Do you role-play in MP games and why or why not?

[moderation]

Tuidjy said:
I declared war on all the undead/demonic nations on Turn I, promised that I would
not attack any of the 'good' nations, and attacked any neutral nation that showed
any sign of disrespect towards Lady Elena and the tenets of my religion. By
the way Ulm Reborn is a Militant Theocracy.

Tuidjy: I think what you did is actually really interesting. Now that I think about it, it might almost be necessary to have different objects than being the last pretender standing as you did. If everyone is playing out the same objective, to be the last god standing, the story isn't really that interesting. However you dress it up, the game still revolves around minimaxing and statistics. I've almost reached the conclusion that it's not even worth roleplaying this as a story because it's not really that interesting since whatever you say, you still have to kill everyone else.

However if there's some kind of scenario, a map that is designed specifically with a story in mind, then you have more options to actually get into the story. Particularly with single-player games, you actually get to be the hero of the story. When you're playing a game with 14 other competing heros, you're no longer really that heroic. Of course, I guess there is also the possibility of the big good versus evil scenario where one side is heroic and the other side is villains. But of course in a properly balanced scenarios, the villians would probably have to win about half the time.