Simulationist Question on PoL

[VannATLC]

I was specfically thinking of protective wards that require constant vigilance and renewal, etc, not things that would be workable in combat.

If we treat magic (As I, personally, always do) as a science, in DND, then somebody doesn't have to understand what they are doing, to make it work.

Rituals could be undertaken as tradition, with no understanding of what they are doing, or why.

In fact, that is part of hook for my first 4th ed game.

A far realm portal that is being ritually held closed, and due to laziness, a lack of understanding, and an attack on the town, the wards holding it closed are not renewed. And things start to leak out.

 

[Ydars]

I like it Sir; I like it very much. Lets hope this is what WoTC suggests because if certain NPCs can have rituals without being powerful spellcasters in other ways then the problem could well be solved.

 

[Dausuul]

With regard to the monsters question, there are three types of monsters to consider.

First are the low-end monsters, the kobolds and the dire rats and the like. These are not a big issue; they're basically nuisances like real-world animals. They may sometimes attack outlying farms, but when the town militia shows up they flee, or else they die.

Second are the middling monsters. These are creatures powerful enough that they can potentially destroy a town, but not without risking destruction themselves. Examples would include orc and hobgoblin tribes, dire bears, individual giants, young dragons (maybe), and so forth. I would expect a wary truce most of the time with these guys. After all, even if you only have a 25-30% chance to die when attacking a village, the gain is seldom enough to justify the risk. The village militia keep their spears sharp and their eyes keen, and the monsters mostly content themselves with picking off unwary travellers.

Third are the big monsters, the real horrors that can smash a town, more or less with impunity--older dragons, giant clans, and such. I expect these to be fairly rare. Moreover, even a big monster is likely to be a little cautious due to the existence of PC-classed heroes. Think of it from the monster's point of view. There's no way to know for sure if that fellow with the sword is just a militiaman who inherited a good weapon from his grandfather, or a 20th-level fighter who'll carve you into itty bitty pieces. Big monsters will devour the occasional point of light when they feel so inclined, but most won't go on rampages for no good reason.

Keep in mind that the power curve is much less steep than in 3E, and DR appears to have been drastically reduced. I suspect that a numerous, well-organized human militia, defending its home turf, will be able to pose a threat to monsters well into Paragon tier. And a lot of the biggest monsters will be extraplanar anyhow.

 

[Ydars]

DarkAngel; A mercantile Capitol would be bloated with people because the previous trade would mean that food would be shipped in from all over the Empire. Once this stops, you would very quickly have anarchy because you can't reason with starving people. Look at Roman History. The few times that pirates or enemies managed to cut grain supplies from Sicily, it caused bread-riots and serious trouble within weeks sometimes days if food prices increased as rumours got out. This was even the case when Rome could call on supplies from the extensive hinterland surrounding the city because this simply couldn't meet the demand.

You could get around this by having it so that your Capitol is used to being cut off for a while because it is in a mountainous region and gets snowed in every winter (I'll leave you to decide how to cut the tunnel supply route). This would fit in with your premise of a Dwarven influenced settlement being in the mountains. It would also mean that the city would have very extensive food reserves in granaries. If you then say that the Capitol is set on a mountain meadow, surrounded by high mountains with only a narrow pass leading to the city, then perhaps the city could feed perhaps 1/20th of its original population using the protected meadow.

This would mean that life could continue as normal for months. But once this food ran out, the city would become a very lawless and dangerous place. Of course, having monsters outside would make people stand together, but once you get hungry then all reason dissolves; remember the Roman siege of Masada.

You could use this as the theme of your campaign as things would get pretty ugly very quickly. Overall, I would say that there is NO chance of a Capitol city surviving this kind of catastrophy intact for more than a year. After that, serious problems would lead to huge restructuring of society and the loss of most of the population to disease, famine, a mass exodus and murder. My thesis is borne out by looking at what happened to Roman Londinum after the legions left; within twenty years the city was a fraction of the size and almost all the stone buildings were replaced by wooden ones. And this is without an impending disaster; the legions just pulled out to protct Rome and although pirates started attacking immediately, this did not become a serious problem for decades.

Yet this could all be very interesting from a game point of view.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

Something that I think needs to be considered in a D&D PoL setting is that the threats outside of a PoL location do not have to be near-continuous and resulting in certain death. It only needs enough of a threat to keep an equilibrium in existance.

A town could grow, have fields, livestock and ore so that it is pretty much sef-sustaining. It has to deal with threats from monsters raiding the town from time, and travel too far from the town is dangerous unless you have large numbers who are well equipped, but the threats can be handled for a short time within the nearby area. Should the town continue to grow, it disturbs the balance becoming a greater threat or temptation to its monstrous neighbors who begin to attack more, driving it back to an equilibrium point. In my mind this is the status quo in most PoL locations around the campaign setting at the start of a campaign.

