Points-of-light is not just for post-apocalyptic fantasy

[The Little Raven]

Yup, that's what the initial impression of the Realms that I was given (and was in the early marketing materials and back of the Grey Box as well: "Adventure on the edge of a vast wilderness!"). From 2E on, it felt like it was nothing but caravans and goodly kings doing good with the PCs' help.

Exactly. Not everyone came into the Realms with the Grey Box. A lot of us came from after the Time of Troubles and all that.

 

[Prince of Happiness]

Exactly. Not everyone came into the Realms with the Grey Box. A lot of us came from after the Time of Troubles and all that.

And it's 2E where I really picked up on (and quit) the Realms as well. The Grey Box was in the back of my mind but I never ran it as the Vast Wilderness idea because I was really caught up in the products that were released at the time anyways. Well, that and because the City of Splendors boxed set pwn3d. I still don't know why I got rid of it.

 

[ruleslawyer]

Exactly. Not everyone came into the Realms with the Grey Box. A lot of us came from after the Time of Troubles and all that.

See my post above. I just don't see where the ToT and related events made the Realms more rather than less secure. The two events that seem calculated to have done that are the Reclamation of Tethyr and the destruction of Hellgate Keep, both of which were relatively localized (not that I liked either of them, or the ToT, anyway). The major 2e expansions were to flesh out Sembia (which is a neutral realm at best, what with amoral merchant rulers and lots of activity by thieves' guilds and the Cult of the Dragon), Amn and Tethyr (the former a decadent and largely evil-ruled realm), and Calimshan and the Lake of Steam (ditto on decadent and evil-ruled), and to add in the Volo's Guides (which paint the North, the Western Heartlands, and the Sword Coast as highly dangerous places).

[EDIT: As I understand it, most people's problem with the Realms is the overabundance of high-level good-aligned PCs and what they see as a conflict between the existence of those NPCs and the untamed or perilous portrayal of the world, not the untamed and perilous portrayal of the world itself.]

 

[Prince of Happiness]

Have to wonder about that, though. Neither the 2e boxed set, nor the Volo's Guides, nor the FR Adventures hardback, which are the only really substantial 2e source materials for the "core" FR, give the "goodly kings" impression IMO. [The FR caravan culture sort of implies wilderness rather than civilization, actually; dangerous treks across wild lands with trade goods requiring armed protection.]

To me it implied that there was a lot of trade rather than scrambling to get your settlements in order before the orcs/goblins/Chakka Khan came back to kill people and take their stuff. There was also an implication the roads were quite reasonably passable and well-maintained implying a lot of jurisdictions that could and would maintain invasion corridors...er, ROADS. That and that Cormyr was well ordered, Waterdeep practically owned the Sword Coast and much of the interior, Sembia's just sittin' there making money, Baldur's Gate is a safe house indeed thanks to the Flaming Fist, etc.

Couple that with a slew of novels where the villains were pretty inept and the good guys always won.

Now mind you (!), I was a teenager at the time and that's how the material came to be interpreted to me.

 

[Prince of Happiness]

the Volo's Guides (which paint the North, the Western Heartlands, and the Sword Coast as highly dangerous places).

Really? The impression I got from those books were here's the good places to eat and which dungeons were already looted out, and a million more little towns that weren't on the map before.

 

[Henry]

First of all, let's please stop with the discussions of real-world Native Americans, the wild west, land grabs, what have you, because it's a side-diversion that will lead to nowhere productive (and in fact historically leads to thread closure).


I think Warhammer, which people have brought up before, is also an EXCELLENT means of looking at the "points of light" model. You have various villages coming and going in the landscape, a very few really powerful walled cities (almost city-states, really), and everywhere else is dark forest roaming with bands of Beastmen, Orcs, bandits, cultists, and the occasional Chaos demon or a Dragon. In fact, in the most recent timeline change, half of the villages in the setting I think were wiped from the face of the map; Even several major cities were sacked, and their populations only now starting to rebuild. You have to be incredibly brave or insane to be a hero in Warhammer, though, because of your inherent mortality; the deck is NOT stacked in your favor. In D&D, though, you start out a hero, and get better from there, so you have the incentive to go out and rout all those bands of nasties.

