| > The way D&D worlds are usually structured could only work if everybody has a magic car and food is abundant. To be fair, that's kind of the case. Sure, not everyone is an adventurer, but level 1 adventurers probably aren't particularly rare in the world. A level 1 spellcaster may be able to do two of the following things a day using their two spell slots (depending on what kind of spellcaster they are): - feed up to 10 people for a day (and heal them, to boot) with goodberry - create 10 gallons of potable water with create or destroy water - double walking speed for 10 minutes without exhaustion (expeditious retreat) - move a third again as fast as normal for an hour without exhaustion (long strider) - load up and move 500 pounds at those speeds without having to carry anything themselves for an hour (Tenser's floating disk) That's just food and transportation. A level 1 cleric totally trounces period-accurate medical care and compares pretty favorably to a whole modern hospital filled with specialists and equipment (and with a few more levels under their belt they do much better than modern medicine as they can bring the recently deceased back to life). But that's starting to miss the forest for the trees. I definitely respect people, like the author of the article, that focus this deeply on hobbies -- I can barely do that for paying work. But it misses the point of D&D for me. Fundamentally, my response to the article is that D&D's just a collection of systems meant to generate fun, not be an accurate model of a particular time and place in history. I, for one, would expect social and political structures to deviate from history once you've added magic in the mix. In my eyes, the article's argument is akin to people a thousand years from now role-playing in 2020s America but adding in Star Trek-style replicators and wondering why the rules don't model Homeowners Associations (HOAs). Sure, lots of current Americans are subject to them but what percentage of players would find that enjoyable? And are you sure they'd still exist in such a world? |
How often do you meet other adventuring groups when you play D&D?
Post-scarcity magic utopia is one solution, but it's certainly not the setting of most D&D campaigns.
> Fundamentally, my response to the article is that D&D's just a collection of systems meant to generate fun, not be an accurate model of a particular time and place in history.
Sure, but more realistic medieval fantasy can be just as fun and more interesting (cause your players' unconscious assumptions about how any world has to work are broken).