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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bendris Noulg" data-source="post: 1264254" data-attributes="member: 6398">Denial is such an ugly word, and definately out of context.  For instance, if I ran a game where the PCs had approximately 1/4 of the standard amount of gold and magic but presented NPCs better decked out (i.e., with their standard amount of gold and magic) and presented monsters within the game at their as-published CR even though the characters are going to be greatly challenged to the point of a PC slaughter-fest, then I am creating a condition of denial; "I have denied the characters what they need to succeed."Rather, this is a matter of removing the necessity of so much magic and thus reducing the desire for it; no sense of being denied magic is felt by the players as the game being played continues to be fair, fun, and challenging without it.Not really.  Each of the earlier editions of the game often used fictional and historical figures to better describe the purpose of various mechanics.  All 3E has done is drop the examples and pushed the power-level to nearly obscene levels, such that it barely resembles the sword-and-sorcery genre anymore.Actually, I find the D&D movie to be lacking in a number of things...  Namely, D&D.I'm not saying that slay-and-acquire isn't the "most basic premise" of D&D; What I'm saying is that institutionalizing what "default" D&D is, slapping a catch-phrase like "balance" onto it, and then using it to justify itself is flawed.It is interesting to note that the examples of Epic characters given at the beginning of the Epic Level Handbook were, themselves, not so Epic in D&D terms.  Heck, it mentions Conan, and this is a guy that, quite often, was usually reduced to nothing but a loin clothe and a sword.And sometimes not even these... <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> Ah, yes...  But look at the context in which these things are presented within the story.  Each one of these elements is a mystical, wondrous, fantastical thing that, due to the Elves withdrawal from the world, are becoming rarer and rarer.  Some day, in fact, these things will be no more in the land of mortals.  So, yes, these items are there in the story, but it certainly doesn't have any comparison to the blase manner in which magic items and character power is treated in 3E.Afraid I didn't see that part, I'm afraid.  Will have to borrow it again from my neighbors (just got a replacement DVD player, so I don't have all those skips, bumps and stall-outs anymore).</blockquote>

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