Points of Light Killed the Campaign Setting...

[robertsconley]

I can't help but feel constrained by limiting my campaign to one setting and having to shoehorn adventures and material into it.

I am trying to solve the problem with a new Goodman Games product called Points of Light. One of the reason Joseph Goodman went for is how I presented Points of Light and how it can be continued indefinitely if he chooses to make into a line of products.

http://www.goodman-games.com/4380preview.html

Basically Points of Light is a gazetteer for four lands. It is 48 pages and will sell for $12.99. Each land has a map with numbered hexes. I chose not because I have fetish for old school style but I feel that it is the most compact form for conveying a lot of information about an area.

Each area has a series of locales keyed to the number of hex grid. In addition any multi-hex geographical feature is listed along with any specialized entry unique to the area.

Each area is designed to drop into a referee's campaign with minimal work. Each area is designed so that it has useful material that fleshes out another area. So if you use just Borderlands the remaining 3 lands will have entries of use. However is not in the form of a campaign world but more that each area shares common concepts.

Like the God Sarrath appears in three area, the Bright Empire in a different set of three. This was done to maximize the use of 48 pages.

What stat there are are generic and usable for any edition of D&D and most fantasy RPGs. In a setting type product you don't have a lot of space for stats anyway.

Example Entry

0913 Sam’s Landing (Hamlet)
This small hamlet of mud huts is the marshalling area for Baron Beldon’s raids on the trade caravan passing between Westguard and Bolzak. There are usually several dozen canoes and a handful of barges pulled onto shore at any time. In the center of the hamlet is the Green Frog Inn, where Tom Lodon (Rog6) rules the thugs and pirates of Sam’s Landing with an iron fist. Nailed to a post next to his “throne” is the shriveled head of Sam Dalton, the former chief of the hamlet. Over 40 pirates and raiders live in the hamlet, along with a dozen women, and twenty slaves to tend potatoes patches. A good portion of the crop is used to brew Silver Lightning, a type of hard liquor. A dozen wererats (1 HD) live on the outskirts of town and are used as scouts on raids.

The four areas

Each land is about 125 miles by 100 miles. They are provided with a minimal background to make it easy to add it to any referee's campaign.

The four lands presented are

Wildland: The fall of the Bright Empire left warring factions in its wake. As savage barbarians and wicked humanoids roam the land, the last bastions of civilization cower behind their crumbling city walls. A dark age has come, and none may live to tell the tale.

Southland: On the frontiers of the Great Kingdom, the nations of men, elves and dwarves join together against the wicked elves of Nighportal Keep and the Orcs of the Bloody Fist. A realm is yours for the taking, if you can carve it from the wilderness.

Borderland: Two factions clash over war-torn fields, battling for dominance in a civil war that that has torn a once-mighty empire in two. When brother strives against brother, and blood runs in the streets, who will emerge to unify the broken land -- and at what cost, peace?

The Swamps of Acheron: In the Outer Planes, amid fetid swamplands and ice-choked mountains, the fell god Sarrath holds court. In a realm where gods stalk the earth, will you dare to take a stand, or will you succumb to evil's siren song and take up the Serpent Banner?


A portion of one of the four maps. A fuller preview will posted closer to release

Hopefully my Points of Light won't kill the setting but give it a new rebirth by providing a multitude in a useful format.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Or alternatively, you could give people a bit of credit. We really do underestimate others to our own detriment.

Personally, when I read something someone's written that looks like pure idiocy (especially when they have a good command of spelling, punctuation and grammar - it's an indicator that they may be capable of nuanced thought) I ask myself if I'm not the one missing the point.

Likewise when I use sarcasm to make a point - dumbing it down just insults peoples' intelligence. I like to think that people are smart enough to comprehend without needing everything spelled out for them.

Fact is, it is always worth making an effort to strive for clarity of expression on a messageboard such as this, to avoid accidental confusion and bad feeling.

I'm glad that you are good at thinking twice when reading something that seems a bit strange. I'm glad that you like to make sure that you don't accidentally get hold of the wrong end of the stick.

However, not everyone does that, and you can make our job much easier and improve the general tenor of the boards by being careful how you write.

Thanks

 

[Weregrognard]

I am trying to solve the problem with a new Goodman Games product called Points of Light. One of the reason Joseph Goodman went for is how I presented Points of Light and how it can be continued indefinitely if he chooses to make into a line of products.

http://www.goodman-games.com/4380preview.html

This looks like I product I could get into. You have the potential for a few mini campaigns there.

