4 Most Common Types of Roleplay (+ Popular Formats)

There are tons of different types of roleplay, and each type is unique in its purpose and potential. From creative, social roleplays to educational roleplay, each kind comes with its own benefits and use cases.

In our beginner-friendly overview, we’ll give you everything you need to know about different types of roleplay, including how they’re useful, who can benefit from roleplay scenarios, the most common types, and examples of how you can leverage this interactive experience for your own benefit.

Understanding Different Types of Roleplay

Roleplay is such a useful tool in part because of all the different types of roleplay you can explore. Its versatility means you can use roleplay for everything from interview practice to educational roleplays to storyboarding and roleplaying games.

There are tons of types of roleplay genres too, especially when it comes to creative roleplay. 

Roleplay types can also be categorized by format. Some of the most common formats include: 

• Text-based roleplay
• Live action roleplaying (LARPing)
• Voice-only roleplay 
• AI roleplay

Why are different types of roleplay beneficial? 

Experimenting with different types of roleplay comes with a whole host of benefits. It’s a valuable tool for encouraging critical thinking skills, creativity, and collaboration skills. 

Because the majority of roleplay types are immersive, people can use them to further develop their social skills, communication skills, and anything else they’d like to work on. 

Who can benefit from different types of roleplay?

Anyone can benefit from various types of roleplay. Young children, school-age kids, university students, and adults of all ages can all leverage roleplay to boost their creativity, enhance their understanding of specific topics, and build empathy. 

4 Most Common Types of Roleplay

Because roleplay is so versatile, there are tons of different kinds worth exploring. Here are four of the most common types of roleplay, from educational roleplay to therapeutic roleplay. 

Educational roleplays

One of the most useful types of roleplay is education roleplays. These are opportunities where teachers can use simulations of real-world situations to teach students a certain set of skills. For example, classroom roleplay can encourage students to think critically and see things from another perspective, which can help improve their open-mindedness.

Historical roleplay is another type of educational roleplay that teachers use with their students. This kind focuses on historical events and people. For example, a teacher might have students reenact certain historical events, like a famous court case, to better understand that event and how it informs our current society. Students might be expected to dress up like their character to make the roleplay more realistic. The possibilities are endless, and it’s a fun way to keep kids engaged with the lesson. 

Older students, like those in high school or university, use educational roleplay for practicing professional skills like in a career roleplay. They can engage in realistic job interview simulations and practice for upcoming presentations.

Creative roleplay

With creative roleplay, folks lean into their creative side to create made-up scenarios. There are many creative roleplay games, and they all have similar elements. Most creative roleplays involve lots of storytelling and worldbuilding. People brainstorm narratives, plot twists, and storylines while creating entire worlds for their characters to exist in. Character development is another huge component of creative roleplay.

Social roleplay

Similar to creative roleplay, social roleplay shares some overlap. Social roleplay is community-focused and can take place in person or virtually, like in online forums. One of the most common examples of this type of roleplay is live action roleplay (LARP). It’s an especially immersive type that usually involves elements of creative roleplay in real-world environments. 

Another type of social roleplay is tabletop roleplaying games. This also taps into the creative type since it involves storytelling and imagination. Dungeons & Dragons is the most well-known example of this type of roleplay.

Therapeutic roleplay

Some types of therapy feature a specific type of roleplay — therapeutic roleplay — as a tool to help people learn new skills and work through past trauma. It’s a particularly useful kind of roleplay that you might see during counseling or therapy sessions. 

With kids, you might see therapeutic roleplay during a play therapy session. Because young children often process through play, clinicians will watch and observe to get important information about their wellbeing. 

But it’s not just for kids. Therapeutic roleplay is helpful in adult sessions, too. Therapists might use it to explore scenarios to introduce effective coping strategies, for example. Social skills training is a type of therapeutic roleplay where folks can practice their social skills in a risk-free environment. 

