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

[Graf]

The real answers flow from basic economics, game theory and monster intelligence.
(And you don't need to spend a lot of time thinking about who produces which item/why/how far traveled etc. The "solution" is a lot simpler.)

Honestly it boils down to a question with an obvious answer: Would the gnolls rather have a farm to raid or have to farm themselves?

Is the country-side infested with monsters of animal-level intelligence that eat humans and are reasonably powerful?
Then yes, POL small sized hamlets make little sense.
(Unless the monsters are few in number and breed infrequently or are kept in check by other, non-human eating, monsters of greater power).

If your POL monsters are evil humanoids then, as others have said, they have no incentive to wipe out settlements. Assuming that they're lazy and shiftless, as most evil humanoids are presented as, that is.

If you raid a settlement and get slaves and food but leave it basically intact then you can come back next year. If you burn it to the ground it's gone, yer gonna have to move someplace where there are new productive humanoid villages to raid or take up farming yourself if you want to survive the winter (actually this applies even in tropical climes but I'll skip that discussion).
Presumably after moving a few times even the stupidest of humanoids would figure it out.

If you take over the village you have to police it, and control people. But if you just raid it you can leave the diligent humans/halfings/whoever to run themselves 'til you visit again.
There are, of course, exceptions. Drow think torture is an art form and are intelligent and patient and so they have large, organized cities populated by slaves.

If you think about the monsters as intelligent actors with their own agendas I think you'll find that in PoL for most regions and population breakdowns hamlets make the most sense.

If the humans get uppity with their walls and standing military forces then the monsters smack them down. But otherwise they're left be.

 

[Derren]

If your POL monsters are evil humanoids then, as others have said, they have no incentive to wipe out settlements. Assuming that they're lazy and shiftless, as most evil humanoids are presented anyway.

I think this is a wrong conclusion. In history humans performed genocide on others because of religion or skin color (and it is still happening). Now, with different races involved and the race of the attacker being evil (they might be unaligned, but because of 4Es Diablo design they must still be the enemies so that the PCs can fight them) it is much more likely that this happens.

Also I don't believe that all monsters choose to survive by raiding. Some of them will want to build towns of their own, even if they just have a base for further raiding. And whats easier than to take away a existing town in a good spot from its weak inhabitants (humans)?
Thats a problem with how most people see humanoid monsters in D&D. Somehow they are unable to imagine that they do anything else than fight. Orc farmer? Impossible! Bugbear tanner? Rediculous!!! I even heared some comments about how people can't imagine any civilian dragonborn.
But this is simply silly. No culture can consist only of warriors.
Sadly 4E seems to assume exactly that as the setting can't work if the monsters act in any organized, intelligent manner.

 

[med stud]

Looking at the stats for a human guard compared to a young black dragon, you can see that low level humans have a pretty good ability to defend themselves. Guards are usually not the best of the best, so you could assume that a mounted knight, trained from 4 years of age to do battle would be much more capable. Switch the mounted knight to a legionaire or hoplit or what you want, according to taste.

In 3e, a young black dragon could eradicate lvl 2-3 warriors at will. Practically speaking, they couldn't hurt the dragon. Now, a sufficient force of lvl 2-3 human soldier-type creatures could give the dragon a run for it's money.

Therefore, I would say that there are creatures like gnolls and young dragons that make the country side dangerous, they destroy small sized farms and may become a threat to small communities. Those monsters are common and set the tone.

Then you have the rare, extremely strong creatures that can level towns on their own, like ancient dragons, demon lords and the like. Those creatures are force majeurs, when they feel like it they cut streaks through civilization before they stop or are stopped. These creatures aren't common enough to threaten all of human kind but signs of their progress are there to be seen almost everywhere.

The third cathegory is the Genghis Khan- types, the one that unite the usually infighting and disorganized creatures of the wilderness into huge hordes that threaten civilization at large. They can be from the second cathegory, like a pit fiend taking command of hobgoblin tribes, or they may be from the species itself, like a hobgoblin warlord. These hordes are a threat to civilization, if they win they may establish a new civilization, with the old one going to the wilderness.

