Level 1 means you are extremely week, completely inexperienced and barely skilled. DnD allows you to create a rich backstory yes but why do you ignore the fact that there is control for this and a GM will veto backstories that break cohesion by allowing you to write in a power fantasy? The last part is comical and is the definition of ludonarrative dissonance as well as being poor reasoning and unrealistic even in a high fantasy setting.
You're extremely weak in *game terms*. Doesn't mean completely inexperienced or barely skilled as a character in the narrative sense.
"Rich backstory" does nowhere have to mean "power fantasy", just that you don't have to be fresh from the dirt farm knowing nothing except dirt farming. That's what I find needlessly constraining. If your background is "Soldier" it's logical that you were in the military, you have killed a few people maybe, did they not give you XP, should you not be higher level then? If you approach backstory + character power in game terms like that and try to absolutely synchronize the two, you can only ever play teenage dirt farmers, period. And I'd really find that unfortunate.
