Literally, the last two posts are like flipsides to the coin I'm talking about. Kestrel comes in with cool, calm logic, explaining the moderate response to the subject at hand and how it's not a big deal while Derpestein presents a radical example of the exact type of issue I'm talking about. In short, yes, you can reformat character concepts to fit into a roleplay. You can change character sheets until a character fits in. Yes, possible, totally a thing. I don't deny it. A character sheet is nothing more than a visual organization of information regarding a character concept or set of ideas and facts regarding a character. There is no reason that characters cannot be properly reformatted into new roleplays. I never argued that point. My point was that people will make lists of character that sure, they might honestly enjoy, but also be incredibly reluctant and stubborn in how they change and format that character to fit in a setting or plot, thus causing friction. It happens. You even admitted it happens. There are far more cases where it happens than just refusal to change past experiences, such as items they won't forfeit, or a home village or plot event that simply can't be spliced into a roleplay effectively or maybe even abilities that aren't scaled well enough for the roleplay. I've seen all those problems and more come from the multitude of people who just select pre-made characters from a list and try to push them into roleplays.

In summation, yes, it can be done right. However, we were bitching about the fairly common trend of people doing it wrong.