loseth
First Post
[Multi-forum post: rpg.ent, ENworld, WOTC boards]
I’m pretty excited about the points-of-light setting concept, and I would love to play in a post-apocalyptic points-of-light campaign. However, I’m worried that some people have the impression that the points-of-light concept is only for post-apoc and wouldn’t work in a more ‘normal’ setting where civilisation still exists. I want to argue here that, to the contrary, ‘points of light’ works just fine in a setting with functioning governments and states, and does not preclude the possibility of civilisation.
In fact, we’ve got points of light (in a lesser form) in the modern world. Rio de Janeiro has a murder rate 5 times higher than New York, and it was much worse 10 years ago. Part of the reason for this is that Rio’s hill-slums are effectively governed by drug gangs. Under normal circumstances, the police don’t go into the slums and the government thus has no control over them. However, the police are ultimately more powerful than any one drug gang, and when they want to, they can mount a large-scale operation and take control of a slum. We could call this control in force Now, the government in Rio doesn’t have the money or manpower to permanently garrison and patrol all the slums, but they are still the ‘top dog,’ capable of defeating any one drug gang that they want, any time they want. Civilisation is in no danger of collapsing in Rio, and ironically, Rio’s most violent period (the 1970s) was also one of cultural brilliance.
There was a similar situation in the American Wild West. There were some places, like cities close to the civilised East, where the US government could be said to have full control. Most towns and villages in the Wild West, however, would be under what we could call effective control of the US government—there were no US government officials regularly present to directly enforce the law in these towns and villages, but the government could rely on locally elected sheriffs to enforce most laws most of the time—at least within the town’s borders. Outside these areas, the government only had control in force, meaning that even though an area might have been dominated by a gang of robbers or a hostile Native tribe* on a day-to-day basis, the US cavalry was capable of taking control of any area it wanted to, even though it didn’t have the resources to control all areas all the time.
This concept is easily portable into a fantasy setting. Let’s take the Barony of Zim. The Baron himself controls a castle surrounded by a village. There are 13 other villages in the barony, as well as a town. These are the points of light. However, living within the barony’s borders are also a few hostile orc tribes, a dozen or so hostile goblin clans, one hostile hobgoblin tribe, several hostile kobold tribes, a few dozen gangs of robbers, a couple of pirates, a group of hill-giant raiders and a few gangs of robber knights. In other words, the points of darkness greatly outnumber the points of light.
However, the baron still has the strongest military force in the barony, and can beat any of these points of darkness when he needs to. For example, if two of the orc tribes unite to attack the town, the baron may spend a week marching to the town with his troops, a few days beating off the orcs and then resting his troops, and another week and a half chasing down one of the orc tribes and then destroying their village. Of course, he can’t afford to keep his troops in the location of the now-destroyed orc village forever, and the surviving orcs will come back as soon as he leaves, but at least he has dealt one of the points of darkness a serious blow and weakened them as a threat. After he spends another week marching back to his castle, he’s probably spent a total of about a month at the task. He only has the time and money to conduct a few such operations a year, but this is enough for him to remain top dog in the barony and to maintain his borders, though certainly not enough to guarantee the safety of everyone in the barony. In other words, the baron has full control over his own castle and its village, effective control over the town and the other villages, and control in force over the rest of the barony. In this way, it’s perfectly possible to have a setting where there is a functioning, stable government and borders, but the government is unable to enforce its writ effectively over most of the land, forcing people to huddle together in ‘points of light surrounded by a sea of darkness.’
In fact, this happened in the real middle ages. For example, in medieval England, order started to break down very seriously in the late 13th and early 14th centuries. Because of the insecurity, defensive structures such as moats started going up around even the homes of well-off peasants (Platt 1994). There was a strong and militarily gifted king on the throne (Edward I), but although his control in force was robust (as he demonstrated many times) and he successfully expanded English control in the British Isles, there were simply too many bandits, thieves, outlaws, robber knights and the like in the kingdom for him to be able to guarantee security for the majority of the kingdom’s inhabitants. They had to huddle together in strong points and defend themselves. It was a sort of historical version of a points-of-light setting. Of course, England didn’t have the vast tracts of wilderness that are a part of the default points-of-light assumption, but other states in the real middle-ages did. A good example is the Baltic states of the Teutonic Knights, the Sword Brethren and the Danish Crown. These states were mostly forest, and were affected by constant brigandage, raiding, warfare and piracy, and yet they remained functioning states within the Christian world, with defined borders respected by other Christian powers (and even some non-Christian ones).
Now, don’t get me wrong. Nobody should be forced to use a points-of-light setting, and I’m not suggesting that all campaigns set in a civilised fantasy world should be points-of-light settings. However, if you do want to use the concept in a non-post-apocalyptic setting, I hope I’ve convinced you that it should be perfectly possible to do so. In fact, I think it would be a lot of fun.
* Please don’t think that I’m saying that Apaches are orcs. The US government was clearly the aggressor and clearly in the wrong when it seized the land of Native Americans living in the West, but from the perspective of the US settlers, an area controlled by a hostile First Nations tribe would have been seen as a ‘point of darkness.’
