Opinion: PoL and high tiers do not fit in the long run

[pemerton]

So humanity does not make any progress? Humanity is not developing or expanding?

This condition can't be stagnant without good reason. One side would win over the other eventually. If not a mechanism that maintains this balance of conflict must be invented in the campaign.

These posts, plus others by you AND by some of your opponents, seem to rest on dubious philosophy of history.

When you consider that the D&D gameworld is a fantasy world, with many powerful non-human actors, that philosophy of history becomes even more dubious.

For much of European intellectual history, the default assumption was the opposite of yours, namely, that things had been utopic in the past, and were in the process of getting better.

At other times and in other cultural traditions, assumptions about eternal cycles of progress and decline have been the norm.

So I don't personally see the great difficulty of positing (as W&M puts it) that PoL is an ancient world, in which empires have risen and fallen, and (presumably) will continue to do so. Even epic adventurers presumably can only delay the inevitable (although the more hubristic might assume they can permanently hold back the darkness - this in itself makes for a good theme to bridge campaigns between 30th level and 1st level play).

In d&d this is the wrong question. The right question is how long does it take for your heroes to reach level 30. And the answer depends from the rate they can face encounnters. PoL means that they can face them whenever they want. So I guess not so much time.

Not much play time, perhaps. I'm guessing that the DMG will have some useful and interesting things to say about how players and GMs can negotiate the passage of ingame time in order to prevent the verisimilitude-destroying phenomenon of zero to hero in 30 game weeks.

 

[Nymrohd]

Bah I am exiting this debate. Xechnao your arguments do not have rational merit to my understanding, I am sorry. I cannot follow this debate if I cannot understand what I am arguing against.

 

[Xath]

Let's keep it civil here, people, and leave the warnings to the moderators.

-Xath

 

[xechnao]

For much of European intellectual history, the default assumption was the opposite of yours, namely, that things had been utopic in the past, and were in the process of getting better.

I did not claim nor the opposite nor this. I just said that d&d power level PoL is not viable as a long term extentable setting of conflict. Consider that in the past people did not experience the power of modern day tachnology.

So I don't personally see the great difficulty of positing (as W&M puts it) that PoL is an ancient world, in which empires have risen and fallen, and (presumably) will continue to do so. Even epic adventurers presumably can only delay the inevitable (although the more hubristic might assume they can permanently hold back the darkness - this in itself makes for a good theme to bridge campaigns between 30th level and 1st level play).

Yes, but those were earthshaking events. New races came to appearence and others disappeared. So must we take a new races handbook with each campaign shattering event.

 

[Baron Opal]

Whatever. Without a good reason for not to one side would eliminate the other. It will just be a matter of time. It just does not make any sense.

So, when one side eliminated in 3.5 what do you do? It should be pretty much the same thing in 4e.

 

[Crothian]

I did not claim nor the opposite nor this. I just said that d&d power level PoL is not viable as a long term extentable setting of conflict..

A PoL setting is just assuming that the now is PoL. A thousand years ago can be something else entirely.

 

[xechnao]

So, when one side eliminated in 3.5 what do you do? It should be pretty much the same thing in 4e.

In 3.5 there were not 2 sides. There were 2 sides + 1 side to actively keep the balance among the 2. Moreover members of each side could transit on other sides and with the inclusion of the 2 layers of law and chaos side interests were not so distinct.
I did not like alignment. But I do want an alernative balancing cosmology where eternal conflict can work somehow in a d&d power campaign.

 

[xechnao]

A PoL setting is just assuming that the now is PoL. A thousand years ago can be something else entirely.

Agreed. But a thousand years (aka the next campaign) will spells, races, classes and mosters be the same or different ones?

 

[DandD]

That's for you as the Gamemaster to decide. Nobody really cares for that, when they start a new campaign.

 

[Crothian]

Agreed. But a thousand years (aka the next campaign) will spells, races, classes and mosters be the same or different ones?

Worry about then when you get there. If it's a thousand years ago then its history and you define what needs to be defined for the context of the current game. If it is a thousand years in the future and building off a previous campaign you just take what has happened and you build of off it.

I've been running the same campaign world for over ten years. Each campaign is different with rule changes and alterations. Rules only matter for the current campaign. Sometimes its fun to show rule changes in the world but only when it is fun. I loved my NPC of the first dwarven Wizard ever in the world when 3e came out. The magical academics argued for years about why lightning bolts no longer bounced and what happened to the volume of the fireball spell. Sometimes though the rules changes are just the act of gods and the characters never learn in game reasons for them. But answering these questions and figuring out how they fit into the current campaign can be half the fun.