[@shylarah]

[quote=shylarah]
Actually I got my start in writing too, but I find that the way I develop characters -- at least, in terms of the things that make them have depth -- I need to give them the chance to talk to me.  A character sheet I can do, and I have.  But if I want to know what the char thinks about dogs, or what they're afraid of, or if they're a hugger, or how they display anger, or their favorite ice cream, I can only do this through using them.  It can be solo, but it comes a little easier (as apparently does all my writing) when I have another person.  
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I wasn't insinuating you didn't start out with writing (keep in mind that I started out more with verbal storytelling, and informal childhood acting, rather than storytelling on paper/text itself), so when I said my origins were unorthodox for a role-player I was more talking about the whole "immediately thrown into an advanced elitist role-playing forum the moment I started and before I even knew people did any of this stuff online" thing. That said, I still determine a lot of these things before I start role-playing, though I'm not against adding or removing some once a role-play allows me to test them out. When I say I'm a writer [i]before[/i] a role-player, I'm speaking of priority/preference rather than where I got my start.

[quote=shylarah]
Additionally, I've had people that were terrible about metagaming, and would have their chars know all sorts of things that were stated OOC but completely unknown IC, and that's made me less than fond of char sheets in general.  *shrug*  I think a lot of people want far more detail than is really needed because that's the only way to see if the character fits well -- and to see how thorough the player is.  Rps fall apart enough already without risking time and effort on someone that's going to make a half-baked char.
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People who don't know how to separate IC from OOC are definitely a problem, yeah, though to be fair in certain settings (my own included) it's actually justified when you have psychics and supernatural entities as characters in the mix. Admittedly, I am definitely one of the severely detailed types of writers, as you can no doubt tell from the lengths of my OOC posts, so while I don't always [i]expect[/i] people to have as much detail in a character sheet as I have I nevertheless do not like dumbing myself down. What you said about avoiding a half-baked character and making sure characters fit well into the setting is also something I appreciate; I'm a very thorough person and would prefer that the people who involve themselves in my setting actually take the time to make something that makes sense in my world instead of creating a sort of "Naruto X Bleach" crossover nonsense.