Points of Darkness

[Starfox]

I agree with your counter-arguments and I am not saying this is an surmountable problem - just that it is a problem that does crop up in PoD more than in other types of settings.

My own games are typically PoD, so I agree with the basic premises of the thread, and that PoD is a good way to set up a campaign.

 

[MarkB]

My default assumption when world-building has always been that adventuring isn't the only way to level, it's simply the "fast track".

A non-adventurer may take a year or more to gain a level, and they're likely to take several levels in non-heroic classes or the equivalent, whereas an adventurer who heads off to a dungeon for a couple of weeks may come back with two or three extra levels under his belt. But in pretty much every walk of life, there will be people who've taken the longer, safer route, put in the years and the effort, and reached significantly high levels. Most of them won't be an even match for a PC in straight-up combat, but they won't be a trivial speed-bump either.

 

[Sadrik]

Points of darkness reminds me of Ravenloft. All quiet and calm and normal during the day but everyone knows that there are monsters just out of sight and they will get ya if you dont bar your windows and doors every night. And if you do see some of this darkness and it does encroach you put together a mob to ward it off or kill it.

 

[TerraDave]

A problem with Points of Darkness is that once the players have gained a few levels by confronting darkness, it is often tempting for them to simply throw their weight around in the normal areas, where opposition is quite light compared to the dark areas.

I think you have hashed this out...so I will just summarize...

PoD implies that adventurers want to adventure. And it doesn't mean that civilized lands don't have powerfull NPCs, in my case it was quite the opposite. A major city or court, being such and not some piddly podunks surrounded by darkness, could call upon all sorts of resources if needed. (More interestingly, "civilized" and powerful villains could do the same thing, just as long as didn't blow their cover).

On the other hand, its good to let the PCs have some world impact. Thats part of the point, right?

 

[TerraDave]

I realized one other issue with this.

The PoL approach allows for the PCs to be the only heroes around. PoD, as noted above, does complicate this if civilized lands can have powerful NPCs. I think the general assumption is that those NPCs have lives...and are not available to investigate a particular PoD, unless the DM wants them to be involved.

 

[Starfox]

As in "Why doesn't Elminster handle this himself" ^^

 

[TerraDave]

Exactly. though again, I have never actually had that problem...part of this are the players...but part of it is not having a nearly god-like adventuring NPC in the game.

This is also separate issue. You can have Elminster in PoL.

 

[Li Shenron]

I realized one other issue with this.

The PoL approach allows for the PCs to be the only heroes around. PoD, as noted above, does complicate this if civilized lands can have powerful NPCs. I think the general assumption is that those NPCs have lives...and are not available to investigate a particular PoD, unless the DM wants them to be involved.

Well in my case, I don't think I've ever had that problem because most powerful NPCs are powerful like real-world people, i.e. they have loads of money, influence, political control, birthrights etc. That doesn't mean they are capable of going in a dungeon and take the treasure, or they want to run the risk (they may in fact not need that treasure at all). Then there are Elminster-like NPCs but they have their own agenda. Why would Elminster want to go treasure-hunting if he has more important things to do? Does treasure mean anything to Gandalf?

I don't think this problem is significantly dependent on PoL vs PoD tho... it's more a problem arising when the story takes you to the archetypical "save the world" scenario. That's where you really start asking why am I here saving the world instead of those uber NPCs?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

What strains continuity, is assuming that the PCs are the best in the world. After raiding a dozen dungeon and getting to lv10? You can bet there's someone somewhere who's raid two dozen and is lv 20, and will gladly come there and kick the PCs asses just to give them a lesson (which is what good PC do all the time to the BBEG).

In fact, that'd be a good cautionary tale adventure for the player characters: "These guys were heroes, and now they're thugs -- please come help us!" Then, when they get a little big for their britches, they won't be surprised when the bigger heroes come back to slap THEM down.

 

[MarkB]

I realized one other issue with this.

The PoL approach allows for the PCs to be the only heroes around. PoD, as noted above, does complicate this if civilized lands can have powerful NPCs. I think the general assumption is that those NPCs have lives...and are not available to investigate a particular PoD, unless the DM wants them to be involved.

In a PoL setting, the PCs can be the only adventurers around because all the other adventurers have urgent problems of their own to deal with.

In a PoD setting, the PCs can be the only adventurers around because the place is civilised enough that only a handful of people take up adventuring as a profession.