The default campaign world - new article

[Wisdom Penalty]

The setting concept sounds awesome. Much better than the overly modern and political stuff that's being pouring out of late. I think it's time D&D got back to its roots; we as gamers seem to have grown a bit too pompous with our desires for "intrigue" and "method acting" and how those traits somehow are elevated above the guy who wants to kick down a door and discover secrets of an ancient civilization. Kudos to WotC.

W.P.

 

[Doug McCrae]

For all the people shouting "MMORPG", Wizards goes and makes the Wilderlands of High Fantasy core.

World of Warcraft is very much a 'points of light' setting too. Step outside town and it's pretty much wall-to-wall monsters.

 

[Klaus]

Okay...

First off, I think people worried that this is going to impact FR or Eberron need to cut back on caffeine. The article says "default setting" in so many words. Multiple times.

FR is not the default setting. Eberron is not the default setting.

The default setting is the land that includes the deities in the Player's Handbook. The default setting is the world in which non-campaign-specific modules are set.

Just like, you know, it was in 3E.

Honestly, I think the default setting they've described sounds really interesting as an option. And since an option is all the default setting ever was, that's just fine.

I also see absolutely no reason why the "points of light" setting cannot include large cities with urban adventure and political intrigue. In fact, powerful, despotic city-states are often the norm for fiction written in that sort of fantasy setting. And the article says "centers of civilization are few and far between." Not absent.

The notion that anything in the article makes urban/political gaming impossible or unlikely is ludicrous.

I agree with the Mouse here. Urban adventurers are very much *in*. Think Lankhmar or Freeport and you're not too far off of a "points of light in seas of darkness" at an urban level.

The more I read about the implied setting, the more in a 1e frame of mind it takes me. These bits have me reading my Encyclopedia of Things That Never Were, or my Encyclopedia of Mythology (specially the Celtic and Norse sections)!

This short paragraph has enough coolness dripping from the imagery evoked to fuel dozens of game sessions:

A few difficult and dangerous roads tenuously link neighboring cities together, but if you stray from them you quickly find yourself immersed in goblin-infested forests, haunted barrowfields, desolate hills and marshes, and monster-hunted badlands. Anything could be waiting down that old overgrown dwarf-built road: a den of ogre marauders, a forgotten tower where a lamia awaits careless travelers, a troll’s cave, a lonely human village under the sway of a demonic cult, or a black wood where shadows and ghosts thirst for the blood of the living.

 

[Tharen the Damned]

You could still have the likes of the Byzantine Empire in such a setting, but it's a distant entity. The PCs operate in the 'points of light' section of the world, the equivalent of the Black Forest, mostly wilderness infested with wolves, bears, lions and worse.

Ahem, you are speaking of the medieval Black Forest in Germany, right? In my 6 years in Freiburg I never saw a wolf, lion or bear outside the zoo (although some fellow students looked and smelled a little bit like a bear).

 

[grimslade]

Ok first off the 'default setting' is not a real setting, it is a rough sketch. There will not be a Points of Light Setting Book. There will not be a lengthy canon. At most, a couple of T.H. Lain type books will be published for it. Think of all the magnificent products released by WotC for Greyhawk during 3.X and take out anything with a history. It is a broad strokes background for examples in the core books and loose backdrop for the generic adventures.

To those that worry about the lack of political intrigue in this 'setting': The level structure now is 1-10 Heroic 11-20 Paragon 21-30 epic. Heroic adventures are supposed to be local, dealing with one part of a kingdom or a town. Paragon is where PCs can move kingdoms. Epic is for global and planar threats. The information released about points of light seem to be focused on the Heroic levels of adventure. I am sure there will be Urban adventures and political intrigues but that is not their focus yet. For good or ill. It is all about young heroes going to save the town or explore the ruins or defend the trade roads.

There can be intrigue in dealing with merchant guilds who pay protection to Bandit lords or get a cut of pilfered goods of rival cartels. Small villages can have heated politics. These might be mentioned in the social combat section of the PHB. The designers are letting little drabs of information go to fuel our crazy speculations. It seems to be keeping a good amount of buzz 2 weeks after the announcement.

 

[TerraDave]

Points of Light by Rich Baker
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drdd/20070829a

Ok... this is a surprise.

Is it? Others have already mentioned this, but this sounds like old school D&D, and the way it is already often played in practice.

BUT, what gets me are some the additional assumptions tacked on to this. In the real world, just because some borders have been drawn on a map, or even if there are people around, does not make it a safe, secure, controlled, etc kinda place. It doesn't mean justice will be done or authorities can be trusted or have all these resources. It doesn't make it easy to get around. Seriously, were is there more room for heriocs, Lebanon or New York city (at least 15 years ago), or some forest in Oregon?

 

[TwoSix]

Having said that, it also creates a kind of false reality, if you will. Human nature, let alone other powerful races like elves and dwarves--do not just collectively sit there generation after generation, in squalor, and laying there as helpless prey to whoever comes by or decides to set up camp in the nearby forest. If it took one generation, or three, or ten--the human inhabitants would gather together and march against such enemies and ruthlessly exterminate them, at least in so far as to create enough of a "safe zone" for the aforementioned sophisticated human society to develop and grow in strength.

Bolded for emphasis. Why not just assume that this points of light is set in that period where humanity has been rocked back on its heels, and is just starting to fight back. 10 generations is a long time, after all.

 

[cwhs01]

The setting concept sounds awesome. Much better than the overly modern and political stuff that's being pouring out of late. I think it's time D&D got back to its roots; we as gamers seem to have grown a bit too pompous with our desires for "intrigue" and "method acting" and how those traits somehow are elevated above the guy who wants to kick down a door and discover secrets of an ancient civilization. Kudos to WotC.

W.P.

While i just wish for a simple to use game, that allows for both types of play...

oh and that people not use "" around things they find to be badwrongfun

 

[Grazzt]

Points of Light by Rich Baker
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drdd/20070829a

Cheers!

Sounds a lot like the Wilderlands (Judges Guild) actually. Not a bad thing at all. Very open to homebrewing and making it your own (much like Greyhawk, but way more freeform and open).

Definitely a Wilderlands feel to the stuff I read in that link.

 

[Jedi_Solo]

This doesn't sound like they are trying to change established settings at all.

It sounds to me like a setup to have a game world where dungeons have a higher population density than people; and have a built in reason that they have not already been looted and being sold to the populous as "natural condominiums".