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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cryptos" data-source="post: 3985046" data-attributes="member: 58439">I think it's possible to have the learned mentors without leaving one to wonder why these more powerful people just don't go out and solve all these problems.In the world I've been thinking about building for some time, one of the human city-state lords in history sent his sons to an outlying garrison town amid threats of assassination and an overthrow plot by the nobles, there ostensibly to train to lead the militia and the city watch until one of them would inherit the throne.  He hired the best sages and martial trainers he could find across the land to do so.Except that this maneuver to keep his sons out of the fray became more troublesome than his existing problems.  Soon the major political issue was about how the lord was turning his sons into warlords and keeping others from the benefits of training with these fine scholars and warriors, that he was trying to take more power from the nobility.  So he opened up the garrison town as a sort of academy of warfare and martial prowess.  Soon, the arcane scholars started setting up shop there, and then the churches starting placing seminaries there, and entrepreneurs started setting up mercenary and scout-for-hire type companies there.Essentially, they're all "in business" to train what we would consider the adventuring classes.  The warrior's academy still has strong ties to a government and so has to pay lip service to it.  They won't intervene unless it serves this one city-state directly.  All of these mentor-type characters may be smart and powerful, but they're a bit too busy to be running around stomping on every goblin that pops up.  They're tied to a location and a position of importance.Anyway, all of my plans seem to fit pretty well with the default stuff for 4e, so now instead of just writing a setting in general, I'm writing it as I learn more about 4e.In much the same way, I'm sure there are many brilliant people who could solve our world's problems - given a chance.  But they have problems of their own, and have to have jobs like everyone else, and are limited in what they can do by the powers that be.  I'm sure someone out there has a more efficient alternative fuel engine out there than what's on the market but it's not in the interests of big business.  If even .5% of the population are geniuses of a certain caliber, that's still something on the order of 325 million of them... so where are they?  Can you name them? They have problems, just like everyone else.  Or they never got encouragement or opportunity.  Or they're ambivalent to the world's problems.  Or greedy and evil.  They're starving in Bangladesh or working in McDonald's, hoping that one day they'll be able get out of their situation and be able to use their full potential.The remarkable thing about an Einstein isn't that he was a genius, but rather that he was successful at all (in that he is well known and respected.)  Nikolai Tesla died penniless.   Really, if it hadn't been for the interest in atomic weapons, people like he and Oppenheimer would probably be a nobody to most people.  About as famous as Schroedinger or Heisenberg.Having dealt with people in positions of power, most of your truly influential people are, sadly, stupid and inept.  An intelligent person would never feel comfortable with the kind of short-term gain mentality that the wealthy, business and government favors, and so they aren't elevated.  It's the greedy, stupid person who would dump chemicals into the water supply to save the company money that gets promoted.  And then even if there's a problem, gets fired with a severance package of several hundred million and moves on to the next company.  Ten years later he'll die of cancer from chemicals in the environment, and curse the gods for his cruel fate without ever realizing he did it to himself - and everyone else - but he'll be quite successful until then.The decent and gifted are mired down by problems or responsibilities.  The not-so-decent (evil, greedy, uncaring, etc) and the not-so-gifted seem to do pretty well in society.Fantasy worlds don't have to be any different.  In medieval fantasy, it might even be worse for the exceptional.  Imagine the treatment you'd probably get for suggesting that disease was caused by small microscopic organisms if you went backs to the days of the Black Plague.  So truly powerful people doesn't necessarily mean there's nothing for player characters to do.I'm rambling by now but hopefully this will give you some food for thought.</blockquote>

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