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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 6565751" data-attributes="member: 82106"><p>See, I have never been able to accept the general premise of this point of view. Not to cast aspersions on people for holding it, but the DM constantly does things to favor the characters finding interesting adventures even in the most hard-core sandbox. The very nature and setup of the world is such that there will be adventures, and they will be served up in a level-appropriate sequence. The dungeon just happens to be near the town where the PCs can go without a big dangerous overland journey. Level 1 is at the top of the stairs and has the easiest monsters, etc. Giants and dragons are off in the mountains 5 days away and near the town are lower level monsters. Its all arranged and built around providing a specific experience to the players. There's no special logic to it or reason for it, except that. A D&D setting/campaign is basically pure meta-game. It lives and breaths meta-game. </p><p></p><p>Beyond that DMs cannot possibly arrange every detail of their sandbox ahead of time. Vast numbers of details are determined on the spot, and long experience has taught me that the particulars of those details ALWAYS are influenced, if not largely shaped by, the agendas of the participants. The DM drops hooks that lead to the next adventure that just happens to be the one that is doable by the party and not the one that's 10 levels too hard, etc. </p><p></p><p>So, given that, the earlier comment about "why is it giants and not orcs" comes to the fore. Its giants because they're threatening to a level 10 party and orcs aren't, that's why! I'm not saying there cannot ever be other ostensible reasons for things, there often are, but the notion of some logically consistent setting where everything is entirely arranged only in a logical way that has nothing to do with any consideration of the setting's use as an adventure location is unsupportable IMHO.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 6565751, member: 82106"] See, I have never been able to accept the general premise of this point of view. Not to cast aspersions on people for holding it, but the DM constantly does things to favor the characters finding interesting adventures even in the most hard-core sandbox. The very nature and setup of the world is such that there will be adventures, and they will be served up in a level-appropriate sequence. The dungeon just happens to be near the town where the PCs can go without a big dangerous overland journey. Level 1 is at the top of the stairs and has the easiest monsters, etc. Giants and dragons are off in the mountains 5 days away and near the town are lower level monsters. Its all arranged and built around providing a specific experience to the players. There's no special logic to it or reason for it, except that. A D&D setting/campaign is basically pure meta-game. It lives and breaths meta-game. Beyond that DMs cannot possibly arrange every detail of their sandbox ahead of time. Vast numbers of details are determined on the spot, and long experience has taught me that the particulars of those details ALWAYS are influenced, if not largely shaped by, the agendas of the participants. The DM drops hooks that lead to the next adventure that just happens to be the one that is doable by the party and not the one that's 10 levels too hard, etc. So, given that, the earlier comment about "why is it giants and not orcs" comes to the fore. Its giants because they're threatening to a level 10 party and orcs aren't, that's why! I'm not saying there cannot ever be other ostensible reasons for things, there often are, but the notion of some logically consistent setting where everything is entirely arranged only in a logical way that has nothing to do with any consideration of the setting's use as an adventure location is unsupportable IMHO. [/QUOTE]
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