 

[Snoweel]

Too many years of seeing people being completely serious and taking things to completely opposite angles really. Or maybe being snarky just didn't add anything to the thread and you should have avoided the comment, b/c you didn't make a point really.

I thought I made well the point that your apologist propaganda is neither welcome nor relevent.

But clearly I didn't.

This isn't the first place I've seen someone say that certain innovations in mathematics and such were lost in Dark Age Europe and weren't reintroduced until they came back from the Middle East years later. Matter of fact, pretty sure it was the History Channel saying it.

Nobody doubts that the greatest repositories of knowledge existed in the geographical area known as the cradle of civilisation. That such an area was relatively recently converted to a particular religion in no way proves the link between said religion and the associated font of knowledge - as another poster points out, the source of the returning knowledge is strongly disputed.

And as we say at work - wikipedia's a great reference because if you don't like what it says you can change it.

 

[Miyaa]

I would use the Point of Light genre in cases where the party is out exploring and mapping out territory that has not yet been explored. For example, I have a campaign that basically was the D&D equivalent of Lewis and Clark. They went from the start of a mysterious river and map it out all the way to the end, and seeing what they can find along the way. (Then, they have get back.) As they explore, they meet creatures (and sometimes not kill them), see ruins, note places that would be good for possible future forts, towns, and a good location for a monastery that would be far away from civilization. Maybe even meet a new race or two.

Point of Light isn't going to work as well when they shift from rural environments to urban ones (or Eberron). Nor is it going to work when it shifts from traveling in this world, to Stargatin' between various planes. But it's not a terrible basic premise behind most other worlds that I've read or played in.

Which brings me to something I am surprised it wasn't an epic destiny: Founder of Your Own Empire. Wouldn't that sound logical that through the quests and milestones, you take the remains of the cliche "ruins of an empire" and forge your own empire of your own choosing? Maybe in PH2.

 

[Ydars]

Hi all! Not sure where all this debate about the role of the Arab world in mathematics came from but here is a little thought;

The world Algebra comes from the Arab word Al jubra, as do many other mathematical expressions. The Arabs preserved and extended many mathematic ideas during the Dark Ages, particularly as a number of libraries were burned in this era.

Western and Arab scholars collected in places like the centres of learning in 6th/7th Century Ireland and this knowledge was re-introduced into the west through translations of Arabic texts into Latin.

Every maths course I have ever taken has stated this flatly as a FACT; Arabs were vital in the development of maths during the Dark Ages!

 

[Ydars]

The PoL concept is likely to make the D&D default more of a shared experience. It might be a little less rich and a little looser as a result but overall, I think it might be worth it.

I LOVE world-building, but always keep the unusual side of my worlds as matter of fact stuff introduced during play and I don't use it as a stick to beat my players with.

I think homebrews can be brilliant, but only if the DM has the right attitude.

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

I don't find the Points of Light concept all that interesting.

The thing is I really hate it when settings go out of their way to give both the people living in them and the PCs reasons to be afraid. I actually find that cheesier than settings where things are mostly stable and non-scary (I don't know why, maybe too much modern thinking).

For me a setting where darkness is the exception rather than the rule make much more sense both in terms of why interconnected systems like trade continue to work and how adventurers can focus their efforts on going off to other places rather than sticking around and being town guards.

 

[Snoweel]

Hi all! Not sure where all this debate about the role of the Arab world in mathematics came from but here is a little thought;

The world Algebra comes from the Arab word Al jubra, as do many other mathematical expressions. The Arabs preserved and extended many mathematic ideas during the Dark Ages, particularly as a number of libraries were burned in this era.

Western and Arab scholars collected in places like the centres of learning in 6th/7th Century Ireland and this knowledge was re-introduced into the west through translations of Arabic texts into Latin.

Every maths course I have ever taken has stated this flatly as a FACT; Arabs were vital in the development of maths during the Dark Ages!

Mathematics far predates 'Arab' as an identity.

I mean, kudos to them for keeping the flame of learning alive while Europe resolved its obsession with death and fear but let's not overstate the Arabs' good fortune in conquering a region that already had a considerable academic history.

 

[MommaDM]

I think the PoL setting can actually leave you more open to expanding out into a more complex or full world as time passes in the campaign. Just because the bit of world you start in is uncivilized and xenophobic doesn't mean they couldn't over a level or 5 end up in a more civilized place.
Example: 10th century Byzantines in Western Europe vs. 10th century Toltec in what's now Mexico.