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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 6187407" data-attributes="member: 6696971">The logical response for him to support his argument would be: "Ok, so the only thing keeping the powerful wizards in check are more wizards?  I thought wizards weren't pervasive?"  However, that position (and the position he is taking in general here) completely misses the point.  The question is about pervasiveness of arcane knowledge amongst the popular culture...one of trickledown from Wizards/cabals to popular culture and the synthesis/assimilation thereof.  I've addressed this exact (erroneous) premise before.  You can have extremely powerful Wizards (or wizard cabals) running empires, keeping each other in check, while the layfolk and nobility have little to no common sense, common understanding of practical knowledge of arcana.  Consider the current information age where all you could want to know about an infinite number of subjects is a point and click away, a library card away, etc.  Even in this era of unbridled access to erudition, the ignorance of the common man is extraordinary on logistics and infrastructure subjects that they interface with in their daily lives (home plumbing or appliance service/maintenance, vehicle maintenance, insurance - home/medical, finances)...information that would be paramount in improving their lives.  Ask them about not so esoteric history questions and it gets even worse.  The U.S. of A is basically a litigatocracy (made up word - run by litigators) at this point.  They are your Wizards and your Wizard cabals.  How many common folk, in the information era, have any chops worth mentioning on the nuances of insurance law, I.P. law, civil law?  That is in the information age, with lawyers everywhere, in the most litigious society in the history of the world.Most of this comes down to setting presumptions at this point which are more than useless to even discuss.  I mean, I don't consider much of what has been discussed as built-in world building assumptions that mandate anything in particular...certainly not something as specific as "thriving, active, advertised magic marketplace as 7:11 in most steadings, cities, what-have-you.  I consider most of it functional metagame information to facilitate the architecture of the spell-casting system.  In whatever way you can make the fictional positioning of your specific campaign map to that architecture so that your play works out the way you want it to, bully for you; eg if there is a wizard cabal in a secret tower in the middle of so-and-so land, this is the likely cost they will charge you for creating an infertility potion so your mistress doesn't get pregnant, etc.  You can have magic as an absurdly rare, obscure thing that has absolutely 0 popular culture ramifications and have things like "wealth by level" and "NPC cost to make this thing/cast this spell" guidelines.  I really can't get my head around the logic that asserts NONONO THOSE WORDS MANDATE TAVERN-GOERS ON THEIR FACEBOOK MAGIC SITES ON THEIR MAGICTOPS WITH MAGIC-FI AFTER A TRIP DOWN TO THE LOCAL MAGICSTORE FOR THE NEWEST IMAGIC.  I really don't get it.</blockquote>

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