Someone on YouTube felt it necessary to point out the historical inaccuracies in the Baldur's Gate III trailer as if they were crimes against Medieval history.
I, myself, made mention of the Spanish (as in Spain) Z not having the Castilian Lisp in the Medieval era (sounding more like English 's', 'z', 'ts', or 'tz' depending on the time and region - and the Lisp was also missing from S as well back then), but that was more as a matter of trivia than a crime. Many people in Spain who play D&D likely use the Lisp in the Spanish (as in Spain) version of D&D "Common". So, the accuracy for the lack of the Lisp isn't important to me, just trivia.
I prefer to play in a setting of a flat world with the visible Material Plane universe revolving around. It's not historically accurate on the common beliefs of the Medieval era, but neither are the existence of all the various planes, monsters, magicks, and playable races in D&D accurate to Medieval Earth. I do ask that non-magical effects in the story have non-magical effects as one could expect in the real world, but not everything in the D&D settings must have explanations to be accepted. (I know so few who have any remote idea regarding the technology behind modern mobile devices, but everyone I know uses them without such understanding.)
What are your thoughts. What is too much and pulls you out of the story and lore?
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Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
Unless I'm setting my campaign on Earth, all the sociocultural stuff has to go out the window. It can be OK to use it as a OOC reference point, or to model some aspects of your culture (especially when homebrewing), but if you're playing in a world with any amount of magic, that's going to vastly adjust a lot of how culture and society has developed. The big thing I feel having a different impact is the religious makeup, and how those moral values and rules function differently from the philosophical and ethical sources many of us have come up with, whether consciously or not.
Physics I tend to want to conform more to the real world, except for where it has to work with magic, and then I still want some internal logic or consistency to it.
Yeah talking about "accuracy" in a world with no basis in reality is a bit rich. D&D is not medieval, it merely at times *resembles* the medieval world (where at other times it's Rennaisance, or the 1910's, or ancient China, or... you get the idea).
If drawing inspiration from history gets the ball rolling for you then you do you, but nobody else is required to.
I think that there is a line that can be crossed that will destroy immersion. Assuming you are playing in a world that is medieval-time inspired (which the lion's share of D&D campaigns do), then having things like electricity and microwaves would utterly destroy immersion for me. My feeling on this would be, if you're gonna have electricity and microwaves (etc.) just set it in the modern era and do an Urban Fantasy instead. I'm perfectly happy to play in such a game, but it's not medieval fantasy.
On the other hand, it is fantasy, and things like goblins, trolls, dragons, and griffons exist (at least by default) in a D&D world. And, of course, magic. So I don't mind if there are magical ways of cooking that are as fast as a microwave, for example. I'd find a "box of roasting" that is enchanted in such a way that you put the food in, tap twice with a wand, wait 1 minute, and it comes out cooked, far less objectionable in a fantasy world than an electric-operated microwave with a digital read-out.
When I do fantasy world-building, I usually start from a given time period/culture in the real world, and then ask, "How would magic and the presence of fantastical creatures and undead and such things have affected this culture to make it different?" Then I go from there. So I will leave the "technology" at the real-world level (e.g., there were no "showers" or "bathrooms" in medieval times), but then I will ask, is there some magical or fantastical way that some of these more modern-style things could exist. For example, a "Room of Rainwater" that is enchanted to rain on you when the magic word is spoken, might be common in the homes of rich people, and they use it to bathe. That kind of thing.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I don't think the naive fantasy setting D&D aims to offer mixes well with realism, and that is not meant as a critique. Certainly there needs to be some ties to reality but I think that world's internal consistency is more important aspect of creating verisimilitude.
In which world, are we referring? Are we just talking one of the infinite worlds of the Prime Material Plane that emphasizes its own singular importance, a pool party in the Feywild to celebrate the first blooms of a new year, talking in the streets of Sigil as all the Cutters from Arcadia to Mechanus line up to buy a new weapon that lets a body pre-load successful attack rounds, or aboard a galleon in the astral sea where we find a stowaway from goblin soul from Acheron who is tired of fighting and just wants safe passage back to Faerun (wherever that is) and will apparently tell some cult called the Harpers whatever he can if they agree to magically start a new life as a Halfling. He always wanted to be a Bard.
