RPGPundit Reviews: Points of Light
or If Only 4e Were Really Like This!

This is a review of the supplement "Points of Light", by Robert Conley, from Goodman Games. The product being reviewed is the print version.

"Robert Conley deserves an award".  This is what I thought to myself before I ever actually read his book, Points of Light. The award I had in mind was for somehow having managed to out-initiative Wizards of the Coast by actually being the first to produce an actual book using the term "Points of Light" as its title.  How could WoTC have fucked up so badly to allow that?! Its their hallmark phrase for the implicit setting of their 4th Edition of D&D, and here's some little games company actually releasing the book with that name! Absolutely brilliant.

A great deal about this product screams "brilliant marketing ploy".  Aside from the title of the book itself, you have the way the book's first sentence is "Points of Light is the default setting of the new fourth edition":  Note that Mr.Conley nowhere mentions that he doesn't mean his product, he means the concept of "points of light"; and note that he doesn't say what "fourth edition".  He doesn't need to. But for all intents and purposes, he manages to claim that his book is the default setting for D&D 4th edition, without ever actually saying that. Again, brilliant.

But does the book live up to that hype, or is it some rushed, sloppy slapped-together bit of junk that's just trying to feed off of the novelty of 4e?  Will this book actually be useful for 4e? Will it be of any use if you don't like 4e? Will you end up being disappointed?

The answer to the last question depends a great deal on what you really want.  The fact is that for all Mr.Conley's sneaky claims, this book isn't really a sourcebook for 4e at all.  Whether or not that's a good thing depends on whether or not you wanted a setting-book geared directly and specifically at 4th edition D&D.

But before explaining more about all this, let me say a few things about the product itself. Points of Light is a relatively small book, coming in at just under 50 pages.  Its a softcover, with a very nice full-colour glossy exterior (the interior is entirely black and white). The cover image depicts a group of knights charging out from a castle, and the artwork looks much more like what you'd expect from the old D&D Basic/Expert sets than from 4e. No dungeonpunk or WoW screencaps here; instead, the lead knight, with his shining armour, red cape and winged helm, looks suspiciously like an old early-80s action figure of a fantasy knight I used to own; I forget offhand if the knight in question was in fact a D&D action figure, or something else, but you get the drift.  The hype for the product is all "4e", but the layout is pure nostalgia.

The book's interior layout is very nice, with clear print, a few black and white illustrations, well-ordered tables, and a lot of maps, floorplans, and hex-maps (again, nostalgia!).

What you get in Points of Light is not a full-blown campaign setting. Nor is it a set of 4e-style "encounters".  Again, I can't say this enough, there's virtually nothing similar to the 4e rulebooks in this product.
Instead, what you get are four different "mini-settings"; regions of limited size that each approach a different angle of the "Points of light" theme (that theme being, in case you've been hiding under a rock for the past year, that the world is a place of barbarity and chaos dotted with small islands of civilization and hope, ie. "points of light").

The first of these is the Wildland, a region of what was once a Great Empire that has just collapsed, an area previously civilized and safe now being overrun by monsters and barbarians. Think France or England at the start of the dark ages (6th Century).

Second, we have the Southland.  Here, the "Great Kingdom" still exists, but this mini-setting is far on the frontier of this kingdom, where civilization ends and barbarity begins. Its a wild frontier area where rough men can make their fortunes, and menaces to the heartland of the Kingdom lurk.

Third we get the Borderland.  Again, there's a Great Empire, but this time the setting is right during the process of the empire's collapse. It has split into two halves, and these are engaged in a brutal civil war with each other. The Borderland is the area between the two sides of the divided empire, where the bulk of the battle will be taking place.

Finally, we have the Swamps of Acheron; these are a swampland located in an outer plane (again, did I mention how little this book actually has to do with 4e?), the domain of a Lawful Evil god where the PCs themselves might actually be the "invaders".

