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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Desdichado" data-source="post: 651972" data-attributes="member: 2205">Howdy, SHARK!  Good to have you back.  Unfortunately, by the time I got around to this thread, it's already gotten bigger than I can digest, so I'll fundamentally just address your initial post rather than the thread as a whole.I think that you underestimate the extent to which taste falls into play here, perhaps somewhat misattributing trepidation about the mechanics with trepidation about how much the "epic" level play is enjoyable.  Personally, I like low-magic, gritty, lower-level, pseudo-historical-feeling games.  I find my sweet spot as both player and GM is around levels 3-8 or so.  Below that is almost too fragile and too limited, above that is too high in relation to the lower levels to make sense to me.But both of us have recognized a substantial dichotomy between what the rules naturally lead to and what the "standard" campaign setting looks like.  But we have very different approaches.  While you rework all the setting assumptions to be based on the rules, I rework the rules to fit the setting assumptions I want.  It's a matter of which comes first, setting or system?  Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems you have designed a setting that fits the system like a glove and works much better than printed settings with the assumptions that the rules tacitly imply.The settings I work on (and will hopefully be running again soon!) do the opposite -- I assume the low level characters (relatively speaking) are the norm.  I change classes away from what the PHB has printed to something much more similar to what d20 Wheel of Time, or d20 Modern has done.  I artificially and arbitrarily level when it feels right, ignoring XP.  I create all new magic systems that work with my setting assumptions, rather than creating settings that work with the magic systems assumptions.  I bend the rules on the fly, allowing, say, experts with very high ranks in a Profession (x) or Craft (x) etc. skill without having the hit dice to compensate for them (although only on occasion -- those are typically only the true master craftsmen/experts.)Both of us are unwilling to simply hand-wave away the fact that the systems and the setting assumptions don't really match up, we go to rather extensive steps to force them to match.  However, we have emplyed completely opposite strategies to do so, most likely as an element of taste.  Most folks, I believe, don't do so, and therefore find the rules for high level play to not quite fit, to not make sense, to be difficult to wrap their heads around.  Whereas you've embraced those rules, and tailored your setting to work with those rules, I've changed the rules and kept the setting on somewhat more familiar territory (if not actually much grittier and darker territory -- I think my campaign settings have more in common with WHFRP or a fantasy version of Call of Cthulhu than D&D in some ways, even though I use a completely d20 ruleset.)But I think we both recognize that doing one or the other really is the only way to go to demand a certain level of "realism" from our campaigns.</blockquote>

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