Points of Light approach to setting

[Ydars]

I agree that this is one way of looking at it Hong, but where we might differ is the timescale. I want to think about ways of creating PoLs that last centuries after the fall of "world spanning empire".

I also feel that the PoL does not have to be a snapshot; WHFP is a classic example of trying to sustain a PoL feel over many hundreds of years. I think it works in this setting because of the low magic nature of the game and the fact that most monsters are humanoid. We don't have that luxury in D&D.

Still, you do make a good point to add to the list; The PoLs are ultimately doomed but the slow decline has not yet consumed them.

 

[Mirtek]

It works for Warhammer Roleplay quite well, in fact

I disagree, the Warhammer World doesn't really work at all. It's simply because the world is driven by a tabletop wargame and GW has to provide it's customers regulary with big military campaigns to keep them interested.

There's no way that the population of the Warhammer World could replenish the loses of all those wars. Even if they do nothing except f#####g every minute they're not on the newest military campaign and their women are nothing but child-birth-machines, no way they could put out army after army like the setting assumes they are doing.

The civilized races of the Warhammer World would have already been extinguished long ago, the world is simply too dark to leave room for any suspension of disbelieve.

That's a freaking scary setting! Even if there are knights instead of orcs, cultists instead of cultists, doctors instead of necromancers, and rats instead of gibbering mouthers. Now imagine all those tangible cause are correctable and you're the adventurer that's going to do it.

Yet all these threat are other humanoids or natural illness. You're not threatened by demons that slaughter you just because they can, werecreatures that visit you as harmless wanderers to tear you to pieces after the moon rises, devils who are occupying the body of your neighbor, ....

Even in the dark ages it wasn't even nearly as dark as in D&D darkness.

 

[Ydars]

Hi Mirtek. I suppose when Henry and I mentioned the Warhammer World, we was referring to the one created for the roleplaying game, not the wargame. GW might like to pretend they are the same world, but they certainly are not. I HATE the wargame world, as it has about as much realism as tom and jerry.

The WFRP world has huge mutant incursions only once in a generation, not the constant warfare of the wargame, which is simply nonsense. When I talked about the PoL angle of the WFRP I meant the chaos beasts wandering the woods, the fact that roadwardens are needed to patrol the roads and the fact that small villages can suddenly be destroyed.

 

[Andor]

I just read the D&D article on the new approach to the basic 4th edition setting:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drdd/20070829a

It's called a "points of light" approach where pockets of civilization exist admist a sea of deadly wilderness.

"The centers of civilization are few and far between, and the world isn’t carved up between nation-states that jealously enforce their borders. A few difficult and dangerous roads tenuously link neighboring cities together, but if you stray from them you quickly find yourself immersed in goblin-infested forests, haunted barrowfields, desolate hills and marshes, and monster-hunted badlands."

Doesn't this scenario BEG the people to band together for safety as best they can?

This approach is requiring me to stretch just slightly more than my imigination will allow.

In the article, a picture is painted where perhaps a leader can defend his patch of kingdom but outside it's area of influence, other settlements might exist where they may indeed prosper or perhaps fall prey to some malign influence.

Basicly i'm grating against the thougth that... well... what kind of idiot would decide to live out in the middle of nowhere, away from better protected lands? If you live in the little Village of Berryshrub, might residents be fearful of being squashed under a gianst foot, usurped by cultists, raided by goblins, forced into slavery by a demon, or any other fantastical horrible fate?

How did those people come to found a town so far away from safety and what could compel them to stay? In a dangerous wilderness, would not intelligent people gather for safety? Might not there be SOME safe haven where people live for mutual safety? Wouldn't they activly seek safety out?

And of the smaller towns that could defened themselves adequately, would they not become beacons for smaller, weaker settlements?

Isn't that how greater civilizations began?

From the article: "The king’s soldiers might do a passable job of keeping the lands within a few miles of his castle free of monsters and bandits, but most of the realm’s outlying towns and villages are on their own."

Question: How did these outlying villages come to be settled so far away and if the king can't protect them, why don't thsese villagers resettle closer and patrol the newly expanded parimeter of the kindgom, thus exending the safe area offered by the king?

Can anyone help me grasp this?

It's not that people are founding towns far from safety, it's that there are damm all safe places to live, and they already hold as many people as they can support. Remember that without diesel tractors and combine harvesters about 90% of your entire population need to be farmers, or the cities starve. So the Kings and cities do their best to protect the farmers that keep them fed, but as the population grows, so does the amount of land they take up (for food production) and the edges are beyond the ability of the King/City to patrol effectively, which limits the growth of the cities. In some areas there may not be enough surplus to support any standing forces beyond a handful of adventurers, and so you have fearful little towns with no protection beyond their own walls.

Or at least that's how I see it.

 

[Andor]

Ahh. I see. One of the big questions is "How are the villages still alive in the face of the dangers of a D&D world?"

I think it's a mistake to have a single solution to this problem. The reason being that if you introduce a threat that can bypass the defense of X then you need to explain why that threat hasn't destroyed the world.

