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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Imaro" data-source="post: 4493560" data-attributes="member: 48965">Uhm...you seem to be making an assumption that may be true for you but there is no reason that a tiny fraction of the fantastic will be overwhelmed by the real world. I mean honestly, how have games like the nWoD, Call of Cthulthu, Unknown Armies, etc. survived. Their setting is mostly the real world with a smattering of (usually hidden) supernatural elements. No gonzo, all over the place, fantastical...yet I don't think the inherent fantasy in these games is overwhelmed by the mundane.    Again back to the "good" DM'ing, "bad" DM'ing thing. Who asserted that the amount of fantastic elements in any way affected how easy or hard a game is to run? I think what people are arguing is that D&D 4e doesn't give enough of the mundane for those DM's who do run campaigns that utilize it extensively. In other words there isn't enough balance...wahoo has been catered to and continues to be catered to in 4e while the elements one might find in Sword & Sorcery are really lacking.   Uhm...yes. In general it is because I don't generally run wahoo games. If you're fighting a monster in one of my games, it is usually a singular being, the last of it's kind, a mutation, a creation of an earlier age, something summoned, etc. I tend to take inspiration from Lankhmar, The Elric Saga, Corum, Hawkmoon, etc.  I don't run the type of game where you fight an encounter with a chimera, 2 young dragons and an illithid...then 10 minutes later you run into a beholder, 4 vampires, and 2 liches...that's just not my style. Now cultist, trained animals, degenerate men, assasins, enforcers, warrior agents of deities, barbaric clans, corrupt rulers, wild animals,etc. are the "common" adversaries of my games.   Good for you and I am not advocating...not using NPC's because they have been used before (that's just silly). What I am advocating is that IMO, some creatures can be more than just another NPC by using rarity as a tool. Let's take dragons... In one game there may be 5 dragons total, ancient beings imprisoned when the world was made by the Old gods because they were a force that could challenge the Old god's power. Since their imprisonment only a few individuals have ever located and found their prisons, and most believe they are pure myth. Yet it is rumored they have knowledge beyond compare and can answer any question. In another game, every town has a dragon scholar in it, that can answer questions for the right price or if you perform a task for them. They were defeated by the Kimorra empire and thus charged with providing it's citizens with their ancient knowledge.  I'm sorry but the rarity in the first example contributes to setting a certain feel in your game world, while the common nature in the below example creates a totally different feel, even though they're both examples of dragons.     Ok, but what exactly are you arguing as far as more mundane vs. more fantastical??? Because again it swems like you are debating which is easier to DM well, and that's a null point.   No, magic isn't just a tool that increases the player's chances of success. What about the magical abilities of their adversaries (this is magic they may not understand or may fear), what about non-combat magic that allows certain things to exist (this is magic for the DM and his purposes)? Now it is up to the DM to determine the role that the above and various other "types" of magic play in his particular campaign. The problem people are talking about here is the fact that D&D keeps pushing this further out so that the options become more limited without more and more modification. In other words, if all you give me are magical monsters, items, transportation, etc. it becomes more work to tone it down in my own campaign than if you balanced it out some. Really, let your players go 5 to 10 levels without discovering any magical weapons or items...then allow them to find the +1 sword. Now, you're telling me they wouldn't be awed at discovering said item? It would be like excalibur to them especially if this is the rarity of magic items in your world.</blockquote>

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