D&D 5E DM's: How Do You Justify NPC's Having Magic/Abilities That Don't Exist in the PHB?

[Micah Sweet]

Sorry? Where did I say pretending? I just read my post twice and I don't see the word pretending anywhere. But, it's early and I haven't had coffee yet.

My point is that there is absolutely no upside for WotC in this. If they come forward with any sort of explanation, it will never be good enough and will simply spark off endless comments that they are lacking in creativity and why can't they be more like Insert Favorite RPG Company Here Additionally, anything that they do say will become engraved on stone tablets, never, ever to be changed for all time, lest the hordes of canon police descend like locusts. Doesn't matter how trivial or minor, no lore must ever be changed or revised, regardless of how good or bad the lore is.

I cannot blame any RPG company for punting on this. There is just no way to win here. Far better to leave it up to individual tables and just wash their hands of it entirely.

They could say they are leaving it to individual tables. But I suppose that's taking a stand as well.

 

[Hussar]

They could say they are leaving it to individual tables. But I suppose that's taking a stand as well.

They HAVE told you. Repeatedly. It's repeatedly stated in the DMG that the DM is SUPPOSED to do this. That filling in the blanks is your job as campaign creator. Over and over and over they've repeatedly told you this. Expressly.

That you choose to ignore that is your fault.

 

[Micah Sweet]

They HAVE told you. Repeatedly. It's repeatedly stated in the DMG that the DM is SUPPOSED to do this. That filling in the blanks is your job as campaign creator. Over and over and over they've repeatedly told you this. Expressly.

That you choose to ignore that is your fault.

Fair enough. But you can't deny that the "blanks" have been getting bigger...

 

[Hussar]

Fair enough. But you can't deny that the "blanks" have been getting bigger...

I've been ignoring D&D lore since 1982. I've always made my own lore, borrowed from whatever sources I fancied at the time. My current planned campaign (although this one might not be getting off the ground) had the world as a living goddess and dungeons were sentient cancers. The party travels around on a giant walking dinosaur thing with a village on its back, eating the hearts of these dungeons to cure the cancers. All living creatures with sentience are actually creations of the cancers who have been freed when a dungeon was destroyed. There are no "races" in my world. Only those born in the forges in the Dungeons.

This is about as far from a bog standard D&D world as I can make it and i'm loving it. So why on earth would i want, need or even remotely look for WotC to fill in any blanks?

I've almost never run a game in a WotC world until 5e really. And even then it's because I've been running the WotC adventure paths.

I cannot believe that people who champion home-brew worlds and creating their own campaigns and own campaign worlds actually want WotC to dictate lore to them. Doesn't it get in your way?

 

[Vaalingrade]

Going over this thread, some of you make D&D far more complicated than it needs to be.

I believe that was the tagline on the cover of 3e, where this whole thing comes from.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I've been ignoring D&D lore since 1982. I've always made my own lore, borrowed from whatever sources I fancied at the time. My current planned campaign (although this one might not be getting off the ground) had the world as a living goddess and dungeons were sentient cancers. The party travels around on a giant walking dinosaur thing with a village on its back, eating the hearts of these dungeons to cure the cancers. All living creatures with sentience are actually creations of the cancers who have been freed when a dungeon was destroyed. There are no "races" in my world. Only those born in the forges in the Dungeons.

This is about as far from a bog standard D&D world as I can make it and i'm loving it. So why on earth would i want, need or even remotely look for WotC to fill in any blanks?

I've almost never run a game in a WotC world until 5e really. And even then it's because I've been running the WotC adventure paths.

I cannot believe that people who champion home-brew worlds and creating their own campaigns and own campaign worlds actually want WotC to dictate lore to them. Doesn't it get in your way?

Different worlds, different stories. Cool campaign settings other people make don't impact cool campaign setting I make.

I do wonder why this matters to you at all if you don't care about D&D lore.

 

[pemerton]

Because this is D&D, and magic mostly doesn't work that way. 4th ed in particular doesn't work that way mechanically in my experience. I mention that because I know you're a 4e enthusiast, and my experience there is that magic was almost exactly the opposite of  magical.

My 4e game play has involved plenty of strange phenomena, improvised rituals, and NPCs performing magical tricks that the PCs hadn't encountered before. More-or-less the opposite of what @Lanefan is advocating and what (I think) you are advocating.

 

[Reynard]

It is, I'm afraid. Consider a trainee Fighter talking with a grizzled veteran of many adventures:

Neophyte: "I wanna be like you someday: fast, accurate, tough, all that. How'd you get so good?"
Veteran: "Well, I did a lot of training and practice here, just like you've been doing; and then I put in a lot of blood and pain and sweat in the field. It's sad, you know, but it really is true: the more fights you win, the easier it gets to win them. It's just a different form of practice, only quite a bit more dangerous."

Sure but this has nothing to do with the fighter class. This could be a ranger mentor talking to a paladin neophyte. This is absolutely not an example of the bleed between mechanics and story, except possibly, if you are bing generous, a vague nod toward the idea of XP.

 

[Micah Sweet]

My 4e game play has involved plenty of strange phenomena, improvised rituals, and NPCs performing magical tricks that the PCs hadn't encountered before. More-or-less the opposite of what @Lanefan is advocating and what (I think) you are advocating.

Did you homebrew mechanics for those things?

 

[Jack Daniel]

I literally have zero idea what classes exist in a setting when the campaign starts because classes are not a thing in the game world. They have zero to do with world building as far as I'm concerned.

Well that's certainly a take.

For the sake of argument: if I make a world with no arcane magic, then there simply won't be any wizard PCs or NPCs in that world. So the diegetic relevance of classes to worldbuilding is at least demonstrably nonzero.