Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mattachine" data-source="post: 5851618" data-attributes="member: 6678226">The assumption in OD&D and early AD&D was that magic was rare. The majority of the clergy at a church, for example, were non-casting NPCs, perhaps with a 1st-5th level cleric leading them. Wizards of any real power (9th level or higher) were to be very rare, and magic items even rarer. I think what may have happened is that since adventuring parties contained casters, and some published modules contained casters, players got the impression that magic, casters, and magic items were, in fact, common. In my AD&D campaigns, we were able to maintain the idea that the characters were rare and unusual, especially the casters.In 3e and 4e, though, magic was so assumed, so common--being able to buy, sell, and trade magic items was a default assumption. Unfortunately, the game worlds didn't change to accommodate this--Eberron was made for it, from the start. That's why it works. FR and Greyhawk are weird when magic is common--why have masses of medieval-style troops, traditional castles, and so forth, when the opposing army is going to have casters? That would be like the modern US Military building colonial-style forts, even though we have satellite communications and air support.I played in a long-term 3e FR game where the DM ran a rare and unusual magic sort of game--it was weird, though, since most players had casters. Also, magic items were hard to come by, but the assumptions in the game (about expected PC wealth/magic) made monsters and encounters much harder to deal with. Over time, the DM relented and made magic common, but then many other aspects of the game world didn't make sense. *sigh*</blockquote>

Verification