to being wronged, insulted, shot at, pickpocketed and so on and so on may vary from character to character; I've been playing this game on and off for nearly a decade and let me tell you, things can get unbearably stale if the way react to external stimulus remains static; even if the descriptive writing does change.

To Denam, I think the userbase size produces a bit of a catch-22 at times. When people have been playing for a long time, you can also add to that the fact that they've generally been playing for a long time with the same people. Switching things up and playing a new character, not just from a writing point of view, but from the way you really play the game, keeps things interested.

The catch 22 is that the very same userbase and its size constrains you. For a lot of people, their character is simply a tool to play the game with and their actions remain constant so, in that regard, everything is OOC. It's naturally that they'd then expect others to play the same way so if you BG wack on one account, than that's that - you're not to be trusted.

That, in fairness, is an argument with some legitimacy.  Where do you draw the line? Could you really trust someone who says 'Oh no, I hate rogues, but I went rogue because that's the sort of character 'JohnMcLane' was. Next time will be different!' The only way that kind of game playing environment would work is if everybody was permanently incog!

As Scarfo said, the role playing is happening when people are writing in the areas that require roleplay. A lack of talents isn't the issue. The problem is that there is no need to do any of that. You can click through petties and jails and +1's and progress through the game. The only possible solution is for the current upper structure to come together and make it happen. Set a requirement for rank, (although this could also be done by admins through game mechanics as well, but that seems less likely to happen.) hold your made men and up to a higher standard. It will make for a better role playing experience and all around make the game less stale.