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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 6251730" data-attributes="member: 6696971">It doesn't have to.  It just makes it easier as the themes and tribulations of a level 1 character are going to be less embroiled than those of a level 11 character.  A level 11 character will have resolved myriad quests in the course of the preceding levels, will possess a considerable suite of Powers, Feats, all of his Theme features that all have story trajectory and history, and more importantly, a Paragon Path that provides thematic focus for the challenges to come.Putting all of those considerations together to spit out a game that each player (not character...person at the table with a real life and limited time to spend on gaming) wants to spend their leisure time on is more difficult than creating a game from level 1 and having those characters evolve together as a team with shared history.  These are people who don't know each other in real life.  They don't know their genre interests, they don't know their taboos, they don't know the themes they're interested in exploring, and they don't know where they lie on a playstyle agenda continuum (eg smash monsters and take their stuff vs inhabit a character of a living breathing world vs address a premise/theme and find out how that story evolves).  Again, I see a skewing the line of player and character perspective into one (rather than the concurrent perspectives that I'm familiar with), even before play begins.  These are real people in the real world...with kids...with careers...with family obligations...and with competing leisure time interests.  Making sure all of the variables that can be barriers for fun and functional play are handled beforehand has always borne itself out as being the best path to achieve such.Once we know:- Bobby hates sappy love stories.- Jack loves the idea of being a dragonslaying knight.- Tammy likes playing demihumans.- Terry wants to be challenged with hard stuff.- Jack wants an easy character to play.- Tammy wants to deal with the difficulties of being a foreigner in a foreign land.- Terry wants to be a big damn hero, deal with big damn hero stuff and wield a big sword of destiny.- Bobby likes the idea of defending against the horde encroaching on the nestled frontier settlements.- They all want Tolkein Orcs, Necromancers, Goblins, Trolls, and a big mean dragon.then we have a better idea of what not to do and what to do.  Now we make characters and try best to inhabit our respective PCs (to the degree that we are capable and it is necessary to enjoy the game).  Maybe that is not your preferred way of resolving the undiscovered preferences and potential pratfalls of real people unfamiliar with one another, all with limited time and competing leisure interests.  Maybe that pre-game calibration process and PC generation hurts your ability to be immersed (during play).  That is fine.  I won't try to psychoanalyze or pretend to understand it.  You appear to not be alone (as plenty of others on this board are in lockstep with you).  I've just found the demarcating of player and character to be no barrier to functionally inhabiting a character during play.  I mean, I've GMed forever.  I'm constantly switching between actor, author and director stances, many times inhabiting all three at once.  The metagame is never a peripheral element.  It is always right in front of me as that is what is demanded of me to frame individual PCs and the group at large into the sort of thematic conflicts they are interested in (while maintaining the requisite internal consistency of genre conceits and high fantasy physics emulation).  I've never found it disruptive to my enjoyment of play.  But I've likely never experienced (and I'm likely incapable of it) the "deep immersion" that some folks seem to hold dear.</blockquote>

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