Even on the message forums, its stuck in the "Other Worlds" section.
Seems that a campaign guide really is in order. As a person just getting back into the game from a very very long absence, I don't have any maps of Greyhawk to give me an overview of the lands.
Just curious.
Considering the Core D&D products take place in the land of Greyhawk, why is it relegated as a minor campaign world?
Even on the message forums, its stuck in the "Other Worlds" section.
Seems that a campaign guide really is in order. As a person just getting back into the game from a very very long absence, I don't have any maps of Greyhawk to give me an overview of the lands.
Just curious.
Correction. Greyhawk was the Core setting for 3E. 4E uses a non-defined "Points of Light" setting.
Be warned, sacred cows are slain within. Maybe.
Considering the Core D&D products take place in the land of Greyhawk, why is it relegated as a minor campaign world?
4.0 is in no way based on Greyhawk. That's why.
So basically "Points of Light" is just an undefined setting?
Ahh, ok. Thanks for the clarification. That kind of answers my other question I was thinking of. What are "points of light"?
So basically "Points of Light" is just an undefined setting?
Points of light is a setting designed for a game, that was designed to be basically character & combat focused as opposed to world and campaign focused.
Ahh, ok. Thanks for the clarification. That kind of answers my other question I was thinking of. What are "points of light"?
So basically "Points of Light" is just an undefined setting?
Points of light is a setting designed for a game, that was designed to be basically character & combat focused as opposed to world and campaign focused.
To put it another way, the "points of light" setting is a backdrop. Snippets of history or locations that exist but are never put on the map.
When the DM sits down to design his campaign, he just selects the bits he wants and puts them on his map, filling in a great deal as he goes along.
It's not a fully defined setting world, unlike Eberron, Grayhawk, Ravenloft, Dark Sun, Forgotten Realms, Mystara, Dragonlance, etc (didn't include Planescape and Spelljammer as those are a collection of realms/worlds).
Note: The phrase "points of light" is not the official name for this setting either. There is none, and the world is simply called "the World" in-game. The unofficial name "points of light" comes from the design goal of creating pockets of civilization in a vast, unforgiving wilderness.
It is civilization on the brink of total collapse into barbarism. It's desperate small communities far apart from each other, constantly threatened by monsters, bandits, or worse, held together by NPC heroes who are giving it all they've got just to keep the village from turning into yet another ash pile. It's the darkest dark ages you can dream up.
Peasants are scared, superstitious, and dirt poor. Nobles, in the few places where society is still large enough for social classes, are generally corrupt tyrants squeezing their serfs for everything they've got. Traveling merchants coming into town becomes a great event.
The PC's in this setting are the only ones who can save the world. They are head and shoulders above all the other good NPCs, who are too busy trying to keep their localities from disappearing. There are no 30th level bartenders, and there are barely any 10th level characters at all. Those that are over 10th level will generally be the darkness consuming the world.
Think the World of Ruin in Final Fantasy VI, or the world of Final Fantasy I. It's nearly post-apocalyptic but not quite.
This is in stark contrast to the 3e paradigm of "magic is indistinguishable from technology", which culminated with Eberron, which IMHO is an amazing setting.
Greyhawk is already sort of Points of Light, so it should fit in with minimal revision. That's not to stop them from going wild with it and producing a "From the Ashes" type campaign (remember Almor), but I believe they're probably going to stick with the traditional Greyhawk, re-imagined slightly to jive with 4e rules. Except for a little blip on the GH website mentioning the Doomgrinder being at two minutes to midnight, back in 2007.
Points of Light is a paradigm not a setting.
It is civilization on the brink of total collapse into barbarism. It's desperate small communities far apart from each other, constantly threatened by monsters, bandits, or worse, held together by NPC heroes who are giving it all they've got just to keep the village from turning into yet another ash pile. It's the darkest dark ages you can dream up.
Peasants are scared, superstitious, and dirt poor. Nobles, in the few places where society is still large enough for social classes, are generally corrupt tyrants squeezing their serfs for everything they've got. Traveling merchants coming into town becomes a great event.
It doesn't need to be that dark, but I agree that the setup lends itself nicely to that type of game.
Points of light is a setting designed for a game, that was designed to be basically character & combat focused as opposed to world and campaign focused.
I wouldn't say that at all, really.
