LostSoul
Adventurer
To charge the narrativist side of things, maybe it would be a good idea to pack the encounter deck based on the class/race/theme - and especially paragon path/epic destiny of the PCs. You'd build the deck based on those things, with an eye to challenging/asking questions about how the player relates to those PC build choices.
So if one guy has "Beastmaster" as his paragon path (and you'd need to know this in advance - but that's pretty standard with builds, a way that builds can be translated into game play), you might have encounter cards like "Horses go wild!" "Loose the beasts!" "The vultures are circling..." (wandering beasts check out the battlefield to scavenge the dead, could be enlisted...), etc. An eladrin PC might have "Seen this all before" "Sic transit gloria mundi" etc. You'd probably want to build the encounter itself based on these build choices... maybe a deck that builds the encounter based on PC build choices? Don't know, just an idea.
So if one guy has "Beastmaster" as his paragon path (and you'd need to know this in advance - but that's pretty standard with builds, a way that builds can be translated into game play), you might have encounter cards like "Horses go wild!" "Loose the beasts!" "The vultures are circling..." (wandering beasts check out the battlefield to scavenge the dead, could be enlisted...), etc. An eladrin PC might have "Seen this all before" "Sic transit gloria mundi" etc. You'd probably want to build the encounter itself based on these build choices... maybe a deck that builds the encounter based on PC build choices? Don't know, just an idea.