It probably depends on the specific education of the players. Economists will in general require a more consistent portrayal of economics. Sociologists might lose immersion faster if you don't think things through for a society. And physicists might have their verisimilitude broken more easily if you include impossible stellar bodies with no explanation.
That said, magic and gods can give you lots of explanations for why things are how they are. But you'll need to think these things through more thoroughly how magic interacts with real world physics to make a triple star system viable. "A wizard did it!" won't cut it for me to explain where the Fireball comes from. "Magic draws energy and material from another dimension to create it's effects" might be sufficient for me. For others you'll need to dig even deeper.
As for languages, I always assume the characters actually speak completely different languages that are just represented by our languages. Just like when American movies get dubbed in German or other languages. I'm not thinking Indiana Jones speaks in German with his father. The Nazis among themselves do. Even though all is rendered German in the dub. Thus, I'm completely fine with modern language in D&D.
I think that basic science like chemical reactions should exist, and underwater pressure. But I like things such as the logic of space not killing you from pressure, you can escape the atmosphere just by flying, and you even take some oxygen with you. DND space is a real high point in scifi.
I think that there is a line that can be crossed that will destroy immersion. Assuming you are playing in a world that is medieval-time inspired (which the lion's share of D&D campaigns do), then having things like electricity and microwaves would utterly destroy immersion for me. My feeling on this would be, if you're gonna have electricity and microwaves (etc.) just set it in the modern era and do an Urban Fantasy instead. I'm perfectly happy to play in such a game, but it's not medieval fantasy.
On the other hand, it is fantasy, and things like goblins, trolls, dragons, and griffons exist (at least by default) in a D&D world. And, of course, magic. So I don't mind if there are magical ways of cooking that are as fast as a microwave, for example.
This sounds a lot like the Elevator complaint about The Adventure Zone. It rolls back to my point about D&D not *being* medieval and just *resembling* it at times. You can have elevators that run on magic or steam or even like a water pump system like a boat elevator, doesn't make it less "accurate."
Personally, I was as much real world physics and realism as possible. Longer recovery periods, water reducing fall damage at a certain height, clever uses of physics to avoid something or make it happen. If someone can prove to me that it can happen in the real world I will allow it in my games. It's just me, but I do enjoy realistic mechanics in my game settings.
I think that there is a line that can be crossed that will destroy immersion. Assuming you are playing in a world that is medieval-time inspired (which the lion's share of D&D campaigns do), then having things like electricity and microwaves would utterly destroy immersion for me. My feeling on this would be, if you're gonna have electricity and microwaves (etc.) just set it in the modern era and do an Urban Fantasy instead. I'm perfectly happy to play in such a game, but it's not medieval fantasy.
On the other hand, it is fantasy, and things like goblins, trolls, dragons, and griffons exist (at least by default) in a D&D world. And, of course, magic. So I don't mind if there are magical ways of cooking that are as fast as a microwave, for example.
This sounds a lot like the Elevator complaint about The Adventure Zone. It rolls back to my point about D&D not *being* medieval and just *resembling* it at times. You can have elevators that run on magic or steam or even like a water pump system like a boat elevator, doesn't make it less "accurate."
Maybe it's not "less accurate" but if I am explicitly playing a game to get that medieval fantasy, Lord of the Rings, kind of feel, and the world has steampunk elevators and stuff, it's going to break my immersion and probably be less fun for me.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I think part of the issue is that the popular perception of what's "historically accurate" for an era often... isn't. For example, the ancient Romans had elevators and rudimentary steam engines, and Italy was issuing patents for steam-powered inventions as early as the 1600s, so a "steampunk elevator" could plausibly exist in a medieval or Renaissance-inspired world, but because most people don't know that it will be jarring and atmosphere-breaking to include.
"Realism" isn't the issue, when it comes down to it. It's verisimilitude. Does the world have an internal logic to it, and do people see what they expect to see?
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"We're the perfect combination of expendable and unkillable!"
A lot of the "realism" has to come from "why would people do this, at this time, with these tools"?
Take the microwave oven. It's totally possible that in a higher magic world that they could build a metal box, bind some fire spirits to it and create a "device" that you put in some kind of food and it's "cooked" in a few minutes rather than a few hours. Or maybe you use some kind of time bubble. Put the meat over a fire and then slow time in JUST the box so that it pops out a minute later "In our time" fully cooked, ie 3 hours later.
