RP is short for Roleplay, and is a term where participants adopt and act out the role of characters, or parts, that may have personalities, motivations, and backgrounds different from their own. Role playing is like being in an improvisational drama or free-form theater, in which the participants are the actors who are playing parts, and the audience.
In World of Warcraft[]
The term is used to describe a server with its own set of rules which are different from those an PVP and PVE server.
From Worldofwarcraft.com Role-Playing realms can either be Normal realms or Player vs. Player realms. When a Role-Playing realm is Normal it is called RP; all game mechanics are the same as on a Normal realm. When a Role-Playing realm is a Player vs. Player realm also it is called RP PvP, and again, all game mechanics are the same as on a Player vs. Player realm (for example, on an RP PvP realm you still can not attack members of your own faction even if it would sometimes make sense from a role-playing point of view).
Pros
- If you want to create a "real life" for your character, a Role-Playing realm gives you the best opportunity to do that.
- You can count on many other players to support you by role-playing their characters too.
Cons
- There are no automatic game rewards for role-playing, and no game mechanics are altered (if you give a rose to a felhound it will still try to eat you).
- Not everyone will act as you would like and the experience can sometimes be frustrating.