[quote=Dredigan]
Sometimes it's fun to play yourself though, I think.
[/quote]

I'm not a fan of it; mainly since I feel like aspects of my personality end up leaking into whatever or whomever I make as a character anyways.

But hey, it's RP and playing roles tends to lead to mean having one's self in a character role you play, be it a individual, a organization or tower or planet or giant, monolithic for no good reason alien empire. 

In that sense, RPing is kinda like acting, but with text or dice and everyone making their characters instead of the director/writer. Make of that what you will. [Now, I suspect there may be some RP genres where players have to take the role of a character the GM makes, but they don't seem common].

Collaborative story telling is one approach I hear, but it usually in practice don't work out well since actual stories tend to be structured A LOT more than role-plays are, for instance the main cause of character death in a RP is usually loss of player interest.