Since the PCs are heroes, and heroes like them are the exception rather than the norm, the PCs are a disturbance in that equilibrium. Perhaps they arise in or are drawn to a location because the balance has recently shifted away from that PoL location. On the other hand the PCs could be the catalyst for the shift as they seek adventure and in essence "kick the hornets nest."

 

[Ydars]

Dausauul; a nice analysis. I totally agree about the flattening of the power curve having a major effect. If a monster has even a small chance to die then it will think carefully before attacking outright. I really hope that militia will be able to defeat large monsters up into Paragon Tier because this really does make PoL defence much more managible.

Part of me just wants PoLs to be safe, small and relatively secure yet surrounded by trouble. I always think of Bree on the Barrow Downs in Middle-Earth as a perfect PoL. The place is almost sleepy because it is so far from anywhere that no-one bothers to attack and is on the old cross-roads of an ancient and long vanished Kingdom (Cardolan if I remember that was once a part of Arnor). The Orcs don't like light and so they tend to stay in the Misty mountains and the same is true of Trolls, yet sometimes one or two do wander down. The Wights cannot leave the nearby tombs of the Dunedain and so also cannot pose a threat to the settlement. Yet, as Aragorn tell us; "within an hours walk of this place live foes that would freeze a man's heart".

I love the fact that trouble is just across the fields.

 

[Pbartender]

A town could grow, have fields, livestock and ore so that it is pretty much sef-sustaining. It has to deal with threats from monsters raiding the town from time, and travel too far from the town is dangerous unless you have large numbers who are well equipped, but the threats can be handled for a short time within the nearby area. Should the town continue to grow, it disturbs the balance becoming a greater threat or temptation to its monstrous neighbors who begin to attack more, driving it back to an equilibrium point. In my mind this is the status quo in most PoL locations around the campaign setting at the start of a campaign.

Early European colonies in the Americas (necessarily self-sustaining, but often in the middle of hostile native tribes and dangerous wilderlands filled with deadly beasts), and Eastern European settlements during the Mongol invasions of the late Medieval would be two excellent examples of what Thornir is suggesting.

Also consider that smaller Points of Light settlements could feasibly strike deals with nearby "monsters" to increase self-sustainability and security on a very local level. The local hobgoblin tribe keeps the outlying goblin tribes from raiding the human settlement, and the humans give the hobgoblins good deals trading cloth, grain, fruit, and manufactured metal items for the meat and furs that hobgoblins hunt in the wilderness.

 

[VannATLC]

I was under the impression that Bree and Hobbiton was mostly secluded because Gandalf had suggested Aragaon and the rest of the Rangers keep it that way.

 

[Clawhound]

Civilization did get ruined. How did it get ruined? Monsters. Threats. All those ruins exist because so many cities and town fell against the threat of monsters. The places that survived did so because of multiple factors. In some places, it is luck. In some place, good defenses. In other place, the humans figured out how to deal with the deadly creatures around them. Just like character in WoW, they learned how to cooperate and fight creature far more powerful than themselves.

They may make offerings to nearby powers to help them. Think about all the respect that the fey had in the British Isles. They could be your enemies, so better to stay on their good side by giving them lots of respect and offerings.

Assume that 90% of all places can make do without heroes. They get by. You now have the basis for a scattered civilization.

Adventurers do not spend their time in the 90% quiet places. They go to the 10% hotspots. Thus, most adventurers will only see places threatened by excessively dangerous forces. For a classic example, read "Beowulf".

Knowing only the hotspots skews your view of the world. Think about the old west. I bet you thought of a desert town like "Boot Hill." I bet that you did not think of a Montana town where the Ingols lived. "Boot Hill" is where the adventures are at. For every "Boot Hill", there are a thousand quiet towns.

There's no guarantee that a settlement will survive. A party will find a recently fallen or conquered town. They will find ruins where they expect friends. At the scale of a game, that all falls under plot device.

Hope is also part of the PoL setting. A party may also help clear and area to set up a new town. The heroes bring hope and the dream that civilization can fight off the terrible foes and rise again.

 

[Ydars]

VannATLC; Tolkien did imply that Rangers were the reason that Bree and other settlements survived, yet this was so subtle that even the townsfolk themselves did not realise it.

"Simple folk must remain free of fear or else they are simple no more" was the gist of what Aragorn said when asked why the folk of Bree did not know about his part in their defence and I agree with him. I want the folk of my PoLs to be as lazy and complacent and foolish as Bree folk and get away with it. Perhaps I can even trick my players into playing the part of the Rangers.