Things we get out of roleplaying

[RogerBW]

Originally Posted by johndallman

What I didn't understand was why it seemed so important to the people who were interested in it. To me, it seems like a way of getting places in a city very fast: the looking really cool aspect doesn't mean much to me, since it doesn't have much actual effect on the events of the game.

This might fall under the "playing someone who's really good at something" category. RPGs generally support combat in much more detail than other things; if I'm playing a spaceship pilot, say, I like to have a system that requires me the player to make decisions, as well as letting the character's abilities influence the results of the actions that flow from those decisions. (E.g. I don't want to come down to just a contest of skills and hardware, like classic D&D melee combat.) If I felt strongly about parkour, I might well want a similar level of rules support for that.