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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Benjamin Olson" data-source="post: 8780555" data-attributes="member: 6988941">I think the reason D&D settings don't grasp with this is as a holdover of the early days of the game when arcane magic was exclusive to a handful of members of a single, wizardy "magic-user" class.I think the traditional implied explanation of most fantasy settings and early D&D is that the high level spellcaster is basically some variation on a Wizard, an extraordinarily rare person and one usually geared towards scholarly pursuits or some other quest for esoteric knowledge. What interest does such a one have in everyday affairs of politics or economics? Their magic can give them a lifestyle to rival any prince and power over normal people would require conversing with normal people which is just a tedious affair for someone who spends their time thinking on big-brain wizard matters. Surely such a person could carve out an empire if they wanted to, but there are only a handful of such people in the world and only occasionally does one become perversely interested in wasting their time lording it over the non-magical community. Despite what Tears for Fears might claim, not everybody wants to rule the world.This explanation holds reasonably well for many fantasy settings. It does not hold up at all for contemporary D&D settings where people with a smattering of magic are legion, and there are many paths to magic that don't involve being a huge nerd who probably can't relate to normal humans and just wants to be left alone. In a world with only a dozen great wizards it makes sense that none of them have deigned to try to take over. In a world where every wealthy family probably ships one of their children off to wizarding school it makes far less sense that none of these half interested students have worldly ambitions. And looking beyond that traditional "wizard" figure, D&D now has high magic being wielded by Sorcerers who just had magic thrust upon them, Bards who started down the magic path in part just to make a living, and Warlocks who, by definition, are people whose magical ambitions exceeded their commitment to studying. The lack of worldly ambition by any of these does require some actual worldbuilding to explain.</blockquote>

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