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#1 zombiegleemax May 07, 2004 2:41:38

Often I get the feeling that it doesn’t matter if you are farmer Joe or a high level paladin of Kord when it comes to how people reacts to encountering monsters and seeing magic being used. Even though Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, and other D&D settings features magic and monsters that doesn’t exist in this world, I cannot imagine that most of the commoners in these worlds would react much different from what I would if I encountered a skeleton or saw a man cast a fireball. Meeting a skeleton will be a horrifying experience, seeing a druid transform into a bear will be unsettling, and if you have encountered a glabrezu (and survived!) you will not care if someone tells you that a balor is worse. The same goes for magic. You know that a wizard can go through walls and make things explode, but you prefer that they keep to themselves as not to hurt you and yours accidentaly. Below are my thoughts on commoners’ relationship to different aspects of the game. MAGIC People may know that magic exist, and they may have seen a wizard, but it doesn’t mean they will have seen magic, especially high level magic, being used often. Remember how the commoners in the tavern reacts when Frodo dissappears in the Fellowship of the Ring. Granted, there is a big difference between how magic is treated in Middle Earth as opposed to in Forgotten Realms, but even in a high magic setting, all people will not necessarily have experience with magic. What you don’t understand, you often fear, and so I imagine many people will be quite wary around magic-users. Most commoners also have no knowledge of what a spell can and cannot do, or the levels of a spell. Telling a commoner that you need Summon Monster IV to summon a Mephit, you can’t do it with Summon Monster II, or that this wizard is not as experienced as the one that destroyed his farm earlier, so this wizard’s fireball will not do as much damage makes no sense. MONSTERS Sure, you may know that if you stroll through the wrong graveyard, you may encounter skeletons and ghouls. You may be used to orcs and elves, and you may know that griffons hunt in the nearby hills. This doesn’t mean that you as a commoner will know what an illithid or an allip is, or that it even exists, and it doesn’t mean that you will know the difference between a wyvern and a dragon if you see one. And if someone tells you that the tarrasque actually exists, you’ll tell him that you ceased to believe in that horror story a long time ago. MAGICAL ITEMS Most commoners probably don’t know the difference between one magical sword and another, and this may lead to dangerous situations if a weapon comes into the wrong hands (especially if it is cursed). Many people will probably be careful around magical items, but that is not true for all, especially for younger people, and in many cases they may not know what an item is, or that it is magical. Imagine a small boy finding a funny-looking stick. He swings it around, and suddenly blows his family’s house to pieces, turns his sister into a rabbit, or summons a bear in the middle of his village. CURSES & SUPERNATURAL DISEASES Most commoners have no means to deal with diseases like lycantrophy, or curses placed on them for one reason or another. Clerics may be able to deal with it if they have the required level, but perhaps you don’t have access to a cleric of sufficient level, or you may not have means to pay them. Even if you do, people are superstitious, and some may believe they are cursed for a reason, and that the only way to lift the curse is to undo what they did to get it (giving back the item they stole, giving the person they killed a decent burial, etc.). We have diseases in our world that we are unable to cure, and diseases with no mundane way to cure will probably have a similar effect on commoners in D&D.