But why? Why would someone build this? Why do they NEED to have food cooked super fast? We thought we did back in the 1980's because we wanted to reheat small dishes quickly. We didn't think we had time/ resources to fully cook meals, or to cook TV dinners, or to reheat saved left-overs. There was a market demand for the Microwave Oven. Would there be in a tavern in Waterdeep?
Elevators make similar sense. Why do they need to move a platform vertically? Why not just use stairs? Or a ladder? What advantage comes from building a steam punk or magical elevator?
I can see a high elven castle really going all in on the floating platform, not because of demand, but because of the prestige. Look how powerful our magic is: We dont' even bother with stairs because we can enchant THE FLOOR!
For my money, realism is key to immersion, but that realism is grounded in being able to have real answers to the question: how did they come up with THAT?!?
For my part, I think the world has to obey most of the rules we take for granted otherwise we run the risk of not being able to take anything for granted and the world becomes incoherent. Food has to be the most important activity in a medieval society and shelter and clothing the next. Towns have to have a source of water that looks about right for the size of the town. There needs to be some manner of coherent religion in the area. Folks need something more to live for than their next meal so there needs to be a stable social fabric with some artistic beauty. There needs to be a relative scarcity of resources so folks make use of things to a great extent until they fall apart. There was an old Dickens expression, "She wore a twice turned dress." Look it up and understand how poor people were throughout most of history. And then within this backdrop the spectacular heros come into the picture. Imagine how they would be treated with their powers and gifts in a world of poverty.
I'm a Jewish woman with Autism Spectrum Disorder. A historically accurate medieval European setting isn't a place I want to go, or roleplay living in. I'm looking for a completely secondary fantasy world with no ties to our world, so as long as it's internally consistent, I'm good.
The culture and technology of medieval Europe were intinsically shaped by the political, religious, natural, and historical events that led up to it, none of which would have happened in a secondary world. The absence of Christianity alone would result in an entirely different culture and technology level in Europe (and elsewhere) by the middle ages.
Besides, forget elevators and microwaves, *potatoes* didn't exist in medieval Europe. Nothing in D&D is even a little bit historically accurate anyway, so why get worked up?
Yeah, if anything, sticking too closely to real-world medieval Europe is less realistic and more immersion breaking, given the completely different conditions of any given D&D world.
Why would the political system be feudal, if there are easy ways of transportation and communication. as well as benevolent, intervening deities?
How would the clergy justify misogynie when there are benevolent and/or female deities who could take their clerics' powers away for doing so? Why would sexism exist in the first place? When physical prowess is less important due to magic's existence and pregnancy and giving birth being less of an issue, thanks to better health care than we have, even now?
How would the clergy justify misogynie when there are benevolent and/or female deities who could take their clerics' powers away for doing so? Why would sexism exist in the first place? When physical prowess is less important due to magic's existence and pregnancy and giving birth being less of an issue, thanks to better health care than we have, even now?
Does it though?
I'm often plagued by this paradox when planning a homebrew game world. What happens in a world where in theory you can have injuries and diseases simply cured by a local priest/ cleric? Or if there's a death in the family, why not just resurrect them? But then again resources are finite. The material components of a resurrection spell are not insignificant. Would the miller's family have the money to pay for those resources? And if not, why not demand the church provide them? Why is it that someone with a keep/ holdings should get access but not the baker?
I think that if we do a deep dive on what is possible/ likely for a governmental system we would still find haves and have-nots even in our fantasy based on the "Rules as Written". The "Adventurer Social Class" becomes it's own beast separate from the the Laborer, Trades-person, Noble classes. I'm not sure that a fuedalistic society wouldn't rise up even with better communication and transportation technologies. You still have the issue of "access". Can a wizard who can only cast 2-3 spells per long rest afford to be sending lists of products around for commoners? And are people who are able to study and train enough to cast 2-4th level magic going to be happy sitting in a town and making coin on mundane magics? Think about it, a long rest means "I'm done for the day" level fatigue.
Not sure there's "an answer" here" but there seems to be some room to wiggle in a collection of directions.
