Once a Stranger

Groups falling off is something I've experienced quite often yes. As have I being the only female of the group, but I'm used of that in the contest of Geekdom. Could you believe how surprised I was when I got into the Clamp fandom to see how massively female the demographics were ? I'd never been in any similar situation before.

I know lot of people who write lengthy gaming ressource without even being part of a group or playing them. The pleasure of creating them, of imagining in this universe seems to be enough.

I do consider Fanartist as being a part of the Fanfic-dom - well Fandom. Maybe I should call it otherwise... I'm a bit at loss for words there. Anyway, fanart often heavily interracts with fics, either as illustration or inspiration. They often creatively re-shape the canon stories : your drawings of female Seishirou is a good exemple of that ^^ And no one would claim Shi isn't a BFN of the X fandom even though she doesn't write fics.

Fanfics are all about exploring the characters, on the other hand RPGs in the way I played them were about exploring the universe.
Yes, I do think it's the biggest difference, and I think it's very amusing to see it is, given the adequation between fandom and female demographics and RPGs and male demographics.
There's definitly some stories that make me want to create Fanfics more than RPGs, and vice verca. I was never interested in the Buffy RPG because for me BtVS is all about the characters and the world make no sense. On the other hand CS Friedman's Coldfire Trilogy, though its characters are cool and i've read some decent fics about them, mostly makes me want to play in its world because the magic system kicks so much ass.
Then there's fictions that make me want to do both ^^

They're much more accepting to original characters, however, just like traditional RPGs without bothering with the whole set of mathematical rules.
I didn't know that. I've had very little experience with FRP to be honnest, because I feel a bit intimidated by the importance of characterizing properly and I seldom think I would be up to it.
With original characters it must be more fun... but then I always wonder : why not do a real RPG ? XD

Then again, in my RPG group very often dice were used for creation of characters and nothing more.
Ohh, really ? Creating characters is one of my favourite part of any RPG (then again, for a GM to let a PC die is IMO a big no-no unless it was either from a very big and silly mistake that they were warned against, or willingly to go in a blaze of glory fitting to the character story)

I think it's very cool that FRP and RPGs, being more alike games, allow people who don't feel confident writing to explore the world and the characters anyway in other means, and to be part of the fandom that way. I know I'm not the best of writer either, and sometimes I feel self-concious about the fact people seem to get popular and friended a lot only when they're able to write very well. It's rather stupidly elitist. (then again, I can think of counterexemples to that, but it's a trend that exists)

Thank you so much for answering to my post, I'm glad someone found it interesting ♥