Stuff that is more realistic and has less overwhelming magic has better odds, mainly because you can crib off of 'what happened in real life,' but you have to be knowledgeable enough to pull that off.

Quote from: Brad;809767Serious, non-rhetorical question: is there ANY fantasy setting that is consistent?

Reality isnt 100% consistent. Some fantasy worlds do the best they can.

Quote from: Brad;809773Sure. I think the issue I'm having with this whole conversation is with the assumption that consistent means, unless it isn't explicitly stated, use whatever makes sense in the real world. Not by you, just in general. You can extrapolate all sorts of stupid crap if you think in real-world terms about how dragons exist, even though Middle Earth might operate on completely different physics. That sort of thing...

Well I'd say unless explicitly contradicted by the setting "use whatever make sense in the real world" is some degree of realism. How much depends on how frequent and how global the contradictions of the setting to the real world are.

Genertela the wold of Glorantha, for example, is literally a flatish lonzenge shaped like the earth rune that floats on a sea. So one needs to be pretty darn careful what one tries to extrapolate from real world physics. On the other hand, Tolkien's Middle Earth is our earth in an earlier age. So with a few magical and fantastical exceptions (like elves and dragons), most things work the same as they do in reality.

Quote from: Brad;809767Serious, non-rhetorical question: is there ANY fantasy setting that is consistent?

Setting? Quite a few. Greyhawk, even Forgotten Realms for all its dickery is fairly thought out as to why certain things happen.

Tekumel was pretty well laid out too   once you knew how all the gears meshed, and there were alot of gears to that.

Even Warhammer has a screwed up consistency within the setting. Theres actually a valid reason for all those dungeons so oft situated in mountains. Former dwarf cities.

The problem is when you take one element and look at it without taking into account everything else that impacts or counters it.

IE: Goblins are in some settings depicted quite prolific. So why dont they overrum everything else? Well taken all by themselves in the white room of love they WILL overrun everything. They dont because they are also one of the weakest races around usually (5e has buffed them up a bit) In AD&D you could literally mow several of them down in a single blow sometimes. They are also usually depicted as generally disorganized and fractious.

For setting consistency, I think Harn is reasonably consistent - and was built very much looking at consequences of various influences.

Quote from: Arohtar;808758To imagine the military (and political) consequences of magic users with fly, invisibility and fire ball.

I think it could be somewhat funny to let a high level party of magic users and clerics 'break' the fantasy world. To let them use their power for themselves, not on some dungeon monsters in a remote mountain range.

The Duke Stephan of Karameikos steps forward and speaks with his noble voice: "Adventurers, you have done well." *BOOOOM* The blackened body of the duke slams to the ground with a rattle from the armor. Two simultaneous 20d6 fire balls from party magic users killed the F18 instantly. Ten seconds later the body rises. Muffled words of "brain" can be heard from inside the helmet. The crowd of onlookers flee screaming in all directions from the zombie.

Well, amusingly given your example, Mystara was one of the few D&D settings to even try to consider those kinds of questions.  Not that it did in a way that was really 'realistic' in any sense, but the effort was there.

Quote from: Spike;809100I will note that most/many (pick the word you like more) of those 55k you mention live in areas that I, subconsciously I suppose, don't really consider part of Europe 'per se'*.  Given that I am a fan of the Polish Army Bear, I really should have known better than to include them for rhetorical flourish.






* You know, like Russia and the former Warsaw Pact areas, and near the arctic circle where those damn viking dudes used to live.

Poland is a part of Europe; though Russia isn't really. Europe ends at the Vistula, culturally speaking.

However, I should note that Wojtek, while serving in the Free Polish forces, was not originally a Polish bear.  The unit he was connected to picked him up while they were stationed in British Palestine, if I recall correctly.

Quote from: RPGPundit;811118Poland is a part of Europe; though Russia isn't really. Europe ends at the Vistula, culturally speaking.

That isn't even remotely correct. Historically speaking, not even for Poland (just look up the borders of the Rzeczpospolita). The eastern borders of Europe, as badly defined as they are, are basically the Ural Mountains, the Ural River and the Caucasus. Russia spreads across two continents, but the vast majority of the population lives in the European part of the Russian Federation, and, also historically speaking, with the collapse of the Golden Horde Khanate and the coronation of Ivan the Terrible, Russia was one of the European "wing powers" (the eastern counterpart to first Spain, and later England in the West).

Quote from: Beagle;811139That isn't even remotely correct. Historically speaking, not even for Poland (just look up the borders of the Rzeczpospolita). The eastern borders of Europe, as badly defined as they are, are basically the Ural Mountains, the Ural River and the Caucasus. Russia spreads across two continents, but the vast majority of the population lives in the European part of the Russian Federation, and, also historically speaking, with the collapse of the Golden Horde Khanate and the coronation of Ivan the Terrible, Russia was one of the European "wing powers" (the eastern counterpart to first Spain, and later England in the West).

Even so, it's an old Polish saying, and for good reason.  Russian LOOK like they have European culture, but for the most part its a sham. They went from tribal barbarians to serfs to communists; for them, the Renaissance and the Enlightenment were just things that happened to other people.