Points of light
Filed under D&D 4E Preview on January 28, 2008
Keywords: Dungeons and Dragons, Points of Light
I’m a little late to this conversation, as I’ve been paying more attention to the Dragon articles than those in Dungeon. Still, when I finally got around to reading the Dungeoncraft article that illuminated the “Points of Light” philosophy driving many of the changes in 4E, I felt compelled to comment.
Do not confuse this “Points of Light” with a former Bush administration’s “Thousand Points of Light.” The D&D philosophy is not meant to create a kinder, gentler nation. In fact, it creates “a vast sea of darkness, with only feeble, flickering points of light keeping civilization alive,” as stated by James Wyatt. This core idea certainly helps understand the sweeping changes being made to the landscape of Faerun in 4E.
To illustrate this concept, Mr. Wyatt described how he would begin the building process of a campaign world his players would adventure in. I found it telling that while he mentions three different options for a “starting point”, he chose the small village with a nearby dungeon as his example. From the article’s sidebar:
Greenbrier is one of those tiny points of light amid the surrounding darkness, but it’s more like a flickering candle than a burning beacon. As the darkness grows, the little village draws people from the surrounding area to its sheltering walls, offering what little promise of safety might come from numbers and the fragile wooden palisades surrounding the center of town.
This is nothing new, really. How many of us have started campaigns, as a DM or player, in the tavern of some small village, waiting for the hook that will send the adventurers to the nearby ruins/caves/catacombs? But what about those who prefer urban adventures, or a more cosmopolitan setting? Do they have to wait until their characters are higher level, as the article seems to imply.
Sure, DMs still have the power to create whatever they can imagine, but does this new design directive mean that official support–in the form of products and articles–will focus on the solitary settlement besieged by the forces of darkness? Is the urban adventure market small enough that it doesn’t matter to the bottom line? Or (last question, I promise) does the Points of Light philosophy not necessarily exclude an urban-based campaign?
Related Posts
- DMs: the stuff of dreams and nightmares
- Review: Mysteries of the Moonsea
- GenCon Indy 2007 report (part 2)
- Hi, I’m an elitist roleplaying snob
- D&D game aids
January 28th, 2008 at 5:31 pm
Hmm, I didn’t get any sense that urban or comsmopolitan settings would be more difficult from reading that article. Seems more like an article about “How to start being a DM” or something… appropriate for inclusion into the PHB, but I would bet that the DMG will have a lot more options about various ways to lay out a campaign.
Although D&D is more about “dungeons” than “urban”, so it wouldn’t surprise me if they were leaning that direction for the flavor of the book. 3rd edition wasn’t really set up well for urban adventuring either… I would expect more of a d20 modern mix for most urban adventuring (and even then, not a terribly good system for urban adventuring anyway).
Unless I am mistaken about what you mean by urban adventuring? I’m assuming you mean skulking through alley ways or street fights/bar brawls or diplomatic RP sessions in markets and king’s courts (which never relied on much of the rules anyway). I don’t see anything in the article that precludes that… although it does sound like they are going farther away from epic fantasy (FR, Eberron) and more towards the original feel of D&D which didn’t talk about anything outside of dungeon crawling - no worrying about setting up empires and political groups, just drop them into a tavern and head to the dungeon. In the old ‘basic’ game they didn’t even introduce wilderness combat, you simply purchased your equipment from some unnamed merchant, went out to a dungeon and killed stuff, then brought the loot back to buy better stuff… rinse and repeat. It didn’t really matter who was king or what empire was at war with what, or even if there was a theives guild or what the town looked like.
It will be interesting to see how this affects established large worlds like Eberron and FR though, if indeed this tact is taken for the entire basis of the book and/or ruleset.
January 28th, 2008 at 7:09 pm
Yeah, it definitely felt to me like it was harkening back to the days of the classic dungeon crawl, rather than the epic campaign setting. I think we’ve seen what this means for FR, already.
January 30th, 2008 at 3:11 am
[...] there’s an interesting post over at Pens & Swords from Monday. I am intrigued by his take on things. I disagree, almost entirely, but I am [...]