Dylia: That is an excellent thought that gets right to the heart of the fact that if, right from the start, someone wanted to RP a more \'pacifist\' type of character such as a miner they would not be able to actually perform these activities and gain any experience or increase any skills or stats at all (at least as things are right now). So, if they intend to actually use any of the features provided in-game, they have to \'break character\' right from the start. Of course, this only applies to the here and now since there is so much more that is coming, but not here yet. Nobody knows what the future will bring.
ChaOs: I could not agree more. GM (RM) run events are the single best way to reward players for role-playing. RP is very subjective and can only be measured in this way. With all due respect to all the work that the programers do (which is amazing), current technology just does not provide a means of measuring RP thru program code. Although these rewards are very appreciated, I enjoy them because they are so immersive and dynamic. There is a level of interaction and enjoyment that also can not be duplicated with programming.
This may be an unpopular thought with some people, but I am only offering it as food for thought. When talking about role-players vs. power-levelers, I can not help but wonder if we are comparing apples and oranges. Are these mutually exclusive terms? Wouldn\'t the opposite of an RP\'er actually be an OOC\'er? Wouldn\'t the opposite of a PL\'er actually be a \'slow and steady leveler\' (tourtoise and hare comparison, perhaps)? If a \"PL\'er\" participates in a GM event as ChaOs described because the reward was greater than can be gained thru fighting, does he really (paraphrasing ChaOs) \'cease to be a power-leveler\' or is he just PL\'ing in a different way? Is he a PL\'er, RP\'er, or both at the same time? If we challenge our own perceptions of these basic ideas, does it make any difference in how we look at this topic? Or, (finally) am I just too tired (or too drunk) to be making any sense at this point?
