I think my second favourite character to roleplay was being an Illuminati agent in the first, MMO incarnation of
Secret World when it came out. Being a Templar, and the Asian society as well (forget its name) was also fun. For most of the time, going through the three faction questlines in that game, the illusion of being a member of a secret society and moving between the bizarre, almost Lovecraftian secret society world and the normal world was pretty amazing. It was a weird combination of being the Chosen One and being a schlub - from the point of view of the normal world, you were godly and special, but from the point of view of the secret societies, you were just a n00b
But my favourite roleplaying experience ever was playing as the various superheroes I dreamed up in City of Heroes. There wasn't much responsiveness to your particular hero in the game, but there was a lot of scope to create whatever character, look and power combination you wanted, and room to go wild with the bio (which others could read - and they'd complement you if you'd written a good origin story or whatever
). There was a lot of roleplay lite in the game in PUGs, people easily slipped into the vibe of being in a team of superheroes hunting dastardly villains. You could also macro speech/chat, with things like, "Take that, you dastardly villain! AND THAT!" attached to attacks or other moves, and it was always fun when someone in the team had some cool, intricate macro with some typical superhero trope. Just a lot of just light-hearted fun, with everyone joking around and having a good time.
*sigh* PUGs of perfect strangers would go on for ages doing mission after mission, dropping and picking people up, chatting away merrily, till often there were only two of you left from the original PUG that had started a couple of hours ago, and you'd wistfully say your goodbyes. That's what I call a social gameplay experience.
