Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="JohnSnow" data-source="post: 2928315" data-attributes="member: 32164">What's going on here is people raised in the 20th century looking at a D&D world and thinking "well, obviously, everyone growing up in this world would think BLANK."The problem is that we, not having grown up in such a fantasy world, have no idea what BLANK is. We can extrapolate. There appears to be two general approaches: let's call them Assumption A and Assumption B.Assumption A: Magic is basically regarded by the people in the world in the same way that most of us, raised in the 20th century as we were, regard technology. In other words: it's safe, reliable, and anyone can use it; it makes people's lives better, and so forth.Under this assumption, magic is (logically) treated and used as technology. Maybe if it's abused, society would punish those who abuse it, but we, as products of a society where technology is widely used (and non-sentient - more on that below) blame the abuser in those cases, and not the technology itself. This group assumes that this attitude would dominate a world infused with magic in the same way.Assumption B: Magic, for one reason or another, is not regarded in the same way that we, raised in the 20th century as we were, regard technology. This is usually because of a shift in one of the assumptions about the similarity between technology & magic. In other words, perhaps it's not safe, or not reliable, or not universally usable. Nobody denies it can make people's lives better, but it also clearly has the ability to make them worse.Under Assumption B, magic is treated as we, as humans raised in the 20th century, might treat any "dangerous" technology. Nuclear weapons, biotechnology, self-aware robots, and any other sci-fi nightmare you can come up with fall into this category. I made a point earlier about the X-Men theory, which, concepts of alienation aside, could easily emulate the attitude that might prevail about magic and those who could use it.The point is that neither of these assumptions is set in stone or more "correct" than the other. It seems to me that the more recent editions of D&D have emphasized assumption A to the exclusion of assumption B. And (and here's my original point) that the defaults of assumption A have been written into the rules.For the record, I appreciate Eberron (and Ptolus) for their attempts to render logical conclusions to fantasy worlds. I'm not sure I can long enjoy a game in those settings, but that's me. Also, I'll confess that I've never been fond of D&D's divine/arcane magic dichotomy. Of all the things in the game, it's the one I find to be the most "D&Dish" of all. Thanks to the d20/OGL thing, I no longer have to be content with that dichotomy (which I freely admit is not something that's "new" to D&D).The "Christmas Tree PC" thing is just something I wish was less "written in" to the Core Rules. Again, not something I can't change, I just wish it weren't so much a part of the game. And when I say "part of the game," here's what I mean. If you take away the character's juggling of their magical toys, the players have less "fun stuff" to do. Now, a game like Iron Heroes fixes that by giving the PCs more toys to have fun with, but those are ADDITIONS to the game.Basically, I'm asking why has so much of the game's "fun factor" been built around "magic management?" Is that what people want?</blockquote>

Verification