Points of Light approach to setting

I just read the D&D article on the new approach to the basic 4th edition setting:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drdd/20070829a

It's called a "points of light" approach where pockets of civilization exist admist a sea of deadly wilderness.

"The centers of civilization are few and far between, and the world isn’t carved up between nation-states that jealously enforce their borders. A few difficult and dangerous roads tenuously link neighboring cities together, but if you stray from them you quickly find yourself immersed in goblin-infested forests, haunted barrowfields, desolate hills and marshes, and monster-hunted badlands."

Doesn't this scenario BEG the people to band together for safety as best they can?

This approach is requiring me to stretch just slightly more than my imigination will allow.

In the article, a picture is painted where perhaps a leader can defend his patch of kingdom but outside it's area of influence, other settlements might exist where they may indeed prosper or perhaps fall prey to some malign influence.

Basicly i'm grating against the thougth that... well... what kind of idiot would decide to live out in the middle of nowhere, away from better protected lands? If you live in the little Village of Berryshrub, might residents be fearful of being squashed under a gianst foot, usurped by cultists, raided by goblins, forced into slavery by a demon, or any other fantastical horrible fate?

How did those people come to found a town so far away from safety and what could compel them to stay? In a dangerous wilderness, would not intelligent people gather for safety? Might not there be SOME safe haven where people live for mutual safety? Wouldn't they activly seek safety out?

And of the smaller towns that could defened themselves adequately, would they not become beacons for smaller, weaker settlements?

Isn't that how greater civilizations began?

From the article: "The king’s soldiers might do a passable job of keeping the lands within a few miles of his castle free of monsters and bandits, but most of the realm’s outlying towns and villages are on their own."

Question: How did these outlying villages come to be settled so far away and if the king can't protect them, why don't thsese villagers resettle closer and patrol the newly expanded parimeter of the kindgom, thus exending the safe area offered by the king?

Can anyone help me grasp this?

magnusmalkus said:

Question: How did these outlying villages come to be settled so far away and if the king can't protect them, why don't thsese villagers resettle closer and patrol the newly expanded parimeter of the kindgom, thus exending the safe area offered by the king?

Can anyone help me grasp this?

Click to expand...

One way is the same way it happened in the Dark Ages IRL. A giant empire or kingdom once ruled over the known lands, but collapsed and the kingdoms that rose up in its' place are struggling to survive without the trade and diplomatic support they once enjoyed.

The "Points of Light" concept is not made up of giant kingdoms spanning from sea to sea. These isolated villagers might not have any loyalty to the local land baron or border lord. For many, there is only life to be had away from such bastions of 'civilization'; out amidst the wide open spaces of the world.

Think of early settlers in every society; heading out into the wild to stake a claim to a better life. Often it doesn't work out so well, the world being a dangerous place. Some people find what they are looking for despite (or because of) the hazards they face.

The closer you are to the king, the more often you'll actually have to pay taxes, the fewer freedoms you'll have, and so on. Also, let us not forget that not all of those people out there in the wilds are there by choice, either. Some have been exiled, some have run away.

By and large the villages protect themselves, not relying on the king's army to do so. They are secure enough within their small region of control that the bandits and beasts don't pose a direct threat to the village itself save in the harshest of winters when food is the most scarce.

Basically pick a frontier hamlet/village in the stages before it becomes a town or city as the more secure evolve into those.
Either that or the villages actually ARE in decline, suffering from attrition caused by monsters and environment and the PCs are finding these small beacons of light and trying to halt that inevitable fall into ruin.

(Rambled a bit, edited a little to try to make some semblence of sense - not sure if I have succeeded. Sorry 'bout that.)

It's also important to consider why villages and towns are located where they are. Towns don't just spring up in the middle of nowhere, they appear where there are good reasons for them to appear. Fertile land, a convenient river for shipping goods, a waterfall to power the mill, natural resources around like iron or gold, and most importantly a lack of any pressing enemies that could hinder progress.

I don't expect many villages to be founded at the mouth of a dragon's cave, but down in the fertile lands where the only real threat to the town is wild beasts and the occasional goblin incursion. All of the higher-level monsters (and thus more aggressive) would be shown on their maps as the famous "Here be dragons".

I am very concerned about this and would like to see what Fluff WoTC come up with in the DMG to justify PoLs. My fear is that they will just present this as "the way things are". I am designing two worlds for 4E and am thinking of trying to publish parts of them: I don't think FR or Eberron will work well as PoL settings.

