Role playing is the act of taking on another character or persona in a gaming environment. The most well-known of these environments is Dungeons and Dragons (DnD), a fantasy multiverse where Dungeon Masters lead the players through an area of the DnD realm of their design. Along the way, players determine what their responses will be to the various challenges that the Dungeon Master presents to them. Adopting such a character and learning what they will do in different situations will greatly benefit fiction writers, as they look to flesh out their fledgling characters and give them warmth, heart, and depth.
One of the greatest benefits of roleplay is learning a great deal about your character in a short time. Beyond the basic characteristics of appearance, role in society, and abilities, you can learn a lot about the character's motivation, past experiences, and values. For example, your party approaches a dark, scary cave. Does your character walk boldly in, examine the cave entrance carefully first, or scramble back for home? Each of these responses could have multiple reasons behind them. Your bold adventurer could be the bravest person in the land, or could simply be foolhardy and reckless. Perhaps he had visited this same cave previously. One simple act in role playing can provide multiple avenues of character and story development. Even more intriguing is when your character does something unexpected later on. Why would your virtuous character steal that particular gemstone, when he has passed up similar ones in the past? Answering these kinds of questions can greatly improve your storytelling.
Another bonus roleplay can provide is learning about the world in which your characters live. In what land is it acceptable to spit in another person's eyes as a greeting? Is it the currently occupied land, or the land of their birth? Learning about the customs and politics of the world you're writing about can jumpstart your plot. Knowing that your character will not disturb anything with a certain royal seal on it may not be valuable at the current point in your story, but may prove valuable later on. Even if you choose not to reveal these facts to your readers at this point, or ever, learning about them early on will keep you focused in your writing, and help prevent you from painting your characters into a corner.
Even more beneficial to your writing is that roleplaying will help you deal with multiple streams of action at once. Most roleplaying games consist of one Dungeon Master and anywhere from three to seven players. In turn, the Dungeon Master asks each player what their character is doing at any given point. This is a great thing to learn to do yourself when your story has multiple characters. This method assures that your characters are not left sitting in a corner, bored, and that you do not have a lot of loose ends to tie up later on. This can also be expanded to your plots as well, when you have multiple events happening simultaneously, or when various plot lines are interwoven throughout your story. Keeping track of all the happenings in your characters' lives is vitally important, you don't want to forget that your knight was on a quest and he ends up one thousand miles away from where he was supposed to be.
The best quality of roleplay is that it adds believability, depth, and realism to your characters. Your readers will be thoroughly engaged and will truly sympathize with your characters. The more detail, backstory, and overall knowledge you have about your characters, the more prepared you will be to present your story in the best possible light to your readers. Such benefit is not limited to fantasy fiction either. When developing your characters in any genre, take some time early on to place them in various situations, even if it is only a mental exercise, not a written one. Would your character be more likely to enjoy skydiving or web surfing? Do they dread talking to their mother more than public speaking? Learning the whats and whys of your character will flesh out your writing more than you would deem possible.