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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Man in the Funny Hat" data-source="post: 3437417" data-attributes="member: 32740">Whatever forces you want them to be.  Honestly it's that simple.  There isn't any - cannot be any - common set of forces or dynamics that can be applied.Oh, you can apply them if you want to, but the history of any given D&D world is subject only to the cycles, tendencies, and rules that an individual DM does apply.  The rules are written to model only small-scale combat dynamics.  They are not written in any way to model SOCIAL dynamics, and in fact studiously ignore them.  The social impact of racial abilities & life spans, spells, monster ecologies, magic items, and much more is IGNORED.  And they are so many and varied that I DEFY anyone to authoritatively and comprehensively reduce them to simple, cyclical, historical dynamics.Even if you succeed in doing so your theories fall to pieces with EVERY change that is made to the variables.  Every spell that is house ruled, every prestige class that is added above the Core Rules, every deity that takes direct involvement and every one that avoids involvement, every facet that YOU took into account but that _I_ choose to alter, add to, or ignore, renders your theories at best inaccurate and more likely entirely moot.YMMV</blockquote>