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<blockquote data-quote="The Crimson Binome" data-source="post: 7145427" data-attributes="member: 6775031"><p>Okay, so no single wizard is going to have all of the specialty stuff, and the PHB presents eight specialties to choose from because those are the best ones. That means we <em>don't know</em> what those other specialties are, which presents a failure of the system to tell us how the world works. If the MM is anything to go by, those specialties are too insignificant for us to care about; essentially, they specialized in "nothing", because they're under-achievers. That's not a terrible way to look at it, but it does <em>essentially</em> mean that all NPC mages are part of the wizard class, at least as I see it. </p><p></p><p>From a practical perspective, there's also very little difference from saying they specialized in something minor that we don't know about, and that the specialized in something like necromancy or conjuration that simply has no effect at the table. In terms of bookkeeping, the cost-benefit is pretty favorable on just hand-waving it.</p><p>Even from a statistical perspective, that's only true for a sufficiently large sample size. If you have 100 rogues, and you kill 99 of them, the remaining one is unlikely to be left-handed or have blue eyes.</p><p></p><p>This might be the core disagreement in perspective between us. When I play an RPG, I <em>want</em> the rules to tell me how the world works. The imagination aspect of an RPG is all in <em>what you do</em> with that world, after you know how it works.</p><p></p><p>If I wanted to make up new ways for a world to work, I wouldn't use D&D to do that. As a DM, it seems kind of... cheap... to introduce NPCs or monsters that don't work in any way that the players could possibly have predicted. I would rather introduce an entirely new thing that couldn't possibly be mistaken for something that already exists, instead of new and innovative ways for an existing thing to work. At least that way the players <em>know</em> that they don't know what they're dealing with, rather than think they understand it when they actually don't.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="The Crimson Binome, post: 7145427, member: 6775031"] Okay, so no single wizard is going to have all of the specialty stuff, and the PHB presents eight specialties to choose from because those are the best ones. That means we [I]don't know[/I] what those other specialties are, which presents a failure of the system to tell us how the world works. If the MM is anything to go by, those specialties are too insignificant for us to care about; essentially, they specialized in "nothing", because they're under-achievers. That's not a terrible way to look at it, but it does [I]essentially[/I] mean that all NPC mages are part of the wizard class, at least as I see it. From a practical perspective, there's also very little difference from saying they specialized in something minor that we don't know about, and that the specialized in something like necromancy or conjuration that simply has no effect at the table. In terms of bookkeeping, the cost-benefit is pretty favorable on just hand-waving it. Even from a statistical perspective, that's only true for a sufficiently large sample size. If you have 100 rogues, and you kill 99 of them, the remaining one is unlikely to be left-handed or have blue eyes. This might be the core disagreement in perspective between us. When I play an RPG, I [I]want[/I] the rules to tell me how the world works. The imagination aspect of an RPG is all in [I]what you do[/I] with that world, after you know how it works. If I wanted to make up new ways for a world to work, I wouldn't use D&D to do that. As a DM, it seems kind of... cheap... to introduce NPCs or monsters that don't work in any way that the players could possibly have predicted. I would rather introduce an entirely new thing that couldn't possibly be mistaken for something that already exists, instead of new and innovative ways for an existing thing to work. At least that way the players [I]know[/I] that they don't know what they're dealing with, rather than think they understand it when they actually don't. [/QUOTE]
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