Rich Baker on the Points of Light Setting.

[TwinBahamut]

I think this approach is the best possible one, and I am glad that Rich Baker lost this argument.

The entire idea of the Points of Light is to make it easy for DMs to string together places and premade adventures in ways that best suit their own campaign. It is a schematic for making it very easy to homebrew up a semi-original campaign from the bottom up. Turning the thing into a full scale setting, with a map and a name, defeats the entire purpose of the concept, and does more to restrict DM creativity than to encourage it.

If I want a setting with a map, name, and well-defined history, I would buy a Campaign setting book. If I want a few ideas and inspirations for my own simplistic homebrew, the Points of Light idea is perfect as it is.

 

[Darrin Drader]

If the map detracts so much from an implied setting, throw it out and make your own. Failing to include it just makes it harder for the people who don't want to go through the trouble of making their own.

 

[alleynbard]

In 2nd edition the Forgotten Realms was the default setting, and there was a small mountain of mostly compatible material out there already for it.

I wouldn't say 2e had a default setting per se. The core books were remarkably devoid of setting material. If I picked up the 2e PHB, and knew nothing about the game, I wouldn't immediately connect it to the Forgotten Realms. The 2e corebooks did not have any Realms information in it. The Realms just became a place to shoehorn everything into.

2e tried really hard to quantify and explain everything. 1e generally had an implied setting that could be Greyhawk but didn't have to be. In my opinion the steps 2e took were a mistake. That edition spawned reams of setting information and established the concept of D&D canon in the minds of players and DMs. I still find the sheer amount of information published for 2e daunting.

I don't see how going back to the 1e model is a bad thing. Its vague enough that those who don't care about a detailed world can pick up a module or use the starter town in the DMG and just run. Meanwhile those who want to develop their own worlds can just keep on creating while ignoring the sparse information the corebooks provide. Those who want to take the middle road and do both still can. Finally those people who want to use a published setting won't adversely affected. I think this is a winning situation that doesn't leave anyone out.

 

[alleynbard]

If the map detracts so much from an implied setting, throw it out and make your own. Failing to include it just makes it harder for the people who don't want to go through the trouble of making their own.

There will be a starter region included in the DMG. That should be enough to start most campaigns. Presuming that the DMG also includes info on world building and campaign development I think a DM who doesn't want to draw a map can quickly figure out they can tack on maps from other adventures or use generic overland maps available for sale or download. The game world will develop through play.

Besides, if DMs are looking for complete worlds, the FRCS will be out that same year.

But I do see your point. I personally love to draw maps but if you hate to do it such an endeavor would seem irritating to say the least.

Perhaps we will get some more overland maps from the maps of mystery line on the DDI. They won't be marked with locations listed in the core books but it is a start.

 

[Cbas_10]

First, I really liked the changes to the cosmology for 4E. Now, I really like the Points of Light concept, as defined by Baker in that post.

It's all about options and toolkits for the DM and players. If I want to keep using my Greyhawk stuff and incorporate new 4E ideas, I can. Cool! If you want to use a homebrew setting, you can get the same value out of the 4E ideas. Awesome!

When I first read about the PoL stuff, I got the impression that there was a single setting where all of the various adventure locations, towns, etc were isolated and separated areas. As if all areas of wilderness between towns were trouble-filled zones of wandering monsters....*Yawn* Happily, that is not the case, unless a DM wants it to be that way.

As much as I'm not liking the nearly totally combat-focused roles/classes, I'm sure that there are other aspects of characters we just have not seen yet. The interesting changes to the setting and approaches to the use of setting elements is keeping me intrigued by 4E.

 

[CassandraR]

I never liked to play in homebrew settings what so ever. Until a DM can supply with with a 200ish page pdf of a setting that actually interests me and gives me the details necessary to build my character I will continue to only use published settings. I had hoped that every single sentence in all three core books would literally drip with fluff and a large number of pages would be devoted to a core setting. I liked pretty much all the hints of fluff they have shown so far and hope they will continue.

 

[ruleslawyer]

In 2nd edition the Forgotten Realms was the default setting, and there was a small mountain of mostly compatible material out there already for it.

