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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Pamphylian" data-source="post: 9751641" data-attributes="member: 7053769">Well, fair enough! I am always open to specific horizon-broadening suggestions. I don't think I am a spiritual boomer, though I'll admit the pillars of my fantasy aesthetic preferences are not far from some combination of 70/80s scifi/fantasy book covers and 19th century romanticist illustration. Anyway the tropiness or lack thereof of torches in fantasy was a bit tangential to my main points, but if tropiness is the measure, they can't be that well bested by Darkvision/Light Cantrip analogues, even in 2025, surely! Like if I sat down to introduce D&D with friends whose fantasy awareness is around that of the average person, they'd probably kind of expect or feel at home with something like torches and lanterns, but I'd bet they wouldn't see Darkvision coming.Me neither! Well let me ask you this way: with this in mind, in terms of gameplay enjoyment and general verisimilitude, how important are the mechanics of Darkvision/Light cantrips to you, versus the alternative of just saying or leaving unstated but assuming the fact that in this dungeon/location you can basically see at least 60 feet no problem? If your answer is "not that much", your preferences will be perfectly well accommodated when I am made D&D czar of 7e. If your answer is "very important," I think we will still reach a pretty decent accommodation through the rules variant option I will call "Classic/Retro (Early 21st century) Darkvision and Light Sources", which will be included in the core rule books. All this to say that if I did not care to deal with darkness and light sources as a DM or player with a low level party (not infrequent!), the idea of carefully adjudicating the mechanical impact of some PCs having darkvision, some not, plus a wizard with the light cantrip, seems like a logistical and bookkeeping headache that makes torch and ration counting seem as second nature as breathing, all to just essentially get back to the conclusion that "yeah you can basically all see 60ft no problem", for (to me) no increase in verisimilitude. Versus just rolling with that assumption upfront, I know what I'd choose.</blockquote>

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