Never Made Sense

[Herschel]

None of it makes sense.

Dungeons: With al these long-lived races and extremely powerful beings and learned sages, how is there all thios forgotten/lost stuff.

Dragons: Anatomically they make little sense, let alone hoarding magic, gear and cash to use as a bed. What's your sleep number? 162,740 (pieces of junk).

Vancian Magic: Our entire existance is based on our mental faculties and we're going to risk it by giving ourselves a form of Alzheimer's every day? And I'm going to go adventuring before I can cast more than one measly spell in a day when I'm a lousy shot with a crossbow?

Money/economy: so each Orc is carrying around 8 years' wages for a blacksmith and lives in a cave and raids for everything? And every kingdom mints coins in the same weight and denomination?

If I pray I'll get magical powers to join the evangelical battle and be able to heal all my friends in battle as well as cast destructive spells that rain fire and vengeance upon my enemies yet drawing blood is a no-no?

The game really doesn't make much sense. Trying to rationalize how some things do is just that. It doesn't change the fact that it's all hokum.

But it's fun hokum.

 

[Umbran]

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"

Just because they don't explicitly say it, doesn't mean it isn't true. If it looks, walks, and quacks like it has pretty much reached the extent of knowledge...

...and in fact, there are all sorts of settings dealing with "things man was not meant to know".

Ah, but look - men were not meant to know it, but they *do* know it. It is already known.

Find me a D&D setting that outlines for the GM what new, undiscovered magics will be discovered in the 5, 10, 25, and 50 years from the time the campaign begins. And I'm not talking about Time of Troubles, "the world changes as we put out new editions" stuff. I'm talking about, "The world physics already supports this, but nobody in the world has figured out how to do it yet."

I cannot myself think of a D&D setting that explicitly admits there will be progress in the coming century, and lays out what it will be. Can anyone else?

 

[Umbran]

Oh, by the way...

For folks who like a little bit of meta in their fiction, and want a book that addresses that many things in a story don't make sense, I suggest taking a look at the following:

Redshirts, by John Scalzi. Sclazi posits a world in which there is, effectively a Star Fleet, and his protagonist finds himself as a minor officer on board a ship that runs rather like the Enterprise. Wackiness ensues...

 

[gamerprinter]

I can agree on many of the silly tropes that seem to exist in published D&D worlds do not sit right with me.

One not discussed so far is the Magic Shop. The idea that magic items could be available to the public seems very nonsensical to me. In fact stores in general do not fit a medieval mindset. Craft shops make sense. If you need a particular item, you find the craftsman able to create it, however, it takes time to create anything. There is no store with inventory on shelves from finished manufactured goods - magic items or otherwise.

As far as the prevalence of magic and spellcasters are concerned, in my worlds 99% of everyone is a zero level commoner/aristocrat/adept/expert. Heroes (the PCs) and villains fall into the 1%, as well as all spellcasters. Magic certainly affects the world, but since the majority do not have the power, only a very small minority does so. So magic is far less common in my worlds than in other published worlds.

Regarding all these nonsensical things, the easiest solution for me has always been to create my own worlds, and never rely on some other designers idea for this.

Hence, I have worlds like Kaidan, which is my published setting. I created it to define specific world mechanics that weren't available in standard D&D worlds/cosmology, so I created one from scratch. If some nuance of world mechanics is not making sense, it doesn't get included in my settings.

So really none of these problematic issues exist in my settings, because I don't put them in.

 

[Cor Azer]

I cannot myself think of a D&D setting that explicitly admits there will be progress in the coming century, and lays out what it will be. Can anyone else?

Well, this might fall into your Time of Troubles exclusion, and the progress isn't explicitly drawn out, but one of the old 2E FR hardcovers mentioned the technology being developed by Gondites in Lantan, and while I'm working from memory, there was the implication that a) it wasn't magic, b) it was getting more reliable, and c) it was spreading.

Still, it wasn't picked up on in 3E or 4E, so it may not count.

 

[Janx]

anti-adventurer monsters like the Cloaker, Mimic, Piercer, and bunny-on-a-stump.

these monsters were made as meta-game traps against players exploring a dungeon. they don't exist in actual fantasy or myth. They exist because Gary needed a new way to trick his players.

 

[Mallus]

They exist because Gary needed a new way to trick his players.

Which means, from a practical perspective, they make perfect sense.

Also, props for "bunny-on-a-stump"!

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Camouflaged ambush predators abound in the RW- it makes sense to me that a world infused by magic might have some nastier ones.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Clerics. Why are they so good at fighting? Why are they more focused on undead then on demons and devils? Even their role as medics seems a little off color. They're nothing like men of the cloth in any real or fictional context I'm familiar with.

 

[Meatboy]

When I sit and think about it. I always wonder how humans manage to survive. I mean their are plenty of races that beat them out in terms of reproductive capabilities (goblins, kobolds etc.) who are their equal in intelect and can survive where humans can't. That right there should spell doom for humanity. But there are quite a few species that far out strip humans in terms of raw potential. The standard elf or dwarf, who when they are just becoming "adults" have lived longer lives than most people or hobgoblins who are like humans only more physically capable. Let's not forget the races that are just straight up awesome like ogre mages, mind flayers, storm giants, gith and dragons. If one figures that pretty much any sentient race is better than humans and 99% of humans are "normal" or level 1 or minion/npc type it never made sense that they tend to dominate most settings.