The Magical Realm

There is a comic out there, called Gunshow.

One of its more memorable comics involved a party of adventurers having to go through a situation that is, let us say, untoward because of the particular disordered desires of the DM running the game. The catch phrase from the comic is 'Dare You Enter My Magical Realm.'

This has become a bit of a go-to phrase for when DMs pull in their bizarre fetishes and inflict them on the party, or rather, inflict a bizarre and unwanted look into the mind of their friend onto the players.

The Magical Realm though isn't just evident in one's bedroom activities, it is also representative I'd argue in terms of a variety of situations where the desires of the guy running the game are inflicted on the players.

I bring this up, because The Magical Realm also can occasionally show up even in your world building.

Forays into the realm of magic are inevitable, mostly because people by their very nature tend to put across their desires, thoughts and world-views into everything they create. This is natural, the problem occurs when they become onerous, disturbing, or inescapable.

When world building, a world builder should pay attention to make sure that elements in his setting are semi-reasonable, consistent and "realistic." Yes, yes, I know, purple dragons and all that. But realism is important when you take it from the approach of how people act. We may play in fantasy sessions with alien creatures, but your players are probably humans, and if the humans in your campaign setting are acting like weirdoes, they'll notice it.

The Magical Realm also affects people differently, so noting its borders is difficult. Some notice they've crossed through the elf gates very early on, while for others they are practically at the center before they detect that things are..off.

A world designer can try to mitigate the issue a bit by making sure that there isn't too much of it to journey into, and this is primarily accomplished by making a campaign setting who's primary focus is to provide an entertaining stage for the PCs, and not a theater of education or titillation for the world developer.

Forgotten Realms has a reputation for being its designer's magical realm, but because of the 'limits' imposed when it was made commercial, we've been spared the screwy free-love, rumpy-pumpy elf plots that its developer (apparently, if the rumors are true) thought were so important. This is why Forgotten Realms, despite having Volo going around rating every whorehouse in Faerun, isn't considered on the same tier as say FATAL.

Its compartmentalized.

Its a part of the world, and not the principle focus. That being said, I would not want said developer to be a DM of a session I had to play in.

On a more personal level, me and a few friends took a foray into the magical realm of a DM back around when 3e came out. I'll detail that in another post. This one is running long, and I think the full story will be better in detailing that this stuff isn't always about bedroom matters.