I found myself doing this on STO last night... used to do it it Paragon City all the time.
One can create a Toon with a specific build and play that character through some initial levels easily. in CoH there was street patrolling or DFB, in Star Trek Online you can do Borg Alerts or patrol mission. Same is true of many MMORPGs, they are geared for returning players to be able to speed run early levels if they so wish.
BUT... one can then go back, and create a second toon with the same initial build but with a different costume or backstory and play it again. But herein lies the rub. You can, or at least I often find myself, playing in the headspace of my player character, sort of roleplaying by myself. And simply by doing that, not by actively making build-based choices, even though your characters started out with the same build (say, dual blades/will power) because I have subconsciously assigned different personalities to them, they quickly end up being wildly different characters.
This happen to anyone else?
