Sorry Anne, I just realised it's a bit rude to be pulling out random quotes and disagreeing with them and not mentioning the rest of the article with is great. I often get a lot of questions from new roleplayers and I often link them to your articles!

That's a part of RP, but more the building blocks part, and storytelling aspects. It helps to get to know your character for when you run into others for RP. It's also a good way, if making IC comments in response to NPCs, or walking across Honor Hold, to find random RP with others.

The main thing that RPers (new and old) need to remember though, is RP by yourself is *just* writing a story. If all one wants is a solo character tale where all the elements of the story are entirely under that player's control with no input from other players or their characters, that's not roleplaying in the traditional sense of the word, the way many RPers use it. It's storytelling. It works for a single player video game, where the RP is in interacting with the storyline and maybe making choices that affect the pre-generated responses (Skyrim, Mass Effect, etc). But in a social setting, the main thrust of RP is to allow in a bit of chaos by acting and reacting to others. It's not just entirely about one player and their character (or it shouldn't be).

Roleplaying by yourself is telling a story, but only to yourself or to others who may read it but not participate in crafting it. Roleplaying with others is a social activity, that requires give and take, a collaborative effort that takes from the group.

The wording of that particular line is a bit off, but I think in context it works for what Anne means as roleplaying as a primarily social activity, not a solitary one.

I have to confess, I've been doing random solo RP the last hour and its been...kind of ridiculously fun. I rolled a new hunter on a new server (Kirin Tor, anyone know a good Ally guild?) in an attempt to find some actual RP-- because Silver Hand just wasn't cutting it on that front.

I decided to talk to my pet as I wandered Stormwind IC. Though I didn't find anyone to play with, I did have a ridiculous amount of fun rediscovering that sense of wonder seeing some place like that for the first time, and all the strange things I'm so used to skimming over now. It was a blast.

"The wording of that particular line is a bit off, but I think in context it works for what Anne means as roleplaying as a primarily social activity, not a solitary one."
I agree entirely, that's why I stuck my second comment on, I don't like to pull what has been said out of context and disagree, more wanted to point out that it definitely has a place in roleplaying.