How would you distinguish between them?
Is there a distinction or is it just semantics?

If all you do is LARP, is that even "Gaming" or is it "Theater"?

What about gaming with miniatures where you imagine one as your avatar and make decisions based on what "They" would do? Is that "Role Playing"?

I ask because I saw someone post that they were an experienced role player and wondered if that was as descriptive as they thought.
This message was last edited by the user at 18:45, Tue 25 Jan 2022.

Gut instinct, 'gamers' are people that play games - generally to beat the game - even when it's a game that has at least the pretense of a storyline where your character decisions matter. 'Roleplayers' are people that play RPGs - the sort of game type that I don't really think can be 'beaten' - in order to enjoy the experience of playing with other people/other characters. The 'with other people' is important in my mind, because I don't care how many 'in-character' decisions you can make in something like single player Dragon Age or KotOR or whatever - even when they affect the storyline - it's not really 'roleplaying' in my mind because there aren't any other player characters in the mix.

As a long-time LARPer, I would definitely consider that both 'gaming' and 'roleplaying', because LARP is more like full-immersion PvP in my experience, and you have to be able to both play the game and beat the game to survive the game. Everyone I ever played with made power builds when creating a character, and /then/ went into the 'what would my character do?' mode while playing them, so I'd never say that anyone that I knew didn't take the system and mechanics and how to 'win' into mind when creating a character. I definitely wouldn't consider it 'Theatre' because it's not really being done for an audience.


To me, there's a distinction, but I'm sure other people would see my distinction as semantics. =)
This message was last edited by the user at 18:56, Tue 25 Jan 2022.

30 years ago, it would have been easy to define those two terms; I think.

Role players played D&D and were pariahs of the ‘cool kids.’
Gamers played arcade games, board games and if they were lucky, Nintendo/Sega

Today though, roleplaying has become somewhat mainstream, as has gaming. Both serve massive markets and interests and have many subcultures.

 I would cautiously say that a role player is anyone that actively participates in the story, and a gamer is someone that plays games in any format, but doesn’t consider themselves to be part of the story.

That’s my narrow viewpoint at least. There’s such a crossover between the different mediums that it’s hard to say what counts as roleplaying. I’ve been teased for years by people that don’t understand the draw to playing a character at the table, yet they play Call of Duty until they’ve prestige’s 8 times and have developed an online persona. They know more about min/maxing their games than I do and they are definitely taking part in ‘a story,’ even if it’s not specifically the one presented to them.

Great question Green Tongue. It will be interesting to see what everyone says.

Cheers

i have  a very narrow  thoughtn on gamers and RP folks.

Gamers  to me play many games, al kinds of games..its  fun for them, and they have friends who do the same thing.

RP folks Like to  play their charcters.build them up, and have them 'live thier Lives'

  for me? i check RP games  and  have to decide  if i want to  'go there"..but i never leave my other games to do that.

 My Brother and I Played  Avalon Hill war games..we concentrated on games that has   individual counter..( Richtophens war..Tobruk..wooden ships and iron Men..Submarine' ect ect)..we also played   In The Labyrinth.( i wasa backer for the  new version..i have it here?no one to play with!)

anyway, we  turned all those  games into RP games... Pilots had names..we kept track of  kills..we had our own 'world' for RW... did the same  for Tobruk and WS&IM .

 we rarely strayed from a game  we linked, and if we did ,we added it to the rotation.

 Gamers... love all kinds  of games, and   flit from one  to the  next...( almost like Video game  folks..i have 4 games i play ..if i get another one, and it doesn't  fit my style..i trade it in, or give it to grandkids.)

 there is nothing wrong  with  either view..it just comes  down to where you fit in...and what you like.

In reply to donsr (msg # 4):

Was not trying to imply a right or wrong just to determine if the coin had two sides.
It's entirely possible the "coin" is a sphere and only has one "side".

20 siided!

Here is my two cents on the subject:
In a table top RPG, you can create a character within the rules of the game where mechanical stats have an effect on game play.  However, you also can invest that character with a personality that effects game play.  The PCs personality colors interactions with NPCs for a better, for a worse, or for a neutral effect on interactions.
A friend of mine in my old TTG always played female characters, because when he played guys they always seemed to die within the first adventure or two.  His character were invariably beautiful.  But, the male characters of the group would all hit on her.  He decided to combat that in a new Rifts campaign.
He created his usual beautiful female character, but, the moment the character was introduced, she said, "HI!," in a very high-pitched, grating, and annoying voice that he developed for the character.  This, of course, effected gameplay.
From what I have seen in most computer and online RPGs, like Final Fantasy and World of Warcraft, wither the personality is built-in to the character, or there is no way to really provide a personality that will have any effect on the game.
So, my opinion is that a true Role Player plays a game where character personality can and will effect game play.  Anyone else is a Gamer.

