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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8131638" data-attributes="member: 82106">It is heavily dependent on what material you look at, but I think MANY, if not MOST, D&D settings are built on small variations of the assumptions put forward in the 1e DMG and Greyhawk. In that setting, and in the DMG, there are a lot of low level classed PCs. Now, there are some statements which say effectively "these aren't PCs and they don't have the talent to advance like PCs." However, the rest of the setting and standard play assumptions of Gygax belie that.First of all, if I go and peruse my Greyhawk Gazetteer, it lists VERY high levels for virtually all, actually 100% IIRC, of rulers. Most of them are quite a bit over name level, and many have caster levels. Since the baseline assumption of AD&D seems to be that you need to be name level to achieve a stronghold, it looks like that is pretty much assumed. So at least every barony, etc. has a 9th level+ lord, and many of them are non-fighters (although the rules are more vague about exactly what you can rule as a wizard, etc.). So there is AT LEAST a superstructure of powerful nobility and equivalent in Greyhawk and the AD&D defaults (IE if you create your world by reference to material in the DMG).Secondly, this, plus the commonality of the practice of promoting NPCs into PCs in troupe play, indicates that in fact NPCs are pretty capable of progressing in their class levels! This seems to be true of all classes. It does not appear that this necessarily requires adventuring either, nor are all high level NPCs ancient! Kara-Tur leans even MORE heavily into this trope, with mid and high level NPCs being quite common. I would take this to be the assumed default of a D&D world.So, to the extent that one can say there is a default (since you can certainly devise any sort of world if you wish) it appears to be relatively high magic and contain a considerable number of high level figures of all different classes. As was detailed up thread, this appears to be consistent with the most straightforward interpretation of most of the other 'classic' D&D settings as well. Athas MIGHT be a partial exception, but even there it sure seems like magic exists, it is just expensive to power it and thus less used. Still, the rulers of that world are themselves ultra-powerful magical beings/wizards/whatever.</blockquote>

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