Asymmetric gaming worlds

[Haltherrion]

My preferred explanation - if it comes up - is cultural conservatism. If the gameworld is an ancient one, with lots of legendary empires and their artefacts hanging around (both literally and in the popular imagination) then it is at least hand-wavingly plausible that the outlook of the society, and its dominant powers, is one of conservatism/reaction rather than progress (ie all the great things were done in the past, the contemporary era is a mere pale shadow of the greatness that once was, etc) - think Tokien's Middle Earth, or stereotpyed conceptions of pre-Enlightenment Europe and pre-20th century China.

I could see that putting a fairly indefinite break on things although it isn't my own preferred way. On the one hand, you have Europe that went through some rapid technological changes starting late Middle Ages, as well as some steady changes in the Roman Era (some of their advances aren't well known but are substantial from some early industrial works using extensive waterworks, large mining endeavours to increasinly sophisticated mercantile arrangements.) On the other hand, there were plenty of more stagnant periods. More interestingly as a counter is china which did innovate yet not on the scale of Europe and certainly seemed to have a pervasive cultural resistance to change.

Seems like it would be easiest for conservatism to hold off a revolution if the society was fairly homogenous and fought among themselves with little outside pressure and no long term fragmentation (as in Europe with its many languages and diverging cultures).

From an aesthetic point of view it isn't my preferred method because I prefer more dynamic setting histories with grand change and it also feels unstable to me, perhaps locally stable but in the grand scheme unstable. But that's a personal preference

 

[Haltherrion]

To the OP: a few ideas on the reconciliation

i) say that only a small %age of people have the capacity for using magic.
But PCs are exceptional.

Yeah, there are a number of ways to restrict the uptake. For divine magic it is easy enough to say the gods (or other sources) have limited capacity or interest in providing their power to humans. For both of them, you could require some other prerequisite not apparent in the game mechanics.

Or you could require very long apprenticeships to master the basic arts. This does not necessarily fit well with most of D&Ds multiclassing rules (which generally allow a class to picked up with ease) but in principle could be a significant break.

A strict reading of the D&D rules sets the bar pretty low though- a 12 int or wis for access to some reasonable magic.

ii) behind the scenes, theres a delicate balance of power between the powerful casters, both arcane and divine. So, the reason Grandulf the 20th level wizard isnt pooping out magic trinkets and ruining the local economy, is that hes actually spending 95% of his time warding off attack from Drungdalf the 20th level necromancer a hundred leagues away.

I could see that working in a small, bounded, mostly homogenous world like Tolkien's but does't feel right to me for a larger world.

iii) if you focus adventures on a) resurgence of forgotten ancient evils and b) exploration of faraway untamed lands - then civilisation can remain low-magic flavoured.

That's an interesting thought. Segregate by location.

 

[Haltherrion]

Interesting discussion and some good, less hand-wavey thoughts.

We've been talking about "large scale" assymmetries, how about small scale ones?

The classic one I can think of is your fractious, over-populated dungeon:

• A densely populated dungeon with creatures in every room or two.
  • How do they feed themselves?
  • Why don't they kill each other?
  • Why don't they either come to each other's aid or at least, attack the party just after they finish off the previous group?
• Even in a less populated, uniform place like a castle or a hill giant lair, why don't the bulk of the garrison attack you once your presence is known?

In general, my solution to this is to lower the population dramatically. Structures/dungeons don't have to be packed to the gills. Also make them smaller (seems like many people these days go with smaller "dungeons".)

For something like a castle, the players better keep it quiet or expect a sizable reaction force, might not be very high level though compared to them.

But I do like a more classic dungeon crawl from time to time and while I usually put those in a large unground complex where things can still be spaced out, I don't worry too much about how to feed them or how them move around without killing each other although I often establish the creatures present aren't mutually friendly by showing the aftermath of their squabbling (battle debris) or sometimes an active battle. As for food, should they look, they might find connections to the surface, magical seeps that feed fungus, etc.

This is an area where I do tend to put some effort into making it plausible since as a smaller scale effect, it is more apparent and more disruptive to the players. (Player: "We noisly wiped out Darth Badguy's guards in a eight round combat in the next room and Darth never thought to open the door and help his people?")

 

[Gilladian]

In my campaign world, to help explain dungeon populations and "deepearth" type civilizations, I postulate the existence of a core "sun" at the heart of the (hollow) planet which produces an invisible radiation.

This radiation can pass through rock and soil with ease. Like sunlight, many plants and some animals can feed on it and grow, and reproduce, etc...

Dungeon Bunnies are extremely sensitive to Core Radiance, and can live on even the most minute traces which reach almost to the surface of the world. Therefore, almost all deep-dwelling races farm these critters, and the Core fungi they like to eat (tho they don't have to have it; and the fungi grow in the radiation, as well).

It's a bit of a thin stretch, but I explain it mythologically; different races believe the Core Radiance is either the death god's body, or the heart/womb/brain of their preferred earth/creation god/goddess. I've never had anyone actually ASK about any of this; I just mention "Deebees" and they all laugh and we go on...

 

[SoulsFury]

At this point in my current campaign setting, the characters are the most powerful good guys. They have to use magic to improve the technology. At this point, the PCs aren't doing anything to improve the technology, so the technology isn't improving. If they ever intent on caring to improve the technology, then it will. There will not be any technology above common medieval age technology unless the PCs themselves invent it, or I need to invent it for a scenario, adventure or campaign I want to run.