A hatchling's view...only been playing for a week or so, but, I've been involved in role-playing games since the original pen-and-paper Dungeons and Dragons, back in my High School days (in dragon age, I'm a hatchling; in human terms, I'm approaching Ancient ).

One of the things that attracted me, originally, to Istaria was the role-playing aspect...I enjoy it, and love to participate.

As a very new player, knowing very little about the game and how (or, where) to do different things, it's very easy for me to role-play my little green hatchling: Tullamore also knows very little about Istaria; he's exuberant and excited about every new thing he discovers; and, he's working very hard to build himself up, while desperately trying to avoid being trampled in a crowd of Adult and Ancient dragons!

Yesterday was a perfect example. As Tullamore has finished all of the New Trismus dragon-quests, I went to Dralk to find Everitas the Miner for another Crafting quest. The instructions told me to bring 100 copper/tin ore to the dragon, Xarinnas, in Parsinia; I went from one end of that fairly small community to the other, looking for a dragon and couldn't find one. Nor could I find any NPC named Xarinnas. Finally asked in the Dragon chat channel and someone eventually knew that Xarinnas was now located in Kion; but, all of the questions and answers were done in-character, and it really felt like my little dragon was being helped by his elders.

I've had any number of "older" dragons call me "hatchling," or, "little one," as they've asked if I needed help or just to see how I was doing in-game; this sort of subtle role-playing really adds to *my* experience in the game...and, as several have mentioned in this thread, that feels like the "right" way of doing it...we role-play to improve the experience of others.

And, personally, it's a heck of a lot of fun!

Tullamore