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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JamesonCourage" data-source="post: 5467993" data-attributes="member: 6668292">Perhaps you misread my post, or perhaps I misguided you. My PCs make a difference in the setting. However, as I wrote, they do not define it by any means. They have helped strengthen the bonds on one of the evil imprisoned creatures I mentioned; they have aided a prince in retaking his castle from demonic forces (and were fairly instrumental, though arguably not entirely instrumental); they have defended the immortals and fought off the lesser invading forces while the stronger invading forces were dealt with by dozens of more powerful defenders.My PCs can change the setting. It does not revolve around them. They are as subject to it as anyone else in the setting is. I hope this clarified things for you.Well, I suppose we disagree on some fundamental level (as I personally cannot stand most of Ayn Rand), but enjoyment is subjective. You do not need to be the person defining the setting to have enjoyment in a roleplaying game. You might really enjoy playing a humble warrior looking to defend his people from small mundane threats, or you might really enjoy playing a scholar well-versed in tactics and history; you might enjoy playing an undead character, come back to avenge those who killed him in battle, or you might even enjoy playing an aristocratic performer, with little to offer other than guidance, gold, and status.Fun is subjective when you're roleplaying. If your group has fun being the Heroes, always changing the Fate Of The Multiverse, that's fine. I've played in games like that before. However, in a roleplaying game, you don't need to be the heroes to have fun. You don't even need to have combat to have fun (even if we all enjoy it). The hobby is multi-faceted, and enjoying the simplicities of roleplaying a mundane character in a large world is appealing to many people.Play what you like, though <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Good to know there are others with similar mindsets out there <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Perhaps my original post wasn't as clear as it should be, or perhaps people assume too much. I suspect the former.At any rate, not being the center of the setting does not mean that you are both a commoner and also not the center of the story. Players are always the center of the story. The "camera" always follows them, their deeds, catalogs their successes and failures.However, just because my player is playing a warrior, I am not going to make an NPC be automatically worse at it. Since I run a classless system, it's harder to do anyways, unless I arbitrarily drop NPC attributes, which I refuse to do. I make no distinction between PC and NPC in character creation. All options are available to both. PCs have no advantage on NPCs inherently, and the reverse it true as well. Anything one can achieve, the other can as well.When I ran 3.X D&D, I did not use the "warrior" or "commoner" NPC classes. I used "fighter" or "expert" instead. I despised the idea that NPCs were inherently less powerful than PCs. It breaks immersion, and in my group (which is completely subjective), breaking immersion hurts roleplaying. I think that I don't necessarily need to make NPCs have a base level of power now, but I still do not like the idea of players being more powerful simply for the fact that they are players. It still breaks immersion.As I stated, the players are entitled to nothing extra, but they can earn it, just like anyone else. The setting does not revolve around them, but the story does. They have no advantages inherently given to them for being PCs, but the NPCs have no advantages inherently given to them for being NPCs.Again, play what you like. That's why you're playing. Since several people seemed to extrapolate concepts of my style that I do not embrace, I though I'd explain it further. This is not an attempt at arguing which is better. I am simply curious about others and the reasoning why. The base answer should always be "because it is more fun to play with" in my book, but hey, play what you like <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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