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

[xechnao]

But nor do people in a PoL setting - they have magic. And W&M strongly (and, I think, rightly, if the game is to be playable) emphasises that D&D magic is not a replacement for tecnhnology.
Explain this away how you want (the will of the Gods, an inherently conservative culture, whatever) but do it somehow - otherwise your problem will emerge.

But I thought Eberron as we know it was the most representative setting of D&D. Will magic be totally altered?

As for new races, I'm sure WoTC will supply as many as you need!

Heh.

I have to ask - are you trying to find out how PoL can be made to work across campaigns, by looking for ideas? Or are you determined to show that, whatever idea is put up, there is some possible argument that can be put against it? If the latter, no doubt you will win - social theory of the real world is hardly an exact science, let alone that of the D&D gameworld, so any proposal will have flaws and debatable points.

I believe there could be found a better way to work across campaigns than PoL. Paralel universes that work differently but somehow come in touch, alignment system or who knows.

 

[catsclaw227]

Help me understand what you want.

Do you want your setting to remain continuous from one set of PCs to another, and to have history grow from the deeds of past adventures, have bardic tales of heroes from a past age?

How is this impossible with POL? If your first 4e campaign goes to 30th level, do you think that this band of heroes going 30th level will cleanse the world of all darkness, eliminating POL? If so, then I simply have a hard time understanding a game world where the physical geography and planar structure must be such that one string of adventures could cure the mulitverse of all its ills.

If not, and POL is still in existence for the next set of PCs to run to 30th level, then is it possible that when the 2nd PCs are on the rise, taking on a great evil, that a greater evil (or darkness) can be making its mark elsewhere, rising up for the 3rd set of PCs?

And if the third set of PCs run to 30th level, and it's no longer POL, then that's great. How long will you have been playing 4e at this point? And would it be THAT big of a deal to go into another campaign world, or simply advance the timeline 500 years or have a rift from the Far Realms open up for the 4th set of PCs to run 1-30?

Damn... if our gaming group has FOUR runs of 1-30, I would say that the edition was a rousing success, and POL was a winner of a time for all.

 

[Lackhand]

I believe there could be found a better way to work across campaigns than PoL. Paralel universes that work differently but somehow come in touch, alignment system or who knows.

These words, they do not mean what you think that they mean.
Er, that I think that they mean? Damn, now I'm all confused.

I think you have a problem (eternal continuity of gameplay) absent both a symptom (a game that will repeatedly, rather than just once or twice (since you can explain anything once-or-twice) traverse the 1->30 band) and a clear ability to enunciate the issue.

My suggestion? Try it and see what happens; give us specifics when you run into problems and Uncle EN World will make it better

Good gaming!

 

[TwinBahamut]

Err, I only skimmed the thread, but I guess I am a bit confused...

So, imagine that a group of PCs start out in a very PoL-style world. Through the heroic levels, they barely manage to protect the few points of light they call home, and slowly help stabilize these areas into a much bigger point of light. Through the paragon levels, the PCs start fighting to unite and protect whole kingdoms, fighting off corruption and whole nations of evil. Through the epic levels, the PCs dive into the heart of darkness, fighting against the very core of the darkness that grips their world, until they banish it from every corner of the planet and help create a new golden age of peace and prosperity that will last a thousand years, at which point the heros retire and enjoy the rewards of triumph after a long, hard battle.

What is supposed to be wrong with that? It sounds like a great campaign to me. In fact, I don't think I would want any campaign that runs from level 1 to level 30 to begin or end any differently. I don't see why it is necessary to prevent ultimate triumph for the PCs, or why the PoL concept breaks down at all at higher levels.

 

[Incenjucar]

Twin: xechnao's argument seems to be that, in his campaign, this would be a stable state that could never destabilize after it had been initially established, thereby preventing further adventures.

How that works, I haven't the foggiest.

 

[Hussar]

If there is a power level such as d&d level 30 and people can't secure their safety in the world they will eventually perish. It is as simple as that. So PoL and d&d level 30 does not make any sense.

My nation state =/= the world.

King Arthur made England safe by fighting off the invaders. He established Camelot and made the countryside safe. That's what your 30th level PC does. However, beyond England, you have the slavering barbarian hordes who want your women. ((NOT HISTORICAL - MEANT AS A JOKE))

And when Arthur exits stage left, England falls.

