Do you roleplay or self-insert?

Sometimes roleplay. Most of the time play with heavy meta-knowledge, planned events that sometimes bend to character I'm currently playing. With certain characters, some of my morals/views/beliefs rub off on them, but they're far from real self-inserts.

Never self-insert.
I'm 'me' the rest of the time.

I'm new to RP in that I didn't know it was a thing you could do until my 2nd round of the Dragon Age Trilogy. After that, it's been role playing all the way for repeat PTs.

That said, I don't think I could pick a proper RP personality and history without knowing the events to come at least a little bit. So, I'm inclined to say there will be a smidge of self insert applied with any first PT of a game.

So, Other I guess.

Oh, and why? Well, everything being totally new the first time, I can react very naturally to the events as what I personally think is the best plan of action.

Role playing on following play throughs helps me see the game through other people's eyes, even if they're fictional eyes. As Tabris, Duncan saved my life and part of killing Loghain was revenge for him. Being part of the Grey Wardens so she could help people was a dream. As Surana, he was a ticket out of the Circle, a man to be manipulated and used. As a Mahariel, Duncan may as well have been a Prison Warden and becoming a Grey Warden was a life sentence until the taint finally grew and finished the job. For Cousland, a path for vengeance and reclaiming the country she loved. For Aeducan, he was her ticket out of certain death in the Deep Roads. Same man, different feeling x 6 and all of them worth exploring.

It also is kinda unique to be distanced from a Character enough that they can do the things you wouldn't naturally do. As the player, I died a little inside as I did horrible things as Evil Hawke, but at the same time, I seemed to channel the sensual freedom that being a Sociopath could claim. My experience of being Hawke went from trying to bail a sinking ship to "To hell with the ship, let's go swimming and sink someone elses while we're at it!" 

This. It wasn't until I started making unlike me decisions for achievements that I actually RP'd. I didn't really self-insert so much as make me-like decisions, which I learned is kind of boring.

Never self-insert. I like creating different characters with various personalities, backgrounds and believes. I like experiencing the story through their eyes.

I don't identify with the chars I made nor do I role-play. I tend to treat them remotely (not emotionally involved), as story chars / puppets whose actions and words I can direct at will in the moving story. They're always an idealistic concept of the role they play in the story; my vision, which is always on the good path with a little rogue. I can get attached to them but they're never me.

I mix self insert with roleplay. I take a few of my traits and throw them into the roleplay pool.

I roleplay. No idea how I'd go about self-inserting - not only would I find it boring, my game avatar would run screaming into the distance at the first sign of trouble.

After my first run, the roleplay often involves working out a character who would make a particular decision that I want to see the outcome of and then extrapolating from there. (Like, I'll start with 'I want to side with the werewolves' and end up with a ruthless character who hates being lied to, or 'I want to recruit the Templars' and end up with a devout Andrastian who believes that she's the Herald.)

I always roleplay, I loathe self-insertion with the passion of one thousand burning suns. So I ends with characters whom I, as a player, do not necessarily agree with upon plenty of things, but that's what makes me happy about the whole thing.

Roleplay partially. I have a much harder time actually role-playing a character for Bioware games because for the most part much of who that character is is defined already.  In the case of Mass Effect - Shepard was Shepard and you could control which direction he/she took either Paragon/Renegade and Ryder is Ryder and you can control his/her personality type, but at the base they are the same characters. I usually roleplay to the extent of the game's ability but I don't create in my mind their own feelings or thoughts much outside of what is presented in the game.  As for Dragon Age, it seems a bit more open windowed in Inquisition, but I still feel like I'm kind of boxed in on who my character is outside of the options I have in dialogue.  Maybe that's just me..

I have a much easier time roleplaying Bethesda games where who the characters are is much more up in the air - especially Fallout 3, New Vegas and Skyrim. Fallout 4 was a bit more limiting with the voiced protagonist and clearly defined motives, but even that there was a lot more up in the air about who that character was. I don't know - their games just usually are much easier for me to define who this character is, how certain choices affect them and how they change over the course of the game.

A bit of both actually. I do roleplay a lot, but there is some self-insertion to a degree. There are decisions, I as the player wouldn't make and I can't bring myself to let my characters do them (an example would be to never make Feynriel tranquil - I have played characters, that don't trust magic that much before, but after the encounter with Karl, I would have found it a cruel thing to do)