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

[Derren]

Do you actually read the information available when you go off on these rants?

Apparently better then you. In a fight Bugbear vs. Human my money is on the Bugbear.

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.

First according to studies the dark ages were not as bad as commonly thought, and second the humans in Europe didn't have to compete with other intelligent humanoid species which are also much stronger than humans. Ever heard of natural selection?

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

Probably because for the most part those "cool" ideas don't make much sense.

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?

So when the monsters managed to destroy empires, why are some town now suddenly too much for them? (Yes, I know that the Tiefling and Dragonborn empire brought each other down, but that still leaves the human ones)

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.

4Es design philosophy: Only things you fight regulary are in the MM. Thats why many traditional good monsters will be left out or were turned "evil" (= morally questionable unaligned).
When its in the MM then its primary an enemy. The new monster statblock also supports this as everything which is not useful for combat is left out.

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.

And why does being dumb prevent the ogres from banding together and destroy the puny humans? Why can't the Gnolls prey on a whole town? With all their demonic links in 4E this seems very reasonable for them to do. All the traits you listed don't prevent those monsters from destroying a town and also don't explain why they don't do it.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Isn't the answer obvious?

Small PoL villages aren't overrun because they are all populated with retired high level adventurers who keep magic weapons under their beds.

 

[hong]

Basically we just see things completely differently.

Derren sees the world through brown coloured glasses.

 

[Mallus]

There is no reason why the human towns would not be overrun or, at best, enslaved by other monsters.

Some would, yes. And that's great adventure-fodder.

That means the chances for the town fending off monsters is very slim.

For some. Depends on the monsters, their social organization, the town folk's ability to mount and organized defense, and the number of people w/class levels in town.

Also, planet = big. Population density = low. Not all areas experience the same level of violent conflict over resources.

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.

Sieges can last quite a long time. When they're over, villagers go back their villages.

So trade is a must, but in a PoL setting its also rather impossible to do.

Trade was hard in the real world. You're statement is only true-ish if the overall monster population is incredibly high.

So when a player asks why the town is still standing and free the only answers you can give are things like...

"The world is really big. Even bigger than the number of monsters."

 

[D.Shaffer]

Others have mentioned it, but I think it bears repeating.

Much of RL Human history was, essentially, a PoL setting. Many of the humanoid monsters we see are essentially 'Humans with funny ears and more muscles', when you get right down to it, usually following the "Barbarian Horde' theme. Only organized (even if it's just the level of the barbarian horde) bands or really powerful monsters are going to haver a chance to WIPE OUT a decent sized village and thats what adventuring PCs are for.

 

[smetzger]

1. Because they have made a pact with a demon to hand over any adventurers that come through.

2. Because they are in fact dopplegangers.

3. Because they are vampires

4. Because they are werewolves.

 

[Halivar]

For my 4E playtest, the PoL village is being protected by a nearby young black dragon.

It only costs them a virgin a year.

 

[Andur]

The real answer lies in a single simple statement:

Their will to survive is greater than their desire to give up.

That simple statement cover the vast majority of r/l examples, (How did settlers in a turf house survive in the middle of the Dakotas with the nearest military fort 200 miles away and the nearest city 500 miles away?) as well as the fantasy examples.

Until the bugbear brings 20-30 of his closest friends, he does not stand a chance against 50 villagers, even if they are all just minions.

BTW, I'd love to see Derren's campaign world, everything must just make so much sense in it...

 

[Pbartender]

I don't know .... peasants as food, peasants as slaves, peasants as a dark sacrifice to Tharizdun.

It depends on what the bad guys are looking for. Most will simply be looking for loot. If they are looking for peasants as food, slaves or sacrifices, it hardly does any good to demolish the entire population of a village... You're essentially destroying your entire breeding stock, which is foolish even to the dimmest evil humanoid race.

Or simply look at the movie Seven Samurai/Magnificent Seven.

(Also, A Bug's Life. Also, The Three Amigos.)

Right. Remember, that the situation was entirely the villagers' fault in that movie...

The bandits come to ransack the village, and upon realizing that they've already raided the place before decide to come back later after the crops have been harvested. It was never their intention to demolish the village -- in fact, they were carefully husbanding it, so they could return to raid it many times over.

When they hire the seven samurai (PC Heroes!) to defend the village, most of the villagers are as afraid of the samurai defenders as they are of the bandits. In fact, the villagers have killed and robbed samurai in the past.

It's not until the samurai lead a pre-emptive strike against the bandits, that the bandit leader gets angry enough to want to completely smash the village.

 

[Mr Jack]

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.

Classic