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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Guest&nbsp; 85555" data-source="post: 9502760">I have a feeling we are probably not going to see eye to eye on this front. These things are both handled by mechanics and setting to different extents. It is still the D&D magic system, but I find the changes greatly impact the level of magic in the campaign and the feel of play (especially if you compare it to Forgotten Realms or Dragonlance). And the humancentric aspect is baked into the setting details and into the mechanical modifiers to demi-humans reaction rolls and CHR. The low magic is also part of the game, as treasure is cut in half and it is specifically says magical items are less frequent. I would also argue that changes to spells are significant, particularly how it impacts things like divination and summoning and necromancy (which also applies to magic items). I wouldn't be quick to dismiss these changes. And the lists of changes aren't comprehensive, the GM is expected to extrapolate from those listed changes. Yes you do have fireballs and healing. I never said it was no magic, just low magic when compared to forgotten realms or dragonlance. On frequency of treasure and magic items are handled very differently as well: [ATTACH=full]385337[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]385338[/ATTACH]So right away, the possibility of hiring a healer or going to a magic shop is just not as present in the setting. And even magic items from encounters are rare and expected to fit the situation. They still exist and it is up to the GM ultimately how this is handled, but I have played in and run enough Ravenloft campaigns to say, in all the ones I have been in it feels much lower magic than the standard D&D fantasy settings. Again, I am not saying it isn't D&D or that it deals with magic the way Call of Cthulhu. They are creating a version of D&D that does gothic horror (and this is really the source of a lot of debate you have over how much fantasy to have in the setting during its initial run). The point about races is less about mechanical enforcements. But honestly the changes to racial requirements in DoD was one of the things it did well (I may prefer the black box but DoD did have its strengths and excelled in some areas: though personally I wasn't a big fan of the new classes). But again it is largely the setting and the reaction rolls. There is incentive to not play demihumans, people can choose to do so. However they will be doing so in a world where demihumans are rare and in a world that doesn't look like your standard fantasy setting when it comes to races. So whether you feel the mechanics sufficiently encourage it or not, the setting is described as human centric and that is what the players will see as they explore it. Not everything requires mechanical buttressing. I think by and large, issues around race in the setting can be handled well in setting. I don't mind a player here or there being an elf, as long as the overall feel of the setting is this a place where you don't generally have the wide assortment of Tolkien races everywhere. But on the other stuff, I think the mechanics are huge. Powers Checks, Altered Magic, Fear and Horror Checks, Curses, The way monsters are handled, the way domain lords function, etc these all massively impact feel and tone of play. Again no one here is not saying Ravenloft isn't D&D. Part of why I like Ravenloft and even though I enjoyed Masque of the Red Death didn't play it as much as teh demiplane, is D&D has a very fucntional and gameable core chassis. What the 2E settings showed us was you can tweak that chassis without losing its essence, to make other genres of play possible. I would say both Ravenloft and Dark Sun are excellent examples of that. Now YMMV. But I played Ravenloft to death so I know how well it works for me, and how different the setting ends up feeling because of the mechanics (and I was reading a ton of gothic literature during that period so I think I had a good sense of how well it was achieving its gothic aims: obviously they may not have done that for you or to your taste, but I felt it was just the right balance of the core D&D system and gothic)</blockquote>

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