Has D&D become too...D&Dish?

[dagger]

I still like 3rd edition, but we are giving up on D&D and going to a system that is easier to DM prep (and has faster combats). We had been playing 3rd since September 2000.

 

[Storm Raven]

Well, the elephant in the corner is exactly the same as D&D demographics. Those peasants don't choose PC classes for the same reason that those casters don't choose continual light or continual flame.

The peasants don't choose PC classes for the same reason that day laborers don't become doctors and lawyers. The same economic imperatives don't seem to hold for those who are already wizards and clerics when they choose their selection of spells.

 

[Hussar]

Well, the elephant in the corner is exactly the same as D&D demographics. Those peasants don't choose PC classes for the same reason that those casters don't choose continual light or continual flame.

No it is not. Peasants don't choose PC classes because the RAW says they don't.

The RAW however gives exact prices for casting Continual Flame. IIRC, the 1e DMG gave prices for casting Continual Light as well. I know that they did give pricing for many spells. Since the price is fixed by RAW, and the casters are allowed to choose those spells by RAW, then there is no RAW reason why they shouldn't cast for cash.

the point is that the RAW must be altered to circumstance if you are going to use real world examples and socio-politics or economics to "logically" determine anything about a world.

What changes to RAW do I need to make to allow casters to cast for cash?*

The RAW establish the price. The RAW establish the availability. The RAW establish potential buyers and even gives personal wealth guidelines for those buyers.

How am I deviating the slightest from RAW by using NPC casters to provide light sources or other low level services for a settlement?


*By cash I am including kind as well. Whether it be straight up money, or value in land, title or whatever. Some form of reward for services rendered.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

Heh, I do enjoy a civilized convo. LOL

I would point out though a couple of things. The spell pricelist in the PHB carries no such caveat, which is more what I've been talking about anyway. Permanent magic items isn't what I'm after. It's the effects of permanent low level spells. Also, the value of gold in DND is absolute. It becomes difficult to adjust for any sort of market factor when the value of the money never changes. Thirdly, the price for all equipment and spell components in the PHB are not subject to change either.

Even if magic items vary wildly in value, by RAW, none of the spells will. A country where pearls are very rare will simply use smaller pearls to power an Identify spell. After all, all I need is 100 gp in pearl. It says nothing about how big that pearl, or even the quality of that pearl.

Uhm...excuse me if I'm not going to copy the whole text, but may I direct you to the DMG (3.0) page 156, heading Supply and Demand in the Economics chapter? It's directly after the Demographics chapter that's quoted here all the time, so it shouldn't be hard to locate. To me, that describes, in a nutshell, how prices in a D&D campaign can and will change with the increase or decrease of gold and wares in any given area, and how non-cash concerns can influence availability and prices, and actually should. i dare say that can be extended to the gold value of permanent spells being cast, and magical components being available.

 

[JohnSnow]

I think the sky is falling. I'm finding myself agreeing with both Raven Crowking AND Hussar. First, Raven made a point very succinctly...

I'd rather that the designers of 3e set a lower magic level as the default, but I agree that this is easily modified. What having a high-magic default does, that I do not care for, is set an expectation of high-magic. Again, though, this is easily modified.

I guess that was the point I was trying to make in the first place. I too wish the designers had set the "default magic level" lower. As Raven says, it's easily modified, but it has to BE modified (and player expectations correspondingly adjusted). I also wish D&D didn't make such a big deal out of the arcane/divine magic thing, but that's another issue entirely (sort of).

To me, it's extemely difficult to ignore the elephant in the corner that is low level permanent magics. As was mentioned, these exist solely for metagame reasons. That's true. The only reason to have permanent light sources is to reduce the PITA factor of dungeon crawling. However, again, that reason doesn't have to be examined. We only have to worry about how it affects the setting, not why it's there in the first place.

That's an excellent point. Low level magics are a default result of the rules as written. But to me, and to RC, I think, the larger elephant in the corner is the reason to have a permanent light source - to reduce the PITA factor of dungeon crawling. When the spell was introduced, nobody thought about what its long-term implications on societies would be. They just wanted a way for dungeon crawling PCs to not have to renew their light spells every day. The implications of it came along much later.

