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Message: <blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 7811559" data-attributes="member: 71699">You make a good case. Say we read my words as "they must first earn XP"; what I propose is to take the game mechanics sincerely as the world metaphysics. As you outline, it feels quite reasonable (to me at least) to suppose that there must be some other sources of it... and your intuition that those sources are a trickle compared with the less-than-zero-sum from adventure, chimes with my instincts.What I extrapolate from is that power, in our world, has largely been accrued through military force. It's not absolutely inevitable, but it is by far the norm. In our world, one person with a spear is not as strong as one hundred people with a spear, so a faculty for influence, organisation and logistics pays off for those who would rule. Economic power means being able to hire others to hold or wrest power for you, but that is because those others are otherwise divided: they are not a single puissant individual. In the darker past, personal interest in and ability to fight did allow a move to power.In Faerun, one tier 4 person is stronger than a hundred people with spears, and yet they are scarce enough that there is a lot of space - a lot of resources - between them. That is why I think the task of organisations in Faerun is really to channel those super-humans into behaviour of the sort each evolved elite (i.e. the existing sets of tier 4 people) favours. The Red Wizards being a great example. They're often cast in terms of their opposition to external factors, but their most important job, which must occupy almost all of their time, is shaping and controlling their own membership.Everywhere it is of vital consequence what high-tier persons do, how they behave, who they favour, what they choose to achieve. I posit this operates at an economic and political i.e. strategic level. Without ASIs, that boy sitting the throne is just not as cunning and persuasive as the bard or warlock. Others would sincerely prefer to work for the latter, if charisma and proficiency represents anything real in the world.</blockquote>

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