Individual solutions that can work for a PoL.

It's part of a Kingdom that extracts taxes in exchange for protection by a standing army/Knights.

They have a magical defense that drives off the local monsters.
-Which may not work on a different wandering threat, thus calling for the PCs.
-Medieval churchbells were thought to repel goblins and elves.

The local walls are strong and the militia well enough trained to present a credible threat to the local threats.

The locals pay a tieth to the local Bad Guy in gold/food/young people.

They have a powerful local hero who defends them.
-The village built near a wizards tower that keeps him fed/supplied in exchange for protection.

They have a potent but immobile weapon capable of defeating anything within it's reach.

They have a series of caves they hide in when danger passes. (See 'The Last Valley' again.)

They have a fearsome reputation that keeps off the local monsters. (Which may be all bluff, or based on past events, or even backed up by real force.)

They manage to play the local threats off against each other, buying off an attack if they need to.

______________________________________________________

None of these defenses are absolute or impregnable, safety is a constant struggle demanding care and vigilance.

There can also be unexplained defenses. Perhaps you have a group of Gypsy like wanderers whose caravans seem to pass by the monster infested areas without molestation. Nobody knows how they do it and they won't tell, so they are distrusted and dispised, but the trade they bring is valuable.

 

[Scipio202]

You could have a highly intelligent & powerful (evil) entity: lich, wizard, dragon, beholder, etc. who is controlling the other monsters in the area for a deeper and subtle purpose (e.g. building up for a conflict with another BBEG). He/it allows the monsters to do some mild rampaging, but doesn't let them get out of hand (e.g. wants to conserve his forces, doesn't want to reveal his strength to the other BBEG, etc.). At the beginning of the campaign the PCs encounter the monsters who are just milling about/knocking off the odd village here and there. As they start taking down some of the monsters, they capture the attention of the main bad guy...

 

[Ydars]

Nice one Scipio! You have really put your heart into this thread and I have enjoyed your answers.

Some great ideas from Heavenshallburn as well.


How about this solution, building upon something suggested by Scipio

PoLs exist on stable, "islands" of reality but the rest of the land is fluid and chaotic. Every sunrise, the lands between PoLs are completely reformed and totally different. Thus monsters, off in the lands of chaos, have no time to do anything nasty against unless they can find and attack a PoL in one day.

Travel can only be via "island" hopping because being caught in the mists means being thrown into a maelstrom from which there is no return.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Let's see.

Here's a couple of discrete scenarios:

Inn - Well, the Inn could function for both monsters and demihumans. One of the ideas about PoL is that the Light aspect stands more for hospitable than good. This is meant to give you city states ruled by invincible tyrant overlords, but it could also work in other ways too. One of which is that the PoL is hospitable to everyone and thus has enough entities invested in it that it attains relative safety.

Sleeping Giant - The village is located literally on top of a sleeping giant - or other horrible nascent threat. Minor threats are kept at bay with mundane defenses and precautions, but the reason it never gets off hand obliterated by dragons, giants, and demons is that they know that destroying the village will awaken the horror that sleeps beneath it.
Scenario 1: The village doesn't know about the giant, hilarity ensues.
Scenario 2: The village knows and works very hard to keep the giant asleep via potent labor intensive magics. The reason they need the PCs, at first, is because they can't spare the magical might to take care of minor threats anymore.

The Staked Goat - The village is a heroic level PoL. In the local hills is a paragon level threat. It could wipe out the village in a single meal, but then it eats for a day. Instead, the monster keeps the village isolated, small, non-threatening, and bleating. It lets minor threats harrass it. Kobolds, orcs, and ghouls. These threats bring in bigger threats to feast upon them. And those incoming manticores, vampire spawn, and Orc shamans are a steady source of meals for the Paragon level threat. The village is just one trap among many in its territory so the village doesn't attract its attention all the time, but it's around often enough that other paragon level threats know to avoid it.

 

[Henry]

Hi Mirtek. I suppose when Henry and I mentioned the Warhammer World, we was referring to the one created for the roleplaying game, not the wargame.

What he said. Truth told, I don't even follow the wargame - but in the fiction I've read, and in the RP books I've read, they keep the "world-wide incursions" to every couple hundred years or so, with only the smaller towns and hamlets being the ones threatened by run-of-the-mill raiding bands. Even besides that, the Warhammer points of light really ARE failing - the RP world really does have Chaos being encroachingly ascendant. It would be as-is a little too dark for a core rule D&D game.

 

[JohnBiles]

I love games like that, which is why I made a similar comment earlier on. If you wipe out the kobolds, the dragon will be upset because they were the ones appeasing them. If you trail-blaze the old path to reestablish trade between two villages, you'll upset the gnomes who have moved it. You might not see the repercussions immediately, but the next time you visit that town they may be throwing rocks at you instead of flowers.

Well, if you're not careful as a DM, though, that becomes an incentive for the PCs to do absolutely nothing for fear that action of any kind will just lead to them being bitten on the butt for it.