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?