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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Silveras" data-source="post: 1592303" data-attributes="member: 6271">As BiggusGeekus suggested, the answer is sometimes to Homebrew. I run a homebrew world. Henry is also partially right; magic does make adventure locales more common. Another part of the answer, too, though is to think about what effects magic has on society. D&D magic is a form of technology ( in that results are reliable and repeatable: any caster of 10th+ level casting a Maximized fireball gets the same result every time); as such, it would have an effect on society much like technology has had on the real world. The ready availability of such "technology" would transform society away from the medieval model most games pre-suppose. Therefore, if the society is mostly medieval, the "technology" cannot be that common. In a medieval world, settlements spring up along trade routes and waterways. There are often large swaths of relatively-uninhabited land in between. Most citizens don't travel. At all. They stay within sight of their homes, where it is relatively safe. A few go into the wilds to hunt, but someone disappearing while out hunting is not an uncommon occurrence. There might be some murmuring, but no one is going to automatically jump to the conclusion that "There must be a dungeon out there !". At least, no one who is thinking clearly. After a few, the village might decide there is a problem that needs to be addressed, but the first few might be dismissed as natural accidents, then coincidence. Until there were "too many in too short a time", people would not take much notice. Similarly, a local "haunted house" is just that: local. Just because villagers from X believe the old hill fort is haunted doesn't mean it is. It also doesn't mean that villagers from further up- or down- river know about it. Sometimes people believed that talking about "ill-fated things" would get their attention. Maybe the villagers were ashamed of having such a place linked to them, so they refused to discuss it. Now, it is barely a memory. There are lots of reasons why dungeon sites can be undiscovered up to the present. Now, as to demographics... well, that one is harder. The DM must decide how many "other" adventuring bands there are, and that will affect a lot. If there are many competing bands, the PCs should probably meet at least one right away, and maybe lose the race to a new dungeon site once in a while. If there are not many, it becomes easier to explain why places are still untouched, but it should also result in the PCs have to choose between two missions on occasion. When I run an adventure into previously-unknown ruins, the result is often that the ruins become known. The king puts a garrison in the fort, or it is razed, or at least guards are set to watch the place. I like to apply "reasonable consequences" to actions in my world. The same is true, I would expect, for long-running Greyhawk and FR campaigns.</blockquote>

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