In the end, it comes to down to people roleplaying how they want to play. Some favor story and presentation of their character in roleplay more than running all over the game doing PvE. And that's fine. I level my characters not to show off their power, but because I do enjoy the pve aspect of the game. As someone who started in RP tabletop, I understood the necessity of stats, but at 17, I got into online chatroom RP, and we had no stats there. It was all freeform, you just had to be creative enough at writing to back up your claims and convince the others you had those capabilities. I think that's the biggest issue is being convincing. At the crux of this argument, you have two basic sides. One who will think you can't RP powerful without the mechanics supporting it. And the other who would rather take the..I guess for lack of a better word, 'purity' of the roleplay itself to decide. Cowboys and Indians didn't have gearscores, assigned levels, or any of that but as kids, we played it just fine.
I have characters who are powerful who are leveled, and who aren't leveled. Honestly because..well..I dislike grinding. I can only work on one character at a time, and only for so many hours before the repetitive grind gets on my nerves and I have to quit. I'm notorious for having little attention span for constantly repeating actions, and after a while the dungeons all look and feel the same to me. So I take RP breaks. Sometimes for days, weeks. And no leveling happens. But my character is still the same, or grows through the RP rather than the grinding. If a level 1 character can thoroughly convince me beyond a shadow of a doubt that she's a Primal in disguise and can suplex a train, hell, I'll roll with it. Because if someone can convince me of that, it means their description or ideas are rich and creative, and I've found a gem to RP with.
If they can't convince me, or just want raw power without reasonable creativity, then well. I'll just RP not really taking them seriously, because that's how I'd react. If someone tells you they're Jesus (no offense to anyone genuinely faithful/religious), you're gonna have doubts. But if they can show you the miracles, then yeah, you'd probably be convinced. If someone can reasonably show me *why* their character can do things like that then I'm fine. Your level doesn't matter. Though my character might wonder why you're so strong and still wear those ratty clothes, but hey. With great power often comes great insanity.
The only reason I generally level the classes tied to my IC abilities is so I can get a feel for how they work, then I add my own flavor to it. But that's my choice, and if someone else's choice is different, it's not my call to make how powerful their character is in roleplay. I mentioned this a while back in a thread..mm..I think it was on magic, and how you use it on your characters. But I digress. To me, OOC achievement is not necessary for high-powered RP. Just like doing nothing but PvP does not make your character a better fighter IC. Gearscore=/=IC power. Maybe it seems odd to me, but applying an RP powerlevel to items and abilities acquired in PvE and not RP..seems the foreign entity. When I PvE it's generally seperate from my RP because..well, pugs, honestly. I get most of my gear pugging. And I'm not going to count that as RP, because it wasn't. So the gear and levels I got have nothing to do with my actual RP, so yeah. I can't viably connect them other than by being able to click my numkeys and show off my shiny in-game skill. Meh.
I guess to each their own, but I'd rather play with a person who's an IC badass and so creative about it they can prove it regardless of what their mechanical level is and make it fun, than someone who says they're stronger than you on principle because their gearscore/in game level lords over yours. It smacks of someone being powerful because of button clicking, not character building. Which makes no sense on its own. Just my two gil.
I have characters who are powerful who are leveled, and who aren't leveled. Honestly because..well..I dislike grinding. I can only work on one character at a time, and only for so many hours before the repetitive grind gets on my nerves and I have to quit. I'm notorious for having little attention span for constantly repeating actions, and after a while the dungeons all look and feel the same to me. So I take RP breaks. Sometimes for days, weeks. And no leveling happens. But my character is still the same, or grows through the RP rather than the grinding. If a level 1 character can thoroughly convince me beyond a shadow of a doubt that she's a Primal in disguise and can suplex a train, hell, I'll roll with it. Because if someone can convince me of that, it means their description or ideas are rich and creative, and I've found a gem to RP with.
If they can't convince me, or just want raw power without reasonable creativity, then well. I'll just RP not really taking them seriously, because that's how I'd react. If someone tells you they're Jesus (no offense to anyone genuinely faithful/religious), you're gonna have doubts. But if they can show you the miracles, then yeah, you'd probably be convinced. If someone can reasonably show me *why* their character can do things like that then I'm fine. Your level doesn't matter. Though my character might wonder why you're so strong and still wear those ratty clothes, but hey. With great power often comes great insanity.
The only reason I generally level the classes tied to my IC abilities is so I can get a feel for how they work, then I add my own flavor to it. But that's my choice, and if someone else's choice is different, it's not my call to make how powerful their character is in roleplay. I mentioned this a while back in a thread..mm..I think it was on magic, and how you use it on your characters. But I digress. To me, OOC achievement is not necessary for high-powered RP. Just like doing nothing but PvP does not make your character a better fighter IC. Gearscore=/=IC power. Maybe it seems odd to me, but applying an RP powerlevel to items and abilities acquired in PvE and not RP..seems the foreign entity. When I PvE it's generally seperate from my RP because..well, pugs, honestly. I get most of my gear pugging. And I'm not going to count that as RP, because it wasn't. So the gear and levels I got have nothing to do with my actual RP, so yeah. I can't viably connect them other than by being able to click my numkeys and show off my shiny in-game skill. Meh.
I guess to each their own, but I'd rather play with a person who's an IC badass and so creative about it they can prove it regardless of what their mechanical level is and make it fun, than someone who says they're stronger than you on principle because their gearscore/in game level lords over yours. It smacks of someone being powerful because of button clicking, not character building. Which makes no sense on its own. Just my two gil.
![[Image: ihatehim2.jpg]](http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc129/Inverse_Entropy/ihatehim2.jpg)
