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Early in D&D history, many aspects of roleplaying was forced into the mechanics of a class. For example; alignment, weapon usage, or advancement preconditions.

Also, players were rewarded with XP for doing good roleplaying.

However, as time went on a few things changed.  
1. It was decided that what class you pick should not limit your character trope.  That is, we shouldn't have to create a whole new class for a Druid that could use metalic weapons, or  cleric that uses a letter opener.
2. It was decided that the party should always level up together.

That has had a likely unintended side affect that D&D no longer has mechanics or rules that either force or encourage a player to roleplaye a specific role.

Some games exist out there which attempted to fix this by cetering the game around more roleplay related rules. Such as FATE, or The Riddle of Steel.

Is there a way to make rules that encourage roleplaying a specific user defined role, as well as making those rules feel like D&D?
Is there a demand for it?

Possible options off the top of my head: 
1. Disadvantage on your next roll if you are attempting to do something the DM feels is out of role.
2. Advantage if you are doing something in charachter but which would otherwise be a tactically/strategically  bad choice.
3. Commitment to your ethos makes store owners of similiar ethos give you a x% discount in stores?
4.  Something similiar to the fate system related to trained skills?

I don't think it's necessarily bad that the game assumes a certain amount of roleplaying reward and detaches a certain amount of class from roleplaying. I also think that guidelines about rewarding good roleplay through bonuses and extra xp is a good thing.

Negative reinforcement is a self destructive thing in general and it's particularly dangerous to do in the context of a game. I would be unhappy about imposing penalties like disadvantage for things done out of role, especially when you consider that consistent reward for roleplaying creates a disadvantage for folks who don't roleplay without actually punishing them. Plus it encourages the behaviour you want.

Jan 25, 2013 -- 4:57AM, Uchawi wrote:

I would use FATE as an example and pick character flaws to promote character actions. This easily fits in for alignments, or other character motivations. But the bottom line is people that want to roleplay will do it, so how do you get rollplayers to do it.

How can we make FATE feel like D&D?  Presumably the benefits of the mechanic will cause more roleplaying.

Jan 25, 2013 -- 5:33AM, arderkrag wrote:

I would simply make it suggested in the core rules that players get xp for roleplaying. Since we're rp heavy at times, I give one encounter's worth of xp everytime I feel like the players have spent an encounter's worth of time chatting with each other and npcs and otherwise roleplaying out of combat. Also, I don't think it's bad that the party level together. That way, there's no mechanical reason for them to feel left out. If they do past that, it's (probably) their decisions that have led to it.

I follow 4E PHB2 guidelines for giving out XP for roleplay as well. But I won´t award my players for chatting arond the  tavern, or simply being in character. I would award them for RP when it is relevant and hlep progress the adventure, or any possible side quest they might be involved.