I somewhat connect levels to my IC character, but that's mostly because I'm pretty new to RP and want something as a base to fall back on. The upside is that I can have a pretty good idea of where my character is in their life, and even as I lvl it's easier to think ICly. The downside is that I don't have as much freedom in what my characters do- they basically all have to be newbie adventurers who tend to wander, otherwise why would they be progressing in battle lvl and warping all over the place?
One fun think I have going on is with my duskwight toon Lysiette, she's pretty intelligent and loves learning how to do things which allows her to learn a lot of different things without deteriorating too much in skill. However this also makes her impulsive and irresponsible with her time, deciding to pick up anything and everything interesting to her. To reflect this, I had her join every single class guild, but I don't allow her to get any more than 10 lvls past any other class. This drives the time it takes for me to level her through the roof, and acts as further reinforcement that her intense dabbling makes her mediocre at best in everything (her intelligence is how she's not completely terrible, but it certainly isn't making her shine anywhere)
as for how I consider lvl 1s? I've never played DnD (though I've always wanted to lmao) so I always considered lvl 1 to be "has some decent talent/self taught skill but isn't at all refined".
Of course, that being said, I have my other character Synglona in several guilds I don't IC consider her joined yet because I wanted to reserve them for later when she WOULD join them. I'm going to lvl MRD so I can crossclass overpower because it's very useful in dungeons, but I'm not sure if she would ever join marauders ICly given how much of Limsa's law enforcement is form MRD guild and the fact that a lot of her family is in pirate jail. So I guess I wanted to say that personally, taking lvls into account is helpful for me as a new RPer but only to certain points.
One fun think I have going on is with my duskwight toon Lysiette, she's pretty intelligent and loves learning how to do things which allows her to learn a lot of different things without deteriorating too much in skill. However this also makes her impulsive and irresponsible with her time, deciding to pick up anything and everything interesting to her. To reflect this, I had her join every single class guild, but I don't allow her to get any more than 10 lvls past any other class. This drives the time it takes for me to level her through the roof, and acts as further reinforcement that her intense dabbling makes her mediocre at best in everything (her intelligence is how she's not completely terrible, but it certainly isn't making her shine anywhere)
as for how I consider lvl 1s? I've never played DnD (though I've always wanted to lmao) so I always considered lvl 1 to be "has some decent talent/self taught skill but isn't at all refined".
Of course, that being said, I have my other character Synglona in several guilds I don't IC consider her joined yet because I wanted to reserve them for later when she WOULD join them. I'm going to lvl MRD so I can crossclass overpower because it's very useful in dungeons, but I'm not sure if she would ever join marauders ICly given how much of Limsa's law enforcement is form MRD guild and the fact that a lot of her family is in pirate jail. So I guess I wanted to say that personally, taking lvls into account is helpful for me as a new RPer but only to certain points.
RP scrub incoming 