Help me out. PoL. Why don't small towns get overrun?

[Sashi]

A "points of light" campaign setting is essentially the inverse of the D&D 3.5 campaign setting, which is basically "pools of shadow". Whatever explanation you have for why the big dark dangers that lurk outside of the points of light don't attack can be the same reason for why Great King Fancypants doesn't send a platoon to go and empty the Temple of Evil Zombies and Treasure (That is Also Evil).

 

[HeinorNY]

99% of human history is a "points of light" setting.

From aborigines, to Native Americans, to medieval times, to the Wild West... These are all eras and regions that can be aptly described as "points of light."

Why are small communities not overrun? Because the dangers that lurk outside civilization is not a single, monolithic mass. Some are not worth the bother. Some are far enough away. Some are overrun. Some have a militia. Some have a wall. Some have just enough commerce or production to be a dependable source. Some are exploited.

Look to real world history and ask the same question, and you will very likely, and easily, find the answers.

Exactly.
Another good example of civilization surviving amongst terrible dangers is the pre-historic men. Can you imagine how those guys managed to survive when attacked by a T-rex? Or a hunting band of Velociraptors. Or even the always hungry triceraptops. Caveman cities were all POLs on the world.
Men survived because those monstruosities were scattered around the world, and not all standing outside human villages waiting for man to step outside, or plotting to erradicate men from the planet. Also, men took advantage of nature to create defenses for their homes, like building houses inside caves and on the top of trees. They also used to travel around on mounted pterodactylus in order to trade with other villages, and at the same time avoiding the dinossaurs on the ground. No surprise dinos are gone and mankind endures.
Our history is full of POLs examples.

 

[Piestrio]

Exactly.
Another good example of civilization surviving amongst terrible dangers is the pre-historic men. Can you imagine how those guys managed to survive when attacked by a T-rex? Or a hunting band of Velociraptors. Or even the always hungry triceraptops. Caveman cities were all POLs on the world.
Men survived because those monstruosities were scattered around the world, and not all standing outside human villages waiting for man to step outside, or plotting to erradicate men from the planet. Also, men took advantage of nature to create defenses for their homes, like building houses inside caves and on the top of trees. They also used to travel around on mounted pterodactylus in order to trade with other villages, and at the same time avoiding the dinossaurs on the ground. No surprise dinos are gone and mankind endures.
Our history is full of POLs examples.

:\

Piestrio

 

[small pumpkin man]

:\

Piestrio

Thank you Piestro, I only read the first paragraph of that post the first time around and assumed I understood the post, I'm glad you suggested I read it properly .

 

[Siran Dunmorgan]

Overheard in the night watch

If the world is filled with big, bad, evil things in the wilderness that separates scattered settlements, why haven't these towns been overrun?

How… how can you even ask this? Don't you see it?

We're dying. Everything is dying. Every year, every season, brings another caravan or halfling riverboat, with some tale of towns or villages, or simple farmsteads, found burnt, or pulled apart, or simply abandoned for Ioun knows what reason. They say the Empire has been gone from these lands for a hundred years. That's a hundred years these lands have been falling into ruin, eaten away by the things from the wild. Sometimes we know why, like that plague that obliterated Chétonville last winter, or the demon locusts that left nothing alive in Etrier the season before that.

Another year, and maybe our town will be next. Walls? Palisades? Militias? Aye. Sometimes that helps, when the bad things are a band of goblin raiders, or those jumped-up thugs calling themselves the Nerathi Legion. I didn't like it when they came through, bossing everyone around like there was still an Empire, but even so, I wouldn't wish what happend to them on my worst enemy, when those wraiths took them. But what good are walls, or swords, when it's a plague, or swarm? Or something already inside, like those things the folks over in Peyzac called up to defend them from the Shadar-kai, and found they'd called up their own doom instead?

Now, me? I'd leave—if there were anywhere to go. Nerath's in ruins, as you say, and even the old cities by the coast are hard put; we have it bad here by the edge of the Forest. They have it worse, at night under those unnatural tides in the dark of the moon.

