Popularity with the fans is not my issue, or the topic we're discussing. In 1e and 2e, FR, while popular, did not overwhelm D&D like it has since (mostly 3e andc5e actually, 4e felt more grounded setting-wise). I'm not talking about what's popular. I'm talking about what D&D currently assumes as far setting defaults vis a vis prevalence of magic. And that has gone up over the years. A lot.
I don't know if I agree with that. 1e was almost unplayable without magic: magic weapons, armor. wands, etc. were a requirement to challenge moderate to high level threats. That just isn't the case in 5e (and more so in 5e24). I can play 5e out of the box with no magic items or casters even. I don't know if I could do that in another edition (probably 4e, but I forget).
I'm not talking about the PCs (they'll usually push for all the magic they can get), although the amount of magic available to them, via any source, has definitely increased. I'm talking about the ubiquitous nature of magic in the setting, aka The Eberron Factor. The worlds of D&D have become more obviously, in-your-face magical. It seems to be a major, visible part of life for practically everyone, not just the PCs.
I am serious that the difference is not as big as you think. I remember tons and tons of magic stuff in older materials. I think you are just misremembering things from official sources. Stuff was really really magical before Eberron came out.
Can you provide any examples that support your thesis? For mine, I'll start with the world of Krynn, as depicted in the both classic trilogies. Specificity available upon request.
Were the magic items, stuff that your character came across in an adventure, or were they items that your character had with them in their pre-adventuring days? @Micah Sweet might be referring to the latter.
Exactly. I am talking about the setting being full of visible magic (like in the recent movie and many adventures in recent years), not just your group of blinged-out PCs.
Ok, that's all true. Did any of that bleed through to the villagers? Any reason to think they saw magic every day? Do we think that the village of Hommlet felt like a magical place?
Via them getting one of the major casters to do some spells for them yes it did to me, and it was just a small village, I would expect the major settlements to have way more magic stuff.
