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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Umbran" data-source="post: 8425785" data-attributes="member: 177">So... I'll give a different perspective on this - that's a business decision.  Building in-world justifications and game design elements comes after deciding whether these items matter in terms of your goals for what you are building.For example, we can think of four cases:1) I am building this for my own table or local community2) I am building this just for the experience of building it.3) I am building it to get 1000 sales over 5 years4) I am building it to be the next PaizoEach of these have different answers to the question, "Would this be a waste of effort?"So, what are your goals?Others might say it is focused writing.  Fafhrd and Grey Mouser walk through a world largely lacking in detailed history of failed projects, for example.I think the point didn't hit home.  My point is that when there's a big monster, nobody gives a whit about whether anyone tried a thing in the past that didn't work out.  The world-building you see in a work is that which turns out to be relevant to the conflicts in the work.  That which isn't relevant is largely absent.If that history is absent, then, "nobody ever thought to try," becomes an unfounded assumption.  Unless you are introducing a plot element about it, whether anyone has ever tried it in the past is not relevant to whatever present crisis the characters are engaged in.  It isn't bad writing or worldbuilding - it is just not writing about items of no consequence.Um... we are talking about it because you brought up having an issue with a lot of fantasy worldbuilding.  And, when you are engaged in a worldbuilding question, the point that there's often unanswered questions in the worldbuilding seemed pretty relevant. Wow.  You have completely missed the point. Let me try this way - what the world believes, in general, is not binding on individuals in that world.  In the midst of a general belief, there are still likely to be notable minorities who do not hold that belief, and in doing so they may be irrelevant fringe or they may be impactful on the world, depending on the details of the situation. I mean, look out the window.  We live in a society that largely believes that education is a good thing, and in theory, everyone can get a high school degree at no cost other than time and effort.  But, overall, the US has about a 5% high school dropout rate.  Why does anyone choose to not graduate from high school?This concept holds even more true for PCs.  If you set forth a particular type for a culture, playing against that type is a fairly obvious choice in terms of both role-playing and tactical challenges.  The more you stress how everyone has magic, the stronger the invitation to be contrary and subvert the trope, because it makes the "what if?" question even more pronounced and important.You ask why people would choose to do other than follow the norm.  I'm handing you answers to that question, and seem to be accusing me of requiring caveats and addendums.   I'm not.  I'm answering your question.</blockquote>

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