HELLO I LIKE DRAWING AND NONSENSE so this caught my attention.
I believe the main purpose of imagery is not only to grab attention, but to differentiate the subject from others. It helps two male characters seem less similar, despite both having brown hair. It can help set the tone--one rp may have a header picture of a giant golden tree, while the other has a forest during the night.

And another thing--it shows effort on the part of the GM, which always grants brownie points in my book. Not to say that a two-page introduction is unimpressive, but having both just ups the keen excitement and expectations that We the Roleplayers will have a good, realized story to work with.

It will defo' go "too far" once we start replacing posts with storyboards or some such (though it will also be epic); but other than that, it's fairly harmless, particularly for beginner settings. In advanced roleplays though, you'd expect images as little more than accompaniment for writing, like a pretty side dish.


There is, however, such a thing as legitimately overdoing images for the situation in which you could say: "This is meant to depict someone else's character, not mine." I speaketh to the yoinkers of unpublished OC art. Hello there! I will not tell you what is right or wrong, because blech preachers, but I will say this: In my case, I avoid exclusively online characters who have names and expressed personalities, just as a courtesy. Published works such as concept art from a video game or photographs of real people though = fair game, because now I am serving more as a (free) vehicle of advertisement than a "YOINK, NOW YOUR CHARACTER LOOKS MY CHARACTER TOO, HAHA." That's just my personal ruleset though, mind, because I personally would not want someone taking art of my (deep and well thought out, thank you) character and making him out to be something he isn't; not until he's well-known enough to have little confusion over actual ownership. Etc, etc.

(But that's funny--I ponder world building when I'm trying very hard to focus on my life. Haha... augh.)