Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Azar_of_Faerun 01-02-07, 07:22 PM	Hey guys! How do you reply (if at all) to those who claim a particular setting is "unrealistic" because with the dragons, wizards, outsiders, clerics and deities roaming around there should be constant destruction, total destruction, or rulership of the world of said draconic/outsider variety? It's basically an issue of balance at heart, but one behind the scenes.
Always-Late 01-02-07, 07:22 PM	The World is enjoying the Uneasy Peace which has been around for the past fifty thousand years.
christOrisen 01-02-07, 07:30 PM	Hey guys! How do you reply (if at all) to those who claim a particular setting is "unrealistic" because with the dragons, wizards, outsiders, clerics and deities roaming around there should be constant destruction, total destruction, or rulership of the world of said draconic/outsider variety? It's basically an issue of balance at heart, but one behind the scenes. First, most fantasy settings are all about these forces warring with one another for dominance.Second, I usually reply by reminding them that this is fantasy, and that they should not hold campaign settings to rigid standards of realism. Some DMs will tackle this issue more than others. If you do not have a good grasp of politics and war, I suggest avoiding the issue entirely, because any player who is picky enough to raise the question in the first place, is probably going to tear apart your response as well. If the issue troubles you, than change your setting, so that it does not include all of these elements (or tone down some of them).
High Octane 01-02-07, 07:30 PM	"Good night Wesley. Sleep well. The world will most likely end in the morning."
DarkRhystar 01-02-07, 07:32 PM	This is partially covered by: Thousand Year Rule The Ancient Evil returns to savage the land every thousand years on the dot, and the last time it showed up was just about 999.9875 years ago. Despite their best efforts, heroes of the past were never able to do more than seal the Evil away again for the future to deal with (which brings up the question of just how exactly does this "sealing away" work anyway, but never mind.) The good news is that this time, the Evil will get destroyed permanently. The bad news is that you're the one who's going to have to do it. Complete list found here (http://www.project-apollo.net/text/rpg.html).
Altar_Boy 01-02-07, 07:50 PM	Hey guys! How do you reply (if at all) to those who claim a particular setting is "unrealistic" because with the dragons, wizards, outsiders, clerics and deities roaming around there should be constant destruction, total destruction, or rulership of the world of said draconic/outsider variety? It's basically an issue of balance at heart, but one behind the scenes. Not naming names, huh? ;) In the real world at least, there can only be so many superpowers. The 20th century saw an universal increase in technology and the art of war, but there were some clear topdogs for world domination: Russia, Germany, Japan, U.S., Britain, etc. To translate that to a random campaign setting, oh, let's say Faerun, Thay and Halruaa have more spell-casting power as nations, but that's not to say that magic is exclusively their own. Indeed, any Realms spellcaster worth mentioning lives elsewhere. But what would happen if everyone in Shadowdale became Elminsters? I don't think that Thay would have much of a market in the West, and the Zhentarim would become second bananas in the Moonsea. If they push Shadowdale, they will be destroyed. China and India, up and coming world powers, are asserting themselves in a similar fashion right now. No longer colonial vassals, they are becoming rich with the resources other countries once profitted from. In power struggles, the only changes are "more" and "less". As written, Faerun does have too many meta-threads of world/planar domination going on. As a whole, it doesn't make sense, but I doubt it is meant to. In the real world, there are many threats to our existence: Nuclear war, economic collapse, Ice-Age-inducing meteor, global warming, religious Armageddon. We cope with them by ignoring them, or working to prevent them. Fortunately, the Meteor-That-Will-Kill-All-Life-On-Earth does not grant divine magic to its believers, and Nuclear bombs do not attack villages and steal their gold for their horde (yet :hides: ). My advice to you is to downplay the threats unimportant to your campaign, Yes, Mansoon could unleash Ancient Abyssal Apocalypse over Waterdeep, but where's he going to find Weapon-grade Spell Components? :P
Toloran 01-02-07, 07:54 PM	There is also another possibility: You aren't the only adventurers around. You have to admit: How do all those magic weapon shops keep in buisness if your merry band is the only one around? There are probably other adventurers slaying dragons and defeating evil, and you just don't run into them often.
