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Points of Light Killed the Campaign Setting...
- Thread starter Weregrognard
- Start date
Henry
Autoexreginated
Gents, be careful where you go with your talk of Muslims and religious fanaticism, because you've all been around long enough to know the rules of this board, and know we mods get testy when people violate them when they know better.
Thank you in advance. You want to get back to scopes of points of light games, be my guest, but watch the real-world political and religious discussion, thanks.
Thank you in advance. You want to get back to scopes of points of light games, be my guest, but watch the real-world political and religious discussion, thanks.
The setting I'm working on both heightens some aspects of the Points of Light (or as I put it, lights in the darkness, or candles flickering in the night, which both sound less modern to me) and downplays others.
4e makes me alternately want to color in the pages of the world they describe, tear some pages out of the coloring book, and add in some others. I like basic concepts, but dislike some of the ways they've integrated a specific default assumptions into the world.
For instance, I liked the idea of the Tieflings' new origins, but felt that they didn't really follow through on it. It's like they had this cool idea to turn them into a race that once ruled half the civilized world, and that brought about its own fall from grace, and then took it to a place where the remaining history looks like it was penciled in by an emo teenager with them hanging out in the alleys and slums of human towns with names like "Chant" and "Despair".
So there are good ideas, but I feel like they pulled back from them a bit too much to bring it back down to the traditional generic D&D world.
I really never cared for the D&D pantheons or gods. I'm trying to go with something that has more unified religions within racial groups. The gods of Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, default D&D, etc just feel like random collections of beings to me. I have a hard time imagining a fantasy medieval setting where many of these religions, even good-aligned religions, coexist alongside each other so easily. I suppose it has to do with having "proof" that all of these gods exist, but that's another thing I never really liked, either. To me, proof denies the possibility of faith. It becomes as academic as arcane magic.
So I was glad that they took out the one irksome aspect of divine magic, which was that a divine powered character had the ongoing endorsement of their god, and that there's now a sort of ordination ritual where divine power is imbued in a character up front. But then they left in a lot of the same flavor with gods as before.
So I guess that 4e isn't so much convincing me to mix-and-match, as the original poster seems to be saying, so much as it's driving me to answer my own questions about the concepts they introduce and become more specific about some things while scrapping others, drawing a line under some aspects of PoL while drawing a line through others.
4e makes me alternately want to color in the pages of the world they describe, tear some pages out of the coloring book, and add in some others. I like basic concepts, but dislike some of the ways they've integrated a specific default assumptions into the world.
For instance, I liked the idea of the Tieflings' new origins, but felt that they didn't really follow through on it. It's like they had this cool idea to turn them into a race that once ruled half the civilized world, and that brought about its own fall from grace, and then took it to a place where the remaining history looks like it was penciled in by an emo teenager with them hanging out in the alleys and slums of human towns with names like "Chant" and "Despair".
So there are good ideas, but I feel like they pulled back from them a bit too much to bring it back down to the traditional generic D&D world.
I really never cared for the D&D pantheons or gods. I'm trying to go with something that has more unified religions within racial groups. The gods of Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, default D&D, etc just feel like random collections of beings to me. I have a hard time imagining a fantasy medieval setting where many of these religions, even good-aligned religions, coexist alongside each other so easily. I suppose it has to do with having "proof" that all of these gods exist, but that's another thing I never really liked, either. To me, proof denies the possibility of faith. It becomes as academic as arcane magic.
So I was glad that they took out the one irksome aspect of divine magic, which was that a divine powered character had the ongoing endorsement of their god, and that there's now a sort of ordination ritual where divine power is imbued in a character up front. But then they left in a lot of the same flavor with gods as before.
So I guess that 4e isn't so much convincing me to mix-and-match, as the original poster seems to be saying, so much as it's driving me to answer my own questions about the concepts they introduce and become more specific about some things while scrapping others, drawing a line under some aspects of PoL while drawing a line through others.
Weregrognard
First Post
It isn't, but that wasn't the point I was trying to get across (no edition wars, please.) The concept of PoL has made me think campaign design differently from before, where I would stick to one campaign setting at a time and it was unthinkable to have elements from other worlds mix. It's the whole "you need to empty your cup before you can fill it" thing. With PoL, the "world' is mysterious, unknown, and as large as I want it to be. This, I think, makes it easier for me to populate it with whatever I want, including elements from other campaign settings. Additionally, there's the benefit of fun by discovering the world along with the players.
I have nothing against meticulous, detailed campaign design. If you have the time and energy, go for it! As for me, I'm going to go along with 4E's "easier to DM" philosophy and concentrate my world creation energies to the current adventures I'm working on and not worry so much about the world at large. After all, adventures are the meat of a campaign. We shall see if the change of pace ends up being more enjoyable or not.
Applying RW events to the PoL design suggests that you can also have an ostensibly civilized city or state that has so isolated itself that it stagnates and maybe even regresses.
The aforementioned Chinese were responsible for many inventions in the ancient world, but shut themselves off from the "barbarians" outside their walls and powerful navy. When travelers and traders worked their way back into China from the West bearing some of their latest and greatest inventions, they were often met with awe and respect...even though the Chinese had actually invented the same things hundreds of years before. They had forgotten their greatness.
The aforementioned Chinese were responsible for many inventions in the ancient world, but shut themselves off from the "barbarians" outside their walls and powerful navy. When travelers and traders worked their way back into China from the West bearing some of their latest and greatest inventions, they were often met with awe and respect...even though the Chinese had actually invented the same things hundreds of years before. They had forgotten their greatness.
I recall there's some history that says the Chinese invented/discovered things over and over, because some ruler would go and burn the libraries and whatnot.
Jack Colby
First Post
I'm actually pretty disappointed that after WotC kept talking about the Points of Light deal, all the stuff presented so far seems like "business as usual" D&D world cliche'd garbage. I was hoping for more of a palpable change in official materials, at least the generic D&D stuff.
Agamon
Adventurer
Well really. You don't need PoL to mix and match. You can drop magical trains and warforged into what used to be Toril, but is now taken over by the Mists and carved into sections under new Darklords.
Forgotten Eberrloft?
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