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As I read the theme of "Points of Light," it's drawn around mapping a campaign setting, not game rules themselves. So, 4e can be made without reference to any campaign setting. Fine. Points of Light clearly fit, because there's no actual setting to base ourselves.
But once we step into a setting, be it Forgotten Realms, Eberron, Greyhawk, or any other, the dark between those points of light begin to fill in. No big deal. Personally, I enjoy playing in a campaign setting the group knows. Our adventures fill in the gaps of those settings without messing with canon.
So, in the end, let's just say that I don't get the point.
Well this isn't a lot of other people's point about it, but here's mine. I hate "generic" modules. Having no place to belong, they end up belonging nowhere--a sortova' gaming limbo, or they belong everywhere--with duplicate X city and caves boinging up in every setting messing up the history and verisimilitude of the setting and encouraging patchwork flesh golem settings. Yuck.
The trouble is, some of these things (like Dragondown Grotto) I've always found very fun and compelling and would like them to belong somewhere, but the conventional wisdom of "Hey just put it wherever you want! It's your game! Didn't you know that?" seems lazy and like an excuse to muddle game settings with stuff that doesn't belong there. Yuck.
In comes Points of Light to the rescue.
In 4e from what I understand, there will be two kinds of settings:
The Core setting will be a big unexplored Dark Ages world without borders. People don't know what's through the woods or across the mountains. They're lucky to know what's down the road. Things are dangerous enough that people don't go places out of idle curiousity, so there's a lot of unknowns out there. This makes it ideal as Module World. All the classic settingless stuff is planned to be the bones of this place, and it will be the home for all the formerly generic stuff that's been published or will be published. Like a setting tinkertoy set DM's can arrange the various modules and whatnot in whatever way they fancy, unbothered by any existing macromap. It's all fog of war. You just dispel it a little at a time with either something you buy or something you make yourself. Within those constraints it's limitless. That seems like a very good thing. It will set right a lot of the problems the game has suffered under since it's inception.
The other option will be campaign settings. These have more involved histories, their own pantheons, and set maps and cultures. A deeper game in some ways, but less freeform. Points of light will touch here too--but in a subtler way. The wilderness will be more adventuresome and dangerous closer to home, but I can't imagine it's going to affect particular settings in serious ways. More the introduction of a true freeform Points of Light Core setting will just free up the game so the settings aren't constantly getting bombarded with adventures, races, classes, and prestige classes that don't belong there.
One of the few things about 4e I am interested in reading about, Points of Light for me (from what it sounds like anyway) sounds like an affirmation of something that technically my campaigns already have. It doesn't matter how much lore or pre-existing campaign material there is, there's always those lonely, distant miles between cities that aren't explicitly detailed where modules or personal material can be placed.
Points of Light is a great setting for a new, low-level campaign because it doesn't require a lot of extra work from the DM and allows the fun of exploring the darkness.
I'm a bit leary, though, of the concept lasting into the teen levels or beyond. At that point, the PCs should be dealing with challenges with a larger scope than the nearest town. If my level 14 wizard is still only concerned with rescuing townsfolk from the local haunted mine, he's going to be quite the underachiever.
By level 20+, he should be running in imperial circles and impacting the decisions of lords and empires.
That's where Points of Light breaks down for me. By level 10 my players will likely already be clearing the darkness and uniting the Points into a kingdom of their own. I hope Points of Light allows for that.
It's just like the early "Warcraft" games--everything was a blank until you explored it. Which fits in well with the whole 4th edition video game "feel" (rogues running up walls and jumping over columns of opponents, etc.). So the point is, you get internal consistency. Imaginary video game action, leveling up after each board, and the campaign world a big blank that WotC can fill in for you one digital release at a time.