Fireclave 01-02-07, 07:55 PM	My advice to you is to downplay the threats unimportant to your campaign, Yes, Mansoon could unleash Ancient Abyssal Apocalypse over Waterdeep, but where's he going to find Weapon-grade Spell Components? :P Walmart :P
Azar_of_Faerun 01-02-07, 07:56 PM	Not naming names, huh? ;) In the real world at least, there can only be so many superpowers. The 20th century saw an universal increase in technology and the art of war, but there were some clear topdogs for world domination: Russia, Germany, Japan, U.S., Britain, etc. To translate that to a random campaign setting, oh, let's say Faerun, Thay and Halruaa have more spell-casting power as nations, but that's not to say that magic is exclusively their own. Indeed, any Realms spellcaster worth mentioning lives elsewhere. But what would happen if everyone in Shadowdale became Elminsters? I don't think that Thay would have much of a market in the West, and the Zhentarim would become second bananas in the Moonsea. If they push Shadowdale, they will be destroyed. China and India, up and coming world powers, are asserting themselves in a similar fashion right now. No longer colonial vassals, they are becoming rich with the resources other countries once profitted from. In power struggles, the only changes are "more" and "less". As written, Faerun does have too many meta-threads of world/planar domination going on. As a whole, it doesn't make sense, but I doubt it is meant to. In the real world, there are many threats to our existence: Nuclear war, economic collapse, Ice-Age-inducing meteor, global warming, religious Armageddon. We cope with them by ignoring them, or working to prevent them. Fortunately, the Meteor-That-Will-Kill-All-Life-On-Earth does not grant divine magic to its believers, and Nuclear bombs do not attack villages and steal their gold for their horde (yet :hides: ). My advice to you is to downplay the threats unimportant to your campaign, Yes, Mansoon could unleash Ancient Abyssal Apocalypse over Waterdeep, but where's he going to find Weapon-grade Spell Components? :P Believe me, while in this instance I was referring to the Realms, it's by no mean a criticism unique to them :P And one other factor between your parallel of our world and theirs is the manufacture of WMD's is highly restricted and watched, and attaining the materials is somewhat tricky. While it's true Mystra is one of the safeguards of magic abuse, the fact is, it's a much more destructive force which is easier to obtain (there are magic colleges for pete's sake, and you don't see too many nuclear explosive colleges around here:cool: ) meaning we have all sorts of entities flitting about, plane to plane, floating city to subterranean ruins which means the random element is much more increased. Then again, that's what adventurers are for I suppose!
WhiteRaven810 01-02-07, 08:45 PM	A problem I too grappled with too when my home brew was still in the cauldron. Now when I started this post, I listed the thirty-one or so adventure paths I gave my character's before we even began character creation. The list was however boring so I snipped her. Anyways, the way I write that the world of Gallo hasn't cracked in two into an existance ruled by red dragons and Asmodeus is simple. First, most conflict's occur in the shadow's and target's are relevent. Why would Demogorgon send death knights into a hamlet when his target is an epic level Paladin of Heironeous. Instead when a do-gooder becomes too much of a pest, ole' Tiamat sends her dragonspawn to elimnate the target or her place of protection. So destruction happens, innocent people get hurt, but by enlarge the actions on the Western edge of the city don't trickle down to hurt those on the East. In otherwords, it's contained. Second, for as many evil organizations, dark gods of death, and rampaging dragons, there are an equal and opposite number of good temples, gods of truth and light, and wandering adventure's looking for a bit of gold. So were contained and balanced. Third and lastly. Evil begats evil, but evil also smite's evil. The Blood War is the perfect example. Instead of expending resources to eliminate celestrials, Devils and Demons are waisting lives on each other. Evil dragon's also attack evil dragons. But (by enlarge) temples of Cuthbert and temples of Heironeous don't go to war, allowing them a level of focus. So we have containment, we have balance, and we have focused reasources.
Raymond_Luxury_Yacht 01-02-07, 09:01 PM	Dragons are lazy. Outsiders are too busy to care about some two-bit, backwater Prime world. The gods operate via the MAD principle. Wizards get beaten to death by Monks. No one plays Clerics. Druids get eaten by various things.
Lokiyn 01-02-07, 09:03 PM	And then we have pc's Pc's follow neither the paths of good or evil, nor the paths of law and chaos. Rather the Pc follows the path of coolness, often times this leads to the destruction on a large scale and the tipping of balances both good and evil and law and chaos toward good or evil, law or chaos. Often times for no other reason than "it was shiny"
Thanqol 01-02-07, 09:08 PM	Dragons are lazy. Outsiders are too busy to care about some two-bit, backwater Prime world. The gods operate via the MAD principle. Wizards get beaten to death by Monks. No one plays Clerics. Druids get eaten by various things. The cirrrrr-cle... the circle of life!
Bill Bisco: Average Adventurer 01-02-07, 09:32 PM	The lazy argument is probably the best excuse. Let's not use the mutually Assured Destruction Arguments, they don't apply to D&D.
Raymond_Luxury_Yacht 01-02-07, 09:35 PM	The lazy argument is probably the best excuse. Let's not use the mutually Assured Destruction Arguments, they don't apply to D&D. Sure they do. If one god gets involved, every god gets involved. Then everyone dies and the gods have no worshippers. Therefore, gods don't get involved.
Azar_of_Faerun 01-02-07, 09:42 PM	Then there are overgods
Raymond_Luxury_Yacht 01-02-07, 09:48 PM	Then there are overgods Only in Toril and Krynn.
