Points of Light

[MGuy]

Because this was evolving into its own discussion in the 4e Design Choices Thread I figured I'd start up a thread just on this aspect.

I myself don't like the points of Light/Darkness concept. It takes away from the immersion to just say these are safe places/ dangerous places everywhere else is not. Personally I have a framework built for my campaign world. Major details don't exist beyond previous campaign notes and whatever I make up to support the backgrounds and goals of the PCs as I get them from my players. Sure there are outside events and my own terrible ideas that take place every now and again but mostly I let the player's actions and my own judgment fill the world up. If I tell the players there is great evil here and they decide to go the opposite way, well then its time to fill that opposite way up with stuff while the great evil festers unchecked. The Points idea however just seems to lend itself to pointless railroading and a perfect excuse to toss in whatever random monster you feel like using just because its Tuesday.

[TavishArtair]

Bluntly, I can't make heads nor tails of your post. You say you dislike having safe zones/danger zones, but you seem to describe running a campaign in a Points of Light style almost exactly, with any direction the players go being filled with danger. Unless I'm misunderstanding what you're saying, in which case... well, as I said. Heads, tails? Which side is up?

Either that, or you might be confusing the definitions in use here.

Most campaigns that I've seen run in D&D fit the description of "Points of Darkness" as it has generally tended to be used here. The countryside is dotted with forest and idyllic little farmland villages and now and then a town or city, except here and there where a source of evil gradually swells up to plague the land, like some kind of cyst. Sometimes that source of evil is positioned in a way you wouldn't expect at first... a sinister advisor whispering tainted advice to the king's ear can easily make the city the Point of Darkness. However often they're dungeons which disgorge bad things into the land, and then adventurers go in and clean things up, and return to the village which is no longer plagued by monsters.

In a Points of Light style of campaign, that 4th Edition sought to use as a model, everywhere you go there are monsters. Most notably, all villages must be locked down fortresses and palisades, all towns are situated around castles. The people exist in an eternal state of war with the enemy, and the enemy is more or less the world. There are still dungeons choked with monsters and chock-full of treasure, but you cannot go from hamlet to hamlet without encountering one. This model is kind of frustrating for D&D games, although some campaigns have been written for it nonetheless... Midnight is a particularly notable example, where the world is covered in darkness as literally as possible. It is, however, especially common in computer and console games, which consider it instead advantageous to block every path off with monsters, thus entirely constraining the player to an environment based on which monsters he can defeat, and sometimes not even that, reducing player choice to a linear path.

[MGuy]

You are indeed misunderstanding. In my description I said:

::Major details don't exist beyond previous campaign notes and whatever I make up to support the backgrounds and goals of the PCs as I get them from my players.::

Meaning there are even designated "Danger" or "Safe" areas when players start to play in my campaign. They are just as safe/in danger in any one place at any one time whether or not they are in the city (for city shenanigans) or in the wilderness.

::Sure there are outside events and my own terrible ideas that take place every now and again but mostly I let the player's actions and my own judgment fill the world up. If I tell the players there is great evil here and they decide to go the opposite way, well then its time to fill that opposite way up with stuff while the great evil festers unchecked.::

Which is to say that the PCs have allowed there to be a point of darkness. In this situation danger turned up in an area (most likely due to story related events). And is not just some static evil place where danger is to be expected. I don't like the idea that evil springs from a certain place (a'la Point of Darkness style) and you can reasonably expect everywhere else to be a sort of safety/noncombat zone. Alternatively I don't like Points of Light where there is a world of danger zones and a few select safety zones you can hunker down into. That kind of thing reminds me of either a bad RPG game filled with towns and country side with nothing in them and certain "dungeon zones" you go to to fight monsters or alternatively a world dotted with towns that you use as a staging point to go deeper and deeper into the wilds.

That is not to say I don't use dungeons and wilderness set-ups I just don't like designated danger/safety zones. If their is gonna be a danger area let it develop with the story and with the knowledge that just because you're not in said danger zone doesn't mean you're safe Assassinations, bandits, even run-ins with the local authorities/ establishments are still things that might happen outside of a "danger zone". If the player's in my campaign want a safety zone they'd have to hedge one out for themselves using might, magic, and maybe a few contacts.

