Be very wary of anyone giving you a definitive locked-down set-in-stone answer for questions such as yours, Kinarra. Acceptable bounds of lore cannot be summed up in 255 characters or less. A deeper reading of primary evidence (what authorized Blizzard reps have said everywhere, not just tweeted) makes very clear that we are to take all lore sources as coming from - to some extent at least - unreliable narrators. Meaning it’s told from a particular point of view, not from an all-seeing all-knowing scientifically exact source.
There’s a huge difference between the norm and the limits. There’s canonical (in approved stories and novels) evidence that some Pandaren may be far older than a typical human lifespan. From ingame evidence I’m aware of at least 6 different ways a particular Pandaren could be far older than the human norm. OTOH, you asked what those of us who are experienced Pandaren players do for RP purposes …
I’ve personally interacted with every kind of player character Pandaren from cubs to ancients, skinny (for a Pandaren) to obese (for a Pandaren), from not as tall as an average human to needing to stoop to fit through a Pandaren door. Never run across a description on any of those spectra that seemed too weird to be outside my RP interaction comfort zone.
Most Pandaren players I come across define their characters’ ages descriptively (young, middle-aged, elder, …) and leave it at that. A Pandaren going through puberty and an Elf on the cusp of adulthood have a lot more in common than knowing how many days they’ve marked off on the calendar would lead you to believe. Life-experience as a measure of age varies as well. There’s a popular cub who is at least as adventurous as Li Li. I’ve also met (IC) more than one farmer of mature age who’s never been further than a day’s walk from home. Similarly for weight. I have a better sense of what a skinny Pandaren would look like than one weighing 4,832 ounces.
Shado-Pan are about the closest thing Pandaren have to an organized military. It’s not unreasonable to assume that they have standards and regulations analogous to rl military. Then there’s the spiritial aspect - they’re a monastic order. You have to weigh that against the general Pandaren social structure - based on ingame evidence it’s pretty much voluntary associations with the organized groups and the groups themselves don’t have an overarching hierarchy. So ask yourself, could a Pandaren leave an elite martial monastic order “by mutual agreement”? Sure. Would they walk into a tavern of strangers and announce their resume, handing out copies of their CV ? Not likely.
I’d suggest doing what a lot of us do with new characters. Start with plenty of things about your character loosely defined, maybe even unstated. Even after several years of playing Kunbo daily (and immersively for about 70% of the time) I’m still finding out things about him. He started off pretty skinny for a Pandaren because with his style of bustling around he burned way more calories than average. He’s put on some weight since he’s gone from front line combat to running an import/export business from home, owns a teahouse with a rotating menu he has to create and get good enough at cooking to share publicly, and has a girlfriend who loves his cooking.
All that affects not just his weight, but has also gradually defined my perception of his age & how I play it out. Once I would have been no more specific than “in his prime”. Nowadays he’s mature enough to prefer sitting on the porch with the old dogs rather than running around with the barking puppies. So I’d describe him as “still going strong but not as young as he used to be”.
Giving yourself room to develop your character applies to the military background as well. Consider the difference in RP possibilities between
I got kicked out of the Shado-Pan because I couldn’t do enough push-ups
versus
I used to be part of an elite military unit you’ve probably never heard of, but we parted ways “for reasons”.
In the Pandaren RP community on this server not everyone using the Shado-Pan headgear as part of their IC mog is a Shado-Pan, and not every Shado-Pan wears a recognizable military uniform.
Don’t worry so much about it. Pandaholic lore-yers seem to be a lot rarer than with other species of RPers. Come hang out with us at places like the teahouse, the public celebrations run by various Pandaren (player-created) organizations, or even just groups at us you see at events. I think most of my P&P walkups have started with “do you know a good place to eat?”. Best and most important part of any TRP profile - imho - is the At First Glance. We really only need to read what someone who saw your character on the street and struck up a conversation would know about them. Figure the details of your character out amongst us rather than before you meet us.