Bill Bisco: Average Adventurer 01-02-07, 09:49 PM	Sure they do. If one god gets involved, every god gets involved. Then everyone dies and the gods have no worshippers. Therefore, gods don't get involved. Would you like me to start a new thread discussing this? I can assure you that this is not the case, of course I don't expect you to believe me simply by my word and thus a discussion would be born. :cool:
Azar_of_Faerun 01-02-07, 09:52 PM	Only in Toril and Krynn. Nope, there is also Io, who is in Greyhawk apparently
Raymond_Luxury_Yacht 01-03-07, 12:44 AM	Nope, there is also Io, who is in Greyhawk apparently Io's not an overgod.
sinrae_kinesti 01-03-07, 01:21 AM	My mom is an over god. she can sit on you and squish your guts out your mouth. by the way chicken al la king... CLERICS RULE!!!!
strenoth 01-03-07, 01:34 AM	So you are one of the above named super-powers, what do you want? unlike current super-powers, you DO NOT NEED any large support structure to maintain your power. You are self contained (excepting deities, but we'll skip them for now). Mr Great Wyrm red dragon likes his volcanic mountain range, has lots of shinies, and just enough in the way of prey-animals and wandering adventurers to keep yourself entertained and fed? Um.. OK, you're effectively retired as long as no one does anything stupid. this is yoru territory, others cross it at their peril unless they come with shinies and lots of pretty words to preen your vanity with. Druid? well, this forest you went on so many adventures to protect is now safe and secure, every one knows to not mess with you (Except for the occasional young adult green dragon seeking to find a new home now that he's moved out of Mommy's cave). Sit back and enjoy! The thing is, many of the powerful entities are satisfied with the status quo, and feel no need to upset it. The PCs are off dealing with the people who still feel the need to Mess with crap. And so are all the other adventurer/mercenary types. Unless of course, you are the adventurers who mess with crap to begin with (who do you think it was that ****** off the lich enough to get him to start turning villages into fresh armies of zombies and skeletons anyway? he was content studying is collection of tomes until this young cleric and his friends came barging in...)
CzarGarrett 01-03-07, 09:22 AM	Comments about said issue. 1. Tangible divine beings. Sure, that Wizard could cast a spell that would destroy everything, but when there's several dozen Gods who would lose out on something, I doubt they'd let it happen. 2. For every evil mastermind, there's a group of plucky young adventurers who are out to stop him. Maybe more than one. 3. For every evil mastermind, there's a counterpart who's probably just as powerful. Whether it be a good guy who wants to save the world, or a bad guy who wants the glory for himself, there's someone outthere who's a direct rival. 4. While blowing up the world might be a fun time, most people aren't that insane. Why destroy everything when you can take it over? 5. Just because you've ruled the world for the last 500 years, doesn't mean you can't get bored. Ruling with an iron fist is probably fun for the first few years. Unless you've got some sort of side project besides controlling the world, and even then there's only so long you can work on it. 6. If God A wants to gain all the power and sends someone on a mission to do something, Gods B-ZZZ will send groups to counteract that mission/steal it for themselves/etc. Its a very fluid situation.
High Octane 01-03-07, 10:26 AM	You know. its a miracle that the real world hasnt ended yet, seeing how many loonies and idiots have their fingers on the nuclear button.
angryman 01-03-07, 10:28 AM	My homebrew world had every powerful being statted out with goals and resources and whatnot. Planar travel was impossible so extraplanar hijinks weren't a problem. The ONLY unaccounted for powerful people were...the PCs.
Dan Hemmens 01-03-07, 11:37 AM	Alternatively you could listen to them, and run a game set in a world that *wasn't* so utterly full of over the top world destroying entities. I've always found the "if it's in D&D it has to be in this setting" school of worldbuilding extremely annoying. You can justify *one* group of intensely powerful evil entities failing to destabilise the pseudo-feudal society of the gameworld, but not ninety.
RobbyPants 01-03-07, 11:45 AM	...or rulership of the world of said draconic/outsider variety? It's basically an issue of balance at heart, but one behind the scenes. I created a campaign setting like this once (and it was actually one of my favorites). The basic premise was that at one point about 500 years ago, four forces (devils, demons, undead, and mortal followers of evil) colaborated and took over one particular material plane (the one in the setting, of course ;)). They did such a good job at working together and getting surprise, that all the good outsiders were practially helpless. Anyway, the evil forces took over, and the one saving grace for the mortals was that once they were conquered, the four forces of evil begain bickering. They split into their seperate four factions, and each control part of the world (to some extent). In the past 500 years, the mortals have been recouporating, and are slowly trying to kill off the evil. For flavor in this world, I made the blackguard a base class, and the paladin a prestige class (mainly to hammer in the point that strong willed forces of good are rare here!). I don't know if it was the most "realistic" way to handle the issue of the world being taken over by a powerful outside force, but all the players loved the setting, so we all had fun! :D