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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Zaruthustran" data-source="post: 4108109" data-attributes="member: 1457">Most all of my homebrew campaigns have been PoL. Even in the campaigns where we started in a very civilized / well mapped area, we very quickly headed out to the frontier or jumped on a ship and sailed off the map in search of the unknown. Here're some tropes:1. Civilization is constantly threatened2. The PCs are stronger than the general populace, they're heroes, and it's up to them to protect (or subjugate) civilization3. While high-level NPCs may exist, they are never available to bail out the PCs4. NPCs with great political power/knowledge/wealth are not necesarily high level5. People are generally petty and selfish, and prone to despair--but they respond powerfully if the heroes give them hopeIn a way the PoL setting is like a post-apocalyptic setting like Mad Max or Waterworld, or a Western like The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. Adventures are often based around:1. Resource acquisition (like finding a new water chip for your bunker, from the Fallout computer games)2. Revenge (bringing raiders to justice / tracking down the goblins that burned down the granary)3. Exploration (mapping, discovering fate of lost expeditions, discovering current status of towns marked on old maps)4. Defense (repelling a horde of undead or orcs, or undead orcs)5. Conquest (think Conquistadors in the New World)6. Trade (guarding caravans, seeking to discover new mountain pass or shipping route)7. Colonization (clearing land and establishing a new barony) Character motivations vary but I've seen them group around the themes from The Magnificent Seven. Cash, glory, duty, "because no one else can do it". Mortality in the campaigns I've played has been fairly high. Not necessarily among PCs; the campaigns I've played have featured lots of NPC hirelings and retainers. Effectively, minions of the PCs that go down as frequently as Jason's Argonauts, Odysseus's men, or Master Chief's marine allies. For this reason, PoL tends to be fairly grim. But then again, if one of your 0 level, stats-are-all-10's-except-for-his-primary-stat-which-is-a-12 henchmen actually survives the adventure it's cause for celebration (and maybe promotion to better stats, PC class levels, & full NPC status).</blockquote>

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