PoL & population density

[JohnSnow]

Exactly. A 10% chance of meeting something dangerous qualifies as "the woods are full of man-eating monsters!!!!!" to a level 1 commoner with all 10's for stats. Even if that something dangerous is a pair of runty goblins. By the time the commoner runs back to town, two goblins will become twenty, and by the time the tale's stopped being told, it was just a small scouting force for the invading army.

I understand what you're saying, and I think people are reading a little too much danger into what the WotC designers have said about "points of light." The whole point is that the settled and safe areas are few and far-between compared to the wilderness between them.

Primarily, I think people are getting caught up on "points" as opposed to "blobs." Not to put too fine a "point" on it, but a "blob of light" is just a somewhat larger point.

I think that the points of light conceit is a way to explain WHY, with all the magic and late medieval technology available in a D&D setting, we're still looking at basically medieval settlement patterns. Given the age of most D&D worlds, without that darkness, most settings would have advanced past renaissance type civilization a long time ago. Worlds like Eberron would be the standard, not the exception.

In order to correct that, the assumption is that the generic D&D world is dangerous enough that kingdoms like Galifar do not long endure. Empires rise...and fall. Cities can fall into ruin, monsters, plague or famine can wipe out a village that was there last season.

It's not exactly rocket science, but it IS something that probably does need to be pointed out to 21st century humans, most of whom have never lived on a farm, gone hunting, or really had to cope with nature much. In other words, most D&D players have no real concept of the world in which our characters live. The sheer controversy of the "points of light" conceit is the biggest proof of this.

Think of iron age, (both pre- and post-Roman Empire) and early medieval (the so-called "dark ages") Europe, or bronze age Greece. In a D&D world, many of those other ethnic groups are actually other races.

This world can be pretty dangerous without being totally a death sentence. If there was a mere 10 percent chance of death, most people wouldn't risk it. However, for those who do, there's the potential for huge reward. Consider that during the age of exploration, many missions ended in death. Even successful expeditions might lose half their members. But the rewards for those who survived were substantial enough that people were willing to take the risk.

That's how merchant caravans work in a "points of light" world. It's reasonably high-risk, but probably worth the payoff.

People today are just too used to "safe." Our risk is so managed, most of us can't conceive that people might be willing to do something that had a 5, 10, 20, or even 50 percent risk of death. Of course, that's still not certain. It would keep the stay-at-home types (like most modern people) at home. But for those willing to accept a little risk? It's far from a death sentence.

And THAT is where "Points of Light" comes from. It's just sensible people acting sensibly in the face of a risky world.

Of course, adventurers aren't sensible.

 

[Aloïsius]

It's not a european medieval town, it's a fantasy town.

The houses are spaced apart from each other, not built next to each other like in real medieval towns.
It's not supposed to be a real european medieval town, it's a fantasy town.

The problem is that all real world non-modern towns had houses built next to each other.
http://www.yabiladi.com/photos_maroc/marrakech/Ruelle de la medina.jpg (a medieval medina)
http://www.regionmediterranea.com/resimler/ctlhy_11.gif (Catal Hoyuk, the oldest citie on earth)
As soon as you have the need to protect you from raiders (point of light...) you have either a wall or an outer ring of houses (http://www.decouvertes-herault.fr/US/patrimoine/images/ph_circulades.jpg) to protect you. Thus, you have limited space and houses are built next to each other.

 

[HeinorNY]

The problem is that all real world non-modern towns had houses built next to each other.
http://www.yabiladi.com/photos_maroc/marrakech/Ruelle de la medina.jpg (a medieval medina)
http://www.regionmediterranea.com/resimler/ctlhy_11.gif (Catal Hoyuk, the oldest citie on earth)
As soon as you have the need to protect you from raiders (point of light...) you have either a wall or an outer ring of houses (http://www.decouvertes-herault.fr/US/patrimoine/images/ph_circulades.jpg) to protect you. Thus, you have limited space and houses are built next to each other.

