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<blockquote data-quote="Eldritch_Lord" data-source="post: 5599439" data-attributes="member: 52073"><p>It's not a matter of complexity; D&D has several fundamentally different assumptions even taking magic out of the equation.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Au contraire. While many lawful churches are given a Spanish Inquisition spin for plot hook purpose, there is nothing in D&D comparable to the Catholic Church. Priests of D&D religions do not have any inherent political power, or at least no more than any other powerful person merely by virtue of being a priest. The common people do not base their entire cosmology on the teachings of a single church. Crusades against evil in D&D are <em>actually</em> motivated by a desire to quash out evil rather than being motivated by a desire for land or status. There is no such thing as the divine right of kings. Polytheism is vastly different from monotheism, and the only thing the medieval Catholic Church and D&D religions have in common is the templar-esque paladin, and that's specifically because the knight-in-shining-armor trope was brought into the game in one piece.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>First of all: Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms? Medieval? You <em>must</em> be joking. With all of the magic and unusual creatures in both worlds, they're only "based on medieval times" in the same sense that the modern world was at one point "based on medieval times." Greyhawk is obviously much closer to that baseline, having been explicitly given a background of a powerful Empire that fell, a series of warring city-states, and so forth. However, the technology of Greyhawk and other D&D settings are still Renaissance-level rather than Medieval-level (plate armor, polearms, water mills, advanced ships, telescopes, etc.), the governments are not feudally-based nor are they intertwined with the churches to nearly the same degree, the existence of low-level magic mimics Renaissance developments in medicine and science (even villages have 2-3 1st-2nd level casters by DMG demographics), and so on. I can see why you'd say Greyhawk has a Medieval inspiration, sure, but to say it is based on the Medieval era moreso than the Renaissance era is laughable.</p><p></p><p>The Forgotten Realms, though? Not medieval in the slightest. Flying cities, full-blown mageocracies, and meddling gods blow that idea completely out of the water at higher levels, and even at low-to-mid levels the world is vastly different from Medieval standards--the systems of government rarely even vaguely resemble monarchies, the major cities have 2 to 3 times the populations of rough real-world equivalents, religion doesn't inform peoples' lives like Catholicism did in the real world yet almost everyone is devoted to a religion due to the Wall of Souls, and so on.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Actually, by the rules, every class except the barbarian (and some ACFs like the savage bard) are literate, which is another difference between D&D and medieval settings--the literacy rate is 90+% and writing is important enough that Forgery is its own skill...which brings up the issue of a universally standard currency, logical exchange rates for different denominations, and so forth.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Eldritch_Lord, post: 5599439, member: 52073"] It's not a matter of complexity; D&D has several fundamentally different assumptions even taking magic out of the equation. Au contraire. While many lawful churches are given a Spanish Inquisition spin for plot hook purpose, there is nothing in D&D comparable to the Catholic Church. Priests of D&D religions do not have any inherent political power, or at least no more than any other powerful person merely by virtue of being a priest. The common people do not base their entire cosmology on the teachings of a single church. Crusades against evil in D&D are [I]actually[/I] motivated by a desire to quash out evil rather than being motivated by a desire for land or status. There is no such thing as the divine right of kings. Polytheism is vastly different from monotheism, and the only thing the medieval Catholic Church and D&D religions have in common is the templar-esque paladin, and that's specifically because the knight-in-shining-armor trope was brought into the game in one piece. First of all: Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms? Medieval? You [I]must[/I] be joking. With all of the magic and unusual creatures in both worlds, they're only "based on medieval times" in the same sense that the modern world was at one point "based on medieval times." Greyhawk is obviously much closer to that baseline, having been explicitly given a background of a powerful Empire that fell, a series of warring city-states, and so forth. However, the technology of Greyhawk and other D&D settings are still Renaissance-level rather than Medieval-level (plate armor, polearms, water mills, advanced ships, telescopes, etc.), the governments are not feudally-based nor are they intertwined with the churches to nearly the same degree, the existence of low-level magic mimics Renaissance developments in medicine and science (even villages have 2-3 1st-2nd level casters by DMG demographics), and so on. I can see why you'd say Greyhawk has a Medieval inspiration, sure, but to say it is based on the Medieval era moreso than the Renaissance era is laughable. The Forgotten Realms, though? Not medieval in the slightest. Flying cities, full-blown mageocracies, and meddling gods blow that idea completely out of the water at higher levels, and even at low-to-mid levels the world is vastly different from Medieval standards--the systems of government rarely even vaguely resemble monarchies, the major cities have 2 to 3 times the populations of rough real-world equivalents, religion doesn't inform peoples' lives like Catholicism did in the real world yet almost everyone is devoted to a religion due to the Wall of Souls, and so on. Actually, by the rules, every class except the barbarian (and some ACFs like the savage bard) are literate, which is another difference between D&D and medieval settings--the literacy rate is 90+% and writing is important enough that Forgery is its own skill...which brings up the issue of a universally standard currency, logical exchange rates for different denominations, and so forth. [/QUOTE]
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