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

[DandD]

So you say that you use abstract rules to define the "verisimilitude" of a campaign world?

Yeah, right...

 

[xechnao]

So you say that you use abstract rules to define the "verisimilitude" of a campaign world?

Yeah, right...

You use abstract rules (crunch) to enforce the fluff. The FLUFF is what defines "verisimilitude" so as long as the rules do the math right.

 

[outsider]

No, I just can't imagine PoL having a long term in d&d epicness. It is not about morality. Sauron was eventually defeated. The end. D&D PoL can't extend forever if characters can rise and challenge gods. Eventually a side will win (or lose and perish) and conflict will have to come from a different reason than a PoL situation.

That's probably all true. I don't see why it's a problem though. Who cares what happens to the campaign setting once the campaign ends? Presumably that's what happens when the epic pcs destroy all the evil in the world. If the DM wanted the campaign to continue, he'd just add more evil to the world. So what if the characters usher in a new era of peace that lasts for thousands of years, or forever? Who cares if the setting is no longer gameable once they are done gaming in it?

 

[xechnao]

Who cares if the setting is no longer gameable once they are done gaming in it?

There can be settings that can always be gameable. You need a concept of balanced conflict that you can play on. It needs some complication -but ideally not too much.

 

[Stormtalon]

Anothe way to keep the PoL concept going just so happens to be my favorite conceit for wrapping up an epic-level campaign. Sure, the heroes save the day and stop the BBEG or cosmic menace, but in the process the primary battle (and peripheral side conflicts -- I try to have all my climactic battles take place while armies clash around the heroes) results in sufficient collateral damage that the next few years or decades may well be a struggle to survive for many places. It's certainly better than the alternative, but it may not be back even to the status quo of the start of the campaign.

I'm a big fan of the sort of ending where the surviving heroes look around as one says, "We won, but at what cost?" and then start the process of picking up the pieces of what's left. Had my last Eberron campaign not fizzled due to the loss of a couple of regular players, it would have wound up more PoL than in the campaign setting book, with Thrane shattered, the Silver Flame seemingly lost, and a mile-high petrified worm rising into the sky where Flamekeep once stood.

What can I say? I'm a fan of catastrophe....

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

My point was that protection agaisnt external threats always has the priority versus any internal threat. This is because external threats are unpredictable. One has to invest more to gain information for protecting himself against an external threat.

This is what I mean by external threat. It happens now in d&d PoL that the external threat is "the monsters". The monster manual (a core book) is 99% about them.

I really don't think this is true. In most polities internal threats are far less predictable and consume more resources than external threats. The US, for example, pays an obscene amount on military spending for external threats, but it's just a drop in the bucket compared to the payouts made to molify internal tensions.

As for the monster manual: calling something like a demon an external threat is too simple a categorization. The primary way in which demons are a threat to communities is as an inherent internal threat. Demons rarely come rolling over the hill. Rather they are unleashed upon you by selfish members of your own community or prior communities who failed to contain the threat.

And, again, I think the cosmology actually does what you think it does not do.

 

[outsider]

There can be settings that can always be gameable. You need a concept of balanced conflict that you can play on. It needs some complication -but ideally not too much.

There can be. Not all settings have to be that way though. I find it alot more fun to play in a setting where things I do will actually change the world drastically, where I can actually go destroy the god of evil or bring permanent peace to all the warring nations or whatever.

 

[Xyl]

Points of Light is easy to define.

Imagine a map of your campaign world. Color in all the parts which are civilized, where some power keeps monsters in check, in white. Color in the lawless, monster and bandit-infested areas in black. What does your map look like?

If it looks like a bunch of white splotches - some as small as a village, some as large as an empire - surrounded by a sea of black, that's Points of Light.

If it looks like a bunch of black splotches in a sea of white, that's Points of Darkness.

It's perfectly possible to run a campaign in either sort of world. Points of Light worlds are easier to build piecemeal, because you can sketch out just one point to start with - such as a village - and surround it with "here there be monsters", without worrying about what is in the areas the players haven't explored.

As for the long run? It doesn't matter. What matters is that your campaign world is points of light now, while you're building it. If the campaign finishes, and you've now got a Points of Darkness world, you can still run a new campaign in it - after all, you've already got everything mapped out!

In other words, it's not that all campaign worlds will be Points of Light now and forever. It's just that it's easier to start in a campaign in a world that is currently Points of Light, and so that's the default assumption for new campaigns.

 

[xechnao]

I really don't think this is true. In most polities internal threats are far less predictable and consume more resources than external threats. The US, for example, pays an obscene amount on military spending for external threats, but it's just a drop in the bucket compared to the payouts made to molify internal tensions.

By my definition, on your example of US economy, internal tensions will be its external threat.

To avoid misunderstandings lets speak of "1st priority" threats.

As for the monster manual: calling something like a demon an external threat is too simple a categorization. The primary way in which demons are a threat to communities is as an inherent internal threat. Demons rarely come rolling over the hill. Rather they are unleashed upon you by selfish members of your own community or prior communities who failed to contain the threat.

And, again, I think the cosmology actually does what you think it does not do.

Yes, I believe this. I only said that the implied comsmology of feywild, shadowfell etch locked in struggle is too much complicated IMO -too much over the top. But it can be logical.

By your words:

"That creation is a constantly echoing act (Feywild and Shadowfell) defined by the tension between those forces which would constantly unmake/make it (the titans, primordials, elemental chaos, and Abyssals); those who would preserve and use it (the gods, the devils, and the Astral Dominions); and those who would warp it with their indifference and nihilism (the Far Realms and Aberrations).

Good and Evil are not of these forces, and none of these forces can be subtracted from the existence that is creation.

Good and Evil are, however, present across this great struggle and symphony. Those who have embraced either have the most agency. They hear the music best."

Its just too complicated IMHO.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

By my definition, on your example of US economy, internal tensions will be its external threat.

To avoid misunderstandings lets speak of "1st priority" threats.

But this understanding of the word seems to remove all significance from your argument.

Yes, I believe this. I only said that the implied comsmology of feywild, shadowfell etch locked in struggle is too much complicated IMO -too much over the top. But it can be logical.

I don't think the Feywild and the Shadowfell are locked in any sort of epic struggle. That seems like holdover thinking from the old alignment wars. Which is odd since you now seem to be critiquing that dynamic whereas before you were defending it as balanced and viable in the long term.

I'm not trying to pull apart your argument here, it's just that I don't think I understand what you're saying any longer.