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No. I don't. :) I mean these settings were unusual, even for Greyhawk modules. Dungeonland was explicitly described as a break from the typical campaign/adventure style. There were laser guns in Steading of the Hill Giant Chief? Lightning-powered trains in The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth...

Who says? How do you know that all of the magic items in the campaign world aren't restricted to being used only by followers of Demogorgon? And how would an NPC know what a 20th level cleric gets without having a copy of the Player's Handbook? AFAICT you're assuming that the NPCs have access...

This may be true for a particular game system/set of rules but there's no logical basis for saying this is true in general. It could be a matter of choosing between being really bad at 10 different things or being really good at 1 thing. Especially in a party of 4-5 other PCs, being good at 1...

The *existence* of fantastic elements IMO is not the same thing as the *prevelance* of magical elements. In Greyhawk, you wouldn't walk into the bar at Hommlet and see that six-shooter carrying wizard or catch an elemental-powered train over to the Great Kingdom. A space-ship crashed in the...

I think this is a bit of a chicken and egg thing. Fantasy fiction has sometimes experimented with quasi-scientific systems for magic that attempts to quantify it in a way that would seem like an RPG. Some of these efforts predate RPGs, and in fact (obviously) contributed to the way the magic...

This strategy goes back as far, at least, as Eldritch Wizardry and it's approach to artifacts. The later 1e DMG used the basically the same concept - and that was that the powers of the artifacts would be chosen from a menu of options by individual DMs so that players that owned the rule books...

Except that this is a fairly big thing to get wrong and these creatures are much more moral and intelligent, presumably, than mortals. And there are also independant ways of verifying information. So it seems like the bureaucrats of the US government convincing people that China doesn't exist...

I don't see how this supports the conspiracy we're talking about. If anything, not putting Commune answers under the control of a specific deity would make disinformation harder AFAICT. This is possible but seems to me to fall into the "DM fiat" category. Prior to 4th edition, alignment was...

Assuming that the NPCs have some sort of minimal attention span. Key to my perspective on this is the notion that what folks are trying to do would require some sort of deception that's long term and sufficient to fool creatures within divine intelligence. And no one wishes it back. And...

Good deities could send messengers to the ascended deity informing him of his error. Not sure that I can see how the ascended deity could continue with this mistake without calling into question his intelligence, wisdom, and/or alignment. Of course part of your example AFAICT relies on the...

Those beings are not unspecified in the important senses. You seem to be suggesting that the clerics of these gods really don't know what they're doing when they cast commune, and they might was well just be asking some random passer-by. Otherwise I don't get the implications of this. Just...

Yes, I agree, obviously the "good" deity, his servants, and his clerics who are in the know would all have to lie. I think there are a number of big differences between the real world and the default DnD world that contributes to the way I see the situation. First, the language and cultural...

I'd take a few seconds to make up an impromptu table for the target of the power word. I'd probably exclude the barbarian since IMO the balor would know the capabilities of his spell the same as a player. Another thing I've done often in the past is let the players roll for it: "everyone...

So I just cast Commune and ask "is Zeus a demon?" and then "is Zeus a devil?" and then "is Zeus chaotic good" and then I probably get a few more questions left over. In that way I've saved thousands of years of misunderstanding. Or I could plane shift to Olympus and ask around. And what cause...

The greek myths themselves contain numerous references to things like "a priestess of such-and-such a goddess angred her by doing such and such". IIRC the Sumerian city-states each had their own patron deity with a priesthood dedicated to that deity (I'm not at my library at the moment). In...

If this was actually OFFICIAL, as you say, then I wouldn't have to search someone's post - you could simply indicate the page number in the 1e DMG that makes this clear. IME the treasure tables in the 1e MM were very stingy.

How so? Logically, I don't understand why you exclude the option of lower costs for magic items. One way of making magic items cost less than a king would spend is to *make them cost less than a king would spend* (And, as has already been mentioned, magic items were not priceless in 1e)...

I'm not that familiar with Forgotten Realms, but I don't recall DnD having anything to say on this topic regarding non-cleric NPCs and their religious habits. I always figured a non-cleric character would attend whatever festivals/temples they wanted to at whatever time. Assuming the...

There is no objective reason to say this at all - comments to this effect on either side IMO are completely without substance and get us nowhere. Take, for example - a cantaloupe, a basketball, and a strawberry. Is the cantaloupe more like a basketball, or like a strawberry? To settle this...

I agree - good point to keep in mind for the DM. But this is no different than a player wanting his paladin to join a party of thieves. Attempting to punish the player with in game situations that aren't based on versimilitude wasn't really a good use of the DMing role IMO and I think the...