It's not supposed to be any of the real world medieval towns, it's a fantasy town.

What if it's a tiefling town? Or at least first build by tieflings? What do you know about tiefling architecture? What about dragonborn towns? Can you provide me a link with information about a dragonborn medieval town?

You are entitled to your opinion, I'm entitled to mine. You have way to play the game, I have mine, but you've got to excuse me because, IMO, it's not a valid argument to imply that the designers are doing a "poor" job just because D&D towns don't fully follow the logics of earthly medieval towns, and thus are not matching your own particular taste. They are also doing changes that don't fit my personal taste, but that doesn't mean they are not doing their job well, they are just not doing the way I'd do it.

 

[Zurai]

The problem is that all real world non-modern towns had houses built next to each other.

"All" is a very inclusive word. The only thing one has to do in order to disprove your assertion is find a single example of a real world non-modern (what is non-modern? Pre industrial revolution? Pre WW1?) town that did not have houses built with shared walls. Doing so is trivially easy if you go outside of Europe.

 

[HeinorNY]

I'm really not able to fully understand that "real world medieval towns" as a parameter for anything in a fantasy setting. It should serve as an inspiration, but not as a strict rule or guideline, unless you really want a level of detail and fidelity with our medieval past, which clearly isn't and never was the point of D&D.

People stick with the medieval concepts, but what about ancient civilizations as an inspiration? Greeks? Spartans are cool nowadays. They also had warriors and swords, and armors, and magicians and fanstatic monsters and amazing deeds of heroism and towns with farms and taverns.

Robert Howard's works has always being with no doubt a source of inspiration for D&D, but Hyborian age is not medieval at all, it's inspired on it, but not bound to it.

There was also no real medieval cities built with white stone on the side of a mountain with multiple layers, nor a village with small subterranean houses with big round doors. Between Tolkien and real world medieval europe, I choose Tolkien as my primary source of inspiration.

I can't remember any town built entirely on a lake, maybe there was, I dunno, anyway, if there was no Tolkien, and a designer proposed something like that, would we also complain arguing that's no such thing in our medieval past?

"houses are spaced apart from each other, not built next to each other like in real medieval towns." OMG that makes no sense!!!
Sure it doesn't, it's D&D, not Medieval Adventures.

 

[Zurai]

I can't remember any town built entirely on a lake, maybe there was, I dunno

Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Aztec Empire and the present-day site of Mexico City, was built on an artificially expanded island in the middle of a group of lakes. Only a very small portion of the city at the time the conquistadors came was built on what was originally dry land. It's not quite Laketown, but I'm not certain Laketown could even exist as described.

 

[Irda Ranger]

People stick with the medieval concepts, but what about ancient civilizations as an inspiration? Greeks? Spartans are cool nowadays.

I like taking inspiration from every era of history, including the present and various futures presented in sci-fi. D&D magic in effect is often indistinguishable from high technology. Plus, medieval gets boring after a while. Why can't you have full-plate knights on hover bikes ... I mean, "giant eagles" flying patrols over the Roman country-side (including its villas and palatial estates)?

Between Tolkien and real world medieval europe, I choose Tolkien as my primary source of inspiration.

QFT

I can't remember any town built entirely on a lake, maybe there was

Tenochtitlan

 

[helium3]

So if my players spend lots of time in an inconsistent town, and don't care about it, that makes them stupid?

Oi. I walked right into that one.

You're correct, there is the third solution which is, "I don't care about that sort of stuff when I play D&D."

That being said, I still think that internally consistent settings are generally better since they make a wider range of gamers happy.

 

[HeinorNY]

Tenochtitlan

It was built on an island in a lake.

 

[helium3]

I don't have this problem. My players have had the urge to ask "How does this work?" savagely beaten out of them. None of them really want to know what the Myconoids do with the "brown gold", and long discourses on its many uses effectively discourages pesky questions of this nature.

You've got my position on the matter completely wrong if you think I'm arguing that setting material should contain that level of detail.

Either that or I haven't made myself very clear.