Another thought. The D&D world is already quite unrealistic as is. Standard of living is way higher than in the middle ages. Democracy and equality are prevalent. Technology is more like renaissance-era. And somehow, tiny villages manage to survive in a terribly hostile world.
It seems to me that the standard D&D world is rather out of sync with the full implications of translating D&D rules into fiction.
However, if you take the real world middle ages, and give everyone a touch of sorcery, you might advance the standard of living by a few hundred years.
So the idea of sorcery-for-everyone is not necessarily all that world-altering, but simply may help prop up the believability of the average D&D setting as already exists now.
Furthermore, if sorcery-for-everyone is a relatively new phenomenon (several generations or so), you can introduce all sorts of powerful magics and assume it takes a few decades for it to take effect on society (similar to the way that it took a decade for cell phones and internet to change our modern society).
It seems to me that the standard D&D world is rather out of sync with the full implications of translating D&D rules into fiction.
However, if you take the real world middle ages, and give everyone a touch of sorcery, you might advance the standard of living by a few hundred years.
So the idea of sorcery-for-everyone is not necessarily all that world-altering, but simply may help prop up the believability of the average D&D setting as already exists now.
Furthermore, if sorcery-for-everyone is a relatively new phenomenon (several generations or so), you can introduce all sorts of powerful magics and assume it takes a few decades for it to take effect on society (similar to the way that it took a decade for cell phones and internet to change our modern society).