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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Scribble" data-source="post: 5165970" data-attributes="member: 23977">Well- I wouldn't say it's "the ability" so much as maybe your own ability. (But you kind of say that I guess by qualifying it as an opinion.)If you want to say it's no longer possible to play a game in which the player goes from virtually ineffective, to nigh unstoppable, then sure, I agree. 4e characters are relatively effective from the start. In my opinion, however, the narration is separate from the game play.Narration is all in the.. well narrating. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":P" title="Stick out tongue    :P"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":P" /> I started the events in my last 4e game off with relative nobodies. The trick was in how things were described, and having everyone on board with how those descriptions worked.Take a look at any action oriented story that has the characters starting as "nobodies." The author will almost definitely put them in situations that seem unsurvivable were they still somehow manage to survive (otherwise the story is boring.) The author simply find some trick to help them survive. The bad guy slips... They get a lucky shot off...  The wind picks up at just the right moment causing the arrow about to impale them to be blown slightly off course... etc.These types of situations can still be (and I still do) narrated within the context of 4e rules. Failing to hit a PC's AC doesn't HAVE to be narrated as the PC being too hard to hit. You can pull out any of the "exciting farmboy fight survival" narrative elements and use that instead. Same is true for the PC hitting the bad guy's AC. You don't HAVE to narrate it as the PC being skilled with his weapon. You can narrate it as the enemy being momentarily clumsy, or the old lucky shot...I find is slightly easier now to narrate these situations in fact.Previously the game was built in such a way that the player would either need to run away, or survive on real life luck to see things through.Maybe you're luckier then I am... but my luck in real life is rarely as good as those in the books I read,, and movies I watch... So it was more a string of failed farmboys, as opposed to the tales of the farmboy turned hero.As far as gameplay, I agree there is some fun to a game that starts you off virtually ineffective, and forces you to build your way up in power. It can be exciting for the player to know he managed to survive at low odds. But the problem is how much will this joy be overcome by annoyance when I don't survive?Earlier editions of D&D I find akin to games like Spy Hunter. Put your quarter in, and you get a car driving down the road. You blast cars, while trying not to crash into stuff and blow up. As you go you get power ups, and avoiding being blown up gets a little easier... If/when you DO blow up, it's not such a big deal, you get another car, and just start doing it again. It's a quick and painless process.The Same thing is true in my opinion with earlier forms of D&D. When your dude blows up, rolling up a new dude is relatively painless. Not too many hard decision points in there... Bob The Fighter II  - Revenge of Bob the Fighter jumps back into the game in a matter of moments.But start adding things like, feats, and skills, and powers into the mix... Now you have a lot more to think about when building a dude, and the annoyance at dying begins to overtake the thrill of surviving.So I guess you pick your poison. I like both- I like the newer style where I can put a good amount of thought strategy into my character, and not have to worry so much about inevitable death, and the work of creating Bob II...But sometimes I like a good old game of see how many PCs die tonight... And for that I use systems with characters that roll up pretty quickly.Neither style though has a definitive way it needs to be narrated though. (At least in my own oppinion.)</blockquote>

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