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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 2924619" data-attributes="member: 22779">And that's precisely my point.  DnD magic IS controlled by humans.  Quite literally.  It always has been as well.  The players and the DM have always been able to control magic in the game.  To me it breaks suspension of disbelief to think that the PC's are THAT different from the mindset of NPC's.  Yes, a 12th level wizard is going to think differently than a 1st level commoner.  I do realize that, so please, no pedantry.  However, I find it difficult to believe that a 12th level PC wizard has a vastly different approach to the world than a 12th level NPC wizard.  But, there is a way to allow people to create the streetlamps and not over run the world.  It's called the demographics system in the DMG.  By those rules, about 95% of the population is NPC classes.  Most of the rest are not true spell casters (I'm not counting rangers and paladins as spell casters) and the vast majority of all of them are 1-3rd level.  Again, assuming a fairly standard population distribution, you don't have to worry about wizards running amok charming people.  There simply aren't enough of them to have such a huge impact with such short duration spells.  However, the existence of permanent duration, low level spells should have an impact on the setting.Or, to put it in a real world perspective.  We allow people the capability to kill thousands every day.  It's called military training.  A single loaded F-18 could do massive damage to a city should the pilot choose to do so.  Yet, we frequently allow such people to fly loaded airplanes within our own national airspace on training missions.  And that's just a single example.  And, yes, I see it as a maturation to examine a genre rather than simply sweeping it under the carpet.  At the beginning of DnD we had illogical dungeons with no ecology.  The Keep on the Borderland, as much as I love this module, makes about as much sense as a rubber hammer.  Groups of humanoids living together in peace and harmony despite the fact that they are all chaotic and hate each other.  Thus, later adventures included nods towards an ecology (certainly not a truly realistic one, but a nod nonetheless), and a nod towards actually thinking about why these various creatures live together.  Compare KotB with Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil and its vast store rooms and the like.  Or even the Slave Lords modules where it is explained why the Aspis are living where they are.</blockquote>

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