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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6021235" data-attributes="member: 4937">NATO doesn't have either stealth bombers or a GPS.  Only the soviets/russians have an equivalent satellite navigation system in place, and no one but the USA has stealth bombers.  Stealth bombers pick out the USA as distinctly as supercavitating torpedos would identify the Russians.  And NATO is a defensive alliance, and there haven't been very many actions undertaken under NATO command and none of them can be remotely construed as trying hard to take over the world.  No I think I'm not wrong in hearing the usual reflexive anti-Americanism that some people throw out because they've never heard anyone say any different.Anyway, moving on to topics actually on topic...I agree, but if and only if those human failings tend to lead them as you put it to "apathy".  In other words, you can have high level NPC's in your campaign world and it not impinge on protagonist status of the PC's, provided that there are clear in world reasons why those high level NPC's remain uninvolved and as much as possible off stage.  This could be apathy, self-imposed nuetrality, weaknesses that the NPC doesn't wish to reveal, or private projects that consume all of the NPC's time.  General human characteristics - pride, envy, greed, a sense of duty, fanaticism, etc. - don't all lead to uninvolvement, so its not enough to postulate that humanity itself is a barrier to the desire to either rule or control or protect the whole world.The problem you get into is when you have NPC's that are DM pets or DM PC's, where the DM just wants to show off how great and spectacularly awesome his NPC's are.  Then you have a situation where the NPC assumes protagonist status, and the PC is reduced to sidekick or observer.  And that's not good for the game.  Or even if you don't actually have the NPC on stage, if you put them in the setting and give them the motivation to be an active force for good (or evil) then the question becomes, why aren't they here already?My homebrew world's backstory provides the in game explanation as to why high level wizards are less involved in the world.  Early in the world's history, an empire ruled by wizards tried to make war on the gods - which forced a temporary alliance of all the gods and led to a magical apocalypse called the Iconoclasm.  Since that time, Wizards have been on a fairly short leash - nobody wants to see the world almost destroyed again - and Wizards of great power tend to keep their heads down for fear of attracting divine intervention.  A Wizard with the goal of world domination and the means to accomplish it would almost certainly end up with his head on a divinely ordained metaphorical (or not) chopping block.  So while there are a couple of wizards that are in and of themselves as mighty as nations, they tend to be very very reclusive and circumspect in their dealings.  There is a lot more, "No body sees the Great and Powerful Oz!!!", than Wizards ruling the world.</blockquote>

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