Simulationist Question on PoL

[VannATLC]

Most PoL aggressors, in my mind, are likely to be competeing humanoid species.

There are whole ecology problems, if people make the assumption (Which I've yet to see founded, to be honest) that huge swathes of wilderness are untenable to habitation, due to hostile activity.

Its dangerous for small groups, of 5-10 people, for instance. It is still dangerous to larger groups, but much rarer.

The aforementioned travelling mercenary bands, who I have already drafted, in my campaign, into offering protection to caravans, might consist of 50-100 warriors, in addition to the caravaneers. That's a sizeable force, even more by 4e standards.

Halfling trade is already on rivers, and rivers-folk are notorious for evading hostiles. Ballista on the boats, minor armour, and sharp-eyed scouts are going to keep most things away.
Outlying buildings in villages/hamlets near competiting humanoid races might be razed, *both ways* once every few years. Trade might occur otherwise.

Nothing published so far shows this PoL concept to be any different from my current understanding of sections of the world.

I'm in a campaign, now, where the nearest cosmopolitan centre is some 2500 miles away, and the location of the medium-sized town I'm in was once the capital of a huge empire. There are outlying farms that supply the town, and it is built in the fork of a river.

Recent discovery of some gold and silver mines has lead to increased trade, fostered by us, between a newly-found dwarven city, as well as several elvish communities.

Within the 10,000 miles^2 area the campaign has so far taken place in, there is maybe 200,000 'friendly' humaniods, 200'000 orcs and other savage humanoids, and a large variety of monsters.

Enough to make long distance travel unfeasible for all but a well-armoured caravan.. but not enough to mean you're likely to die a horrible death if you go hunting for a day or two away from the town and its supporting villagers.

Having said that, the town was being terrorised by a single druid, recently in its history.. so it is still vulnerable.

 

[Ydars]

DeusExMachina; You are right that you don't HAVE to have a crumbling empire as the backdrop. Yet this IS WoTCs default campaign and I was trying to be helpful for those people who were following this logic.

VannATLC; I think WoTC's PoL setting was designed to make the "wilderness" into a "dungeon" setting. This being the case, I hope they have dealt with the Fluff issues we all raise here. However, it does mean and it does actually say in "World's and Monsters" that "travel further than a day from your PoL is fraught with danger". I think they just want low level monsters fairly common so adventurers don't have to tramp for days and days to get to them.

Your campaign sounds great. I wish I could play.........

 

[VannATLC]

"travel further than a day from your PoL is fraught with danger".

Yes, but that applies to Africans,Inuits and damn near all South American's as well. >.>

I think, personally, that the only way WoTC's 'world-as-dungeon' makes senses, is if 'civilised' humanoids make up a substantially smaller section of the worlds biomass and ecology than they do here.

Of course, that's not so hard. It means a physically bigger world. But most animals (Including monstrous ones), and most savage humanoids are going to find it easier prey to pick on EACH OTHER, as opposed to even a mildly fortified town.
Such a large collection of monstrous animals would probably even lead to minor civilisation of some of the more intelligent humanoid races, like kobolds, orcs and goblinoids.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

On monsters:
Monsters might be dangerous, but they are not always attacking humans.
Many monsters might prefer to ignore human settlements, since humans sometimes fight back (even if that is sometimes not very... "efficient", since dangerous and costly).

Smarter (Sapient) monsters might arrange themselves with settlements. "We don't attack you, you don't attack us, and you give us some of your precious food each year..."
And sometimes, they might still attack the settlement - maybe if they want more food, or think they got the upper hand. Two local Goblin tribes join forces and strike at a human settlement, forcing the villagers to fight or flight. Soon, reports of a village fallen into the hands of the Goblins will arrive nearby villages, and refugees try to find a new home.
Sometimes, this is all that happens, sometimes, the Goblins begin a larger campaign, and the villages are forced to organize a defense (enter your heroes here). Sometimes, the villagers even organize an offense, reclaiming their point of light, and sometimes, they create a new settlement.

Dumber monsters might have been driven away due to organized resistance - either adventurers or a local militia set out to drive them away. These monsters have learned that it's safer to fend off easier targets, like animal and plant life, or weaker monsters. They still roam the wilderness between the single points of lights, and without a strong, guiding Empire, there is no one to eradicate them here.

A caravan, in a way, can be its own "point of light" - protected by well-armed guards, most monsters will shy away. But if you rest too long, you risk attracting dangerous opponents.

Still, occasionally, monsters do attack - either because they are well-organized or dumb and strong enough to see a chance for success, and these attacks are costly. Sometimes, the Caravan is lost entirely, possibly to the last man.

Monsters are also not the only potential threat.
Outside of the Points of Lights, there is no one to enforce law. Outlaws hide there - their life is dangerous, but since they have little to lose and much to gain, they pose a constant threat to anyone wandering around.

 

[Ydars]

VannATLC; humanoids may make up less of the biomass, or they may interact with the biomass in such a way that their encounters with human/PC races is less immediately hostile e.g. that they are hunter gatherers just like early humans and have no real stake in a conflict unless humans threaten one of their resources.