I’m pretty excited about the points-of-light setting concept, and I would love to play in a post-apocalyptic points-of-light campaign. However, I’m worried that some people have the impression that the points-of-light concept is only for post-apoc and wouldn’t work in a more ‘normal’ setting where civilisation still exists. I want to argue here that, to the contrary, ‘points of light’ works just fine in a setting with functioning governments and states, and does not preclude the possibility of civilisation.
In fact, we’ve got points of light (in a lesser form) in the modern world. Rio de Janeiro has a murder rate 5 times higher than New York, and it was much worse 10 years ago. Part of the reason for this is that Rio’s hill-slums are effectively governed by drug gangs. Under normal circumstances, the police don’t go into the slums and the government thus has no control over them. However, the police are ultimately more powerful than any one drug gang, and when they want to, they can mount a large-scale operation and take control of a slum. We could call this control in force Now, the government in Rio doesn’t have the money or manpower to permanently garrison and patrol all the slums, but they are still the ‘top dog,’ capable of defeating any one drug gang that they want, any time they want. Civilisation is in no danger of collapsing in Rio, and ironically, Rio’s most violent period (the 1970s) was also one of cultural brilliance.
There was a similar situation in the American Wild West. There were some places, like cities close to the civilised East, where the US government could be said to have full control. Most towns and villages in the Wild West, however, would be under what we could call effective control of the US government—there were no US government officials regularly present to directly enforce the law in these towns and villages, but the government could rely on locally elected sheriffs to enforce most laws most of the time—at least within the town’s borders. Outside these areas, the government only had control in force, meaning that even though an area might have been dominated by a gang of robbers or a hostile Native tribe* on a day-to-day basis, the US cavalry was capable of taking control of any area it wanted to, even though it didn’t have the resources to control all areas all the time.
This concept is easily portable into a fantasy setting. Let’s take the Barony of Zim. The Baron himself controls a castle surrounded by a village. There are 13 other villages in the barony, as well as a town. These are the points of light. However, living within the barony’s borders are also a few hostile orc tribes, a dozen or so hostile goblin clans, one hostile hobgoblin tribe, several hostile kobold tribes, a few dozen gangs of robbers, a couple of pirates, a group of hill-giant raiders and a few gangs of robber knights. In other words, the points of darkness greatly outnumber the points of light.
However, the baron still has the strongest military force in the barony, and can beat any of these points of darkness when he needs to. For example, if two of the orc tribes unite to attack the town, the baron may spend a week marching to the town with his troops, a few days beating off the orcs and then resting his troops, and another week and a half chasing down one of the orc tribes and then destroying their village. Of course, he can’t afford to keep his troops in the location of the now-destroyed orc village forever, and the surviving orcs will come back as soon as he leaves, but at least he has dealt one of the points of darkness a serious blow and weakened them as a threat. After he spends another week marching back to his castle, he’s probably spent a total of about a month at the task. He only has the time and money to conduct a few such operations a year, but this is enough for him to remain top dog in the barony and to maintain his borders, though certainly not enough to guarantee the safety of everyone in the barony. In other words, the baron has full control over his own castle and its village, effective control over the town and the other villages, and control in force over the rest of the barony. In this way, it’s perfectly possible to have a setting where there is a functioning, stable government and borders, but the government is unable to enforce its writ effectively over most of the land, forcing people to huddle together in ‘points of light surrounded by a sea of darkness.’
In fact, this happened in the real middle ages. For example, in medieval England, order started to break down very seriously in the late 13th and early 14th centuries. Because of the insecurity, defensive structures such as moats started going up around even the homes of well-off peasants (Platt 1994). There was a strong and militarily gifted king on the throne (Edward I), but although his control in force was robust (as he demonstrated many times) and he successfully expanded English control in the British Isles, there were simply too many bandits, thieves, outlaws, robber knights and the like in the kingdom for him to be able to guarantee security for the majority of the kingdom’s inhabitants. They had to huddle together in strong points and defend themselves. It was a sort of historical version of a points-of-light setting. Of course, England didn’t have the vast tracts of wilderness that are a part of the default points-of-light assumption, but other states in the real middle-ages did. A good example is the Baltic states of the Teutonic Knights, the Sword Brethren and the Danish Crown. These states were mostly forest, and were affected by constant brigandage, raiding, warfare and piracy, and yet they remained functioning states within the Christian world, with defined borders respected by other Christian powers (and even some non-Christian ones).
Now, don’t get me wrong. Nobody should be forced to use a points-of-light setting, and I’m not suggesting that all campaigns set in a civilised fantasy world should be points-of-light settings. However, if you do want to use the concept in a non-post-apocalyptic setting, I hope I’ve convinced you that it should be perfectly possible to do so. In fact, I think it would be a lot of fun.
* Please don’t think that I’m saying that Apaches are orcs. The US government was clearly the aggressor and clearly in the wrong when it seized the land of Native Americans living in the West, but from the perspective of the US settlers, an area controlled by a hostile First Nations tribe would have been seen as a ‘point of darkness.’