I don't agree with this either. 2e was the edition of setting proliferation, not a default setting. In many ways, it seems to me that the role of FR as the "big dog" was diminished by the emphasis on quasi-historical settings (the Castles book, the Glory of the Celts/Romans/Vikings books, Birthright, etc.), the addition of new settings-within-settings (Red Steel, Hollow Earth, Taladas) plus the marquee 2e settings (Spelljammer, Planescape, Ravenloft, Al-Qadim, etc.).

Actually, I would like a whole lot of nothing vis-a-vis setting info in 4e. I would vastly prefer some literary examples of archetypes for class roles, only a few example deities (including some new-for-4e versions), and for the planes to go into the DMG with the express note that these are 'default" planes to explain the existence and origins of certain creatures. The "D&D setting" idea doesn't really work for me; even FR and Eberron require massive departures from the core rules to work in 3e (and actually, FR suffers from attempts to integrate it into 3e, IMO) and ideally, the one-book settings proffered by WotC are the best way to introduce fluff.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I like this. It hearkens back to the 1E days where the books were dashed with flavorful names and places to inspire the DM and nothing very specific tethered to them.

This is okay, to me. I don't mind this.

What worries me is them tying the fluff of the world too tightly to the mechanics of the characters. Flipping names in front of flavorful descriptive titles (X's Feat, Spell of Y) is pretty okay, easy to remove if you want to, and noninvasive.

Using those names to signify mechanics (Golden Wyvern = Magic Shaping) is a tighter association of the setting, and would be a greater problem for me outside of an explicit setting book. The mechanic -- the spell, the power, the feat -- should be known first by a mostly generic name, and secondly, if at all, by a name associated with the implied setting.

 

[Darrin Drader]

I don't agree with this either. 2e was the edition of setting proliferation, not a default setting.

Since my 2E books are long since put away in a box somewhere and I don't have PDF copies, I can't directly refute you, but I would wager a sum of money on the Forgotten Realms being mentioned as the default setting in the core rulebooks, and having references to it in various places throughout the rules.

In many ways, it seems to me that the role of FR as the "big dog" was diminished by the emphasis on quasi-historical settings (the Castles book, the Glory of the Celts/Romans/Vikings books, Birthright, etc.), the addition of new settings-within-settings (Red Steel, Hollow Earth, Taladas) plus the marquee 2e settings (Spelljammer, Planescape, Ravenloft, Al-Qadim, etc.).

Oh I totally agree with you that 2E was the edition where they figured out that D&D was flexible enough to accommodate a number of completely different concepts, which led to the creation of every setting under the sun. I don't see how that would have diminished the Forgotten Realms any as it always served well as an almost generic sword and sorcery setting, minus the annoyingly funny names of Greyhawk.

Actually, I would like a whole lot of nothing vis-a-vis setting info in 4e. I would vastly prefer some literary examples of archetypes for class roles, only a few example deities (including some new-for-4e versions), and for the planes to go into the DMG with the express note that these are 'default" planes to explain the existence and origins of certain creatures. The "D&D setting" idea doesn't really work for me; even FR and Eberron require massive departures from the core rules to work in 3e (and actually, FR suffers from attempts to integrate it into 3e, IMO) and ideally, the one-book settings proffered by WotC are the best way to introduce fluff.

I think the notion that you have to have a lot of custom rules to make a setting fit with a specific edition of D&D is erroneous, and is part of the unfortunate design decisions of 3rd edition. Say you have a specialized warrior group in one world with a certain name, then you have another world with another specialized warrior group that is thematically similar, the 3E approach is to make a prestige class for each one because they exist on different worlds. In my opinion, it makes a lot more sense to make all prestige classes completely generic and then say that in one world the Shining Knights of Zog are the Vorpal Dancing Rabit Slayer prestige class, as are the Mohawk Kilts of Viridiheim. Of course I also things that there are way, way, way too many prestige classes and feats scattered through all the accessory books in 3E. Now I can see specific exceptions, like the Artificer class in Eberron, which doesn't really fit well as a prestige class or modified Wizard.