Well, lets wait and see what they make from it. Meanwhile, I´m content fitting adventures into the World of Greyhawk. Of course, sometimes making them fit requires a little work, but there is enough space even in civilized areas to fit in adventures. I recently used toe Merrow caves from "Beauty corrupt" (Dungeon #63, IIRC) close to the island where Admundfort (the capital of the Shield Lands) is situated in the Nyr Dvy - the lake is just too big to be fully under control.
So, this points of light idea gives me a "and what else is new ?" reaction.
Stefan
Imaginary video game action, leveling up after each board, and the campaign world a big blank that WotC can fill in for you one digital release at a time.
Pish-posh. It's not about giving Wizards flexibility, it's about giving the DM flexibility. Wizards can do whatever the hell they want to a setting; if they want to do something and it doesn't work, then they can retcon stuff until it fits. The DM can also do such a thing, but if he does it in the framework of a campaign setting, his players may be confused or angered by "violation of the canon".
The point of having a campaign setting is so everybody is on the "same page", so to speak, regarding who is who, what is what, and where is where. However, this doesn't give the DM a lot of flexibility to insert anything of real size unless he's specifically designed it for the campaign setting's framework. Leaving great big chunks of geography intentionally undefined is the perfect way to do this: "Nobody knows what's west of those mountains!" means "You can put whatever crazy shit you want west of those mountains!"
This isn't the first time Wizards has used this, either; Eberron made liberal use of this. The Day of Mourning, the Draconic Prophesy, and Xen'drik are all great examples of this: there's a lot of rumours, ideas, and suggestions, but there's no real canon for them, and that's very intentional. (In fact, Xen'drik doesn't even have a static landscape, which gives you the liberty to change things gratuitously within the continuity of your own game, because it's canon that any point in Xen'drik could hypothetically be a day's walk from Stormreach.)
because it's canon that any point in Xen'drik could hypothetically be a day's walk from Stormreach.
For reals? I only have the core setting book to my name, is there any reason given for this space bending?
One of the things that’s kept me from getting fully into Eberron was the lack of “edge of civilization”. Khorvaire is almost completely civilized (even the “monster” realms are civilizations) and Xen’drik is almost completely uncivilized. With one huge point of light up here, and one huge dark continent down there, I think Eberron’s points of light will look more like the Yin Yang symbol.
For reals? I only have the core setting book to my name, is there any reason given for this space bending?
Yeah, it's called The Traveller's Curse. It's covered more in Secrets of Xen'drik.
Of course the "points of light" in a game setting has been D&D's curse since antiquity. You put together a setting and adventure by adventure (all of which have to be written in setting, rather than generic) you fill up all the unknown parts of the setting until it's completely full.
Not so in the 4e Core. You just have parts, regions described letting you put them together however you desire. Sometimes there's a cardinal direction you might get--like "out of the great southern deserts" or a big town on "the coast" but it really is a lot more freeform and I think a step forward toward a true sandbox setting than the rather frustrating tack of putting a little landmass over here that you can "do whatever with". Eventually it's going to get explored. You know it will. This way, everything is up in the air, exploration is dangerous and about the journey. The setting is yours as the DM to do what you want with. I really don't see this as business as ususal.
Don't forget that part of the exploratory nature of adventuring is revisiting past adventure sites. Just because your group cleared out the kobold caves at level 1 doesn't mean they're forever laid bare. Part of a dynamic world is its ability to mend via the old adage "nature abhors a vacuum". It lends credence to a world when you can potentially adventure at the same location more than once in your character's career. Familiarity with your world is a good thing.
Well and from what I understand 4e will be built largely on the bones of classic generic dungeon sites, so yeah I agree entirely. It's just that if you're looking for that great open frontier feel, then it's likely going to be shortlived in the standard setup. You go there, you see it, it's seen. It becomes another part of the map.
Granted I love campaign settings personally. I think they add a real richness to the game. The thing is it will be nice to finally use a lot of the product I've always just sneered at as being pretty useless and childish. Now that stuff can be (and really is) the core of a much larger freeform gaming setup. I really like that.