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Points of Light |  |
Recently I read an article in the electronic version of Dungeon Magazine that talked about a new philosophy present in 4th Edition: Points of Light. This is not a mechanical idea, but an idea that affects story and theme. It goes like this: the world is a dark place. Civilization is comprised of tiny settlements and the occasional large city, mostly isolated from each other and separated by vast expanses of wilderness. They are, effectively, points of light in a sea of darkness. This philosophy is present, they say, to provide more opportunities for adventure, and to make creating your own setting, one point at a time, easier.
It’s an idea that speaks to me, largely because I’m using a similar philosophy in Wild Blue. The Demasne is a new territory, and most of it is unsettled. The capital, Bastion, is a sprawling metropolis, a point of light that burns particularly brightly. There are a few other smallish cities, as well, but most settlements are villages, towns, hamlets, isolated from all but their closest neighbors. The presence of the Folk, a mysterious and frightening race of beings, enhances the feeling of isolation, because a trip through the wilderness is that much more dangerous. The only reasonably safe ways to get from place to place are with a merchant caravan (strength in numbers) or on a skyship (fast, and high above most of the danger).
October 23rd, 2007 at 11:37 am
I’ve been listening to a lecture about Viking society and there are some quite interesting parallels to what you’re talking about here. In the Viking age (7th to 10th centuries), Scandinavia was generally made up of settlements along waterways with vast forests in the interior. Sea travel was the preferred method of getting from point A to point B because it was (much) quicker and safer. My guess is that they may have viewed their world in a way similar to that of the Demasne. Perhaps that would have some sort of impact on the culture that would develop???
October 24th, 2007 at 6:46 pm
Absolutely. I’d love to discuss this with you further via email.
October 24th, 2007 at 9:21 pm
[...] 24 10 2007 Brian, over at Gamecrafter’s Guild just had an interesting post about a way to look at gaming universes. In order (I assume) to make a gamemaster’s task of [...]
October 25th, 2007 at 5:02 pm
[...] explanation of how Viking culture can be applied to the ‘points of light’ model that I discussed earlier. Some of this I’m not sure I can reconcile with what I have in place right now (such [...]
November 13th, 2007 at 9:36 pm
In some ways this is how the universe really works. For instance, between the stars is a great deal of empty space. Also on the other end at the tiny scale of subatomic particles.
In human affairs, the same can easily be seen. For instance Bush41 and his “1000 points of light” was to encourage that in 1000 places we see people making a difference. But that would be 1 out of 300,000 people in the USA - thinly spread points of light indeed.
Great characters of history are largely isolated, or perhaps clustered in fortunate synergy with a few choice others. Whatever you consider to be the acme of humanity (unless you prefer pop culture, or the everyman) is by definition rare.
Perhaps the key difference is that we percieve the world as a generally benign place, not full of monsters and fiends.
Maybe if were so unfortunate to live in Iraq or Darfur, or the dismal poverty of 30% of the world, or our own inner cities only a 15 minute drive from suburbia, or the ubiquitous panopticon of our unseen prisons - maybe then the points of light worldview would appear emminently correct.
November 14th, 2007 at 6:35 pm
Thanks for commenting. I see where you’re coming from with this post, and I do agree with you; however, this is not really the forum for political or ideological debate. This is a website about playing and making games, and other bits of general geekery. If you’d like to post something on-topic, feel free. There are lots of web sites out there for debating politics and ideologies, but this isn’t really one of them.
Brian