Points of Light is a type of campaign world where civilization represents "dots of light in a sea of darkness". In other words -- the land itself is unsafe, and the only place that are safe are dedicated, defended settlements. Empires and nations are no longer extant, (old, fallen empires are assumed to have existed, just none exist at the present date) trade is rare, and government is entirely local.
In short, it is a setting with a much more medieval theme to it as opposed to most settings that involve the concept of nationhood. In real world terms, Points of Light is analogous to the european dark ages between 600 and 900 AD, whereas most settings are closer to pre-renaissance europe with defined kingdoms, armies, etc, roughly around the 1200s and 1300s.
In real world terms, Points of Light is analogous to the european dark ages between 600 and 900 AD,
Then why is there plate armor?
No, it was designed that way because the designers of 4.0 wanted to minimize out of combat play. Thus the wacky economic system, etc.
Then why is there plate armor?
No, it was designed that way because the designers of 4.0 wanted to minimize out of combat play. Thus the wacky economic system, etc.
Then why is there magic? And elves?
The idea of turning yourself into a walking tin can has existed as long as metalworking has. It just never had economic plausability until the late medieval age. This does nothing to stop an adventurer who has resources far beyond nobles from buying enough metal and having someone turn them into a tin can.
The key points of PoL isn't the lack of out of combat play, it is the ease of design for it. If you don't want to use a pre-made setting, but don't have the time to design a setting from the groud up, PoL is perfect for you. It is simple and easy to make and change as the campaign needs it to. It is Schrodinger's Gun in setting form.
Nothing in PoL says you can't roleplay. Nothing at all. It's just your view of "4.0 took the RP out of RPG" that makes you think that.
Then why is there plate armor?
For the same reason magic exists; Rule of Cool
Then why is there magic? And elves?
The idea of turning yourself into a walking tin can has existed as long as metalworking has. It just never had economic plausability until the late medieval age.
Not even close to the truth. Rome was much wealthier than medieval EU. It was technological metallurgy and metal working advances.
Thus, not set in the dark ages.
Not even close to the truth. Rome was much wealthier than medieval EU. It was technological metallurgy and metal working advances.
Thus, not set in the dark ages.
Potayto, potahto. Roman soldiers still wore banded mail. Throw in a metal helmet instead of the normal leather, some additional bands of metal, and you're now a walking tin can -- at double the price. Rome ran it's army like a business, however, and they saw that the additional protection wasn't worth double the price, thus, banded mail.
Is it technically platemail? No. Does it weigh more? Yeah. Does it matter for the sake of the game? No. It's still a suit of metal armor covering your entire body.
Not even close to the truth. Rome was much wealthier than medieval EU. It was technological metallurgy and metal working advances.
Thus, not set in the dark ages.
It's not "set" in the Dark Ages. The poster was simply refering to how the societal structure was similar to the Dark Ages.
As a side note, why did you make the jump of logic that "Dangerous outside world" = "COMBAT ONLY!"? Nothing about the structure says that you can't spend lot's of time in town doing non-combat, or that you can't help two societies unite or whatever.
Then why is there plate armor?
Ever heard of the concept of political eras, geopgraphical eras, technological eras, musical eras, etc.?
Geographically, 4E is still in the Iron Age. Plus monsters. They could have biological, graftable plasma rifles and force field shields and ride cyborg-plants genetically modified for sustained flight, and they'd still be in the Iron Age from a geographical perspective.
Me and some old high school buddies have been gaming in Greyhawk off and on since the mid 1980's, and as such, we would like to see it around as a solid, reliable setting that's being well taken care of. And hopefully, that will be the case.
In any case, popularity certainly does not always equate to quality. For us, Greyhawk = Tradition and Quality. Old Faithful ... It's not a flavor-of-the-week setting. When I think of playing D&D, I automatically think of Greyhawk. The only other TSR/Wizards settings I've run were Dark Sun and Planescape from the 1990's. The Realms are a great setting, but I've never felt the need to run there ... Greyhawk may be minor, but it's good enough for us
But after reading about Greyhawk in the Other Worlds forum, I found I liked how the setting is a world not unlike the generic "World" or "Points of light" which the players refer it to, in which the land is sparsely populated, with pockets of civilization surrounded by vast miles of wilderness teaming with monsters and evil cults, etc.
Greyhawk just seems more of a frontier type setting, from what I gathered reading other posts anyway.
