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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rod Staffwand" data-source="post: 6622894" data-attributes="member: 6776279">Since near-modern sanitation is possible for numerous pre-industrial societies that make it a priority, I just make it a cultural thing. For my games, most civilized lands are relatively clean and sanitary without open sewers and unmitigated squalor. The more chaotic and evil the society (to put it into D&D alignment terms) or more barbarous, the dirtier and more repulsive it is. The "unpleasantries" become important flavor details when the more civilized adventurers enter those areas. If Main Campaign Town is as repugnant as an orc war camp, I think you've lost a powerful narrative tool to depict the alienness of some cultures. Imagine a drow city like an underground Venice where waste is dumped into the canals but only the most powerful can cover the perpetual stench with perfumes or ward off disease with mystic incense.On a similar subject, when I'm a player I have an absolute distaste for my PCs wading through bogs or sewers, getting bombarded with feces, and anything else that would compromise their wardrobe or their dignity with disgusting liquids and semi-solids.In a game world that is only limited by your imagination why would you imagine one covered in crap?</blockquote>