So we have this enormous elephant that exists for metagame reasons. Since it's a metagame problem, the simplest solution is to metagame it dead by saying "Continual Flame" isn't permanent, just REALLY long-lasting. Long enough that it doesn't affect the PCs (who can cast it the day before any dungeon crawl they take and still have their lights work and a full complement of "spell slots"), but not permanent, meaning no continual flame streetlights. No mountains of continual flame rocks sitting around. Thus is the problem solved. Unfortunately some people think this is heavy-handed.

Perhaps that is what's tripping us up here. I'm not terribly concerned with the why. Why something is in the game world, or why that game world looks like it does doesn't really concern me. It's a given. However, my concern is given a particular starting point (RAW demographics ((LOL, typoed this as demongraphics))) how is that setting affected by the presence of cheap permanent spells?

But to some of us, WHY is important. If something exists for metagame reasons, it should have ingame logic too - "verisimilitude" as they say.

I agree with you that cheap, permanent spells would change a setting. They should, unless there's a good reason why they don't. So you can either a) change the setting, or b) provide the reason they don't change it.

What RC is getting at is, to a large extent, a reason for that based on human nature. That's not in the RAW...exactly. However, there is one line in the DMG that addresses it. It's in the sidebar about "How Real is your Fantasy?" and it says something like "people in D&D react as you would expect people to react - unless the DM says differently." So one of the default assumptions of the RAW is human beings who react like human beings do in the real world.

I think Gizmo33 makes a good point. The people of Rome certainly didn't think magic didn't work. They believed that it did and acted accordingly. Those leaders spending the equivalent of millions of dollars on a fingerbone of some dead important guy didn't do so because they thought it was a hoax. They acted as if magic worked. There are so many real world examples of societies that believe in magic and spend vast resources fueling that belief. Why should the provable existence of magic change that?

The question is raised of controlling those who cast spells. Churches work extremely well for this. Mage guilds are certainly a solid part of the genre. Both work pretty well in controlling magic. Dragonlance featured wizard police that killed unlicensed mages for example.

I do agree that there would be SOME sort of control placed over spell casters. They would not likely be allowed to operate in a power vacuum, at least, not for very long. Would this be state controlled? Possibly. But, then again, guilds work as a protection both for and against the state. As do churches. It is possible to have the numbers of spell casters as dictated by the RAW without having totalitarian states cutting out the tongues of everyone with magic abilities.

I agree on this. But...

The problem is that guilds need to be established in the first place. Religions need to be established. And before you can get social structures, human nature comes into play. Pretend that we don't have a D&D world that's thousands of years old, created with all its systems in place. Pretend it's a real, functional world that develops organically.

If nothing has changed, per the RAW, we have druids (and rangers) and sorcerers first. Druids get their power from nature itself, so no formalized religion is necessary. Similarly, sorcerer's magic is inherent, so they don't have to develop practices for accessing magic, they just CAN. Clerics, more or less, arrive when gods do. When the gods arrive is a campaign-specific question the RAW don't address. If they're eternal, they're right there with the druids and sorcerers. And every D&D campaign's a theocracy run by a deity. Assuming they have any interest in doing that. However, if you have less activist deities, then clerics are no more trustworthy than sorcerers. If the gods aren't eternal (or their power is determined by the number of worshipers they have, or whatever), things are a bit different. For now, let's assume less than active deities, or that clerics come later.

How does an early society treat these people? The obvious answer is as medicine men, shamans, or gods - similarly to what happened with wisemen in the real world. Now that's a reasonable assumption for a high-level spellcaster, but what about when he's low-level? Then, he's not terribly powerful compared to the fighter types. But as he gets more powerful, he either: a) becomes a threat or b) is smart enough to mind his P's and Q's and make himself somewhat useful to those with power.

Eventually, some spellcaster is going to get greedy and abuse his power. It's human nature. He's got power over others. So what happens then?

The society would either be dominated by spellcasters, or place strict controls on them. Since the society knows from experience it can't control spellcasters once they get powerful, most authorities would probably opt to control them when they were still controllable. That is, in D&D terms, "when they're low-level."

The point is...what happens when beings with special powers show up? At first, it's great. They can do nice things for you and everything is hunky-dory. But the first time they prove untrustworthy, people would probably have a hard time letting anyone practice magic. The potential for abuse is just too great. And the easiest way to handle that abuse is to prevent it from ever becoming a problem.

