Rich Baker on the Points of Light Setting.

[teitan]

Darn.

I really want setting information in the core books---if only because that's what I've come to expect from my RPG purchases.

edit: and I don't have any desire to homebrew. I just want to crack open the books and start playing.

Well that is basically what I am doing with my game. I don't have a preplanned world and it has been a hoot. I used to run FR and dreaded running the next game sometimes but with this game I can make something up, make a note to keep it in such and such location and the players love it as well.

 

[Remathilis]

1.) Boo! I wanted a name and and a simple map. I'm with ya Rich. Fight the good fight man. (I still don't plan on using them, but they'd be great templates for new Homebrewers. Remember, the children ARE our future)

2.) I had varying amounts of GH-specific material. One DM used the Tomb of Horrors AND White Plume Mountain on his world with no Greyhawk-vention. Another didn't use the human deities of Greyhawk but used all the racial ones (so I was a dwarven cleric of Moradin). I've fought the Tarresque, searched for the Wand of Orcus, and briefly read about the Ro7P. Heck, one had the Free City of Greyhawk in his otherwise Realms-like Rip-off! However, each DM uses a different amount of assumed world background, and that's what Rich is saying. I might use Nareth as my human empire, but replace Bane with Barthanoes and never mention Bael Turath. Yours might not.

 

[Remathilis]

I've read them. I've never really seen them as a toolkit for creating your own settings. They more often say "this is how you could create a world in which all the assumptions in these books are correct but the finer details are different".

To be fair, you need something like the DMG to spell out D&D's assumed world. It puts everyone on the same level for which to build, change, and modify. You gotta know the system before you start breakin it.

 

[Lackhand]

I think we need a filter on ENW2 that automatically changes "boobies" and "boobies" to some silly phrase, the way FARK turns "First post" into "FIFY."

Sorry? I don't understand what you mean. Boobies is serious business.

The idea of three separate (or multiple separate) takes on the POL setting is brilliant. If nothing else, it's a fairly easy-to-make article format, and can be used as 'filler' when nothing else brilliant comes to mind, sort of a Steal This Hook and Vicious Venues slot.

I don't want a single, core, unified map, though. I dislike maps inherently, and don't trust myself to be able to *avoid* contradiction with the Official Material. Once I've accepted that it's not going to help me, I don't need it; thus, having everything be a little loose helps me.

 

[alleynbard]

Exactly. That's the DMG where I got all of my implied world commonalities... the existence of magic items and artifacts, the existence of a wizard named Mordenkainen, and the like.

I'm a huge fan of 4e defining some names and background but not giving a map. It's very reminiscent of 1e to me.

I agree. I remember reading through the 1e DMG and getting swept into the story of the artifacts, magic items, and everything else. This was before I ever saw the Greyhawk setting info and I found myself building a world in my mind. In conjunction with the 1e modules I could create a world and experience it without ever drafting the "edges of the map". As much as I love Greyhawk I wonder if seeing that setting in context provided limitations and not options.


This is what appeals to me about PoL, no need to define every little corner of the world. I find it very exciting.

 

[howandwhy99]

Maybe if they held a contest where the top 10 maps submitted were hosted on WotC's site for FREE download? That way DMs could understand they control what the world looks like in the end, not any specific published version. Plus, this would offer folks a number of cool world maps if they didn't want to draw up their own? Or pick and choose to use certain cool ideas from the maps in their own creations?

 

[Xethreau]

Thank goodness. I felt so tied down in 3e by the way the world of Grayhawk worked (particularly magic and the planes) that I felt like I couldn't homebrew properly. 4e seems to be fixing this mistake.

 

[Voss]

It makes it more difficult for players to have common experiences playing the game so they won't be able to bond as easily as a community, given they are almost playing different games.

They are playing different games anyway. The community is pretty much an illusion. A useful one, from time to time, but the different experiences are much more important than the shared ones.

And of course, I stand by my original point- he should have kept his mouth shut on the 'everyone has done this' thing. It immediately started some wrangling.

Your homebrewing assumptions strike me as... odd. No elves, to me, means there aren't any elves. Period. No planar wanderers just 'show up'. No spelljamming, no norse gods 'in the the north'. Homebrewed worlds were usually a deliberate departure from the so-called ''common assumptions'. They were dull, and there were always folks who didn't want them.

The same thing seems to be happening again. This edition's default fluff is *bland*. And in places, nonsensical. I don't want it. I don't want to play a game where there isn't really a world, just some disconnected towns and dungeons and some very boring generic background. I'd really rather read that 50-60 page word document on someone's actual setting. I like the PoL concept, but there execution might as well not be there.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Thank goodness. I felt so tied down in 3e by the way the world of Grayhawk worked (particularly magic and the planes) that I felt like I couldn't homebrew properly.

Huh?

Don't buy Manual of the Planes, whatever the terrible players plane book was or the (long out of print) LGG book and you're free.

How did the other books constrain you?

 

[catsclaw227]

They are playing different games anyway. The community is pretty much an illusion. A useful one, from time to time, but the different experiences are much more important than the shared ones.

And of course, I stand by my original point- he should have kept his mouth shut on the 'everyone has done this' thing. It immediately started some wrangling.

Your homebrewing assumptions strike me as... odd. No elves, to me, means there aren't any elves. Period. No planar wanderers just 'show up'. No spelljamming, no norse gods 'in the the north'. Homebrewed worlds were usually a deliberate departure from the so-called ''common assumptions'. They were dull, and there were always folks who didn't want them.

The same thing seems to be happening again. This edition's default fluff is *bland*. And in places, nonsensical. I don't want it. I don't want to play a game where there isn't really a world, just some disconnected towns and dungeons and some very boring generic background. I'd really rather read that 50-60 page word document on someone's actual setting. I like the PoL concept, but there execution might as well not be there.

Personally, I disagree with you on almost all fronts.

First, in my experience, the collective community is important and is not an illusion and the shared experiences are important. When I moved from Southern California to North Carolina this past summer, I met some guys that I started playing D&D with, and we laughed and shared our experiences with older editions. There were some very funny stories, and the common experience of the 1e implied setting, as well as some of the classic modules helped us all to bond and become a gaming group instead of some RPGers that occasionally play together.

You are also missing the first part of the 'everyone has done this thing'.... The 'JUST ABOUT' part. And in my experience, almost all the homebrews I have played had some of these assumptions. The homebrews of my youth, my 20s and 30s were exciting, intriguing, immersive worlds. They used these common assumptions and were certainly not dull.

I think the 4e fluff is interesting, makes sense for the implied setting they are trying to portray and I want it.