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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dozen" data-source="post: 6078407" data-attributes="member: 6698275">Let's expand on this thought process. You and the contributors applied the stimuli(that is, magic for the common folk) to the D&D world without addressing one important variable. With all the powerful and benevolent spellcasters abound(among some just so happen to be gods) who are not envious bastards wanting to keep their knowledge to themselves out of spite, the question arises: Why didn't they think of it before? And the answer is that they did. Then realized it's a horrible idea and moved on, hoping their evil counterparts never notice they could ruin the world with charity. The repercussions wouldn't arrive in a few generations. We're talking months.Don't assume that applying magic instanty imporves life at large, because while in the real world it certainly would(and the equalient did), in the D&D cosmology there's still the issue of Good and Evil. That is, the constant divinely enforced conflict between the two. Here the majority of people can be described as Neutral, and leaving out the extreme alignments(LG, LE, CG, CE) from a survey would barely register as a margin of error. In our beloved fantasy setting, extremists, while still few in-between, are part of everyday life, and Evil outnumbers Good, say, 9 to 1?  I might be a little too generous here. The endless bickering of outsiders on the Lower Planes and the labile unity between the Upper ones are the only reasons Good as a concept hasn't been wiped out yet. The Usually Evil races keep pressure on the rest of the Primes, and the racism that arises from that along with the opposition between Law and Chaos weakens Good even further. Wars are fought between people who from an angel's point of view should by all acounts be friends. This is what keeps the Material Plane(s) from advancing economically. For thousands of years every world at large has been stagnating, and almost stuck at it's given level of technology. Now, by sharing the knowledge of magic with the masses... you make everything worse. Why? Right now, not everyone's part of the fight. Oh, almost every Good person is, for sure, since they are the single most meddling force ever to enter the multiverse, but a lot of evil and neutral people stay away from this pointless war of philosophies only because they are poor or lack the guts - they stay at home and make sure the handful of people they care about doesn't starve rather than engage in a conflict they cannot win. They are partially the reason genocide of always evil races is misguided; these guys don't even have a chance to act vile, willingness be damned. But add common, if low level magic to the equation, and next to everybody with enough mettle and a single positive mental stat jumps into the fray on their own accord. Add some tyrants who enforces military service, and this number rises higher. For every creature that joins the war effort on behalf of the heavens, there will be hundreds to stand in line on the other side. If Good doesn't fall in a few weeks, their lives will still be comparably worse than before, and the cantrips they can now cast won't change that. Every spell and magic item they have will be used for self defense more often than not.  In the end, the only people who deserved your help in the first place got royally screwed over, and evil people aren't much better off, as they can't leave each other alone for sh*t.So we need to do something to prevent this from happening, possibly before the original plan starts. And that's... well, I have no idea. Thoughts?</blockquote>

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