Aside from that, I can see some special rules to fit specific settings, Darksun and Spelljammer being good examples of settings that would not function without them, but I don't understand the notion that you need to have a specific setting for an edition just to accommodate the different rules. Eberron could have been made for 2E or 1E and worked just fine. Of course if you go monkeying around with your core races and classes, then you've just forced a change to a new implied setting, or forced a retcon - which I generally hate because they ignore years worth of material, including novels. I think it's Psion who has said for a very long time that the rules should serve the game rather than the game serving the rules. The direction of design has been moving against this philosophy for a while now, not towards it, and I don't think that's a good thing.

 

[Remathilis]

In 2nd edition the Forgotten Realms was the default setting, and there was a small mountain of mostly compatible material out there already for it.

I'm sorry, but I'm going to call you to task on this...

Second edition had no default setting. None. I have no idea where people get this memory from. The second edition PHB had no Realms references at all. No Elminster, no Cormyr, no Selune, NONE. The spells continued to use the Greyhawk wizard names (Bigby, Melf), the area that discusses specialty priests lists no FR deities (only sample portfolios for you to use and some vague guidelines for assembling specialty priests. Heck, the example SP is DRUID). The DMG lists no info on Realms world, and its (small) section of artifacts sill discuss Vecna and Kas. The Monster Compendium has monsters culled from every D&D setting (out at time of print) so it had Dark Sun, Ravenloft, Realms, Greyhawk, Spelljammer, and Dragonlance monsters listed in it, invoking a feeling of no setting (or generic sampling) than realms specific.

Moving beyond the core: the complete fighters, wizards, and thieves handbooks are setting neutral and do not discuss any cultural element that would tie it to the realms specific. Complete Priests (and fine place to highlight FR's gods) instead list generic "God/dess of X" specialty priests. Complete Book of Dwarves and Gnomes/Halflings do not specifically mention their realms subraces (other than a mention of Furchin, but it equally mentions Kender) or deities (which they shared with GH, btw). Only Complete Elves seems to mention in detail Correllon and Co and discuss Realm-specific subraces like Avarial. Complete Book of Humanoids discusses Saurials, so I guess you can concede That one. All the later Completes (Bard, Druid, Ranger, Paladin, Ninja, Barbarian) all again remain setting neutral.

After that, its a mixed bag. Sure, their were wild mages in Tome of Magic (with a Toril-origin) but Book of Artifacts, Monster Mythology, and Legends and Lore remain Realms free. Some settings get rolled into Realms (Maztica, Al-Quadim, Kara-tur) but they have small shelf-life anyway. The Player's Options books avoid setting as well to purely focus rules (though Spells and Magic does reprint the Crusader, Monk, and Shaman who first appeared in Faith and Avatars. Oddly, the Mystic does not get reprinted). That pretty much sums up the "core rules" of 2e, and aside from some small mentions (completely out of context) there is jack-and-squat about Realms in it.

So where does this "2e=Realms" myth come from? Mostly three things.

1.) Realms was the only "generic fantasy" setting TSR put out for a long time (most others had some twist to them, like Dragonlance, Ravenloft, or Dark Sun or were supported spuratically like GH or Mystara) and TSR supported it heavily with sourcebooks, box sets and novels.
2.) All TSR media of those days (video games, etc) tended toward Realms as its setting (Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Icewind Dale, Pool of Radiance) save for many of the secondary novel lines, a handful of Gold-Box games set in Dark Sun, Dragonlance, and Ravenloft, a crappy Ravenoft fighting game, and Planescape: Torment.
3.) Intense coverage of the setting in Dragon. Many reoccurring articles in Dragon (Elminster's Guide, Vodo's Guides, Wyrms of the North, Ecologies/Monster Hunter's Guides) had a Realm's bend to them, creating a feeling of heavy support and making the Realms fleshed out beyond most other settings which was supported "equally" at the time.

The result was a very odd memory of 2e: while its secondary publications often made it seem Realms was the default setting, the core-books and actual game held truer to its Greyhawk naming roots and was very vanilla.