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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5293182" data-attributes="member: 42582">I think this is right. But I think that there is more to be said about the different options that are available here. While of course it's all about taste in gaming, in my view it's not "mere taste". The different options have their own underlying logics, which can be analysed at least to some extent.First, as Nameless1 said upthread, this presupposes that the PCs are mercenaries, or something like that (in the case of Kung Fu, maybe something closer to wandering do-gooders - "enlightened mercenaries").Furthermore, if you keep on going with this sort of play - the PCs always on the move to somewhere new - then you get strongly episodic play, which not everyone wants. Conversely, if the PCs become embedded in the local situation over time, and this is what everyone wanted, then why not just start there?Early D&D seems to have been conceived on the Conan model - start out wandering, end up embedded - and thus to have anticipated a change over the campaign in the style of play (reflected mechanically, to an extent, in the shift from dungeons to castles and politics as the PCs gain levels). This is one way to play an RPG, but it's not obviously superior, and to be honest is not even obviously that attractive. Again, if I want to play an RPG with PCs embedded in the world, why not just start there?One answer to that question might be - unless you do it in the Pendragon or Lo5R style, and make the PCs part of the ruling families by default, it takes metagaming to achieve it, as the GM and the players conspire to design PCs and world that complement one another. And some players at least - including, it seems, at least some early D&D players - have a strong dislike for this sort of metagame. So they opt to subsitute play for metagame, and make the embeddedness emerge organically in the course of play.But if you look at The Shaman's posts upthread, then (as I pointed out in my earlier post) he already seems to presuppose some degree of metagame - namely, that the fortune-seeker at the gates of Paris has more than a realistic chance of finding fame and fortune, or at least interesting adventure. And this is reinforced by The Shaman's upthread remarks about his "random" encounters. This is all quite different to high-lethatlity, no-special-treatment-just-because-you're-a-PC classic D&D.Once you have this much metagame, why stop there? Which brings us back to the question - If you want to play a game in which the PCs are embedded in the gameworld, why not just start there?</blockquote>

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