Technically Gamer is far more generalized.. as chess and poker are games and can count as Gamers.

There isn't a clean divide between the two.  There are gamers who have no interest in role-playing and stick to stuff like computer games or board games, etc, where there is no character the develop.  There are role-players that are basically just exploring an alter-ego and have no desire to be involved in any competitive type of situation.  So, yes, there CAN be a distinction made...

However, most people I know like some kind of role-playing game, so there's a HUGE overlap of the two categories.  Most people I know don't bother trying to clarify any distinction, and my role-playing friends have referred to their activity as "gaming" for decades.  The difference exists at the far polarities...but most people fall somewhere between the extremes and I see no value in trying to clarify a dividing line.

To me a gamer plays* games, usually a broad swath of types, I play roleplaying games, board games, video games, so I call myself a gamer.

The person who only plays one type, or one game isn't a gamer.  Though it's pretty rare to find people who only play one game outside the Boomer and older generations.

* And buy this I mean they chose that as their primary hobby or predominant mode of leisure activity.  Someone who only plays games once a week, for four hours isn't much of a gamer, even if they play a broad swath of different over the course of a year or two (mostly because they are probably choosing other leisure activities for the most part).

To me a roleplayer is someone who plays rpgs, generally only tabletop, but I know people who consider MUDs and MMOs sufficiently immersive that they count playing those games as roleplaying.  I don't, just as I wouldn't count reading/playing a choose your own adventure book as roleplaying, even though in some you very much build a character and play a role.  They might also be a gamer, but then gamer is a broader category into which roleplayers can (but do not always) fall.

Likewise I don't count playing Skyrim as roleplaying, despite it's "rpg" status.

Those terms are meaningless. That's why a session 0 is important if you are thinking about gaming with someone: their ideas are almost certainly different from yours, possibly so different that you wont be able to play with each other.

If the person isn't someone you're sitting down to play with, or discuss things with in general, then the exact definition doesn't matter.

To me if I hear someone refer to themselves as:

Role Player is a person who is playing a "TTRPG" rather with rules or free form.

Gamer plays computer games like WoW & Halo.

Board gamer plays board games.

Then I ask the person what type of games they play because I know my usual way of thinking about things is rigid in my own head and my rigid think means nothing to anyone else. LOL

In answer to the op with not much reading past that,

According to how I've seen the terms used, I've seen gamer to mean three distinct things in different contexts.
1) Very old school use, to refer to a machine gambler, like slot machines and such. In fact, there are still a few rare "gaming stores" that are just a bunch of slots machines or similar.
2) Someone who is very experienced and knowledgeable, aka a hardcore player, with non-casual games, whether video games or war-games and rpgs.
3) Someone who spends plenty of time playing video games, even if only at a casual level play.

I don't really hear the term "experienced role-player" very often, and when I do, it's almost always meant to specifically exclude new players, rather than remark on a specific sub-group of role-players.

That's just how I've heard the terms used.

In reply to DarkLightHitomi (msg # 13):

Yes, humans are very free with their exclusionary terms.

The interesting thing about "experienced" is that, depending on the viewpoint, it can mean from "I've done it before" up to "I've done it for many years".

Just remember a party in dungeons and dragons is much like a special forces team in the military.
I even use the old term letters of march and reprisal.. in my cosset campaign to authorize the Heroes solder of fortune activities.

Also remember that in first edition Name level allowed the building of personal strongholds and thematic armies to defend them.

RPG via D&D
was started by wargamers.

TBH, IMO semantics. Doesn't matter what you, or I think those words meanm It matters to you (or any of us) and whatever audience you're speaking to. Language is living. Speaker/writer and then audience. Doesn't matter how prescriptive you make it; the words need description. So unless you know the audience, it's semantics. All such words are; sadly. If you know your audience, then you know them, and so it's not semantics. Hanging your hat on any label needs perspective and context.

Rather than using those words, I start by describing my temperament. It's worked far better for me, than when I would condense it to a label.

'S'all I got.
This message was last edited by the user at 11:31, Sun 13 Feb 2022.

What about a mix?

I know myself I love rping whether it be here or for my livestreams playing games like Bus sIm. I just enjoy it. Also in video games I love playing games with RP elements.

Same with board games. Though some have had a rp element to it. Like Hero Quest.

Guess I just love games.

For Rping I do use freeform more, but enjoy rule based ones also.