[tzor]

The points of light model used in 4E is a rough but overdone model of thet medieval world; towns were scattered (as far as travel by walking or horse was concerned) and cities were often in a state of seige (from other cities) so they were walled out of necessity. I don't like the model where you hide in the castle 24/7 but you stay indoors at night and never go into the woods. This is sort of the attitude of Tolkein's Hobbits, but you dont see them beind walls.

[Starmaker]

As was mentioned, Points of Light is the default assumption of many CRPGs, because it's easy to populate the world with random monsters that with random roleplaying encounters.

Midnight is one of my favorite settings - of course, it becomes Points of Darkness from the perspective of humans. ^^

I got into roleplaying with a homebrew system based on a tabletop kiddie game centered around the PoL concept; this and the SSI Gold Box series color my perception of what the D&D world should look like, thus my question in the original thread.

Anyway, there are instances where PoL actually works: the aforementioned Midnight (where the darkness is mostly hostile commoners - they can report you to the inquisition but that's it), Triumph of the Necromancers from Races of War and, last but not least, Manxome's tabletop game Darkest Night.

Also, MGuy, since you're new here, I refer you to this excellent thread which is the basis of Virgil's campaign (not just Light and Darkness; there are also Points of Truth, Justice, Vanilla Ice Cream and Giant Frog).

[Lago PARANOIA]

In a Points of Light style of campaign, that 4th Edition sought to use as a model, everywhere you go there are monsters. Most notably, all villages must be locked down fortresses and palisades, all towns are situated around castles. The people exist in an eternal state of war with the enemy, and the enemy is more or less the world.

And this is precisely why Points of Light does not work for manorialist agrarian civilization D&D supposedly uses for the backdrop of its world and setting.

In this time period, wealth came from things like land and livestock. Serfs seriously paid their vassals in crops and spending a couple of days working on their lord's farm because it was the economic building block of medieval society. If things are so bad outside that places can't exist without fortifications or adventurer babysitting, you can't have PoL.

[JonSetanta]

Points of Darkness is cool.
Very Brothers Grimm style, since you KNOW where the evil is, everyone talks about it as common knowledge, and you know that you must eventually go in to that region to end the forays coming out in to your sane and lighted world.

But then again, campaign settings friends and I have created for a decade or more are pretty much by that method.
Points of Light was always too grimmdark and impractical.

[Caedrus]

As has been said before, CRPGs have produced many points of light settings. For example, in Tales of Vesperia, the world is filled with monsters that will fvcking kill you, and towns are secured with magic barriers that keep monsters out. If one of those barriers go down, well, then that town is no longer a point of light and monsters start invading.

[TavishArtair]

MGuy, you are perhaps taking it too literally.

There is no guarantee that just because you are in a Lightsource or Shadowland that you are going to be attacked/not attacked, but when one alters the probabilities from, say, 0.5% to 99.5%, there's a staggering difference. So, in either, sure, you may not be harassed in a village most of the time, but there will be that one day you get attacked by muggers or ninja or whatever, and in fact that goes up if you're an adventurer. But likewise, if you walk into the middle of Mordor, you're going to encounter orcs, and they're probably going to knife you. It just is what makes sense. It's no different than the good part of town versus the bad part of town.

Does being in the middle of Bree make Frodo safe from robbers, or being chased by the Nazgul? No. But it does mean that he's not going to have to fight a few hundred orcs anytime soon. Indeed, he doesn't even see an orc until well after the formation of the Fellowship, if I recall correctly. The journey of the Fellowship slows to a crawl once they pass into the dangerous territories like Isengard, Moria, and Mordor, and is fairly brisk across territories controlled by Elves or Men, only slowing down because they choose to resupply.

[JonSetanta]

One does not simply walk into the middle of Mordor.

Similarly, one does not simply orc into an encounter, but Mordor sure does.
I suppose it's the exception to the rule.