Which means offing not just high-level casters, but low-level ones too. So most spellcasters would be hiding in secret enclaves unless they ran the society. Or, they'd be keeping a low profile and only getting involved very lightly.

Like the X-Men, "good" aligned casters would probably work to prevent their "evil" or "selfish" counterparts from abusing those less powerful than them. And, for the most part, staying out of society so as not to be perceived as a threat themselves. They might provide a few marvels to keep the goodwill of the people, but they're probably not going to go overboard with this.

Of course, the preceding is really just my opinion. YMMV.

 

[Nightfall]

Okay there's one thing that I didn't say that needs to be said:

Hussar,

I was joking!

Thank you.

Scarred Lands rules!! Scarred Lands FOREVER!!!

Thank you.

 

[Hussar]

So we have this enormous elephant that exists for metagame reasons. Since it's a metagame problem, the simplest solution is to metagame it dead by saying "Continual Flame" isn't permanent, just REALLY long-lasting. Long enough that it doesn't affect the PCs (who can cast it the day before any dungeon crawl they take and still have their lights work and a full complement of "spell slots"), but not permanent, meaning no continual flame streetlights. No mountains of continual flame rocks sitting around. Thus is the problem solved. Unfortunately some people think this is heavy-handed.

Just a couple of points.

My point was, how do we view the implications of RAW upon a setting. Sure, you can change the RAW. That's always true. But, that still ignores the question. Heavy handed or not, it doesn't address the question at hand.

If nothing has changed, per the RAW, we have druids (and rangers) and sorcerers first. Druids get their power from nature itself, so no formalized religion is necessary. Similarly, sorcerer's magic is inherent, so they don't have to develop practices for accessing magic, they just CAN. Clerics, more or less, arrive when gods do. When the gods arrive is a campaign-specific question the RAW don't address. If they're eternal, they're right there with the druids and sorcerers. And every D&D campaign's a theocracy run by a deity. Assuming they have any interest in doing that. However, if you have less activist deities, then clerics are no more trustworthy than sorcerers. If the gods aren't eternal (or their power is determined by the number of worshipers they have, or whatever), things are a bit different. For now, let's assume less than active deities, or that clerics come later.

According to 3e RAW, clerics don't need gods. There is no reason that clerics cannot come about at the same time as druids and sorcs. The only one that "needs" training is wizards.

Heh, out of order, but,

I guess that was the point I was trying to make in the first place. I too wish the designers had set the "default magic level" lower. As Raven says, it's easily modified, but it has to BE modified (and player expectations correspondingly adjusted). I also wish D&D didn't make such a big deal out of the arcane/divine magic thing, but that's another issue entirely (sort of).

This is a base point that we disagree on. The demographics of the magic in DnD is hardly high magic. As was mentioned in another thread, Waterdeep, Pop 135 000 (a MASSIVE city), by RAW could have 1 18th level wizard. If you interpret RAW differently, it could at max have 5. This is the largest city in the whole world and it has 5 guys capable of 9th level magic.

The vast majority of cities don't come anywhere near this. For 99% of the population, low level clerics and wizards are all they could ever see. And low level spell casters just don't have enough magic oomph to make much difference.

But, even with very low numbers, over a long enough time span, those permanent continual lights add up.

Take a look back at the demographics section in the 3.5 DMG. You'll find that the magic level is far lower than you might expect. Someone mentioned around here about how his 2e campaign was so low magic that all a single 7th level character had was a +3 weapon and some potions. By 3.x rules, he couldn't even have that.

It isn't until the very high levels 14+ that you see the Christmas tree effect.

 

[Nightfall]

So...I'm in the clear?

 

[Hussar]

Of course. SL is the ONE TRUE SETTING TO RULE THEM ALLLLLLLLL!!!!! ahem... erm...

Still, I one of the things I liked about SL is how they tied the caster classes to the history of the setting. Monks exist because the Chardunni dwarves took away all the weapons. Sorcerers and Druids are tied to the titans. Wizards to the slarcians. Clerics to the gods. Gives each of them a reason to exist.

And, in various parts of the history, each of them had come to dominate before getting slapped down by another group.

 

[Nightfall]

Uhm actually that's psionics to the Slacerians. Wizards just decided to steal that from sorcerers.

But yeah each group had their moments. Just now it's Rangers and Paladins that are shining brightly.