 

[Prince of Happiness]

I think Warhammer, which people have brought up before, is also an EXCELLENT means of looking at the "points of light" model. You have various villages coming and going in the landscape, a very few really powerful walled cities (almost city-states, really), and everywhere else is dark forest roaming with bands of Beastmen, Orcs, bandits, cultists, and the occasional Chaos demon or a Dragon. In fact, in the most recent timeline change, half of the villages in the setting I think were wiped from the face of the map; Even several major cities were sacked, and their populations only now starting to rebuild. You have to be incredibly brave or insane to be a hero in Warhammer, though, because of your inherent mortality; the deck is NOT stacked in your favor. In D&D, though, you start out a hero, and get better from there, so you have the incentive to go out and rout all those bands of nasties.

I always loved the idea of the Mordheim game that was out with factions battling it out in a ruined city, and on the FR note, the Ruins of Phlan adventures as well. Warhammer's setting sounds very, very, very cool to me now!

 

[Betote]

I've been running D&D in a PoL setting (Greyhawk) since I started DMing. Now I'm told that I couldn't do that because I was using an uncool ruleset.

 

[ruleslawyer]

To me it implied that there was a lot of trade rather than scrambling to get your settlements in order before the orcs/goblins/Chakka Khan came back to kill people and take their stuff. There was also an implication the roads were quite reasonably passable and well-maintained implying a lot of jurisdictions that could and would maintain invasion corridors...er, ROADS. That and that Cormyr was well ordered, Waterdeep practically owned the Sword Coast and much of the interior, Sembia's just sittin' there making money, Baldur's Gate is a safe house indeed thanks to the Flaming Fist, etc.

See, I consider these things essential to creating any setting. PoL does require that there be... well, points of light.

As for "invasion corridors": Keep in mind that the sourcebooks made it pretty clear that those roads were not passable in winter or rough weather. More to the point: What armies would be using those roads as "invasion corridors," exactly? More likely an orc horde than anything else, given the lack of large standing armies in places like Waterdeep (which by no means "owned" the Sword Coast, given the number of pirate holds and the like that feature in Volo's and the 2e boxed set Sword Coast materials).

Likewise, having hundreds of small towns and villages is... well, kinda what even European Dark Ages society was like. The idea of all of humanity being confined to the cities with no life in between would raise serious issues regarding agriculture and where these people got FOOD. Likewise with trade goods.

A setting with no trade or politics is just, well, nothing but combat. It's nice that the Realms has both vast areas of wilderness as well as lands where "civilized" intrigue can come to the fore.

See, this stuff is an important issue to me because it seems to be influencing how the designers are treating the Realms (or their default setting) in 4e. Greyhawk has large kingdoms, ROADS, trade, and so on. Eberron goes several steps beyond in having common House communication and magical means of travel and transport of goods available. Yet these settings aren't getting taken apart in order to accommodate the "points of light" feel. To my mind, the Realms is getting the short end of the stick, in part because there's the (IMHO unjustified) sentiment that Faerun is somehow more "civilization-overrun" than either the Flanaess or Khorvaire.

Couple that with a slew of novels where the villains were pretty inept and the good guys always won.

See, now that *is* a bad thing.

 

[Prince of Happiness]

See, I consider these things essential to creating any setting. PoL does require that there be... well, points of light. A setting with no trade or politics is just, well, nothing but combat. It's nice that the Realms has both vast areas of wilderness as well as lands where "civilized" intrigue can come to the fore.
See, now that *is* a bad thing.

Right, but the impression that I was getting (over ten years ago, mind you) was that the vast areas of wilderness were becoming very not-vast very quickly.