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Message: <blockquote data-quote="two" data-source="post: 4216021" data-attributes="member: 9002">Back in the days of yore, there were stories about heroes who went exploring and came across all sorts of nasty and wonderful things.  People sat around the fire and listened to poems, tales, songs, whatever.Then the oral tradition died.  It happens.Along came novels about heroes and magic and fantasy and everything else.  The oral tradition was transformed.  What had been a group performance became individualized.  Readers read alone.  And the stories which became novels transformed as well.My main entry point into fantasy was literature; not movies, or video games, or anything else.  Not to say that books are better than other cultural productions (although I do believe this), but that was my entry point, and that is how I got interested in D&D.Many of the protagonists in many of the books I consumed featured youngish (usually) men (usually) who were put into difficult positions and ended up managing to overcome the odds.  They acted, initially, heroic, but were not yet heroes.It's not necessary to list many examples:  this is a bedrock trope of the fantasy genre.  Bilbo Baggins, Ged (of Earthsea)... these and many others characters were depicted at the start of the novel as distinctly weak. They were inexperienced, and often didn't know their own power (Ged), or never had any reason to expand their horizons and grow (Bilbo).  Until adventure came along.There are obvious psychological reasons why this sort of narrative is so durn appealing, particularly to young readers.  The protagonist is, like many "real life" readers, inexperienced and ignorant about magic, war, love, life.  Yet the protagonist manages to overcome many obstacles, and we cheer with them, even as we wonder... if perhaps... in some transformed way... the same sort of thing won't happen to us?But enough of this silly grade school psychology, which I despise in any case.The point is, the bildungsroman is dead.Starting characters in 4e are not simply acting heroically.  They are, in fact, already heroes.  Not very powerful yet, but heroes.  They can shoot magic all day.  They can plow down a roomful of minions.  They can do all sorts of neat tricks - things that a yokel from a farm using his uncle's old sword simply couldn't imagine doing.If you didn't want to play low level D&D in 3e, you could start everyone off at level 3. You are safe from a one-hit critical, pretty much.  You have a nice assortment of spells, lasting 2-3 encounters.  Fighters have some feats, etc. etc. But what if you want to play a budding mage who ran away from his village in 4e?  It was easy in 3e.  Just play a 1st level sorcerer or wizard.  But what about 4e?Do I have to create an artificial level 0?Don't you remember how satisfying it was in 3e when you looked by (10 levels) and said to your friend "remember when those 3 goblins in the alley scared you to death - and almost killed you?"  There is a satisfaction which arises from moving from a state of weakness to that of strength.  I don't feel that 4e supports this.I feel the 4e paradigm is this:  move from weak Hero to powerful Hero to epic Hero.  And that saddens me.Yes, 4e might be a much better game for having level 1 be robust and varied.  But by doing this, it further removes itself from the literary precedents I hold dear, and make (in my opinion) for a less rich and varied game.</blockquote>

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