You saw my brief list of fantasy books on the page 2? Two of the examples there were written well before DnD. Another before DnD was a big deal.hogarth wrote: It totally, totally does. Just about every pre-D&D fantasy story treats magic as a vaguely defined McGuffin that the bad guy uses, whereas the good guys are low-level schmucks who win by breaking the McGuffin. PCs just don't get ultra-powerful McGuffins (with fatal Achilles heels), and that's a good thing.
Moreover, if you want to exclude settings with "vaguely defined" magic from comparison, DnD goes the fuck out, because it never had any workable definitions of what magic should do or can't do, so we can only infer its capabilities from shit that actually gets done, like, well, in any setting with vaguely degined magic. And also shit that actually gets done in the same world changes between editions, sometimes drastically. Like, how polymorphing yourself suddenly went from a stupid idea to the best way to buff between 2E and 3E, or how availability and ease of creation of magic items suddenly radically changed in the same transition. That's why power level of DnD is better measured by what you're expected to fight, that remains somewhat more consistent.
hogarth wrote:"Epic" is not shooting the exhaust hole of the Death Star. "Epic" is having your own Death Star. Or are you seriously claiming that shit like "Jade Empire" or "Willow" is your idea of a high level D&D story (in which Frank will laugh you off the face of the planet)?
Never watched Willow, but Jade Empire is a great idea for beginning-high-level D&D story. Your oppose bad guys who are hardcore enough to steal power of a god, you and your buddies asskick a whole army with golems and magic and shit closer to the end, you save (or doom) the world and take over fantasy China as an emperor. Somewhat small-time for level 20th, but perfectly viable for 14-15th, in my mind. And certainly far fucking more impressive in terms of scale and consequences than nearly any of actual DnD stories, except for some books from Dragon Lance metaplot.