I don't think it should define your character each and every time: an in-game class is just a tool that you can form the character around. If it fits for so-and-so to be their actual in-game class, and it works for them then more power to them. You NEED a balance in demographics. Fortunately when it comes to physical combat classes (no magic), it's very easy to simply use the class to express their combat skills without necessarily pidgeon holing them: just because you have an axe doesn't mean you're a member of the Maurader's Guild, for example (which is what I did with my main)
It gets a little trickier with magic, and to be honest, it should be because there is lore surrounding the type of magicks seen in FFXIV's Eorzea (my WHM is a conjurer of Gridania for example)
Unfortunately with FFXIV the lore itself kinda makes some classes really difficult to RP in-character at all, let alone as templates or foundations, particularly scholar and summoner. If you ever plan on incorporating actual gameplay into your RP (which is something I like to do, and I think if it's done right it adds something full on text simply can't do) you have to really stretch to play a scholar or summoner: by lore there are no scholars left, and with them, their fairies...so how are you using one in battle? Summoners have to witness or be the instruments of a primal's demise in order to capture some of their essence and conjure an Egi...and for sake of realism, and for the sake of making the primals a grave threat rather than a trivial challenge that can be overcome with just a handful of people (product of the world being in a video game, unfortunately) how many times can you have people beating down the primals?
Any hurdle can be overcome with that "one-off" explanations that mirror the special circumstances for the player character and the soul stones and whatnot, but when you can explain away something that easily then everyone will have that as the background for their characters, which leads to the community breaking the lore. In this manner, the game's lore itself actually blocks off many people from letting their class define them, but in a negative/restrictive manner, rather than one that promotes creativity.
It gets a little trickier with magic, and to be honest, it should be because there is lore surrounding the type of magicks seen in FFXIV's Eorzea (my WHM is a conjurer of Gridania for example)
Unfortunately with FFXIV the lore itself kinda makes some classes really difficult to RP in-character at all, let alone as templates or foundations, particularly scholar and summoner. If you ever plan on incorporating actual gameplay into your RP (which is something I like to do, and I think if it's done right it adds something full on text simply can't do) you have to really stretch to play a scholar or summoner: by lore there are no scholars left, and with them, their fairies...so how are you using one in battle? Summoners have to witness or be the instruments of a primal's demise in order to capture some of their essence and conjure an Egi...and for sake of realism, and for the sake of making the primals a grave threat rather than a trivial challenge that can be overcome with just a handful of people (product of the world being in a video game, unfortunately) how many times can you have people beating down the primals?
Any hurdle can be overcome with that "one-off" explanations that mirror the special circumstances for the player character and the soul stones and whatnot, but when you can explain away something that easily then everyone will have that as the background for their characters, which leads to the community breaking the lore. In this manner, the game's lore itself actually blocks off many people from letting their class define them, but in a negative/restrictive manner, rather than one that promotes creativity.
![[Image: Doendraga_sig1_copy.png]](http://s6.postimg.org/dathey6kh/Doendraga_sig1_copy.png)
