I just read about a strange behavior in RPGs that didn't make much sense to me. To give an example:
Susie joins up with a new game in Milwaukee. She makes a character for that game and plays in that storyline for a while.
Later, she moves to Billings and joins a new gaming group. The DM explains the details of the story/setting they're gaming in. She sets out her character sheet from the game in Milwaukee and plays that same character in the new game, with all that character's stuff, points, etc.
The DM in Billings says this is fine, but only if her character acquired those things "legitimately".
They're treating one game world as "real" in the context of the other.
(Can my Sith lord cast lighting bolts from his hands to fight Harry Dresden? Can my blacksmith make swords in this Stone Age setting?)
Where does this come from? Is this common in some RPG I've never played, or in some playstyle I'm not familiar with? I'm not even sure what to call it — something like "shared reality of all fictional settings".
Best Answer
In the early days of roleplaying, when it took years to get a character to an appreciable level, porting of characters into other campaigns was not uncommon. This was mostly in D&D, since most people played D&D in the 1970s/early 1980s, but not unheard of in the other games of the day (Rifts, etc.). It had its downsides ("What do you mean, you have Blackrazor?") but was just an organic outgrowth of early gaming. This wasn't crossgenre porting (sci-fi to fantasy!), but most people's D&D campaigns were similar enough regardless of specific setting that a quick handwave could let an existing PC slot into a new world.
The RPGA turned this into an official kind of tournament play with their Living campaigns starting with Living City in the mid-1980s. These were designed for convention play, and while previous tourney play was mostly using pregens, this let you create a character and evolve them from table to table, con to con, by adding a layer of standardization (stat point buy, treasure tracking). It wasn't just D&D, I remember playing "Living Verge" (Alternity) and "Living Spycraft" (Spycraft 1.0) at Gen Cons back in the 1990s-2000s. This has evolved into modern Organized Play for Dungeons & Dragons and into the Pathfinder Society, which even allow for home and online play using the same metaphor.
With organized campaign play using this structure, it's something many gamers are familiar with. It's less common outside OP nowadays (I go into why in more detail in Is it common for D&D characters be moved to or reused in different DMs' campaigns?) but is not some weird surprising mode of play if you've ever gone to a local Game Day or gaming club or gaming convention of any sort.