A setting history may go like this:
Recorded history starts with the elf/eladrin ruling. Due to the split between their gods and therefore the Elvish races, their strength fades and human barbarians overrun their former empire, forcing eladrin to the Feywild, the elves to the woods and drow to the Underdark. The humans become the ruling species, striking deals with devils, becoming the tieflings in the process. From across The Great Desert, a reptilian, war like species comes migrating under the command of the high prophet of Bahamut, striking the decadent tiefling empire. A war breaks out, first hot, then cold, then hot again. in the process, both species weaken and different other species tries to fill the power vaacum. The winners are humanity, once again. Humanity builds an empire with tieflings living as subsumed citizens and the dragonborn living as nomads and mercenaries. Now, humanity weakens again due to the onslaught of other humanoids, all the while the stars are aligning in the Demon's Head position, a position that is assumed every 120000 years, opening the gates to the Abyss for a year and a day. Humanity's position is looking very dire...

Oh, to answer the question: Hamlets and villages get overrun all the time. Towns and cities are often too strong to be overrun, but it happens. Sometimes entire kingdoms and empires get overrun and the ruling species get replaced. It happens seldom, though.

 

[loseth]

Is there no room for simple hamlets with a couple run-down cottages?

In my personal opinion, there's no real room for 'normal' hamlets and homesteads. IMHO, if a such a settlement exists in a PoL world, then there's an exceptional reason for it (the hamlet's inhabitants are ogres, the homestead is personally protected by a great wizard, etc.).

However, if you're looking for general ideas on defence, you might be able to adapt some of the ideas from this post I put up quite some time ago (though be warned, it's long).

 

[Pale Jackal]

There's been some excellent points, such as Siran's post.

Is the country-side infested with monsters of animal-level intelligence that eat humans and are reasonably powerful?
Then yes, POL small sized hamlets make little sense.
(Unless the monsters are few in number and breed infrequently or are kept in check by other, non-human eating, monsters of greater power).

And of course, those monsters can always eat the gnolls, too... coupled with a reptile's slow metabolism...

Maybe mammalian monsters hibernate during the winter?

The yearly migration of the bird-monsters is something to keep an eye out for, heh.

As others have pointed out, monsters (even animal-level ones) don't want to get hurt, just like predators in the real world. Reduced performance means another monster is going to push you off your territory (even if your territory is 20-100+ square miles...), or you're not going to get to mate... assuming you don't die from infection.

These animals still should/have-to be few in number, of course.

 

[ObsidianCrane]

I think the answer is that the monsters are not allied with each other necassarily, and often when they do start working together that's when the PoL gets overrun.

Certainly in my setting work my "recent history" makes it clear that the monsters are dangerous, but that the PC races are striving to get to join those points of light back together again. Of course maybe the monsters have a different plan, one the PCs might be involved in foiling

 

[Graf]

I think this is a wrong conclusion. In history humans performed genocide on others because of religion or skin color (and it is still happening). Now, with different races involved and the race of the attacker being evil (they might be unaligned, but because of 4Es Diablo design they must still be the enemies so that the PCs can fight them) it is much more likely that this happens.

Also I don't believe that all monsters choose to survive by raiding. Some of them will want to build towns of their own, even if they just have a base for further raiding. And whats easier than to take away a existing town in a good spot from its weak inhabitants (humans)?
Thats a problem with how most people see humanoid monsters in D&D. Somehow they are unable to imagine that they do anything else than fight. Orc farmer? Impossible! Bugbear tanner? Rediculous!!! I even heared some comments about how people can't imagine any civilian dragonborn.
But this is simply silly. No culture can consist only of warriors.
Sadly 4E seems to assume exactly that as the setting can't work if the monsters act in any organized, intelligent manner.

Basically we just see things completely differently.

DnD is largely about fighting evil creatures. If Orcs are just like humans with the same predjucies and capacities then I, as a player, don't want to play in a game where I hunt them down and kill them for fun and profit.
-If- I did I'd be playing Violence in a fantasy setting.

I don't want to play/run that sort of game.
I don't want to play/run a setting where all creatures are just humans-in-rubber masks.