Why haven't we been overrun? The miracle is that we've survived this long. It just hasn't been our time, yet. Maybe someday soon another fellow'll be picking though our bones, and trying to guess at what happened to us. It's a dark time, lad, and like to be getting darker.

—Siran Dunmorgan

 

[Amphimir Míriel]

How… how can you even ask this? Don't you see it?

We're dying. Everything is dying. Every year, every season, brings another caravan or halfling riverboat, with some tale of towns or villages, or simple farmsteads, found burnt, or pulled apart, or simply abandoned for Ioun knows what reason. They say the Empire has been gone from these lands for a hundred years. That's a hundred years these lands have been falling into ruin, eaten away by the things from the wild. Sometimes we know why, like that plague that obliterated Chétonville last winter, or the demon locusts that left nothing alive in Etrier the season before that.

Another year, and maybe our town will be next. Walls? Palisades? Militias? Aye. Sometimes that helps, when the bad things are a band of goblin raiders, or those jumped-up thugs calling themselves the Nerathi Legion. I didn't like it when they came through, bossing everyone around like there was still an Empire, but even so, I wouldn't wish what happend to them on my worst enemy, when those wraiths took them. But what good are walls, or swords, when it's a plague, or swarm? Or something already inside, like those things the folks over in Peyzac called up to defend them from the Shadar-kai, and found they'd called up their own doom instead?

Now, me? I'd leave—if there were anywhere to go. Nerath's in ruins, as you say, and even the old cities by the coast are hard put; we have it bad here by the edge of the Forest. They have it worse, at night under those unnatural tides in the dark of the moon.

Why haven't we been overrun? The miracle is that we've survived this long. It just hasn't been our time, yet. Maybe someday soon another fellow'll be picking though our bones, and trying to guess at what happened to us. It's a dark time, lad, and like to be getting darker.

—Siran Dunmorgan

Before I say anything else, let me say to you Sir: You rule...


Now, in the Witcher novels by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski, the setting is a semi-PoL world where trained monster hunters (called witchers), basically move from town to town killing monsters for money. Sometimes, it is the equivalent of an otyugh on a small city's dumpster, or sometimes it's a basilisk on a ruin close to a small town.

At one time, the title character is happy to see palisades around the town they are arriving to, because that's a sure sign that the town is having monster troubles.

In this world, normal people don't tend to leave their towns or cities much, and when they do, they stick to well-travelled roads... "Everybody knows" that horrible things happen to those who stray off the beaten road, and while theres not really huge amounts of monsters, there are enough of them to make people think twice...

 

[BASHMAN]

Sometimes, communities simply die and there's nobody to tell anyone else about it until the adventurers come through and find a ghost town. Sometimes they have enough militia to fight back. It all depends.

So if a village is destroyed in the woods, and there is no PCs around to make a Perception check, does it make a sound?

 

[Fallen Seraph]

So if a village is destroyed in the woods, and there is no PCs around to make a Perception check, does it make a sound?

Depends do the monsters have ears?

 

[DeusExMachina]

Depends on the monster type...

 

[Derren]

There is no reason why the human towns would not be overrun or, at best, enslaved by other monsters.
Thanks to 4Es Diablo design the monsters are much stronger than normal humans because they are made to challenge PCs which are special. That means the chances for the town fending off monsters is very slim.
At the same time it is not possible to barricade yourself in a well defended fort because to support a larger population you need a lot of area for farming. But the technology level is also too high to be able to be self reliant and effective. You need iron weapons, chain mails, well made leather armor and whatever rituals need to successfully combat the monsters. So trade is a must, but in a PoL setting its also rather impossible to do.

So when a player asks why the town is still standing and free the only answers you can give are things like
"The monsters are too stupid to realize that they can destroy/enslave it"
"There is some magical aura around it to keep non plot monsters away"
And the always classic "Shut up, its a game" answer which will probably seemuch use in 4E.