Many years ago, I played MUD's (text-based MMORPG's of sorts, for the uninitiated) with strict roleplaying and the characters I played were very much separate f

Many years ago, I played MUD's (text-based MMORPG's of sorts, for the uninitiated) with strict roleplaying and the characters I played were very much separate from me in that I played out their emotions, desires, strengths and weaknesses and in conversations with friends, the characters were no me, or even controlled by me, outside of general themes or play styles that we chose in advance. It was more that I reacted to circumstances how I felt the character would and, in the moment, it didn't feel like I made the decisions (of course, I obviously did). This felt very similar as when you hear an author talk about their characters as if they were real independent people.