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Never Made Sense

Cor Azer

First Post
Yes, but much of that change has been due to changing technology.

The implication is, then, that for most settings folks pretty much know what there is to know about how the Universe works, and/or discovery is random, haphazard, and generally not subject to rational processes.

Basically, if theorizing doesn't help discover the next magical law like it does help us discover the next physical law, then change will be slow.

Hmm... an interesting point, but one I don't really subscribe to; at least not the "know what there is to know". Most settings I've seen that have addressed the issue never really say "man has learned everything", and in fact, there are all sorts of settings dealing with "things man was not meant to know".

However, if people believe that the world works at the whims of capricious divine beings (not too far off since there is visible evidence for their presence), it is far more suitable for those who want to understand the world to join a church than a laboratory.
 

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ComradeGnull

First Post
What are all these humanoids eating- particularly the ones that live underground? I can see niches for a few scattered tribes of orcs or goblins or whatever, but there are currently roughly four humanoid species vying for every acre of arable land in any D&D world that includes all of the races described in the various monstrous compendia and manuals. Likewise, 'fungus' gets thrown around a lot as what Drow and Drueger and their buds are eating, but fungus can't live on air- fungus scavenges decaying plant and animal material for nutrients and energy. It doesn't just grow from rocks. Deep underground, you encounter caves that are nearly sterile, not verdant fields of portabellos.
 

Gilladian

Adventurer
What are all these humanoids eating- particularly the ones that live underground? I can see niches for a few scattered tribes of orcs or goblins or whatever, but there are currently roughly four humanoid species vying for every acre of arable land in any D&D world that includes all of the races described in the various monstrous compendia and manuals. Likewise, 'fungus' gets thrown around a lot as what Drow and Drueger and their buds are eating, but fungus can't live on air- fungus scavenges decaying plant and animal material for nutrients and energy. It doesn't just grow from rocks. Deep underground, you encounter caves that are nearly sterile, not verdant fields of portabellos.

That's why the core of my world is a captive god's heart, which pours out a bitter radiance on which all things Dark can subsist. Explains why deepearth exists and why it is mostly if not entirely evil.

Magic should be mysterious. Pcs never know how or why anyone besides themselves makes it do things. My longer-lived races, such as elves, mostly live on alternate planes, and only the children bother with the human world, much.
 

Celebrim

Legend
I'm not sure that D&D as such doesn't make sense. I'm quite certain that some DMs create games that don't make sense, or that some players are unable to make sense of their DM's games (for good reasons or not), or that some people are unable to reconcile something about the game with their intuitive understanding of how things should be.

For example, in D&D magic is not particularly strange and mysterious. Some people don't like this and wish it would be different, but it makes perfect sense within the setting because in the setting magic is not an explanation for the inexplicable but in fact something that the player's characters actually craft and control. If you want magic to be mysterious, the first thing you have to do is take away a player's control over it.

And likewise, in D&D most monsters are not objects of fear and horror any more than a lion or a cape buffolo is an object of fear and horror to a capable hunter. Sure, these beasts may inspire respect and kick your adrenaline up a notch, but it makes sense that monsters wouldn't inspire fear because in the setting the player's characters are expected to be able to overcome them six at a time between breakfast and lunch. Yes, you may wish to have your fantasy be a game of fantasy horror, but the first prerequisite for that is again somewhat taking away a player's control over the setting and the second prerequisite for that is to stop showing the monsters, for familiarity breeds contempt.

I have over the years come up with many ideas that I thought particularly clever for addressing things like magic's lack of mystery and monsters lack of horror, but upon implementing them I found that they weren't really helping the game. Too much detail slows the game to a crawl, and so bores the players. Too much mystery and horror just ends up taking away the player's feeling of control, and makes the game too often linear and the story too dominated by the desires of the story teller rather than a shared creation wrought in the tension of the powerful storyteller and powerful actors within the story.

Pretty much every D&D trope is explainable first by letting the game explain itself, and secondly by realizing it is a game and the setting and the rules that govern it was crafted to allow for that.

Things to probably don't make sense:

1) Everyone seems to use a unified global currency, and has used this currency apparantly for all time and in all cultures.

Answer: I once invented currencies and exchange rates for my world. It added realism, but not interest and fun. It became a tedious bookkeeping detail by about the second session. Once it is recognized that a single currency is the way the game should be, you quickly realize that there is a god of currency and trade out there whose whole reason for existance is standardizing currency.

2) Everyone seems to speak a single language, not matter how remote the culture or alien the creature.

Answer: I once decided that there were hundreds of languages in the world, but even with 3 or 5 I quickly realized that all varied and realistic langauges respresented was a barrier to communication. And as such, they were a barrier to enjoyment and roleplay, for it is never so much fun as a DM to go, "Blah blah blah blah blah" when you could be monologuing or cracking jokes or creating shining moments of awesome. Once you realize that the world requires a single language, you then realize that all languages are merely close dialects of a single great language and that the philolinguistic drift has been kept small by constant exposure and communication and the fact that words and sounds aren't merely pointers but things with underlying meaning and attachment to the things that they reference.

And so on and so forth.
 

Jon_Dahl

First Post
What doesn't make sense is the irrationality of the people that make published adventures (whether they are published as stand-alone adventures or in Dungeon/Dragon magazine etc.).
It seems that these people don't follow any sort of consistent logic at all.

For instance, in the beginning of the much-acclaimed adventure The Red Hand of Doom, the first encounter is a hobgoblin squad with hell hounds.
Getting extraplanar hell hounds via RAW is difficult. You need some specific magic and you only get the hell hounds for a brief moment. After I read the adventure, I couldn't see anyone being able to cast planar binding or similar spells.

Their logic makes no sense sometimes. I hate running published adventures because my players always ask me questions and the only answer is: "It's because the writer is a ******* ******!!"
 

Lwaxy

Cute but dangerous
For instance, in the beginning of the much-acclaimed adventure The Red Hand of Doom, the first encounter is a hobgoblin squad with hell hounds.
Getting extraplanar hell hounds via RAW is difficult. You need some specific magic and you only get the hell hounds for a brief moment. After I read the adventure, I couldn't see anyone being able to cast planar binding or similar spells.

Their logic makes no sense sometimes. I hate running published adventures because my players always ask me questions and the only answer is: "It's because the writer is a ******* ******!!"


That's why I changed them to wardogs.

My main issue with adventures is the type of treasure. Most of the creatures wouldn't need it nor want to collect it - really, a giant frog with a staff of air?? - and the creatures themselves often don't fit the setting much, either. So I often need to adapt it as to not make my players laugh ;)
 

Jhaelen

First Post
The two thing that make the least sense in Dungeons & Dragons?
1) Dungeons
2) Dragons

I'm only partly kidding:

Regarding 1) Earthdawn's the only setting I know which has a good explanation for the existence of (forgotten) caers (i.e. dungeons).

Regarding 2) Eberron's one of the few (D&D) settings that tries to take into account the effect that the existence of powerful (intelligent) monsters and magic would have on society and the world at large. Ars Magica's Mythic Europe does an even better job at this.
 


Pickles JG

First Post
Levels, Hit Points, the economy &, given the presence of magic,* many, many plots.


*Cure Disease, Raise Dead, sundry divers divinations)
 
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Someone

Adventurer
Add another vote to the chorus of "D&D magic is too useful and predictable to not have a much greater impact on most of the settings"
 

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