Yeah, pretty much this. I was thinking this is seen in how Blizzard treats their Warcraft franchise across time and genres: the first Warcraft (the RTS of two decades ago) was dark and serious; whereas Hearthstone (the digital card game) is all goofyness, probably to allow for the more over-the-top design that card games need (and to make it palatable to a wider audience). In that sense, my hunch is that games will, on average, by "sillier" than books; no clear clue yet what LitRPG should aim for. =) Yyyep! =) And equipment is key, IMHO. In real life, a cop is on average tougher than a shopkeeper not just because of training (aka level), but because they usually wear some form of anti-ballistic protection (and, in the same vein, that's why a SWAT officer is on average tougher than a regular cop, and arguably a fully equiped SEAL or some other elite military force may be even tougher). In other words: different sets of mechanics (compare for example AD&D to Shadowrun) put different emphasis on how important your gear is, to the point in which some of them allow a naked high-level to beat a bunch of top-geared low-levels without breaking a sweat, while in other cases it's more along "only a fool brings a knife to a gunfight", without the foolish knife-wielder's level being a variable worth considering... =)
