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Message: <blockquote data-quote="drnuncheon" data-source="post: 919533" data-attributes="member: 96">Dragonblade"D&D assumes that the PC's operate at a level of mid to high magic but that the rest of the world operates at a mid to low magic level. "This is very perceptive, and I wanted to pick it out of the rest of your post to emphasize it, because it reminded me of some things.  You are indeed right, and I think that a lot of D&D players, writers, and DMs either forget this or have different images in their head of how it should be (since it's definitely not explicit).So why do PCs continually come into contact with other mid-high magic people?  They move in the same circles - the same reason celebrities come into contact with other celebs, gamers come into contact with other gamers, etc.However:"A world with monsters above CR 10 and PC's who can cast spells up to 9th level is no longer credible if the average NPC is a first level character."Sure it is - if that's what you set out to create, and you put enough thought into making it come out that way.  Maybe the powerful monsters are newly arrived (or sequestered in some way), maybe there's something about the setting that creates 'safe havens' for civilization, maybe the game is set in a more or less mundane world and you actually have to cross over into Faerie when you go adventuring.As for the PCs, well, if 1 or 2 people in an entire world can cast 9th level spells, the impact is going to be very different than if hundreds of people can.Ethan Skemp"But the fundamental difference between that line of thought and that of, well, folks like me who are unabashedly in favor of "restrictions" over "freedom," is that we don't see the loss of options as an overall loss. You get something back for what you're willing to exclude or restrict, which is why groups like mine tend to do that sort of thing. Precisely what you get as a trade-off for those extra options you're passing on is a matter of opinion, really; you could say "focus," or "accessibility," or whatever it is that you prize in a fantasy setting so much that you're willing to sacrifice the more excessive elements of fantasy to get it."Very well put, Ethan!  I took the liberty of emphasizing a bit that I wanted to talk about.See, really, there's really nothing different between the restrictions Ethan is talking about and the restrictions that SHARK and Dragonblade have on their game.  Wait - what restrictions?  Well, not having played it, I'm only guessing here, but from reading their posts I think I have some idea.  I doubt, for example, that someone could play a costumed superhero, a cowboy, or the commander of an Imperial Star Destroyer (with ship), even though all of these are possible in the d20 system.  Why?  Because those things don't fit the high-fantasy genre that SHARK and his group are playing.Really, it's the same with the people who are imposing restrictions:  they want to play a certain kind of game, so they are shaping the rules and the tools they use in order to get it.  It's all the same thing - carving away at the block of stone until you get the sculpture you want.J</blockquote>

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