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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 9145163" data-attributes="member: 82106">This becomes an interesting question of agendas and how they relate to world building in some sense. So, there's nothing particularly wrong with the idea of 'small people' as the PCs, they do small things, like saving villages from orcs, or whatever. There are a couple of pitfalls with this in a D&amp;D-esque sense. First of all what happens when I'm a 14th level Magic User with massively powerful spells and the ability to slay Demon Lords and such? Classically D&amp;D answered that by simply foisting you off into another realm of play where you are still just a country bumpkin banging yourself up against the eternal immutable forces of the Great Wheel! Blah, I'm a pawn forever! If you want to be a pawn forever, well that's fine, but this sort of world building is not conducive to all the other sorts of stories, which actually make up a pretty large fraction of all the literary and cultural referents which FRPG play draws from.4e is a hugely instructive game in this regard. It takes the D&amp;D sort of power evolution thing and develops a real progression of character salience. The World Axis is not an eternal architecture which cannot be changed! Neither is the more ordinary world, instead they are each the result of, and contain, deep primary conflicts. Yes, the PCs probably start out their lives as savers of villages, but in their course to 30th level they will certainly become world shakers, and eventually they're likely to shake the very foundations of the cosmic order, even if they don't end up smashing the whole thing to splinters. That potential is meant to be on the table though! Certainly if you adhere to the default cosmology and PoL world design outlined in the books there are ample opportunities to inject it.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 9145163, member: 82106"] This becomes an interesting question of agendas and how they relate to world building in some sense. So, there's nothing particularly wrong with the idea of 'small people' as the PCs, they do small things, like saving villages from orcs, or whatever. There are a couple of pitfalls with this in a D&D-esque sense. First of all what happens when I'm a 14th level Magic User with massively powerful spells and the ability to slay Demon Lords and such? Classically D&D answered that by simply foisting you off into another realm of play where you are still just a country bumpkin banging yourself up against the eternal immutable forces of the Great Wheel! Blah, I'm a pawn forever! If you want to be a pawn forever, well that's fine, but this sort of world building is not conducive to all the other sorts of stories, which actually make up a pretty large fraction of all the literary and cultural referents which FRPG play draws from. 4e is a hugely instructive game in this regard. It takes the D&D sort of power evolution thing and develops a real progression of character salience. The World Axis is not an eternal architecture which cannot be changed! Neither is the more ordinary world, instead they are each the result of, and contain, deep primary conflicts. Yes, the PCs probably start out their lives as savers of villages, but in their course to 30th level they will certainly become world shakers, and eventually they're likely to shake the very foundations of the cosmic order, even if they don't end up smashing the whole thing to splinters. That potential is meant to be on the table though! Certainly if you adhere to the default cosmology and PoL world design outlined in the books there are ample opportunities to inject it. [/QUOTE]

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