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I like the bunker concept. More elaborate "bunkers" might consist of interlocking bunkers that compartmentalize the defendede space. And a bunker could be a squat tower or a low stone or earthen structure. Earth castles often compartmentalized but they didn't have to worry so much about fantasy...

I think that's the likely way it would go. Fortifications would remain but less would be spent on them. More might be wooden (a legionnaire fort was usually wooden unless it stayed put for a very long time), the stone ones might be much less grand than a European castle from the high age of...

The 4E PHB2 mentions that their hair color and pattern is usually the same as their skin. I imagine most artists prefer drawing bald or helmeted folks than having to depict that. On the otherhand, if you are putting Deva's into your own campaign, you should feel free to describe them as fits...

I agree. It might be hard in D&D terms to take the average much higher than 3 even for a crack, very seasoned legion but one might expect a fairly significant number above the average, a higher variance. This line of reasoning, though, starts running into problems when one tries to map the D&D...

I tend to define evil as selfishness: do you act without regard to others. There can be minor evil and major evil and maybe EVIL for a demon who has dwelled in the Abyss for millenia. As for your thief, most likely I would peg him as at least neutral if not good. I would only keep him evil if...

Agreed on your general points in your post. It gets me thinking, though, regarding teleportation, it is an interesting exercise to imagine how teleportation portals would affect fortifications. If one could create a reasonable number of portals then one could move small strike forces...

This is just meant to raise a thought exercise: test the likely garrison (as you see it; I see no reason to stick to one person's thoughts on the garrison of a castle, i.e. Gygaxian) against your own players as a raiding party and see how that castle fares. I think picking a small size...

I think I made it clear that there was an availability component earlier in the post. You are correct, though, that magic would likely reduce the cost of construction as well as attack which would affect the economics. Although the older versions of D&D allowed for a ridicuously small amount...

Interestingly, at the beginning of some of the Welsh rebellions in the period after Edward's Welsh castles were built, they were often garrisoned by small numbers of men- 18-25 men-at-arms. They made military-economic sense (you raised the economic issue on a later post) because despite the...

I think it is a combination of both magic and economics. I would phrase it instead as: I think there is a tipping point where the availability of powerful magic makes castles unlikely. Availability will include a significant economic component. It also includes such setting specific stuff as...

That's a flimsy strawman. All I acknowledged about magic is that we would need to define it better to take it the discussion further. I've come no where near defining it in anyway that may suggest your strawman. I make these observations: I'll admit I have not done a scientific survey but...

Shades of the evoluation of aerial combat in the WWI :p

It’s a fair enough approach to start with given #1, how to allow #2 as long as it is clearly acknowledged. I would expect it to be very common; I tend to do it myself but it isn’t quite the same thing as imagining a world where there is magic, presumably in nearly all settings from the beginning...

And mages killing each other off is certainly an aspect of your campaign and hardly typical. When considering the effect of magic on a world, it doesn't seem to make much sense to me to hew too closely to guides that were created to enable a game. Those guides are fine for what they are meant...

I think you two need to agree on a definition of plot to take this much farther. You can check the wikipedia definition as one possibility (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plot_(narrative)) which I don't think is an unreasonable one myself. With such a definition, one might distinguish a sequence...

To extend the analogy, you are much more likely to get a complete assembly like a star destroyer on the non-sandbox path. On the other path, you are more likely to get a small castle, a half finished train, a barely started house, and a stupid looking space ship :) My kids have a grand old...

I don't personally see that many more advocates for a "sandbox". But there always do seem to be folks, even going back to the 80s on rec.games newsgroups, who speak of it as somehow superior to other ways of ref'ing. Since these are often the very senior, old time refs, they get a certain amount...

Warms the cockles of my heart. I love it when the players take the initiative and create a bit of the world. Sure I could do it but I've got lots of other bits of the world I'm working on and it is much more likely to be what you had in mind if you do it :) In my new campaign, the gods don't...

I'd add a 4th method: subterfuge and stealth which can look much like treachery (someone opens a gate somewhere). A small group of higher level commandos (aka adventurers) can accomplish the same thing as treachery in many cases. so to your "big brother magic" one would add the anti-intruder...