I didn't say there wouldn't be social stratification and different classes. A magocracy would make some sense, I think. Just the system of medieval Europe likely wouldn't emerge as is. Feudalism developed as a response to specific conditions. Medieval China wasn't feudal, Rome wasn't feudal, Ancient Egypt wasn't feudal. And D&D worlds mostly wouldn't be either (it's not impossible of course).
In the end, you can have whatever tickles your fancy. But it'll be because you want it, not because of "historical accuracy".
Believably is far more important than a resemblance to the real world. If those full size ships flying on dragonfly wings make sense within the world you have constructed then there is nothing wrong with them.
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Someone on YouTube felt it necessary to point out the historical inaccuracies in the Baldur's Gate III trailer as if they were crimes against Medieval history.
I, myself, made mention of the Spanish (as in Spain) Z not having the Castilian Lisp in the Medieval era (sounding more like English 's', 'z', 'ts', or 'tz' depending on the time and region - and the Lisp was also missing from S as well back then), but that was more as a matter of trivia than a crime. Many people in Spain who play D&D likely use the Lisp in the Spanish (as in Spain) version of D&D "Common". So, the accuracy for the lack of the Lisp isn't important to me, just trivia.
I prefer to play in a setting of a flat world with the visible Material Plane universe revolving around. It's not historically accurate on the common beliefs of the Medieval era, but neither are the existence of all the various planes, monsters, magicks, and playable races in D&D accurate to Medieval Earth. I do ask that non-magical effects in the story have non-magical effects as one could expect in the real world, but not everything in the D&D settings must have explanations to be accepted. (I know so few who have any remote idea regarding the technology behind modern mobile devices, but everyone I know uses them without such understanding.)
What are your thoughts. What is too much and pulls you out of the story and lore?
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
There is magic and dragons and other fantastical things. I can overlook a lot of stuff.
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Unless I'm setting my campaign on Earth, all the sociocultural stuff has to go out the window. It can be OK to use it as a OOC reference point, or to model some aspects of your culture (especially when homebrewing), but if you're playing in a world with any amount of magic, that's going to vastly adjust a lot of how culture and society has developed. The big thing I feel having a different impact is the religious makeup, and how those moral values and rules function differently from the philosophical and ethical sources many of us have come up with, whether consciously or not.
Physics I tend to want to conform more to the real world, except for where it has to work with magic, and then I still want some internal logic or consistency to it.
Birgit | Shifter | Sorcerer | Dragonlords
Shayone | Hobgoblin | Sorcerer | Netherdeep
Yeah talking about "accuracy" in a world with no basis in reality is a bit rich. D&D is not medieval, it merely at times *resembles* the medieval world (where at other times it's Rennaisance, or the 1910's, or ancient China, or... you get the idea).
If drawing inspiration from history gets the ball rolling for you then you do you, but nobody else is required to.
I think that there is a line that can be crossed that will destroy immersion. Assuming you are playing in a world that is medieval-time inspired (which the lion's share of D&D campaigns do), then having things like electricity and microwaves would utterly destroy immersion for me. My feeling on this would be, if you're gonna have electricity and microwaves (etc.) just set it in the modern era and do an Urban Fantasy instead. I'm perfectly happy to play in such a game, but it's not medieval fantasy.
On the other hand, it is fantasy, and things like goblins, trolls, dragons, and griffons exist (at least by default) in a D&D world. And, of course, magic. So I don't mind if there are magical ways of cooking that are as fast as a microwave, for example. I'd find a "box of roasting" that is enchanted in such a way that you put the food in, tap twice with a wand, wait 1 minute, and it comes out cooked, far less objectionable in a fantasy world than an electric-operated microwave with a digital read-out.
When I do fantasy world-building, I usually start from a given time period/culture in the real world, and then ask, "How would magic and the presence of fantastical creatures and undead and such things have affected this culture to make it different?" Then I go from there. So I will leave the "technology" at the real-world level (e.g., there were no "showers" or "bathrooms" in medieval times), but then I will ask, is there some magical or fantastical way that some of these more modern-style things could exist. For example, a "Room of Rainwater" that is enchanted to rain on you when the magic word is spoken, might be common in the homes of rich people, and they use it to bathe. That kind of thing.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I don't think the naive fantasy setting D&D aims to offer mixes well with realism, and that is not meant as a critique. Certainly there needs to be some ties to reality but I think that world's internal consistency is more important aspect of creating verisimilitude.
