[D&D history/development] I wonder why...

[Awakened]

We don't have firearms because the universe/gods don't let us or the materials aren't there. OK.

But ....

We have dwarves who can make an adamantite sword cut through volcanoes but they can't muster up the metallurgy to make a decent steam engine railroad.

Well said. My campaign has rare and limited firearms for exactly that reason

It is more important to a city to magic up a +2 longsword than it is to feed thousands of people. This applies even to lawful good areas.

Only if you DM it that way. What do you define as the status quo? How much does the average commoner make? DO your LG cities power up swords instead of feeding people when there is literal starvation? They're all your decisions to make. If that's the route you take, that's a pretty dark (albeit) intriguing world view.

Hmm... a world where LG isn't even all that good...

This brings me to my gripe. Why do NPCs make 1 sp a day? That's totally crazy, when your 1st level expert shopkeeper gets heaps of coins from random adventurers and the adventurers themselves could literally buy their lives as if it were nothing? The economics of D&D have always been a major debate point, looking at inflation, poverty, etc.
My upcoming game'll have to house rule in a more acceptable income for NPCs.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

The problem there, though, is that "conquering" and "enslaving" are perfectly viable goals for chaotic evil, as well as lawful (or neutral).

And spreading Destruction and Death for lawful evil. I think we should debate about Talos not being LE

 

[Kae'Yoss]

We don't have firearms because the universe/gods don't let us or the materials aren't there. OK.

Not OK. There are firearms. But they're only now emerging, and certain individuals want to keep a lid on them for various reasons.

It's not that much different from our world, where some areas of knowledge/research made more progress in the last 20 years than in the 2000 years before that.

We can build roads, but not dig a trench for canals.

*COUGH**COUGH*watercoursetrilogy*COUGH**COUGH*

We have gods of healing and knowledge, but they never get together to work on germ theory.

What germ theory? There is no germ theory. Diseases are manifestations of the deity of disease's power. Everyone knows that. In order to cure someone, you use divine magic. Instantaneous healing.

We have the ability to cut 10,000gp crystals and minerals, but we don't have the optics to make a decent magnifying glass to look at cells.

We need no glass to look at cells. Just go to the next dungeon. It has cells. What else are you referring to? That everything is made up of tiny little things like some madmen from a different world is raving about?

It is more important to a city to magic up a +2 longsword than it is to feed thousands of people. This applies even to lawful good areas.

It is more important to a nation to fly to the moon, or to build the highest building mankind ever made, or create race cars that are even faster than those we had before just for some pilots to drive around in circles with them, than it is to feed millions of people.

Are we still complaining that roleplaying is unrealistic or are we now complaining that it's realistic?

People worship evil gods and commit evil deeds knowing that there exists a literal hell.

Yeah, because after they die, they go to those evil gods' domains to be rewarded for their misdeeds! Just like the good goods reward their faithful for their deeds.

yet almost every lawful good church in D&D has at least one person, if not a sub-organization, that operates with malignant motivations.

Some don't think that they're malignant, they're doing the gods' work. Others work for those evil gods to undermine their good counterparts. Others are just humans, who can be real pricks, and nothing short of total mind control (by the gods or by someone or -thing else) will change that.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

It is more important to a nation to fly to the moon, or to build the highest building mankind ever made, or create race cars that are even faster than those we had before just for some pilots to drive around in circles with them, than it is to feed millions of people.

The difference being that in D&D you only have to make the food item once. And that's staying well within the thread's restriction on game lore rather than game mechanics.

Sure we can talk about a dozen rationalizations for all of this. But given the lore for most settings, we're generally talking about sophisticated cultures that are thousands of years old and they never so much as wonder why a crystal refracts light. Nobody thinks of these things? Ever?

Yeah, sure. "It's just a game and it's magic." I get that. It isn't like I sit in front of WotC's offices and hold demonstrations against this stuff (often) but it does jump out at me from time to time.