So the monsterous humanoids in my games (and I think DnD in general) aren't just like humans. They're... well... monsters.

I respect that you don't run your games that way, but again, I think it veers away from DnD and traditional fantasy.

At the same time I despise the idea that "oh, there different races so their only possible response, no matter how disadvantageous for them, upon encountering another group is homicidal rage".

And I'm -really- not sure how to respond to your suggestion that the default human condition is that competing racial groups wipe each other out. Your insinuation aside open violent conflict isnt the most probable outcome.

So I see them as monsters but not insipidly stupid monsters.

 

[small pumpkin man]

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.

Do you actually read the information available when you go off on these rants? 4e scales much slower than 3.x and numbers make more difference, if you read the playtest reports, PCs regularly beat up higher level creatures and almost as regularly are TPKd by overwhelming numbers, both of which imply that those first level Guards (which seem much tougher than 1st level wariors thank you very much) are actually going to be able to take on most of the creatures around, if necessary, because if it's not, they're not going to like the fact that half of them are going to die, aren't they? But they can deal with tough enough monsters that even younger Dragons aren't going to want to attack well defended villages.

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.

PoL works exactly like the Dark ages or many bronze age civilizations. Please explain to me how all of the humans in Europe were killed during the Dark ages by Bears, Wolves, Lions and raiders, and the majority of the posters on this board are a simulation run by a computer to see what modern "Europeans" would be like.

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.

I'm disapointed that this is all you got out of all of the cool ideas in this thread.

(btw, no-one's mentioned them having tamed monsters themselves yet)

I think this is a wrong conclusion. In history humans performed genocide on others because of religion or skin color (and it is still happening).

Large scale genocide with medieval tech takes a long time, and in the base PoL, this appears to be happening. The Teifling Empire has crumbled, the human Kingdoms are falling, the things which go bump in the night are pushing the civilzed races into smaller and smaller territories, can YOU make a difference before it's too late?

Now, with different races involved and the race of the attacker being evil (they might be unaligned, but because of 4Es Diablo design they must still be the enemies so that the PCs can fight them) it is much more likely that this happens.

Must they? Why? The 4e motto is "Yes you can" so if you want to kill them, yes you can, if you want to talk them out of it and start up trade, yes you can, I fail to see where it's been suggested otherwise.

You're a hero what do you think a hero would do?

Also I don't believe that all monsters choose to survive by raiding. Some of them will want to build towns of their own, even if they just have a base for further raiding. And whats easier than to take away a existing town in a good spot from its weak inhabitants (humans)?
Thats a problem with how most people see humanoid monsters in D&D. Somehow they are unable to imagine that they do anything else than fight. Orc farmer? Impossible! Bugbear tanner? Rediculous!!! I even heared some comments about how people can't imagine any civilian dragonborn.
But this is simply silly. No culture can consist only of warriors.
Sadly 4E seems to assume exactly that as the setting can't work if the monsters act in any organized, intelligent manner.

Ogres are too Dumb, Gnolls are predators, Kobolds are too crap. Orcs and Goblinoids do have their own cultures in many settings, homebrew and otherwise. This is no different in 4e, in fact the "humanization" of Goblinoids and Orcs is very much a recent thing and many FR fans are up in arms about it being pushed in 4e FR. Again, you are making accusations based on FUD, it's not overly helpful.

 

[mach1.9pants]

Well said, S.P.M........although if you hadn't of posted, my ignore list would have left me more happy

 

[amethal]

No, NO, NO!

If you gonna bother mentionning it at all, you have to mention Seven Samurai first and then say how it influenced westerns. The Magnificient Seven is somehow considered a classic but is a very inferior remake of Seven Samurai.

(And yes, it's not like Kurosawa invented the 'band of heroes against brigands' storyline, but it's the 20th century classic version and it's that movie that was responsible for the sudden upsurge in various variation on that theme in Hollywood in the following decades.)

My understanding is that Kurosawa was strongly influenced by westerns.

You could argue The Magnificent Seven and other films simply repaid the favour. (Personally, I think they went too far in copying his films, but that's even more off topic than the rest of this post).