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Message: <blockquote data-quote="squibbles" data-source="post: 8702570" data-attributes="member: 6937590">So, I'm no expert, as I wasn't playing (or alive) in the heyday of OD&D, but my understanding is that domain play was on its face the sensible way for high level games to go, based on the way D&D was originally played.If you're in a player-directed west marches sandbox style game with the standard barony/minor kingdom setting, PCs that get to 9th level become de facto power players in the game world. They are higher level and have more resources and magic gear than the local leadership and, because they've been running amok, profiteering, and making friends and enemies, they have lots of ideas for how they want to remake said barony/minor kingdom in their own image. Domain rules were just a way of making the game that players were already engaging in more functional.However, lots of players wanted D&D to do epic high fantasy, a la dragonlance, with darklords and macguffins, and, once the game moved in that direction, there was no natural reason for players to care about domains anymore (though I'm sure some people still did, even in the later style of game).A lot of the wierdness of old D&D stuff is like that. The rules made sense for the game that people were playing at the time. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slBsxmHs070" target="_blank">Here's a video about that</a>.Strongholds and Followers, if I understand correctly (never read it) adds the stronghold experience to a more modern and drama-facing version of D&D, so it might actually be doing something different than the old wargaming style. Regardless, you're right that both are secondary systems with different advancement mechanisms layered over the base rules.But though you could play domains at any level, they still probably make the most sense for characters of middling power. 1st level fighters are basic mooks in a wargame-style battle whereas archmagi and high priests that can potentially take on gods are sortof beyond caring about kingdom-level warfare, i.e. the BECMI progression makes a certain amount of sense.Super cool ideas. I like all of them.The one with class progression via magic items would make it SO much more intuitive to conceptualize what a high level fighter is and why he/she makes sense as the equal of an archmage.</blockquote>

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