Yeah, when I started to get into writing fiction more seriously, there was a lot I had to unlearn, and it was sort of bewildering to me, because it was all stuff that had worked quite well before.

But I think that it did eventually promote an awareness of what I'm doing that's good for both roleplaying and fiction writing, and that might have been hard to develop otherwise, without the contrast.

But yes, I've done tabletop too, and it is pretty different from the kind of written roleplaying I currently do, and have done predominantly. It's hard for me to say anything generally, because I never GMed and I really only played with one group, but there's a lot more emphasis on plot in tabletop, I think, and characters acting on the situation (as opposed to characters simply reacting to a situation).