Role-playing

Role-playing is a performed scenario in which participants adopt characters or roles for a shared purpose. It can support storytelling, practice, learning, or social interaction.

Role-playing game: A game in which players portray characters and shape events through rules, choices, or improvisation. Games give role-playing defined play structures, goals, and ways to resolve uncertain actions.
Role-playing game therapy: A therapeutic approach that uses role-playing games to support psychological or social goals. It adapts shared character play for structured therapeutic work.
Commedia dell'arte: An Italian theatrical tradition known for masked stock characters and improvised performances. Its recurring character types and improvisation offer an early theatrical parallel.
Scripted theatre: Theatre performed from a written script that specifies dialogue or action. Unlike fully scripted performance, role-playing often leaves dialogue and outcomes open.
Improvisational theatre: Theatre created spontaneously by performers without a fully scripted performance. Its performers build scenes by accepting and extending one another’s contributions.
Simulation training: Training that uses a model of real situations to let people practice decisions and actions. Role-play can simulate conversations and social situations that are difficult to rehearse otherwise.
Psychodrama: A form of group psychotherapy in which participants enact personal situations and relationships. Jacob L. Moreno developed psychodrama as a therapeutic use of enacted roles.
Acting: The portrayal of a character in a dramatic performance. Acting can be role-playing, but role-playing also includes non-theatrical and participant-led scenarios.
Character: A person or other entity represented in a story or performance. Participants act through characters whose traits and goals guide their choices.
Experiential learning: Learning through direct experience followed by reflection on what happened. Taking a role turns ideas into actions that can be examined afterward.

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