Part time DM, part time player in East Tennessee. As a player, i love to bring down the machine, and as a DM i like to make the machine as nasty and deserving of destruction as possible.
I enjoy combat and rp sessions equally, and believe that combat without knowing what your PC is fighting for is a waste of time. I reward players who bring their characters to life. Ultimately, though, the dice tell the tales.
If you're willing to work with your DM, almost anything is possible. How real you want to make your character depends almost entirely on how much time you want to invest in him/her outside the game.