NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 7188655" data-attributes="member: 22779">The thing is, D&D doesn't have a single setting.  So, the mechanics have to be applicable to a broad swath of settings.  So, the mechanics are largely setting agnostic.  Even the backgrounds in the PHB aren't really doing much lifting for world building.  Yup, my character is an Acolyte.  Sure... and that means what exactly?  Do people treat him differently?  Does that affect his relationships with other people?  Does it affect his disposition or personality?  What does that actually mean?  Well, the system is largely silent on the issue and it's left to the table to run with that.  Fair enough.  I have no problems with that.Now, think of Vampire:The Masquerade.  My choice of vampire clan has enormous implications on the entire campaign.  Whether I'm Ventrue or Malkavian, this is going to affect every single scenario we play in.  Of course, Vampire has the advantage of only having one setting and the game is built for that setting.  So, it becomes a lot easier to tie world building elements into the mechanics.For D&D though, because the system is largely setting agnostic, settings generally don't follow logically from the system.  There is exactly one published setting (at least from TSR/WotC) that was built with an eye on the mechanics and that's Eberron.  All the other settings were built and then the system bolted on top with honking big lampshades thrown over the inconsistencies.Stop and think about random encounter tables for a moment.  Say we've got a 1 in 12 chance rolled every 4 hours.  That's 6 checks per day.  Or, roughly a 50% chance per day (yes, I know it's not 50%, but, it's close enough for this).  That means anyone traveling for 2 days or more is most likely going to bump something that wants to eat them.Sure, I'll buy that in something like Darksun or Ravenloft.  But, that's insanely dangerous anywhere else.  How would you even get a society started if the world was that dangerous?  No one can travel more than 15 miles without being killed?  Because, remember, this is world building time.  This applies to ALL NPC'S.  Not just PC's.  EVERYONE.  It's a ridiculous world.But, we'd use those random tables any time in game and not even blink.</blockquote>

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