Many of us tabletop roleplayers tend to categorise ourselves, and others, into two groups: role players and roll players. The implication is that you either prefer acting out the conversations and emotions of your character, or else you prefer to keep distant from your character's inner workings and instead move it around the strict grid of a battle map as you search for the next monster to kill. Predictably, because it describes a community I care about, I feel this is reductive. The more I ponder these two categories of players that seems to be so accurate and yet so insufficient, the more I think it's not actually defining a schism between roleplayers and fighters. Instead, it's describing the ways different roleplayers connect with their characters.
Start with the assumption that both players being described are genuinely interested in the game. In other words, we're not discussing the bad player nobody wants to play with, the one who doesn't understand what a roleplaying game is and treats everyone at the physical table as competition, and so on. I'm talking about people who believe they're roleplaying, and enjoy collaborative roleplaying with friends. They just happen to express their play differently.
If you're the player we often label as a "role" player, then you're a perpetual roleplayer. You feel that when you play the game, you're taking on the role of your character. You think your character's thoughts, you feel your character's emotions, you let your character's compulsions and reactions guide the decisions you make in the game. And you do this from the moment you sit down at the table until the game session ends.
Like stage and film acting, there are many different techniques to achieve this process. You might actually be an actor with the ability to embody a character mentally. Or you might instead (or additionally) prefer to cosplay in garb that reflects your character. You might adopt a unique voice or accent when you speak. Or you might even refrain from physical expressions of embodying your character, keeping it as a mental exercise that you describe as a mostly third-person narrator of your character's thoughts and actions.
If you're the player we often label as a "roll" player, then you're a functional roleplayer. You know your character well, because you defined your character's attributes, backstory, and skills when you filled out your character sheet. When you play the game, you have your character at the front of your mind, and at any moment you can check in on your character's stream of thoughts and emotions so you can make a decision in the game that accurately reflects your character's compulsions and reactions.
Other parts of your brain are engaged in other ways. You're processing ideas on what skill boosts to take when your character levels up next, you're strategizing in response to the changing state of the game world so you can keep your character and your adventuring party alive, you're thinking about your character's game goals, and probably a lot more besides.
When it comes time to level up, you make adjustments to your character sheet. You may regard this as quality time you get to spend with your character. These are the moments that it's just you, the rulebook, and your the developing story of your character. When you update your character sheet, you're recording the making of a legend. And when you make choices about your character sheet, you let both the game world and your character's history inform your choices.
The problem with categories is that the fewer you have, the less accurate they are, while the more you have, the less useful they are. My definition of the two player types definitely hits as much as it misses, just like the definitions I'm seeking to expound upon. I don't imagine that anyone actually fits neatly into one category or the other. But I hope that [re]defining these two categories, we can see that roleplay is a factor in both "types" of players, but that it's implemented and expressed differently.
That's all.