"Because dragons fly" is not an answer, I'm afraid. The statement I keep getting is that some players want their world to make sense, and be grounded in some kind of reality before adding magical elements. Yes, dragons fly, but there are real world animals as well- not everything is magical, nor needs to be. The existence of Worgs and Winter Wolves hasn't made regular wolves die out, after all.
If everything in the D&D world was magical, so be it, but not everything is, nor needs to be, and they like the mental image of the gritty hero who gets by on nothing more than skill and wits. Conan is often pointed to as an example, even though, by any metric, Conan is no normal character, since the guy has high stats in just about everything, including Intelligence.
Also he beat Wolverine that one time!
If everything in the D&D world was magical, so be it, but not everything is, nor needs to be, and they like the mental image of the gritty hero who gets by on nothing more than skill and wits. Conan is often pointed to as an example, even though, by any metric, Conan is no normal character, since the guy has high stats in just about everything, including Intelligence.
Also he beat Wolverine that one time!