I like your idea about monsters fighting each other and if PoLs are as rare as WoTC tends to imply then this might indeed be the case. I am not sure I would want it that way in my game, but it certainly makes sense.

Perhaps another explanation is the idea of sheer size and emptiness of the world; if things are far away enough from each other and thus resources are not so scarce, then there is not any need for competition or encounters You only encounter monsters if you are silly enough to go looking for them.

Alternatively, you could invent a metastory that restricts monsters to certain areas. How about this; that the Empire on this world was destroyed because two worlds collided and melded to become one world. Now the world is made up of shards of the old world and the new. Monsters can only inhabit those fragments of the new joined world that came from their world and begin to die if they enter the PCs world, and vice versa. So monsters and PCs can raid each other but cannot actually co-exist. It works for me.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

All you need to do to be a survivable PoL is to be a less attractive target than your immediate context.

For most places this is probably achieved at some point on the nexus of 'too much trouble' and 'not worth it.'

Though there are other strategies. Crisis migration should be popular where you make it easy to flee your town while it's being looted and easy to rebuild.

I'd also like to point out that in terms of materials we seem to be thinking pretty strictly in terms of European material culture.


Plenty of civilizations IRW built their homes out of fired or unfired brick, for instance, which is pretty easy substance to find most places.

Even thinking civilized is a bit limiting. Per the rules of the PoL a nomadic group that lives in felt huts and more or less obeys the rules of hospitality counts as a light source.

 

[Ydars]

Dr Strangemonkey; welcome to this thread Sir! Your opinion is always welcome.

I like the reference to the Nomad in the felt tent; I spent 3 weeks as one last Sept in Mongolia. Herding 500 sheep across the steppe on a horse is great fun. When we travelled across the mountains, the locals were very kind and they really do take these "laws of hospitaility" very seriously. They let us sleep in their Ger (tent) and fed us cheese and Irak (an alcoholic drink made of fermented mares milk; very tasty). I gave them a western survival knife as a gift and they seemed very pleased. They burnt dung for their fires and all they needed surrounded them, even though there was almost no wood and the grass was a thin and the soil like sand.

Yet I doubt that, without the protection of vast distances or some other factor, that they could survive if the steppe was the province of Centaurs or Dragons. What could they do as most nomads live in family groupings of about 5-7? A monster could wipe them out in a minute and there would be NO risk at all. I guess you are saying that so many families would mean that the nomads as a people would survive whereas individuals might not. I wonder how much danger it would take to make them abandon their way of life though?

 

[VannATLC]

Check the Native Australian History.

They killed off all the Australian Mega-fauna. They survived (Thrived, even) with the highest concentration of deadly creatures in the world.

Of course, human history still isn't that great a comparison, because there isn't an animal on the planet that can survive an encounter with a pack of humans, where as in DND, there are a variety of creatures that are incomparible in power to a human.

Having said that, by sheer necessity, Tribal groups would depend a lot upon their casters, etc. They'd have real positions of authority, due to real power.
Ritualised magic, from what we know of it, would still be available.
That could even the playing field a lot.

 

[DarkAngel1979]

How feasible would it be to keep a large capitol city running?

The PoL setting I'm working on is set in a predominantly human province of what was once a great dwarven mercantilist empire. War broke out in the underground/underdark (the details aren't well known to the people of the province), the army stationned in the province was mostly recalled to participate in the battles, leaving only token garnisons to defend the capitol. And then an event known as the Collapse happened, when the tunnels leading to the dwarven underground collapsed and all contact was lost for the past 70 years or so. No steel (it came from the Empire) most trade cut off (except with elvish/eladrin settlements, but the trade routes are dangerous due to lack of proper authorities). The campaign would be split in two (cause I have two groups). One would be about urban intrigue in the capitol. The idea being that refugees and general political unstability will make the capitol very treacherous, even if it itself is well defended from outside incursions from monsters. The other would be set in a frontier town that sprout up during a gold/adamantine/iron rush. That area wasn't being mined in the past because it wasn't cost efficient during imperial times, as well as because of protectionist measures from the top dwarf trading families. Now everyone wanting to strike it rich and escape serfdom/servitude, as well as people who prey on these people, have flocked over there and built a town, but there's still goblinoids and old ruins that might draw in the adventurous.

So just how big can I expect the capitol to have been pre-Collapse, and how big would it be feasible to keep it post-Collapse? I'm thinking Palanthas here, not Solace, but just how feasible is that? I'm thinking every soldier still available in the province has retreated to the city and serve to defend it and the needed surrounding farmlands (and some token garrison at the frontier town to secure the ore supply), and the rest of the province is mostly left to the designs of roaming goblinoid and orcish tribes.

 

[Ydars]

VannATLC; Yeah, Rituals are my big hope for sorting out this issue. That and the fact that you can use your per encounter power once every five minutes outside of combat (this is from another thread on this board).

Yet something inside me also wants to avoid the standard premise of "there are loads of magically powerful characters who can kick monsters backsides". I think WoTC agrees because "Worlds and Monsters" says that other adventurers are rare in the PoL setting, so I don't think they intend us to create worlds where every PoL has a powerful caster.

This is the thing WoTC have kept very secret; the contents of the DMG. This is what I would LOVE to see.