If you can throw a lightning bolt, do you need a pistol? If you can teleport, are you going to build an auto factory? […] We want logic to be a part it, even with magic. […] If you live in a world, where someone suddenly came up with something to give you immortality, how would you feel? What would be the reactions in that world?
Now the first thought everyone would say to that is: everyone would be ecstatic! We’re going to be immortal! But what about the mother and father of the last person who died, before the Well of Souls [immortality] was available? What about the mother who lost all her children, and her husband, and is very old and frail and broken down, and looking forward to an after life that she devoutly believes in? Where she can see her husband and children again?
Snippet from an interview with R. A. Salvatore about world building / game lore design. Absolutely fascinating.