In which world, are we referring? Are we just talking one of the infinite worlds of the Prime Material Plane that emphasizes its own singular importance, a pool party in the Feywild to celebrate the first blooms of a new year, talking in the streets of Sigil as all the Cutters from Arcadia to Mechanus line up to buy a new weapon that lets a body pre-load successful attack rounds, or aboard a galleon in the astral sea where we find a stowaway from goblin soul from Acheron who is tired of fighting and just wants safe passage back to Faerun (wherever that is) and will apparently tell some cult called the Harpers whatever he can if they agree to magically start a new life as a Halfling. He always wanted to be a Bard.
It probably depends on the specific education of the players. Economists will in general require a more consistent portrayal of economics. Sociologists might lose immersion faster if you don't think things through for a society. And physicists might have their verisimilitude broken more easily if you include impossible stellar bodies with no explanation.
That said, magic and gods can give you lots of explanations for why things are how they are. But you'll need to think these things through more thoroughly how magic interacts with real world physics to make a triple star system viable. "A wizard did it!" won't cut it for me to explain where the Fireball comes from. "Magic draws energy and material from another dimension to create it's effects" might be sufficient for me. For others you'll need to dig even deeper.
As for languages, I always assume the characters actually speak completely different languages that are just represented by our languages. Just like when American movies get dubbed in German or other languages. I'm not thinking Indiana Jones speaks in German with his father. The Nazis among themselves do. Even though all is rendered German in the dub. Thus, I'm completely fine with modern language in D&D.
I think that basic science like chemical reactions should exist, and underwater pressure. But I like things such as the logic of space not killing you from pressure, you can escape the atmosphere just by flying, and you even take some oxygen with you. DND space is a real high point in scifi.
Also known as CrafterB and DankMemer.
Here, have some homebrew classes! Subclasses to? Why not races. Feats, feats as well. I have a lot of magic items. Lastly I got monsters, fun, fun times.
This sounds a lot like the Elevator complaint about The Adventure Zone. It rolls back to my point about D&D not *being* medieval and just *resembling* it at times. You can have elevators that run on magic or steam or even like a water pump system like a boat elevator, doesn't make it less "accurate."
Personally, I was as much real world physics and realism as possible. Longer recovery periods, water reducing fall damage at a certain height, clever uses of physics to avoid something or make it happen. If someone can prove to me that it can happen in the real world I will allow it in my games. It's just me, but I do enjoy realistic mechanics in my game settings.
Maybe it's not "less accurate" but if I am explicitly playing a game to get that medieval fantasy, Lord of the Rings, kind of feel, and the world has steampunk elevators and stuff, it's going to break my immersion and probably be less fun for me.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I think part of the issue is that the popular perception of what's "historically accurate" for an era often... isn't. For example, the ancient Romans had elevators and rudimentary steam engines, and Italy was issuing patents for steam-powered inventions as early as the 1600s, so a "steampunk elevator" could plausibly exist in a medieval or Renaissance-inspired world, but because most people don't know that it will be jarring and atmosphere-breaking to include.
"Realism" isn't the issue, when it comes down to it. It's verisimilitude. Does the world have an internal logic to it, and do people see what they expect to see?
"We're the perfect combination of expendable and unkillable!"
A lot of the "realism" has to come from "why would people do this, at this time, with these tools"?
Take the microwave oven. It's totally possible that in a higher magic world that they could build a metal box, bind some fire spirits to it and create a "device" that you put in some kind of food and it's "cooked" in a few minutes rather than a few hours. Or maybe you use some kind of time bubble. Put the meat over a fire and then slow time in JUST the box so that it pops out a minute later "In our time" fully cooked, ie 3 hours later.
But why? Why would someone build this? Why do they NEED to have food cooked super fast? We thought we did back in the 1980's because we wanted to reheat small dishes quickly. We didn't think we had time/ resources to fully cook meals, or to cook TV dinners, or to reheat saved left-overs. There was a market demand for the Microwave Oven. Would there be in a tavern in Waterdeep?
Elevators make similar sense. Why do they need to move a platform vertically? Why not just use stairs? Or a ladder? What advantage comes from building a steam punk or magical elevator?
