prosfilaes
Adventurer
fireinthedust said:E6 is about little fish in a big pond.
I think that there's far from consensus on that. That's one way to play it, but not the only way, and I'm not sure that's the way most people play it.
But he has "won": he's got a lair filled with treasure at the deepest level of a dungeon. If he comes out, the kings of the earth throw gold and magic at his feet, and feed him maidens on a platter. He's big, and stupid, and that's enough for him.
I think that comes down very strongly on the "the very nature of the game world will change". The concept that a maiden eating dragon doesn't come to an end at the hand of the protagonists is alien to pretty much all fiction I know of.
And canonically, dragons aren't stupid. At older ages, they can be brighter than any E6 PC could be without the aid of magic.
Not everyone is ambitious like Lex Luthor. Some people are fine with full bellies. Others with enough rum to keep them drunk. Why would a lot of the big monsters want anything more? They're not social animals like humans are.
Some of them are. Mind flayers, for example. Cloud and fire giants are social, even if they aren't quite as social as humans. Several of the dragons can be quite social; the description for PF's brass dragons is "Consummate conversationalists, brass dragons prefer to talk instead of fight. Brass dragons lair near humanoid settlements, where they can hear the most recent news and gossip." That's a passable summery of the 3.0 MM description.