An interesting example is the old Lodoss War setting for BX.

In that there was in the past a great magic empire. But it was totally overrun and destroyed by barbarian hoards. And before that the gods battled and where one of them fell the land was split off from the mainland, causing more disaster.

I agree both domain management and rare magic have been lost with 5e, and that the default setting (FR) is not points of light.

I like the Wild West analogy the best.  The reality is that with civilization comes rules, police, government, structure.  Greyhawk (and similar settings) provide loads of player options because there is no wide-spread hyper-powerful authority to restrict player choice (the Empire of Iuz providing an example of this kind of authoritarian space, and a good antagonist for the players).  Apocalyptic settings are one way to achieve this power vacuum, which I think is a positive feature of those settings.  It's one reason that FR seems so counter-intuitive to me.  Any medium to high-magic setting offers too much opportunity for a quasi-government to use that power to restrict its inhabitants.  Why wouldn't the 10-20 20th level mages rule the world?  Who could stop them?  And D&D would be a very different game as an insurrectionist game, as opposed to an exploration and delving game...

Welcome aboard Eirikrautha! Love the old skool Githyanki!

I've definitely run OD&D as an insurrectionist game. Rival liches were the tyrants of the world and lawbreakers were slain and raised as undead. The PCs were effectively always on the run, and it was a really grim campaign. After three TPKs, we brought down the curtain.

Quote from: Psikerlord;1100882I agree both domain management and rare magic have been lost with 5e, and that the default setting (FR) is not points of light.

Aside from Karameikos/Known World and maybee Greyhawk... no D&D setting has remained points of light because way back morons bitched that the settings were "too underpopulated!" and so there was this mad rush to cram a town into just short of every other hex and to populate and describe and categorize every damn square inch.

Which totally loses sight of the original ideal of make of it what you will and the DM and players fill in the blank spaces.

Just change the name of a published setting you like, and do a spin off that makes you happy.

I think I will......

Quote from: Omega;1100919Aside from Karameikos/Known World and maybee Greyhawk... no D&D setting has remained points of light because way back morons bitched that the settings were "too underpopulated!" and so there was this mad rush to cram a town into just short of every other hex and to populate and describe and categorize every damn square inch.

Which totally loses sight of the original ideal of make of it what you will and the DM and players fill in the blank spaces.

Alas and alack. It has the ring of truth to it.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1100890Welcome aboard Eirikrautha! Love the old skool Githyanki!

I've definitely run OD&D as an insurrectionist game. Rival liches were the tyrants of the world and lawbreakers were slain and raised as undead. The PCs were effectively always on the run, and it was a really grim campaign. After three TPKs, we brought down the curtain.

Oh, I'm not saying you can't run it that way!  I just never really encountered that very often in AD&D.  But I guess being lawbreakers opens the same narrative space as the absence of law, now that I think about it.

Thanks for the welcome.  I've been lurking for a while, but I haven't been really moved to post (most of the discussions here seemed to get along pretty well without my input *grin*).  The fact that I refuse to go back to the Paizo forums, and ENWorld has become mostly an echo chamber, pretty much means this is the only board I've visited recently with any real discussion happening.

Quote from: Omega;1100919Aside from Karameikos/Known World and maybee Greyhawk... no D&D setting has remained points of light because way back morons bitched that the settings were "too underpopulated!" and so there was this mad rush to cram a town into just short of every other hex and to populate and describe and categorize every damn square inch.

Which totally loses sight of the original ideal of make of it what you will and the DM and players fill in the blank spaces.

Alas, alas, this happened to Karameikos too. The whole GAZ line overpopulated and overcivilized the Known World.

Quote from: Omega;1100919Which totally loses sight of the original ideal of make of it what you will and the DM and players fill in the blank spaces.

Have you tried just not buying any more expansions?

That seems like it would work.

Technically D&D is completely post apocalyptic and has been for some time. Every time there has been a new edition they do some kind of huge apocalyptic event. 2nd ed AD&D - 3rd ed had the Vecna Lives/ Die Vecna Die. 1st ed AD&D to 2nd had one though I can't remember the name(Time of Tumult/Eyes of Istus or something like that). Pretty sure 3.5 had one when they made 4th. If I'm wrong on this please don't hesitate to say so.

Quote from: Alamar;1100973Technically D&D is completely post apocalyptic and has been for some time. Every time there has been a new edition they do some kind of huge apocalyptic event. 2nd ed AD&D - 3rd ed had the Vecna Lives/ Die Vecna Die. 1st ed AD&D to 2nd had one though I can't remember the name(Time of Tumult/Eyes of Istus or something like that). Pretty sure 3.5 had one when they made 4th. If I'm wrong on this please don't hesitate to say so.

Time of Troubles was at the end of 1e.

Nothing happened at the end of 2e.

The Spell Plague was at the end of 3e.

The Great Recon was at the end of 4e.

Quote from: Shasarak;1100986Time of Troubles was at the end of 1e.

Nothing happened at the end of 2e.

The Spell Plague was at the end of 3e.

The Great Recon was at the end of 4e.

The Apocalypse at the end of 2E; was called, "Bankruptcy".

Quote from: Razor 007;1100998The Apocalypse at the end of 2E; was called, "Bankruptcy".

That ending only happened in your head, the PCs used the treasure that they stole from the Wizard who lived by the sea to defeat the evil creditors.

Quote from: KingofElfland;1100962Alas, alas, this happened to Karameikos too. The whole GAZ line overpopulated and overcivilized the Known World.

The GAZ series was for BECMI though, Not Karameikos, if I recall right. I would have to dig them out of storage.. BECMI spun off into its own setting which became Mystara. Same place names. Different planet. But yeah the GAZ series crammed every damn map it felt like sometimes.