I can see a high elven castle really going all in on the floating platform, not because of demand, but because of the prestige. Look how powerful our magic is: We dont' even bother with stairs because we can enchant THE FLOOR!
For my money, realism is key to immersion, but that realism is grounded in being able to have real answers to the question: how did they come up with THAT?!?
"Teller of tales, dreamer of dreams"
Tips, Tricks, Maps: Lantern Noir Presents
**Streams hosted at at twitch.tv/LaternNoir
For my part, I think the world has to obey most of the rules we take for granted otherwise we run the risk of not being able to take anything for granted and the world becomes incoherent. Food has to be the most important activity in a medieval society and shelter and clothing the next. Towns have to have a source of water that looks about right for the size of the town. There needs to be some manner of coherent religion in the area. Folks need something more to live for than their next meal so there needs to be a stable social fabric with some artistic beauty. There needs to be a relative scarcity of resources so folks make use of things to a great extent until they fall apart. There was an old Dickens expression, "She wore a twice turned dress." Look it up and understand how poor people were throughout most of history. And then within this backdrop the spectacular heros come into the picture. Imagine how they would be treated with their powers and gifts in a world of poverty.
I'm a Jewish woman with Autism Spectrum Disorder. A historically accurate medieval European setting isn't a place I want to go, or roleplay living in. I'm looking for a completely secondary fantasy world with no ties to our world, so as long as it's internally consistent, I'm good.
The culture and technology of medieval Europe were intinsically shaped by the political, religious, natural, and historical events that led up to it, none of which would have happened in a secondary world. The absence of Christianity alone would result in an entirely different culture and technology level in Europe (and elsewhere) by the middle ages.
Besides, forget elevators and microwaves, *potatoes* didn't exist in medieval Europe. Nothing in D&D is even a little bit historically accurate anyway, so why get worked up?
Yeah, if anything, sticking too closely to real-world medieval Europe is less realistic and more immersion breaking, given the completely different conditions of any given D&D world.
Why would the political system be feudal, if there are easy ways of transportation and communication. as well as benevolent, intervening deities?
How would the clergy justify misogynie when there are benevolent and/or female deities who could take their clerics' powers away for doing so? Why would sexism exist in the first place? When physical prowess is less important due to magic's existence and pregnancy and giving birth being less of an issue, thanks to better health care than we have, even now?
Does it though?
I'm often plagued by this paradox when planning a homebrew game world. What happens in a world where in theory you can have injuries and diseases simply cured by a local priest/ cleric? Or if there's a death in the family, why not just resurrect them? But then again resources are finite. The material components of a resurrection spell are not insignificant. Would the miller's family have the money to pay for those resources? And if not, why not demand the church provide them? Why is it that someone with a keep/ holdings should get access but not the baker?
I think that if we do a deep dive on what is possible/ likely for a governmental system we would still find haves and have-nots even in our fantasy based on the "Rules as Written". The "Adventurer Social Class" becomes it's own beast separate from the the Laborer, Trades-person, Noble classes. I'm not sure that a fuedalistic society wouldn't rise up even with better communication and transportation technologies. You still have the issue of "access". Can a wizard who can only cast 2-3 spells per long rest afford to be sending lists of products around for commoners? And are people who are able to study and train enough to cast 2-4th level magic going to be happy sitting in a town and making coin on mundane magics? Think about it, a long rest means "I'm done for the day" level fatigue.
Not sure there's "an answer" here" but there seems to be some room to wiggle in a collection of directions.
"Teller of tales, dreamer of dreams"
Tips, Tricks, Maps: Lantern Noir Presents
**Streams hosted at at twitch.tv/LaternNoir
I didn't say there wouldn't be social stratification and different classes. A magocracy would make some sense, I think. Just the system of medieval Europe likely wouldn't emerge as is. Feudalism developed as a response to specific conditions. Medieval China wasn't feudal, Rome wasn't feudal, Ancient Egypt wasn't feudal. And D&D worlds mostly wouldn't be either (it's not impossible of course).
In the end, you can have whatever tickles your fancy. But it'll be because you want it, not because of "historical accuracy".
Believably is far more important than a resemblance to the real world. If those full size ships flying on dragonfly wings make sense within the world you have constructed then there is nothing wrong with them.