Points of Dark does indeed scew probability of encounter hazards. I'd say more like either 0% for being in a safe town (or so sparse that a random mugging is negligible to most citizens, unfortunately), to 100% in "evil hotspots".
The part that makes me pleased is how players can reduce that 100% to 0% with a few actions, in making a hasty (or ass-covered) retreat when things go wrong.
Players get much more control over when and where they meet danger, which I'm in favor of.

[Username17]

One does not simply walk into the middle of Mordor.

Um... yes you do.
You totally do.

-Username17

[Caedrus]

One does not simply walk into the middle of Mordor.

Um... yes you do.
You totally do.

-Username17

That does in fact seem to be how it works, yes.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Nuh-uh! You need, like... an army!

With, like.. ninjas! And... um... wizards! NINJA WIZARDS!

[erik]

Just in case Sigma got blind-sided...

[Josh_Kablack]

I totally do not get why anyone thinks the only choices are basing D&D worlds off of a 17th century puritan viewpoint of "us goodies" vs "the wilderness" or 20th century western viewpoint where most folks are civilized due to fear of a vastly superior police force but occasional Unabombers hide in cabins in the woods. As far as I am concerned neither of these worldviews has had a damn thing to do with D&D until the Den got its collective knickers in a twist a week or so ago.

World views that actually make some sense in D&D include (but are not limited too:)

Ancient psuedo-greek myth worldview: There are mighty kings and heros, their hubris (or other flaws) give rise to monsters which harry their kingdoms but are in turn slain by other heros. The kingdoms war, but usually for tribute, plunder and surrender instead of for scorched earth and genocide. There are established traditions of hospitality that are largely respected even between members of warring states (see the Illiad, et al).

The dark ages: A combination of barbarians and decadence have crushed the empire. Local chieftains revolt against garrisons that are no longer supported and chaos ensues. Only King Arthur and his knights of the round table Your PCs can reclaim the mantle of the righteous king and hold the kingdom together while the rest of the empire collapses. They must exemplify righteous behavior as they quest for various artifacts (Excalibur, the Holy Grail, the Holy Handgrenade of Count Arioch) or all will be lost - for the country is linked to the king. They are opposed in their quests by agents of the Fey and treachery from within, as well as their own human weaknesses.

Medievalism: You owe fealty to your lord, who owes fealty to his baron, who owes fealty to the duke, who owes fealty to the King, who has ascended due to his Divine Right and had his claim sanctified by The Church. Most places are technically civilized, but anyone higher in standing can pretty much take whatever they want from you - up to and including your life - with at most a token payment as recompense. Thus, when you wander out of your lordship without the protection of the Church and/or a large number of Knights, you will be stripped of your possessions by the forces of the next lord over (see Afansky Nikitan's Journey across three seas the bit about the Tsar of Astrakhan at the mouth of the Volga), Being a hero involves either rooting out evils in your homeland or having the approval of the church/other nobles to go rid them of their monsters (see Sir Guy of Warrick vs the Duncow)

The Crusades: King Richard, with other kings sets out to free the Holy Land from the grips of the Infidel Saladin (or alternately, Saladin must defend the Holy Land from the invading forces of the Infidel Cour-de-Lion.) Generally, folks on both sides are civilized - by which I mean they can grow crops and barter - but they are fighting for the glory of their god and the salvation of immortal souls of their countrymen, so they tend to be hostile to people of the other faith. When Richard attempts to take a shortcut through the wilderness, his men are [link=http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/Saladin.htm]beset by giant spiders[/url] but that's just the backup encounter for not engaging the enemy force directly and not part of some larger truth about the setting. Meanwhile, the Evil King John has appointed a crooked Sherriff of Nottingham....

The Renaissance: Here, the conflict is between the Old Church and the Dawning religion (Enlightenment, Rationalism, Light of Reason) . Strange alliances and conspiracies (Templars, etc) form between new merchants and visionaries in order to gain advantage in the coming world. The Old Church counters by training new orders of its own (Jesuits, the Inquisition) to combat such heresies. Some kingdoms outlaw and persecute one religion precipitating holy wars and daring acts of espionage. One country goes so far as to ban the Old Church, have the king die, so the new queen bans the Dawning, but when she dies in a short time later, the next to ascend to the throne bans the Old Church again.

