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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Primal" data-source="post: 4053464" data-attributes="member: 30678">I don't know if anyone else feels the same way, but to me this "Rite of Passage"-thing seems a bit odd in a 'Points of Light'-setting. If the NPCs are supposed to be inherently weaker than the PCs and the wilderness is a-crawl with dangerous creatures, why would the people of a small village -- whose very existence is threatened by those creatures -- deliberately risk the lives of their young generation? It's not as if they're suffering from any sort of overpopulation, hey?I also have a problem with the degree of altruism apparently expected from the PCs, because the Alignment Rules in 4E seem to suggest that *most* PCs should be 'Unaligned' (Neutral). Why would you risk your neck for your fellow man? Just because you're a PC? Just because you're somehow (mechanically) "More Heroic" than your neighbours -- or even your own father? This also calls to question that if the PCs are supposed to represent the "other end of the spectrum" (i.e. the "better" part of the gene pool) -- how realistic is it that there are 4-6 such individuals born to "Non-Heroic" parents in a small village of 200 people or so?  Although I agree that in a small "protomedieval" community people would stick together, it feels a bit of a stretch to assume that *every* PC (especially if you're 'Unaligned') would want to help the community out of pure altruism. My players (who would jump at the chance to play 'Unaligned' characters) would probably tell me that "Oh come on, you can come up with something better... so what if the grumpy old farmer Graelmer's sheep are afflicted with weird mutations?". Now, if the whole village or their loved ones are *directly* threatened, they might feel that even more "mercenary-minded" PCs would "swallow the hook". I'm not saying that my players would not wish to participate in the game -- they just want to have *believable* hooks that truly motivate their characters.And pray tell me -- if the 'Points of Light'-concept is as "narrow" as the Dragon and Dungeon articles seem to indicate (i.e. small settlements surrounded by the Darkness) it seems a bit unlikely that your PCs could actually purchase weapons and armour in Greenbrier, for example. Trade appears to be almost non-existent and why would anyone work as a Weaponsmith or Armorer in a 'PoL' village? Note: if there are, say, King's soldiers in the village or NPC adventurers passing by every now and then, it's a completely another matter -- yet this would probably be too "deprotagonizing" by 4E standards, so we can forget about it. It would make sense if the clerics at the local temple would craft and sell armour and weapons, but once again: NPCs are not supposed to "outclass" the PCs in 4E, right? So, where do the PCs get their equipment? In most campaigns I guess that these things won't even matter, but one of my players is a history teacher (who hates anything which is not consistent or internally logical) -- need I say more?  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></blockquote>

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