Quote from: AsenRG;1035029... About the only class which does "what humans can do naturally" is the cleric, the one who prays to a higher power to deliver him from undead, heal him and his companions, and so on;).

... and who has no powers and just keeps the faith that whatever happens is God's will.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1037936FWIW, Mystara is so notable an offender that it gets grief for it, so it is an outlier. All of the D&D geographies are somewhat off and weird, although I look at things like the 60-degree river turns as 'unfortunate shorthands of the medium, don't overthink it.'

Greyhawk is pretty plausible as a Europe-like subcontinent facing east.  The only glaring anomaly is the map scale which is easy enough to ignore.

Eragon has the same problem.

Speaking of departures from physics, I take issues with the concept of antimagic and its context.

D&D operates on the conceit that the fantasy world operates according to real physics, then magic is crudely tacked on. This leads to things like magic and technology being separate and coextant.

The problem is that this is a purely modernist conceit. The pre-modern societies that believed in magic did not see it as separate from nature. To them, our technology would be magic. In fact, a universe with different physics that allows magic would preclude technology as we understand it.

This conceit leads to silly things like "magical beasts" being separate from (and smarter than) real animals, when medieval bestiaries made no such distinction. The manticore, for example, was believed to be a real and mundane animal that was captured by Indians and de-tailed for its pleasing voice. D&D makes it a magical unnatural thing with much higher intelligence and evil alignment.

Quote from: vgunn;1037933I like my geography at least somewhat plausible. That doesn't mean it has to be normal and not every geographic element has to line up with the real world, but when it doesn't there needs to be some explanation of why. Rivers that flow uphill or start in the middle of plains, oddly placed deserts which are next to vast jungles. Lost cities within a few days travel of civilization, towns with no reason to be where they are, swamps without a water source. Huge forests on the rain-shadow side of mountains.

Mystara is probably the worst offender. Now, that doesn't stop me from playing--it just bothers me. I love fantastical geography--walls of fire reaching to heaven and things like that--but let me know the how/why it occurred.

Oh, I see. I don't personally have any issue with that, but I bet if I was a geologist instead of an historian it would bug the hell out of me.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1038332Oh, I see. I don't personally have any issue with that, but I bet if I was a geologist instead of an historian it would bug the hell out of me.

Different physics and the whimsical gods that create them, except in Mystara where they prefer to identify as Immortals.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1038103D&D operates on the conceit that the fantasy world operates according to real physics, then magic is crudely tacked on.

0e-3e do that; 3e probably the worst. 4e consciously avoided this trope and took more of a Runequest approach, with an inherently magical universe. 5e as usual is somewhere in between and can be drifted either way.

I think that the 'real world physics' thing was extremely variable and mostly focused in very isolated cases.

That the societal, technological, religious and other implications of magic, gods, multiple intelligent races and so on is never really thought through to its logical conclusion.
Nor is life in a world beset by hungry, nasty megafauna ever really thought through.
Nor the implications of alignment being a real and actual thing, rather than a matter of perspective.

A lot of things

D&D was written as "Explore the Fun House from Hell," complete with crashed flying saucers and bowling alleys for 100' tall giants.

People who want logical conclusions shouldn't play D&D.  They'd be happier playing a different game.

Another one:  low Strength, high Dexterity archers.  Wouldn't happen.  Real archers were known for their strength, which came from and was required for practicing drawing their bows.  To the extent that you can distinguish English longbowmen and Mongolian archers by their skeletons.

This one I assume is more emergent out of the way the rules work than it is planned in advance. Roll low strength, know strength penalties apply to attack and damage in melee, decide to make a character that hangs back out of combat and still contributes - I can see how it happens.  But we sure do run with it, to an extent that's ridiculous.  I know that strength bows are in the rules in most editions, but on the evidence it's not enough.

It doesn't help any that D&D kept the Tolkienism of elves being good with bows even while giving them a strength penalty and making them shorter and slighter than humans.  Those two things do not go together at all, but God forbid we give up a Tolkienism.

Oh for shit's sake.  "Elf shot" is 1000 years older than Tolkien, as is the notions of elves being smaller than humans.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1038804Oh for shit's sake.  "Elf shot" is 1000 years older than Tolkien, as is the notions of elves being smaller than humans.

Pre-Tolkien pixie elves might send you to sleep with tiny enchanted darts or arrows. Longbow-wielding elves are definitely from Tolkien, but Tolkien elves are taller and probably stronger than Men.

I always hated the notion that Magic and Technology are incompatible.

Quote from: GRIM;1038737Nor is life in a world beset by hungry, nasty megafauna ever really thought through.

I have a friend that is constantly grousing about all of the unfortified and undefended towns and villages that dot the hostile countryside in D&D worlds. He argues that they might do better relying on a few less wandering do-gooders and instead put their money into fortifications and militia. A recent example was in a module (Princes of the Apocalypse, IIRC) where the central town has no walls despite being built adjacent to a quarry.

Quote from: HappyDaze;1038846I have a friend that is constantly grousing about all of the unfortified and undefended towns and villages that dot the hostile countryside in D&D worlds. He argues that they might do better relying on a few less wandering do-gooders and instead put their money into fortifications and militia. A recent example was in a module (Princes of the Apocalypse, IIRC) where the central town has no walls despite being built adjacent to a quarry.

Yeah - even IRL villages in dangerous areas had palisades, towns and cities had stone walls. In modern Afghanistan a typical single-family farm/steading often resembles a small fort. Settlements IMCs have always been fortified since my very first GMing age 11, and I routinely have to sketch a wall round the village in umpteen published adventures.