There, now you have a PoL setting (England before Arthur), changing due to the efforts of the PC's (Knights of the Round Table) and falling back to PoL afterward.

 

[Stone Dog]

This depends on what the PCs have done in the other campaigns. In my campaigns the PC's legacies will be seen in 4e as the safe havens in the PoL setting. I can't think of anything that has happened in the previous 8 campaigns that can't build to something cool taking my setting into the PoL philosophy.

That would probably be the best course of action. Like in Dark Sun people would flock to Tyr because of the Council that replaced the sorcerer king's power. that council is mainly made up of the 30th level characters that are now beset upon all sides by enemies of all types leaving the rest of the world with one shining example of how just maybe the world can be a better place. Dark Sun is still a bad bad place to be for the other 99.99% of the setting, but if you want to, your players can hear about Tyr in the background and know that they are leaving a tangible effect on the world.


OR you can see what your players think about turning the tables and having the Council crack under the pressure of various influences and become a threat to stability in the tablelands. They are out to make the world a better place, but the sorcerer kings aren't the only evil out there and making them distracted gives something else a perfect chance to come creeping in from someplace else.

Even though Elminster has existed.

The PCs of one campaign who reached lvl 30 are the Elminsters of the next campaign. Big and legendary, but for all their power they haven't made any noticable changes. Eventually you get a world like FR who has a stack of high level characters all doing their thing, but there are still wide areas where civilization has no control. The points of light are more like bonfires than torches, but it is still a damn big world and even three hundred 30th level characters can't be everywhere.

 

[Zurai]

It is entirely possible to create a campaign world, using the Points of Light campaign framework, where the PCs can get to high levels, leave a lasting impression on the world, but the world continues as an overall Points of Light world. The example I have is the Play by Post game I'm DMing, where the players start out in a village of ~1000 people with no knowledge of the lands surrounding theirs past around 20 miles, other than the terrain features they can see on the horizon. The game is designed to be generational - the PCs will eventually either die or retire, at which point I'll skip forward to the next "crisis point" in history and a new campaign will start, with new heroes, but in the same setting whose history has been determined in part by the actions of previous PCs.

I think xechnao said it best when he stated, "I cannot imagine PoL having a long duration in D&D epicness". It's a failing of the individual, not the concept. It seems there are plenty of other individuals here who CAN imagine that PoL can have a long duration when exposed to epic-level characters, so it can't be entirely a problem with the concept.

 

[xechnao]

Help me understand what you want.

Do you want your setting to remain continuous from one set of PCs to another, and to have history grow from the deeds of past adventures, have bardic tales of heroes from a past age?

How is this impossible with POL? If your first 4e campaign goes to 30th level, do you think that this band of heroes going 30th level will cleanse the world of all darkness, eliminating POL? If so, then I simply have a hard time understanding a game world where the physical geography and planar structure must be such that one string of adventures could cure the mulitverse of all its ills.

If not, and POL is still in existence for the next set of PCs to run to 30th level, then is it possible that when the 2nd PCs are on the rise, taking on a great evil, that a greater evil (or darkness) can be making its mark elsewhere, rising up for the 3rd set of PCs?

And if the third set of PCs run to 30th level, and it's no longer POL, then that's great. How long will you have been playing 4e at this point? And would it be THAT big of a deal to go into another campaign world, or simply advance the timeline 500 years or have a rift from the Far Realms open up for the 4th set of PCs to run 1-30?

Damn... if our gaming group has FOUR runs of 1-30, I would say that the edition was a rousing success, and POL was a winner of a time for all.

I understand what you are saying. But the PoL fantasy of the setting still feels kind of discontinuous with what d&d is or at least has been -think of the races, classes, powers, spells, monstres and their continuous history. When PCs cleanse the world all these "realities" of the PoL balance somehow will have to change or develop. Think of Lord of the Rings: the elves should leave by the destruction of the one ring -this was no random: it could just made sense that way.

The solution is to either make d&d toolbox more modular (have it for example include guidelines on how to create spells or powers and how to balance them) or to change the PoL idea or to buy new core books with every new campaign to keep up interest, if they follow the streamlined method.

 

[Incenjucar]

xechnao: In your campaigns... do characters actually cleanse every last mote of evil from the world?

Every possible source of future evil?

Because I've never even heard of anyone doing that, EVER.

Even real world religions only ever lock evil away.