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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Engilbrand" data-source="post: 4516336" data-attributes="member: 44184">Majoru Oakheart hit the nail on the head. 3.5 assumed that everything was equal. Players and NPCs followed the same rules. 4e doesn't do that. New books keep coming out because there's a lot of stuff in that game world. Sure, it hasn't been made available to you or the players, but it may have been made available to an NPC in your world.The system has character-specific mechanics. Outside of those mechanics, though, lies an entire realm of possibility. This is a game of imagination. I've been in games that adhere too much to the rules. It was a nightmare. By having rules for everything under the sun, 3.5 set itself up to be easily abused by douchebags. For 4e, though, even a decent DM has the freedom to make interesting things happen.Even though players know that the highest level guy in their area tops out at level 6, there's no way that they're going to mess with him. Why? Well, those are just the highest level powers I've decided to give them. I could also do templates, but why bother? No. I'll just describe the things that happen around the players.When the Orcish horde invades their town, the players will get involved in a couple of specific areas. While their own fights are going on, they'll be able to see the other things on the battlefield. I'll probably have the general decapitating the enemy and throwing them into each other. Wizards will be chanting together and letting lose with awesome devestation. When the players ask how they did certain things, I'll just tell them that the NPCs have some very specific training. Knowing how I've set up the area, the players will just say, "Ok. Cool. I wish I could learn something like that." It's all in reflavoring.My favorite bit of flavor for the game:In our very first session, I through the players against some powerful stuff. I had what looked like an Orc shaman and a dinosaur companion talking to some Orcs. While the players watched, the Orcs threw some meat to the dinosaur. Rather than turning to it, the meat hit its back, and a number of jaws sprang into being and quickly pulled the meat into the body. When the players attacked, the dino was right on the Warlock, knocking him down and dropping its body onto his. The Warlock player was actually surprised and freaked. After destroying the thing, they kept its collar. When they recently ended back in town, they did some research on it and discovered that it had the ability to mix a number of smaller creatures into a larger amalgam. (It was a level 2 Needlefang Drake swarm.) One guy starts laughing and says, "We need to get some kittens."Me: "Wow. That's just wrong."The other player: "You know what wrong? I was just thinking that same thing."Does this thing exist in the rules? Of course not. It doesn't actually do anything. I just used it as a tiny plot point, and as a reason that something was reflavored. I will say that this is one of the thing that the player uses to show that 4e edition has brought back the feel of 1st, though.</blockquote>

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