I'd like to discuss starting powerlevels, which ties into the general atmosphere of the game as well, I suppose. What should we as players expect from the tone of this roleplay? How much can we define our characters from the start in terms of gear and abilities? In some roleplaying games even level 1 characters will have a fairly well defined set of skills and expensive gear that puts them on a whole different league from more or less any NPC soldier or town mage or whatever. In others the player more or less starts out at NPC tier and needs to carefully plan and pick his battles to avoid death and grow into something respectable, which he needs to plan for as well. And then you have something like Dark Souls where you start as a well defined and moderately well equipped character who is nontheless vulnerable as all fuck because the game is a grindhouse, and will continue to be vulnerable as all fuck even as he grows.