Types of Roleplay Formats to Explore

Not surprisingly, there are many different types of roleplay formats you can explore if you want to experiment with interactive scenarios. From solely text-based to LARPing and AI-generated roleplay, the possibilities are endless. 

Here are the most common types of roleplay formats worth checking out. 

Text-based roleplay

Although you might picture two people interacting in real time when you think of roleplaying, text-based roleplay is a popular type. This kind of roleplay is great for long-distance friends or folks who don’t like in-person roleplay. 

Many social roleplay opportunities are text-based. For example, chat rooms, message boards, and online forums are all popular spaces for folks to roleplay via written text. People will often explore their creative side through collaborative world-building and storytelling. 

Some folks even use email threads as a means of text-based roleplay. 

Live action roleplaying (LARPing)

One of the most common formats of roleplay is live action roleplaying or LARPing. This type usually uses a real-world setting for an immersive roleplaying experience. Historical reenactments are a prime example. 

Folks will often use costumes, props, and other tools to make the experience as realistic as possible while roleplaying. They might roleplay as a character in a historical setting (like a Civil War-era soldier) or as an actual historical figure (like Ulysses S. Grant). 

Part of the fun of LARPing is adjusting your dialogue and behavior when other things come up unexpectedly. Improvising or “improv” is pretty common with live action roleplay.

Voice-only roleplay

Voice-only roleplay is a type of roleplay where there aren’t visuals or text. It’s not the most common type, but it can be especially useful for language learning. One example is roleplaying podcasts, where folks roleplay and post their session as a podcast episode. 

Some people prefer to roleplay over the phone or use apps that are mainly voice-focused, like character.ai (although you can choose to include text, too).  

AI roleplay

As you might guess, AI roleplay involves an AI-based element to typical roleplay. The above example, character.ai, is a tool that leverages artificial intelligence to interact with users during a roleplay. Yoodli is another example of AI-based roleplay apps.

Using Yoodli for Different Types of Roleplay

If you’ve ever wanted to experiment with different types of roleplay, you’re certainly not alone. It’s used as an educational tool, a creative outlet, and even a therapeutic source for folks of all ages. However, it can be tricky to find a tool that meets all your roleplay needs. Until now, that is. Enter, Yoodli. 

Yoodli is an AI-based roleplay and communication coach that provides users with realistic, customizable roleplays to fulfill their specific needs. Well-known brands like Korn Ferry, Dale Carnegie, and Google have all used Yoodli’s roleplays for needs like training and certification.

In a nutshell, it works like this: Folks can choose from an existing roleplay scenario or completely build and customize their own. With Yoodli, people can experiment with all different types of roleplay, from sales roleplays to conversational roleplays and more. Once you choose or design what kind of roleplay you want to use, Yoodli provides an AI-generated conversation partner based on your roleplay needs and engages in conversation in real time. 

With Yoodli’s Builder, you can feed the tool information about what you’d like to work on. Then, you can add goals you want to work on, like using the STAR method for interviews, hitting all your talking points, or just engaging in small talk. You can add more information, like specific talking points you’d like your AI partner to bring up, and choose your AI partner persona before diving into the roleplay. With Yoodli, the number of different types of roleplay you can explore is essentially endless. 

But Yoodli does so much more than provide a space for folks to engage in roleplay. It also gives you an in-depth analysis on your speaking patterns and provides actionable, detailed feedback for you to improve your communication. Whatever your roleplay needs are, Yoodli has you covered.

Find out more about how you can get started with Yoodli for free at https://yoodli.ai/.

The Bottom Line 

Roleplay is an underrated tool for personal and professional development, and with the plethora of different types of roleplay, the possibilities are endless. Whether you’re looking to explore creative, social types of roleplay like LARPing or games like Dungeons & Dragons, or you’re just looking to improve your interview skills, roleplay tools like Yoodli can take you to the next level. 

Sources

• Northern Illinois University: “Role Playing.”
• Clay Center for Young Healthy Minds: “‘Walking in Another Character’s Armored Boots’: How Role-playing and Therapy Intertwine.”