Over the years, Roman has been involved in a number of storylines, including romances, family conflicts, and mystery plots.

[1] Northrop departed from the series on November 26, 1984, and the character was killed off during a battle with his arch-nemesis, international criminal mastermind Stefano DiMera.

[4] On January 23, 1986, The Pawn's bandages were finally removed as Drake Hogestyn made his first appearance as John Black, a character with no memory of his past or knowledge of his real identity.

[8] The casting was met with criticism due to Taylor's previous portrayal of Chris Kositchek, one of Roman and Marlena's closest friends.

Roman is the retired police commissioner of the fictional Midwestern town of Salem, manages and tends bar at his family's business, the Brady Pub, and works as a part-time private investigator for Black Patch, a firm run by his friends John Black and Steve Johnson.

He is also a former agent of the fictional International Security Alliance (ISA), a spy agency focused on all sorts of unusually high-level global conspiracies that tended to center around his otherwise-quiet home town.

During Roman's portrayal by Northrop, he was established as a top-notch cop but also a bit of a renegade, often taking on deep-cover assignments (with or without official sanction), a master of disguise (similar to Sherlock Holmes), and fairly playful and fun-loving in his private life.

Hogestyn's character was more by-the-book on the job, although still dangerous with a dark side somewhat characteristic of an ex-spy (which later fed into the "John Black" persona), with expertise in Bruce Lee's Jeet Kune Do, a little more of a ladies' man (after Marlena was believed dead), but a little more serious and brooding.

Taylor's portrayal is more that of a "regular guy", with a bit less intrigue and more straightforward professionally, although still with an eye for the ladies and more inclined to engage in one-night stands with various women than the character as portrayed by Northrop or Hogestyn (such as with Kate Roberts, Billie Reed, ex-wives Anna DiMera and Marlena Evans, and a strongly hinted at – but never confirmed – rendezvous with Nicole Walker).

Stefano was a powerful and ruthless business tycoon (and organized crime figure) from Europe who had come to town to set up shop in Salem, and Roman being the city's top cop had gone after him.

Stefano was suffering from incurable cancer, and needed to collect three mysterious prisms to unlock a secret formula to cure himself.

In 1988, a storyline featuring a reappearance by Stefano (who had been believed dead) focused on what had happened to Roman during his time in captivity (1984–1986).

After believing that Roman's wife, Marlena Evans, had been dead for some years, he had fallen in love with a woman named Isabella Toscano.

In 1997 Josh Taylor was brought in as Roman, who was revealed by Stefano DiMera and Kristen Blake to be alive after being exposed to biological warfare while on a deep-cover ISA mission in South America.

Roman was "killed" during the Salem Stalker Murders in December 2003 during his wedding reception to Kate Roberts, but again was revealed to not really be dead.

The Coast Guard arrived and managed to rescue some of them, but Roman, Marlena, Jack, and his daughter Cassie were not saved.

When they arrived back they were shocked to learn that John and Kate had fallen in love and were engaged to be married, but Roman and Marlena still didn't tell the truth about their affair.

He serves primarily as the de facto patriarch of the Brady family and the supervisor and occasional voice-of-reason to junior police officers and ISA agents (with a catchphrase of sorts developing from his consistent inquiries of "what da hell" is going on).

He has largely made peace with his past with Stefano DiMera, John Black, and Victor Kiriakis, and remains friends with ex-wives Anna, Marlena and Kate, and is occasionally shown as having a soft spot for all of them.