Age of Piracy: The various Old World Kingdoms have begun staking claims on the New World. They fight proxy wars through mercenaries an ocean away from their homelands, leaving opportunities for the daring and ruthless to become rich or dead. There are real dangers from the native tribes, but there is also real potential to recruit them as useful allies against the other Kingdoms - a pirate captain who sees the wildness merely as "darkness" to beat back is missing out on major opportunities.

[tzor]

One does not simply walk into the middle of Mordor.

Why not? Other than the point that it is a sucky place to live, the only example is in the middle of Sauron's war, so the orcs were on the move if only for supply missions.

[JonSetanta]

I was responding to TA with a meme-derived statement more than conjecture with LOTR's ridiculous plot holes. Dat's de joke.

Of course we can walk in to Mordor. Why, you can do it barefoot and unarmed.
I read it in a book somewhere. Therefore it's true.

[mean_liar]

I think if you're confining your setting-building to any one particular flavor you're probably needlessly limiting yourself.

It's entirely possible to create a world that can incorporate most, if not all of the themes Josh Kablack laid out. I think the mistake is in assuming that any game needs to subscribe to any vision at all, other than the one that the players expect.

If they want grimdark, they can have it. If they want the one Evil Overlord, they can have it. I fail to see how this is anything other than "whatever you want, take" - identifying any setting tone as inherently better than any other is needlessly reductive.

[Absentminded_Wizard]

I'm seriously trying to figure out why people are so motivated to complain about "Points of Light." It's obviously a setting (or more accurately setting concept) for beginning GMs who want to run a simple campaign. It releases the DM from having to think about how the PCs' home base interacts with other kingdoms because there's nothing but monsters all around. Furthermore, the assumed history of the great war gives PCs a reason to want to kill all "monsters" on sight. It justifies every convenient trope in the history of the dungeon crawl, and that's its only purpose.

I can understand that a lot of people prefer to have their adventures in more nuanced settings. I just can't figure out why such people are fooling around with 4e enough to get offended at the default PoL concept.

[Josh_Kablack]

Damn.

I seriously wish I'd written my last post *before* I started running my current 4e game.

[JonSetanta]

OK. OK.
There's a compromise here.

You have one world, both setting options.

One half of the world is PoL while the other is PoD.
The PoD half faces the sun while the other is on the opposite side.
It's very bright, after all.

[tzor]

Of course we can walk in to Mordor. Why, you can do it barefoot and unarmed.
I read it in a book somewhere. Therefore it's true.

First of all, a hobbit's foot is proibably thicker than most leather boots and secondly, Frodo was armed (he had sting, iirc although they do loose it at one point when being chased by the orcs).

[tzor]

I'm seriously trying to figure out why people are so motivated to complain about "Points of Light." It's obviously a setting (or more accurately setting concept) for beginning GMs who want to run a simple campaign.

Oh I can give you lots of reasons, but most boil down into what I call the Roddenberry school of sci-fi world design applied on the fantasy level. In the Roddenberry design science (which we replace with magic) has provided a utopia of sorts in terms of morals and standards of living. While there may be threats from the outside, points of darkness of the unknown and those who dwell in ignorance and barbarism (like the Klingons) the light of science (and the human almost cowboy spirit) will prevail in the end.

Believe it or not, this is also a common theme in fantasy world design, a theme at complete odds with the points of light model.

[JonSetanta]

a hobbit's foot is proibably thicker than most leather boots

That's disgusting. Hobbit women, getting footrubs with a meat tenderizer.

And since the sword was lost and not used, it seems that yes indeed one can.

[tzor]

a hobbit's foot is proibably thicker than most leather boots

That's disgusting. Hobbit women, getting footrubs with a meat tenderizer.

I probably should not go there, but it's the top part of the hairy foot that gets the pampering. Otherwise it's like living with a Berkenstock Sandal all youe life.