Inspired by a digression in this thread, the question arises: Who would win if the ass-kicking female Drow took on the ultra-macho Goreans (I don’t say “misogynistic”. That’s a topic for another thread in itself)? Der Trihs plainly favours the Drow, and I’ll argue the Gorean corner out of a certain fondness for John Norman’s indifferently-written prose. (Not that the average D&D potboiler is appreciably better.)
For a start, let’s rid ourselves of the foolish notion that a single fireball from a high-level Drow wizardess would spell ruin for the Gorean. If we’re comparing like with like, the Gorean in question is presumably someone of the calibre of, say, Tarl Cabot himself, or any one of a number of others such as Marlenus of Ar, Kamchak of the Tuchuks, Rask of Treve, Ivar Forkbeard, Clitus Vitellius, or Jason Marshall, to name but a half-dozen. Any of these would be considered a high-level fighter in the D&D game system, and as such the Drow runs up against the unfortunate fact that the spell maxes out at 10d6 damage. That’s a trifling 18hp if the Gorean successfully saves for half damage, and a high-level fighter can stand six or seven of those before it starts getting serious – and meanwhile is handing out plenty of hack and slash to the arrogant Dark Elf.
Initially it struck me that the Priest-Kings of Gor would be quick to stamp out such perceived infractions of their weapons technology as any obvious manifestation of destrctive magic, or even the armour that Drow habitually go clad in; Goreans themselves are not allowed even the least effective of firearms, or any personal protection save a helmet and shield, and there is no second warning and but one penalty. But as Der Trihs points out, the Spider Queen herself might feel compelled to step in if her worshippers started to suffer the Flame Death. Now I don’t feel it’s anything like a foregone conclusion that she either would go toe-to-toe with all the might of the Sardar, or that she would triumph if she did; and the penalty for failure would be steep. She might though be able to bluff the Priest-Kings into an exemption clause in exchange for respecting the sanctuary of the Nest, and perhaps the intellectual exercise is more interesting if we assume this is so. In Gorean the words for “stranger” and “enemy” are the same; and the words for “unarmoured Drow with no magic” and “toast” would likewise be homologous. 
So where does that leave us? In “civilised” Gor, by no means everyone is a Warrior; that is only one of the five High Castes, and a small fraction of the population. For all that, the proportion of warriors in the general population of a city is no doubt higher than in any civilised nation on Earth; every city you can think of seems to be able to field thousands of Warriors of all sorts. In the “barbarian” populations, the Drow’s task seems to be harder still. Whether the Wagon Peoples of the southern plains, the marauders of Torvaldsland, or the Red Savages of the Barrens, every able-bodied man seems to be expected to be a man-at-arms first, no matter what his nominal occupation. So the Drow must deal with a huge armed population, and one that is constantly exercising itself against its nearest neighbour. It is a Gorean saying that causes exist in order that men may fight.
It seems then that, comparing like with like, we will find as many high-level fighters on Gor as we will find high-level wizards and priestesses among the Drow; as many mid-level as mid-level; and tolerably few pushovers. And rendering these Goreans into their D&D equivalents, it seems only reasonable that the game system compensates them for their repudiation of armour. There is more than enough flexibility built into 2nd and 3rd Edition alike – hit point bonuses, saving throw bonuses, combat adds – to ensure that Gor would be, quite literally, a world of hurt to any Drow who thought that they could teach the Goreans not to go around enslaving poor, helpless females. The mere fact that the Drow can do magic doesn’t make the contest a walkover.
Opinions? 
