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Message: <blockquote data-quote="PrecociousApprentice" data-source="post: 4219479" data-attributes="member: 61449">From the literary sources that I have read, the concept of weakness of a beginning character was also paired with ignorance of "the ways of the world." This ignorance was present for Bilbo and Frodo, for Luke Skywalker, for Rand al'Thor and Co., and many others. The loss of this innocence parallels the readers'/players' innocence. They are ill equipped materially, intellectually, and experientially. The way I would model this would be twofold. First, the campaign would have to be completely home brewed, with most of the tropes of fantasy altered. This would allow the player to grow with the character, at least in their knowledge of the world. No cut and paste campaigns or the effect would be somewhat lost. I like this effect, but it is hard to achieve, and may even be completely unsatisfactory to many players. The flight from the Shire or the flight from the Two Rivers would likely be very booring for a game session. Could be done though.Second, the powers thing is only a problem if you let it be. From the perspective of creating a narrative, which in essence is what is important to the OP, the description is what is important for powers. The non-Martial powers would be harder to hand wave than the Martial powers, but the multiclass and retraining rules could allow you to play 1st level martial characters that progress to become high level arcane or divine characters. I would suggest that this is exactly what happens to the characters in the Wheel of Time. Most would probably start as rangers or rogues, with little for equipment and no knowledge of the world outside of the Two Rivers, but they would later multiclass and retrain to their near godlike later selves.So to easily get you not-quite-definitially-correct bildungsroman campaign, start by coming up with all new world fluff, stuff that none of the players knows and departs from cliched fantasy tropes. Refluff a lot of the stuff in the PHB and MM. Start all characters as human martial characters with little to no material resources. Make their early competition completely outmatch them, but make sure that they know that this is the goal so they don't get mad at you when they forget to run. Have this go on for a while until they get the hang of some of the new fluff. Then, let a little bit more fluff and some of the more zotty powers leak out and become available to the characters. Leak powers/fluff to taste. This option is only advisable if you have players open to surprises in the campaign theme, else the player/audience effect can be maddening. Pemerton sort of hit on this. De-power the player, give limited options, and create the feeling of "noob to this world" for the players. This seems to be the "illusionist narrativist" type of game. DM creates story, players are audience.While this approach may take a little more work from worldbuilding stance, it would require very little crunch modification. The crunch should all be there in the beginning core.  The characters retain some of the protagonism that is necessary for any hero , whether farm boy or John McLane (they don't die), and they will feel more everyman than any 0th level elf/dwarf/dragonborn. I think that this trope can be easily represented in 4e, it just takes a shift to the perspective that this type of narrative style campaign requires a more narrativist approach to gaming than simulationist style gaming, even if this approach really is more railroady/illusionist narritive. Unless you don't mind deprotagonized PCs with much PC death. In that case, I would suggest just going with Henry's approach. He sounds like he does this style well.P.S.- I am not completely sure I am using all these GNS terms completely accurately. I think that I have conveyed the right meaning though. If I need to edit or clarify I will.</blockquote>

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