When a couple put on costumes and go to a Camarilla LARP because they've been doing it forever and they're really into it, that constitutes roleplay as I understand the hobby.
When that selfsame couple puts on costumes in the bedroom (not necessarily ones relevant to the Camarilla), that's also roleplay.
I'm not saying I mind either.
When this couple takes their Batman and Mata Hari kit to a Camarilla LARP and gets busy in public, that's roleplay too. It's just not the kind that engages with the setting of said Camarilla LARP. If you're pretty and skilled enough to teach the spectators some new tricks, the LARP-goers might not even mind very much.
When said couple is part of the microculture of people who go to roleplay conventions featuring (say) a Camarilla LARP, hang out at the convention proper, maybe flirt with the notion of hanging out with the crazy vampire geeks, and then go to their motel room to put on the robes and wizard hats of their choice (the man won best cosplay for his Mata Hari get-up, and he really likes his lady's oddly muscular Batman costume, it turns their cranks), this is also roleplay. The fact that it is held in close proximity to other styles of roleplay or to roleplay intended to enrapture the participant through dramatic tension rather than, for example, attentions paid to the odd fetish, does not somehow render this style of roleplay negative, worth less to its adherents than other styles to the participants that engage in them, or whatever else.
It does raise the occasional eyebrow, but that doesn't really concern me when I'm doin' Batwoman in my dancer outfit.
Boldface below for emphasis:
Though Bacch was in-character throughout his interactions with Viper, it wasn't precisely the sort [of character] that's native to the game's setting.
[This sort of character] IS quite fit for the game itself, and it IS acting...It's just not, for example, Suuji Praath pulling a fast one on Blood Inq or something [and, while this isn't a value judgement, I'd sure like to see more of the latter simply because there is a paucity of it]. It's Bacch the player talking to Viper the player about out of character means to settle an out of character topic, and displaying a personality custom-tailored for the job.
Which is extremely commendable. We should all aspire be at least as sharp.
Further: I was mainly expressing a hope that Bacch would be involved in the sort of storytelling and character-building that centered around both mechanics and backstory. This was mostly mechanics.
That's fine.(Disclaimer: I'm actually possessed of a hard-on for having my lady dress up as He-Man. Oh, those fur-lined boots! For her part, she always demands I slap on the uniform of some femme fatale SS colonel, which frustrates me because it could just as easily be a Soviet commissarette : /)
