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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Wyrmshadows" data-source="post: 4143765" data-attributes="member: 56166">As has been said before, PoL is a design philosophy and not a setting. Its just an idea of a world lit only by torchlight where danger is everpresent and heroes are needed. A good example of a true PoL setting is Conan/Howard's Hyboria. No whole setting should be PoL, portions of a setting should be civilized with kingdoms and stable nation-states. Portions of the setting should be completely savage and full of danger and others should be PoL where there is a thinning of civilization and a thickening of wilderness/isolation/danger/ignorance/xenophobia and fear.All published settings have PoL elements but most well developed settings aren't entirely PoL because no setting is an utterly static dark-age/late iron-age wilderness without regions of high civilization. In a believable setting there is a mix of levels of civilization and trade that gives the setting a veneer of believability.And who would really want a whole world that is PoL as a rule? Where are the great cities, the wealthy merchants, noble kingdoms, depraved blood-soaked theocracies, warring nations, the castles with treasuries dripping with gold? All of these things require stability, trade, armies, large regions of controlled arable land, etc. to exist.PoL is best used IMO as a descriptor fitting for the sense of a given region(s) within a setting (such as dangerous frontier regions, small nations bordered by dangerous tribes, etc.)or even a large portion of a setting after the fall of an empire or some other cataclysm such as Dragonlance after the Cataclysm.PoL if taken too far becomes "town as dungeon" RPing setting.  :\  As an entire setting PoL can be as retro (in the worst possible way) and lacking in internal consistancy as dungeons where creatures just hang out in stasis until PC get there just in time to kill them and where dragons find themselves trapped in underground chambers with doorways too small for them to exit and with no access to food besides the orcs that  that all seem to live in the room next door. I'm assuming that this isn't what you are looking for, so don't take the PoL philosophy too much to heart as a requirement for your 4e setting.Wyrmshadows</blockquote>

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