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I am not exactly sure how this specific expression relates to the topic though. One thing, which I would see as typical to "hope setting" is the clear demarcation between good and evil. Like there are good kingdoms of good people who are threatened by external forces of evil, composed of evil...

It is totally a sort of change one can make and I would make and have made. But one also needs to understand that especially in open terrain where the goblins can spread out this will make the goblin horde significantly more dangerous than the CR would indicate.

I just find it absolutely hilarious that your example of "non-magical psion" is a character who is a literal spell casting witch that definitely does magic. And that the character can be perceived that way whilst evolving into even more blatantly magical direction without it feeling weird at all...

I mean you literally exclude things about her that are part of the same continuity. That is just weird cherry picking, and that you have to do this shows how artificial the divide between a mage and a psion is.

Interesting thread! Like many people have said, I think it is the best to avoid either extreme. I usually go somewhere in the middle, especially for a game like D&D. In D&D the characters routinely engage in lethal vigilante violence. If we want to present such people as even somewhat decent...

Nevertheless, she's a witch. In any case, I think that you perceive her a s psion just shows how the distinction between mages and psions is arbitrary. The tropes in fiction are often mixed, and one character can have traits that could be described as either and depending on the beholder, often...

She's literally a witch that casts spells and has a magic book!

That however is blatantly absurd.

Yeah, too narrativist for me, mate. Like I want the wizard to able to in-character answer when they're able to cast their big spells again and I want the characters, and not just the players, to be able to make plans based on this information. And same for the NPCs.

Yeah, I am too much of a simulationist to be comfortable with this. I think things like how spells get refreshed etc should be things that are knowable to the people in the setting instead of just being disassociated mechanics.

PCs might. The players definitely can't; that would be insane amount of tedious combat gameplay.

So what does this mean for the setting? NPCs tend not to gain levels, or at least not as fast than the PCs. Do they never regain their spells or heal?

Which is drawback of simplified enemy statblocks. If they have proper PC-like features this can also inform what they can do out of combat. I often give enemy spellcasters more spells, and tend to assume that despite their simplified combat profiles they "actually" have PC-like casting...

Enemies making preparations, calling reinforcements and advancing their nefarious plots whilst the PCs rest is obviously something that should happen. I just feel that significant developments that actually matter are hella lot easier to narratively justify with the week long long rests than the...

I once accidentally made an encounter slightly harder than intended when I by mistake added four Orcuses instead of four orcs.

Yeah, I am not convinced that it is particularly realistic that most enemies would have a ton of more monsters to summon on short notice. And if they do, then in most realistic scenarios they're enemies that you'd later face anyway. A difference between the power of nearly depleted party and...

So assuming the characters have burned most of their potent spells and such, as well as being low on HP, what do you imagine these monsters doing in eight hours that would be worse than facing them in that condition instead at full power?

I would kinda love to know what percentage of monster in this game have dispel magic. I'm not gonna count, but I'd assume the amount is absolutely tiny.

Well, given the stats are not random this sad state seems to be by player choice. Hardly the GM’s fault.

But one would expect the rules to be at least connected to the fiction. So when the characters are planning their attack, if one character says "Wizard, we should start by you freezing the gnolls with your [powerful spell]," but the rules say that the wizard can only cast this spell at the...