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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5562171" data-attributes="member: 42582">This makes sense to me. I think the variable contribution of the fictional positioning component is, if anything, even greater oustide of combat/tactical encounters. For some groups, presumably, the fact that a PC is a Demonsking Adept or a Warpriest of Moradin has minimal influence on how a social skill challenge is resolved. In my game, on the other hand, it's pretty front-and-centre.On an only very slightly related note - Open Grave has a fun little buried tower scenario called "Bloodtower on the Moorland", for 12th-level PCs. I've had a fondness for buried towers ever since Best of White Dwarf Scenarios 2, which has a mini-adventure in a tower buried in the desert, and I'm hoping to use this Open Grave one as part of the Vecna-cult plotline in my current game.But as presented, the scenario begins in this way:The PCs are visiting or passing through a city that lies near the moorland. While taking a meal at a local watering hole, they overhear a resident relating the following story.Now, what the hell is going on when a Demonskin Adept, Warpriest of Moradin, Questing Knight, Radiant Servant and Divine Philosopher are taking a meal at a local watering hole? As opposed to, for example, dining in the halls of the baron or the mayor! I regard this as yet another weakness in 4e adventure design - beside the inherent lameness of so many of the plot hooks, they tend to expressly contradict the default fictional positioning of the game, which in relation to paragon tier PCs states (PHB pp 28-29):In the paragon tier, your character is a shining example of heroism, set well apart from the masses.. . the fate of a nation or even the world might hang in the balance as you undertake momentous quests... When you face a dragon, it is a powerful adult who has established a lair and found its place in the world. Again, much like you.In my view shining examples of heroism, on whose deeds the fate of the world turns, who have found their places in the world and who are set well apart from the masses, don't start their quests in a local watering hole (absent special circumstances of the Aragorn variety). In my view it is this sort of bad adventure writing, as much as if not more than the mechanical design, that leads to the suggestion that there is no "progression" in 4e, and that as they level the PCs just go through the same dungeons with bigger numbers. (There is also a marked contrast between these sorts of adventure hooks and the campaign arcs sketched in DMG2, the Planes Above and Below, Demonomicon and Underdark - the campaign arcs show an awareness that changing tiers changes fictional positioning in a way that should matter to the play of the game.)</blockquote>

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