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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Doug McCrae" data-source="post: 5905308" data-attributes="member: 21169">For a lot of people D&D is pretty much the benchmark for lack of this feature, though I agree with James that Gary is more concerned with naturalism in 1e than OD&D. The OD&D mega-dungeon is a very non-naturalistic, gamist-play supporting, and game-y, construct. Why are all these disparate groups of monsters living so close together? How do they live? What do they do? Why do dungeons exist? Why do the monsters get more powerful the deeper one goes? In a way the mega-dungeon is OD&D's equivalent of a dissociated mechanic, its martial daily or action point.D&D compares very unfavourably with RuneQuest, in which there really aren't any monsters, just NPCs. RuneQuest is very concerned with the daily lives, culture, and particularly the religion, of 'enemy races'. You'd never get a mega-dungeon in RuneQuest.AD&D's wilderness encounter tables could be seen as simulationist, while its dungeon encounter tables are gamist. In the wilderness, the type of monster the PCs encounter is determined entirely by terrain type, with the power level being totally variable. In the tropics they might meet a jaguar, or a roc. Whereas in the dungeon, monster power is determined by dungeon level. It's impossible to meet Demogorgon on level one.</blockquote>