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<blockquote data-quote="Zaruthustran" data-source="post: 4796351" data-attributes="member: 1457">Short answer: no, D&amp;D is not about having power without responsibility.Long answer: each campaign is different / each campaign determines what, for those players, D&amp;D is &quot;about&quot;. Alone, D&amp;D is nothing more or less than a system for character creation, advancement, and determining success or failure (in combat and otherwise). Personal answer: in all my campaigns over a quarter century of playing D&amp;D, each campaign eventually dealt with the responsible use of power. At low character levels it was typically toppling an evil power, and at high levels it was about establishing good power. Original D&amp;D even had rules that assumed your character clears land and establishes a stronghold. I vividly recall hours upon hours of mapping out castles, spending the loot from a captured dragon's horde to hire soldiers and construct fortifications. The OD&amp;D rulebooks had tables for such things (of course), and as a gradeschooler my pals and I would spend recess coming up with monthly budgets for the construction, outfitting, and maintenance of these keeps on the borderlands. These days, the campaign I'm running is fundamentally about the responsibility of the players to use their great power wisely: the gods have been murdered by the Primordials, and it's up to the players to repopulate the pantheon before all of Creation is undone. They have to figure out a way to become gods and/or help other powerful entities ascend to godhood. In the words of an ancient dragon turtle with a city on his back: &quot;Even the most evil tyrant god is better than an absence of gods, for without gods there is no Creation.&quot;</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Zaruthustran, post: 4796351, member: 1457"] Short answer: no, D&D is not about having power without responsibility. Long answer: each campaign is different / each campaign determines what, for those players, D&D is "about". Alone, D&D is nothing more or less than a system for character creation, advancement, and determining success or failure (in combat and otherwise). Personal answer: in all my campaigns over a quarter century of playing D&D, each campaign eventually dealt with the responsible use of power. At low character levels it was typically toppling an evil power, and at high levels it was about establishing good power. Original D&D even had rules that assumed your character clears land and establishes a stronghold. I vividly recall hours upon hours of mapping out castles, spending the loot from a captured dragon's horde to hire soldiers and construct fortifications. The OD&D rulebooks had tables for such things (of course), and as a gradeschooler my pals and I would spend recess coming up with monthly budgets for the construction, outfitting, and maintenance of these keeps on the borderlands. These days, the campaign I'm running is fundamentally about the responsibility of the players to use their great power wisely: the gods have been murdered by the Primordials, and it's up to the players to repopulate the pantheon before all of Creation is undone. They have to figure out a way to become gods and/or help other powerful entities ascend to godhood. In the words of an ancient dragon turtle with a city on his back: "Even the most evil tyrant god is better than an absence of gods, for without gods there is no Creation." [/QUOTE]

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