I want to create, run (and sell?) a true PoL setting; 95% of the map is monster haunted wilderness sprinkled with fragile, tiny city states or smaller. My biggest settlement will be a city state with a hinterland about 20 miles across. I will also sprinkle the land with much smaller PoLs including isolated villages and Inns etc all surrounded by monster haunted wastes. I want the land to be unexplored and unknown, with only rumour to guide the PCs over the horizon. So how do I justify this setting from a realism point of view?

In order for this to work, I have devised passive protection for settlements, otherwise, they would all be highly armed camps. Given that WOTC fluff now states that there are few adventurers apart from the PCs, I don't think this is what they intended (hordes of armies and high level PCs).

So here is my design solution; in the past, a race, perhaps the Teiflings, empowered their buildings with a passive magical protection that drives away monsterous creatures. This power is not perfect but is a repulsion that makes it uncomfortable for most monsters to approach. I am working on some mechanics, but they really don't matter as this is fluff not crunch. The protection only offers repulsion about a days ride away maximum and then becomes virtually useless and the power of the repulsion is proportional to the amount of Tiefling stonework present.

Since the fall of the Teifling empire, other races and cities have robbed out the stone of the Teiflings (a common practise in real history) and have rebuilt houses, Inns and other settlements out of this stone, usually not realising the protective power. Now we have a mechanic for having isolated inns that monsters stay away from and small villages, isolated in the wilderness. There is a zone around the buildings that monsters hate to enter. They can if pushed hard but usually don't unless they are starving or compelled. the villagers might believe it is the protection of their local god or whatever.

Larger towns/cities, having more of this stone, become more resistant to attack and so can farm larger areas. But just go a days ride away and you are in trouble; the forests become tangled and haunted and Fey and other monsters hold sway.

I will also include roadways that are lined with blocks of stone from one of the bigger PoLs, so that we will have ribbons of light as well, so there is some limited trade. As long as you stay within the ribbon or PoL, all is likely to be well, but step off the path or out of the light and..............................

This should produce, isolated, backward, fearful and superstitous folk who also live in novel civilisations because isolation breeds cultural diversity. They can still be low-level and non-magical and yet survive. Occasionally, once a century, a PoL will vanish as a monster raid finally succeeds but this will be a slow process.

I hope this helps (and that I can get Waysider Press off the ground eventually).

Ydars

Fobok said:

One way is the same way it happened in the Dark Ages IRL. A giant empire or kingdom once ruled over the known lands, but collapsed and the kingdoms that rose up in its' place are struggling to survive without the trade and diplomatic support they once enjoyed.

Click to expand...

Hell, you don't even necessarily need the empire to have collapsed. "The empire is large, and the emperor is far away" is points-of-light condensed into a single sentence.

hong said:

Hell, you don't even necessarily need the empire to have collapsed. "The empire is large, and the emperor is far away" is points-of-light condensed into a single sentence.

Click to expand...

Let's take Asterix and Obelix as an example Single village surrounded by hordes of dangerous Romans. Two heroes and one druid are keeping forces of evil at bay, allowing rest of people lead normal lives (barring periodic mobilization, when everybody gets potion of heroism, grabs improvised weapons and kicks the Roman asses collectively).

Ydars said:

I am very concerned about this and would like to see what Fluff WoTC come up with in the DMG to justify PoLs. My fear is that they will just present this as "the way things are". I am designing two worlds for 4E and am thinking of trying to publish parts of them: I don't think FR or Eberron will work well as PoL settings.

Click to expand...

They're designing the new default setting as a PoL setting. I don't think they intend to force all of their existing settings into the style of a PoL setting.

Of the settings D&D has seen I'd say Dark Sun might be the most extreme example of a PoL setting. The land is harsh and the wilderness is populated by extremely dangerous creatures. Most people endure terrible conditions in cities because to leave them is almost certain death. Some do brave it and manage to carve out an existence in the wild. For a little while, at least.

Lord of the Rings did this via plague combined with increasing monster population / constant pressure from Mordor.

In historical times, 2000 people constituted a pretty big town. It's not so peculiar.

-The Gneech

I think of Seven Samurai. The bandits regularly raid this one village, and the villagers normally pay them off. But this time the harvest isn't as goood, so they wouldn't be able to survive. They find it easier to hire poor wandering samurai (adventurers) than to pay them off this time.

Or consider the myth of Theseus and the minotaur. Athens had been paying tribute to Crete for years, in the form of seven boys and seven girls to feed to the Minotaur. A hero comes along and defeats the monster, liberating the city.

I expect a lot of villages get by by cutting a deal with the local monsters. More intelligent monsters less interested in pure genocide will recognize that the village is a valuable source of resources (gold, food, slaves, etc) and should be tended accordingly.