Not even close to the truth. Rome was much wealthier than medieval EU.
True but even the wealthiest empire had to determine at what point is it optimum to equip more your soldier rather than use this money to recruit more soldiers.
I mean it s the same conundrum today, Im pretty sure if all the soldier in Iraq had a 300 000$ dollars equipement rather than the average 1000$ one, the human loss would be less. On the other hand the US state would have loss the war simply because it would have been in bankrupt due to it s military cost...
And remember that nearly 2/3 of the roman empire budget goes into the army...
It was technological metallurgy and metal working advances.
The roman empire was way less advance into metallurgy and metal working than their medieval counterpart. Metallurgy was better in the middle age for the simple reason that it came later and people add more time to test new things.
What was lose from the Roman Empire was the complex societal structure and organisation. For that reason, I would guess that a Roman legion would probably have been more than a match for most of the medieval army because of their better discipline. Heck it can even be argue that the lack of technological advantage of the Roman toward the barbarian tribe during the late empire could be because the Roman didn't feel they need to advance technologically due to their superiority in social and military organisation. Then again, the example of the Byzantine empire could argue that many other change lead the roman empire to decay, as per example the predominance of cavalry into warfare bring by the indo-european tribe, the eternal problem of the roman on the battlefield that lead to many stupid defeat against the "barbarians" people.
Thus, not set in the dark ages.
What distinguish the dark ages and the roman empire is more the social structure than the technological one. In a realms where the individuals lords rule over small rural domain rather than a governor who control a big region and has his seat of power in an important city, I would argue that the actual point of light setting is in the dark age.
After all history has prove that the urban life ask for a lot of societal organisation, and each time that this structure fall, people congregate around a single strong figure able to protect them. Afghanistan actually could be an example of this kind of behavior...
What does any of this have to do with population density?
Organized societies can better manage food & water resources so that larger population centers are possible.
Organized societies can better manage food & water resources so that larger population centers are possible.
True, but hygeine better be close behind.
True, but hygeine better be close behind.
Regardless, without food & water you die, always. Poor hygiene, your chance goes up but you don't for sure die.
Regardless, without food & water you die, always. Poor hygiene, your chance goes up but you don't for sure die.
I was referring to things like the iron aqueducts, and the spread of Black Death in cities. 'Poisoned' food&water (from poor hygeine) kills like starvation. Both iron poisoning (in rome) and Black Death (in most european cities) held back the growth of the culture by killing many of the populace.
I don't know if starvation or poisoning is worse, and am disinclined to attempt determination. ;) ;) ;)
I don't know if starvation or poisoning is worse, and am disinclined to attempt determination. ;) ;) ;)
Like I said, if you don't have food or water you will 100% of the time. If you have problems like you listed you won't die 100% of the time.
I'll take the option with a chance of survival.
Like I said, if you don't have food or water you will 100% of the time. If you have problems like you listed you won't die 100% of the time.
I'll take the option with a chance of survival.
Then why are you in the city?
I was referring to things like the iron aqueducts, and the spread of Black Death in cities. 'Poisoned' food&water (from poor hygeine) kills like starvation. Both iron poisoning (in rome) and Black Death (in most european cities) held back the growth of the culture by killing many of the populace.
I don't know if starvation or poisoning is worse, and am disinclined to attempt determination. ;) ;) ;)
There is actually a theory that the massive decline in population due to the Black Plague in the fourteenth century directly lead to the cultural blossoming of the 15th century. As there was still the same amount of farmland there was more food per person and it required less work to get it. As a result, people had the time and the physical nutrition to focus on things besides survival, like culture.
Go Plague
There is actually a theory that the massive decline in population due to the Black Plague in the fourteenth century directly lead to the cultural blossoming of the 15th century. As there was still the same amount of farmland there was more food per person and it required less work to get it. As a result, people had the time and the physical nutrition to focus on things besides survival, like culture.
Go Plague
Ever heard the one about the zen master and the young boy?
It definitely fits.
Either way, metallurgical techniques, population density, and sociology have nothing to do with D&D. At least not my D&D. Maybe Kursk's D&D involves a geological timeline that his players play with. But not mine.
Who cares how the world got to be the way it currently is? A wizard did it.
That statement is usually pretty accurate. Especially if the "of the Coast" variety is acceptable.