[SnowTroll]

That's probably most of it, but there seems to be something more. For example, video games are generally a childish hobby, they're isolating, and they don't generate anything except fun for the people playing them, but they're fairly understood and accepted. While they're seen as something of a nerdy hobby and a waste of time by many, there's this whole other level of creepy geekiness that's applied to roleplaying. Sitting around a table playing Dungeons and Dragons, or even just playing a roleplay based mud goes above and beyond immaturity and non-productivity, to this special place of condemnation.

Maybe it's the "unofficial" nature of RPGs. A video game is an official product made by a big company, with defined features and goals that I can experience. Sitting around a table playing D&D with friends, we're all making it up as we go. My success isn't defined by a big company; it's just my GM telling me an NPC's response to my words or actions. Instead of winning a defined game that's been vetted through various corporate levels, it might look to others like I'm trying to impress my nerd friends, which isn't as worthwhile of a goal. Same with muds. If I'm just talking in character to someone, i'm not really playing the game, just chatting in imagination land with no defined goal or expected response, and the person on the other end is doing it back. That's somehow different than popping the Final Fantasy CD into my Playstation. I'm just fishing here, trying to put a name on that extra something that makes roleplaying "weird" in a way that every other geeky hobby can't quite touch.