Okay, this whole "points of light" thing . . .

[Li Shenron]

Points of light means that civilisation, the PC races, are being hard pressed by monsterism. So much so that the vast majority of the world is monsters, wilderness or evil nations. Communications between settlements have broken down as transportation is so dangerous. Most of the map is blank.

I was thinking the same, about the meaning of points of light in darkness.

But the last sentence sounds a lot like what I've been using in most of my campaigns. With the difference that within my blank map there isn't darkness everyone, instead there is mostly nothing. I'd call my setting "points of light and points of darkness".

But anyway, one thing I wonder is how the "points of light" concept is going to translate with regards to the magic item market. Will magic items still be technology as they almost were in 3e? Will they be available for sale easily? Will the PCs be able to sell them at the first flea market?

 

[Irda Ranger]

The only 'points of light' D&D settings I know are Ravenloft, Dark Sun and Midnight.

Dragonlance seemed to have a sliding scale. It went from "points of darkness" in north-western Solamnia and Northern Ergoth, and became more "points of light" as you went south or east. Even the towns of Abyssinia were only loosely tied together by roads where goblin attacks were common, to say nothing of the wilderness you'd have to travel through to find Qualinesti or Pax Tharkas.

Dragonlance also did a good job of representing the idea of "news moves slowly, if at all." The POL intro paragraph talked about how a town can be taken over by vampires or cabalists, and no one hears about it for a decade or more (if ever). Recall how surprised the Heroes of the Lance were to learn that "the White Ships" of Tarsis were landlocked, and had been for three centuries?! The maps were badly out of date, to say the least.

But other than that, the only thing I can add is to repeat "daleydaledale" again, because that makes me laugh.

 

[JRR_Talking]

sounds most like Middle Earth TBH

or more precisely ME pre-LOTR trilogy. pre-hobbit even, but only just

 

[Rechan]

Eberron may be reeling from the Last War, but outside of the Mournland and other frontier areas, it's a civilized game world.

Actually this is not true.

To quote Keith Baker:

it's always been the case that Khorvaire is too big for its human population. While I'd like to see the scale reduced somewhat, it wasn't an accident that the population density was low, because it was supposed to be exactly this: areas of dense population connected by lightning rails and main trade roads, separated by large areas that COULD hold ruins from the Age of Dhakaan or Age of Demons that have remained undiscovered. If the population density is too high, it would be a little hard to place such things; as is, the concept has always been that the Five Nations have put their names on huge sections of the map, but they've never fully controlled those areas.

Then there's places like The Shadow Marches, Droaam, Draguun, the Demon Wastes, Q'Barra, etc, which are frontiers or badlands.

 

[Vigilance]

This isn't the case with any of the mainstream worlds. The maps of Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Mystara and Eberron are mostly covered by non-evil human and demihuman nations.

Points of Light doesn't only include settings where the civilizations are cut off.

Again, in Greyhawk, if anyone is going to be the heroes, it's YOU (meaning the PCs).

As Erik Mona recently said, Mordenkainen, Bigby, Tenser, these guys are NOT heroes. They are people you wouldn't WANT help from, and might just as easily side with the bad guys as the good villagers.

They're all neutral, and devoted to keeping "balance" between the good and evil alignments. What's "balance"? Whatever they say it is. They're arch-mages.

Again, not good guys.

So you have a world with a few good kingdoms, a BUNCH of decaying/corrupt kingdoms, some really powerful evil kingdoms, and a bunch of netural mages working behind the scenes to play the various factions off against each other.

A world in desperate need of a few more points of light.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Actually this is not true.

To quote Keith Baker:

Then there's places like The Shadow Marches, Droaam, Draguun, the Demon Wastes, Q'Barra, etc, which are frontiers or badlands.

Er, nothing you quoted contradicted me, and your addendum explicitly agrees with me.

Yes, there's wilderness, but even leaving aside the issues of map scale -- and lordy, I hope the 4E Eberron CS contains decent maps at last -- it's pretty clear that most of the issues confronting the Five Nations are internal strife or badness coming in from outside/frontier areas.

Non-violent religious/political struggle is interesting, no question, but it's hardly sword & sorcery vibed Points of Light as it's been set out for 4E.

 

[JVisgaitis]

That the PCs are heroes in a dangerous world? Isn't that, like, the same premise of virtually every other campaign setting ever made?

Not at all. When you have civilization everywhere, easy ways to get across the land, and you can walk from town to town pretty much without incident or seeing guards or some such, its a pretty safe world and nothing like what they are describing.

Hell, I love the idea. We designed Avadnu with that in mind and I think its cool that every nation is disconnected from one another and every land is its own place. Personally, I like weirdness and danger at every turn. It makes for a much more exciting game.

 

[Rechan]

Er, nothing you quoted contradicted me, and your addendum explicitly agrees with me.

Huh?

Let me try this again:

because it was supposed to be exactly this: areas of dense population connected by lightning rails and main trade roads, separated by large areas that COULD hold ruins from the Age of Dhakaan or Age of Demons that have remained undiscovered. If the population density is too high, it would be a little hard to place such things; as is, the concept has always been that the Five Nations have put their names on huge sections of the map, but they've never fully controlled those areas.

So we have populated areas and between them are LARGE AREAS full of UNDISCOVERED STUFF.

We also have countries that have set their borders TOO LARGE, so they CANNOT CONTROL the areas within their borders.

How does that say "The only uncharted and dangerous areas are on the edges and the only danger to countries is internal political strife"?

 

[Zogmo]

Cool stuff

Before reading this thread I didn't put much thought behind what POL could mean. The ideas posted here has my imagination kicking into high gear with the possibilities.
It's been a long time since I've rebuilt my campaign world from the ground up. Got to start taking notes for next year I think.
Hmm...very exciting indeedy!

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

So we have populated areas and between them are LARGE AREAS full of UNDISCOVERED STUFF.

We also have countries that have set their borders TOO LARGE, so they CANNOT CONTROL the areas within their borders.

How does that say "The only uncharted and dangerous areas are on the edges and the only danger to countries is internal political strife"?

You missed Baker saying "could." None of that actually made it into the ECS. The book explicitly lays out that most of the Five Nations' troubles are political, either internal or by external forces, with alienbadstuff coming in from frontier regions (of which the Mournland is one).

Khorvaire isn't Newhon, it's post-World War I Europe. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it'd take quite a bit of revision to turn Eberron into a true POL setting as WotC has (so far) defined it.