Aside from the fourth setting, the other parts of this book can easily be assumed to be different regions of the same world, but are all separated by different points in time.  The Southlands represents the generic "great empire" at its peak, the Borderlands as its in the process of collapse, and the Wildland the ruins of the empire after it has died.  Even so, each setting has very much its own style.
Also, the 4th setting still connects to the other three, as the deities used in the 4th setting are mentioned as part of the backdrop of the other settings.  Basically, the whole product is 4 different thumbnail snapshots of the same universe.

Continuing on the subject of "this book is related in 4e how, exactly?!", consider yourself forewarned that there are NO 4e stats or rules in this book. In fact, there are practically no stats at all. Monsters or opponents are listed only by name and either hit-dice or class and level; ie. "a wyvern (7HD)" or "lord Araim (Ftr10)".  That's basically it. So again, what this means is that anyone expecting this to be an actual 4th edition D&D book will be in for a surprise. On the other hand, those who wouldn't even look at this book because they'd expect it to be a 4e book, should look again.

In a way, Mr. Conley's marketing ploy has some serious flaws: his book may disappoint those looking for 4e product, and the style of his book is so utterly old-school in every respect that many of the "4ncountards" who adore 4e's "D&D as WoW-emulation" concept would probably find this book useless to them. I mean shit, it has setting! What the fuck do you need setting for? What do you mean it has Random Encounter Tables? That's now how you build a Combat Challenge!! And where are the Skill Challenges?? The PCs might get magic items that aren't carefully pre-determined according to their level? Madness!

On the other hand, those of us who actually prefer RPGs with setting, and emulation, and something other than crafted pre-fabricated "encounters" would find a lot that would be appealing in Mr. Conley's little product, but might be put off by the whole impression that this is a 4e book.

And it certainly isn't.  This is a product that is more closely related to the Wilderlands of High Fantasy or the Mystara Gazeteers than to anything currently being made by Wizards of the Coast.

In each mini-setting chapter you get roughly a page of background, detailing some of the history of the setting, along with some fairly self-evident notes on how you could replace names to make this a part of some other world. Then you get a cool black & white 1-page numbered hex map right out of any old-school product. After this you get some detail on the general geography of that map. These are fairly short (paragraph-long) fairly general details about the area.  Sometimes this is just general fluff, sometimes some vague guidelines about what might be found there.  For example, we are told that the Tharvengian Forest in the Wildland has "deers and mammoths, along with saber-toothed cats, cave lions, and dire wolves" as well as two orc tribes, the Broken Skulls and the Blood Kins; and that there may also a few free barbarian tribes fighting against the orcs.

After the geography section, you get some expansion on some of the details hinted at previously.  In the Wildland section, for example, you get details on the barbarians and Orc tribes in the region. Again, detail is sparse (to the point that a 4e-fanboy would probably find it useless) but more than enough for an old-school GM to know exactly what to do. To demonstrate, for the "Ogre War Bands" we only get that there are "three ogre warbands" between the western edge of the Eslohen Woods and the Maiden Gorge; these bands are called the Bonecrushers, the Bloody Fist, and the Black Dearth.  The high chief of all the ogres is Curdon (Wiz9, 5HD), an ogre mage, who "lives in a hut (Hex 0805) near the Maiden Gorge".  Each warband has 6 ogres and a dozen goblin warriors.  That's all you get. If you're old school, that's all you need. If you're a 4e-fanboy who needs to be spoonfed encounters right down to which square you're supposed to put which D&D-sanctioned miniature, you're going to be completely at a loss as to what to do.

The next section of each setting involves specific locales. Here you get a couple of dozen hexes (detailed by number, ie. "the Wyvern Nest, 0515"), detailed as specific areas where your group of PCs can have an encounter of the special kind. Some of these hex-details include smaller maps, detailing towns or local terrain or even inn floorplans.  The details, again, are such that its up to the GM to expand the material given into an adventure. For example, you get hex 1104 of the Wildland, "Torra Norith".  This was an old castle that was destroyed by the Lawful Evil deity (who's realm is detailed in the Swamps of Acheron), and the ruins of which were at some point used by a mage as his stronghold, but the mage and his men were killed by a Babau Demon (7HD) the mage had summoned and lost control over. The demon is still there in the castle ruins, and the place is rumoured to have many magical treasures, including a chalice that turns normal water into a potion of cure serious wounds, once a week.

