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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Man in the Funny Hat" data-source="post: 5615457" data-attributes="member: 32740">Logic fails in a world where logic is the first thing that is disregarded in order for the world to even exist.  Why don't dragons and giants or some other of the most powerful monsters control the lions share of power and wealth?   Not only is this not historically true it's not currently true.  Anywhere that an armed revolution can or does occur disproves this.  Anywhere that a military commander can conceivably side against his own government and even assume power himself through the use of the troops and weapons under his authority disproves this. Governements attempt to exercise control over the ability to exert force to safeguard its own citizens from force, or to safeguard ITSELF from force.  Failure to control non-governmental force, either willingly or not, is not abdication of power though it clearly does affect the governments ability to securely perpetuate itself. As noted by others, modern governements can and do allow private citizens to own tanks and all manner of other military hardware, especially small arms.  As far as high level casters are concerned it is VASTLY easier for a government to exert control over what citizens have access to than to control WHAT THEY ARE.  In any land where the government attempts to limit the movements and abilities of spellcasters you're likely to get an immediate movement by spellcasters to counter it.  Even if spellcasters are generally WILLING to accept government limitations there will ALWAYS be those who simply defy the government.  These people are typically labeled criminals whether they actually are or not. Only that the blanket initial assumptions here are simply incorrect.  The inherent INability of governments to establish and maintain a control over the use of force leads to interesting political situations both in the real world and with D&D governments.  The 20th century is packed with cases of totalitarian, despotic governements being toppled, not one of which abdicated its supposed monopoly on force.  If anything the more they tightened their grip the more power slipped through their fingers. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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