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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 4701609" data-attributes="member: 4937">It is true that almost without exception, PC's start off in places where survival is fairly easy.  Typically, they start in some corner of civilization where level inappropriate challenges are rare.  Typically, they start off as members of this civilization and thus what level inappropriate encounters are available are generally with characters that are nominally on 'the same side' as the characters, and thus not hostile.  And typically, because it is a civilized area, what level inappropriate foes that are about are generally not interested in casual murder of strangers, because - this being civilized - they are afraid of running afoul of the law.So yes, by starting the characters there, I'm engineering good odds on the character's survival and engineering it such that most encounters will be with something that low level characters could defend themselves against. But on the other hand, if I didn't do this, it would raise a paradox.  If in fact the PC's find themselves in a place where low level characters probably couldn't survive, how did they get there in the first place?  Why aren't they dead?  Why isn't everyone else dead?  Sure, I could randomly drop them on the haunted continent of Sethia, where a horde of wraiths is an ordinary encounter and where broken epic level artifacts await as death traps to the unwary mortal and that would surely engineer their speedy demise, but there are no living inhabitants of Sethia and even the gods avoid the place.  What the heck justification would I have for dropping starting characters there?Similarly, if I have a dragon living near civilization unless it showed up exactly when the PC's arrived (which would be a rather extraordinary coincidence), if I don't have a wide zone around it where everyone knows you don't go (even if no one knows exactly why), then it raises another internal contridiction in the setting.  How is it that all these people are wandering into the dark forest and dying, and no one has noticed it?  Won't someone eventually learn the rule, "Don't go into the dark forest.", even if only through natural selection? But let's suppose that I have some level inappropriate thing around that isn't well known?  It's easy to imagine such a thing.  Perhaps, buried in the side of a hill somewhere nearby is a hidden vault containing a demi-lich.  But once again, we find that if this is a living world, that if such a vault is not known at all and thus the PC's are likely to walk into it with no warning of the hazards inside, then it must also be the case that the vault is very hard to find.  If it is not hard to find, someone other than the PC's would have probably found it and hense it would be known about, and it would be well known 'Don't go near those standing stones on such and such hill'.  And if it is hard to find, then the PC's are not at all likely to stumble on it by accident either.  Hense we find that it is very difficult to construct logical situations for low level characters where there would be hostile and insanely 'level inappropriate' encounters near by which a character might easily stumble into.  There might be a 10th level Paladin or a garison of the King's soldiers, but neither are necessarily hostile (initially).  There might be such a dangerous dragon no one dared go near, but everyone would likely know the general location of the lair.  There might be well hidden and concealed dangers generally not known about, but the PC's would be generally safe from such dangers by the combination of their ignorance and the passivity of the dangers.In other words, the fact that a starting location is 'engineered to ensure the PC's are unlikely to wander into level inappropriate encounters' is pretty much indistinguishable from randomly selecting a location where 1st level characters are generally found, for anywhere that 1st level characters are generally found it is logically unlikely that you'll wander into level inappropriate encounters.  As a DM, I might be doing everything necessary to give the PC's a fair chance at survival, but the PC's survival might not necessarily be my overriding motivation - and given how I've responded thus far, may I suggest that it probably isn't.It is therefore a very weak prejudice on a DM's part in favor of the PC's, and if anything, because it represents far and away the statistically most likely scenario, engineering anything but that situation would seem to me to be evidence of far stronger bias or at least much stronger 'rail roading' of a particular plot or story.Now, is there bias on the part of the DM?  Sure, he let's the players play characters with exceptional attributes, relatively high amounts of starting wealth, who have relatively uncommon and highly useful survival skills, and who otherwise have many advantages stacked in their favor.  Also, the DM is motivated to fudge consequences in the PC's favor as much as he thinks can be swallowed, if things go badly or might go badly, simply because a TPK represents a lot of hassle and extra work for himself and possibly the end of a hitherto enjoyable story.  But as tempting as this may be, the plot protection can never be absolute or too repetitive.</blockquote>

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