 

[Scribble]

D&D is very Taoist.

It's like a circle.

Individually each dragon may be chaotic. But if you add them together, they are like a circle. They go around the circle back to law.

Now we must meditate.

 

[freyar]

There are a lot of things like the gorgon; I spotted a few while reading through Edith Hamilton's Mythology recently:

Erinyes are the Furies, not warriors descended from fallen angels. They're probably more like the inevitables in function (wikipedia entry)

As in D&D, larvae and lemures are evil souls, but manes are actually good souls.

That's just what I remember immediately...

 

[ephemeron]

The next to last issue of the Strategic Review (Fec '76) has the article "The Meaning of Law and Chaos in Dungeons & Dragons and Their Relationships to Good & Evil" by Gary. It has what is probably the first 2 axis alignment chart. It is the earliest reference I can see to Tiamat being CE.

Interesting -- that chart has good liches as well as evil. Vampires are solidly LE on it, but by the 1E MM they were CE, and they've stayed that way since. Meanwhile, orcs were CE in 1976, then spent the 1e and 2e days as LE, before returning to chaos in 2000.

Lots of little changes.

 

[Glyfair]

Interesting -- that chart has good liches as well as evil. Vampires are solidly LE on it, but by the 1E MM they were CE, and they've stayed that way since. Meanwhile, orcs were CE in 1976, then spent the 1e and 2e days as LE, before returning to chaos in 2000.

Lots of little changes.

Reading your quote of me, I realized I made a typo. The "chromatic dragons" were LE (which I fixed).

 

[gizmo33]

Why do NPCs make 1 sp a day? That's totally crazy, when your 1st level expert shopkeeper gets heaps of coins from random adventurers and the adventurers themselves could literally buy their lives as if it were nothing?

NPC laborers make a base of 1 sp, the skilled craftsmen actually make more (according to the chart in the DMG). That being said, a skilled craftman would make FAR more if he used the Craft skill rules rather than wage numbers in the DMG - the craft skill rules and DMG values are completely inconsistent. But AFAICT those Craft skill rules are the limit on NPC earnings because a 9,000 gp diamond necklace would cost 3,000 gp in basic materials and take around 5 years to make.

To buy someone's life? Over the course of a laborer's lifetime (let's be optimistic at 30 years) he can expect to make around 1095 gp. But can you imagine buying someone's life at the cost of the lifetime earnings of someone making minimum wage? I can't. So by comparison I would say maybe 10 times as much, which is not small change for even high level characters (given the wealth-by-level charts and assuming PCs would have most of that wealth tied up in magic items).

To hire for important positions, like maid in a castle, I also think that paying 1 sp/day would stick you with a lot of troublemakers and people that just don't show up one day. Someone who is wealthy and status oriented would most likely pay more for a maid, including costs for decent clothes. If your servants are ugly, ill-mannered, or poorly dressed it reflects badly on you.

And if you want to take your henchman on the road with you he'll cost you at least 12 gp/month in poor accomodations - which makes it likely that he'll run off with the local castle maid at some point if he sees an opportunity to steal your saddlebags.

I really think the DnD economic rules are incomplete more than inconsistent. I think most/all of us really just don't understand the value of a gold piece in the game world. Maybe look at it this way - over $10/hour as a wage would mean 1 sp = $100 roughly in modern terms (I would say far less because of wealth disparities, but that aside...). So a high level adventurer with 150,000 gp in wealth is like someone with 15 million dollars in modern terms - that's really rich, but not a god-like amount of wealth.

 

[WayneLigon]

I've always wondered what they were thinking with the look of the troll. Never have liked it. There should be tusks, and thick huge claws. And clothing.

The early obsession with accurate mapping always amused me.

The gold peice standard. From one side I can understand it's simplicity, and in tales one never hears about 'chests of shining silver' but still.

The whole Great Wheel concept.