That's basically everything you get. From my point of view, its plenty. The hex-maps are large enough that you could easily run a campaign in any one of the mini settings for a dozen or more sessions of play.
Oh yes, and each setting has its own random encounter table, and the first three settings have their own random "rumour table", complete with specified "true" and "false" rumours.

Overall, Points of Light is very nicely put-together. Its well-crafted, and I could certainly see it as being useful for running a mini-campaign (or even a series of interconnected mini-campaigns, thanks to the connectedness of each of the settings to each other) for OD&D, AD&D, 3e (with a hint of old-school), my own Forward... To Adventure! RPG, or any number of other (particularly old-school style) fantasy RPGs.  What I'm not so sure about is how useful it would be to 4e play.

Frankly, I WISH this book, as it is, were exactly the sort of thing that 4e was made for, and the sort of thing that 4e players would want to play. This is what I wish 4th edition were really for, and really like. Sadly, I don't think that's the case. But hey, you can even consider what Mr. Conley has done to be a public service; maybe a few 4e fanboys will pick up this book and realize that there's a different way to run an RPG than just as a series of pre-fab hyper-balanced "encounters" and "challenges".

RPGPundit

sorry, just testing something.

RPGPundit

Good review.  Personally I'm using PoL for Labyrinth Lord, and it's influenced my 3e campaign too.

Technically the Southland setting is a thousand years after the (Bright) Empire's fall; a new realm the Grand Kingdom is expanding into the ruins of the empire.  However it certainly could be used in the way you've described, as a precursor to Borderland (war) and Wildland (collapse).  The whole 'cycle of history' hinted at in PoL is intriguing and a lot of fun, makes me want to run a campaign following the same family line through the centuries, Blackadder style.  

Edit: I guess you _could_ use it as a 4e setting, with balanced encounters designed and placed in the setting.  The obvious inspiration though is Wilderlands of High Fantasy's hexcrawl.

Quote from: S'mon;276705The whole 'cycle of history' hinted at in PoL is intriguing and a lot of fun, makes me want to run a campaign following the same family line through the centuries, Blackadder style.  

As part of the proposal I had to submit ideas for a dozens or so PoLs. One of them was explicitly set on this them. Basically it would be a loose Arthurian theme with the same land presented four times. The first version would be the Winter land with civil war and tyranny stalking the realm. The second Spring with the One King uniting the Land. The third Summer, the height of the One King's Rule with knights questing all over the place, and the fourth Autumn where the One King has fallen ill and players can either save him to bring a new spring or fail and plunge back into Winter.

QuoteContinuing on the subject of "this book is related in 4e how, exactly?!", consider yourself forewarned that there are NO 4e stats or rules in this book.

Okay, how about other blatant 4e-isms, like Dragonborn as a major race, or warlocks as a common class (though I guess I could substitute the latter with sorcerer)

Quote from: Caesar Slaad;276830Okay, how about other blatant 4e-isms, like Dragonborn as a major race, or warlocks as a common class (though I guess I could substitute the latter with sorcerer)

No although lizardmen play a role in a handful (three ) locales in Wildlands. Warlocks none all.

Quote from: Caesar Slaad;276830Okay, how about other blatant 4e-isms, like Dragonborn as a major race, or warlocks as a common class (though I guess I could substitute the latter with sorcerer)

No, there are none of these.

RPGPundit

Quote from: estar;276737As part of the proposal I had to submit ideas for a dozens or so PoLs. One of them was explicitly set on this them. Basically it would be a loose Arthurian theme with the same land presented four times. The first version would be the Winter land with civil war and tyranny stalking the realm. The second Spring with the One King uniting the Land. The third Summer, the height of the One King's Rule with knights questing all over the place, and the fourth Autumn where the One King has fallen ill and players can either save him to bring a new spring or fail and plunge back into Winter.

That's awesome!  Write that up!  

(Sorry about not checking back on this thread for weeks...)

I've always wanted to do something _like_ Pendragon, only not bound by Arthurian continuity.  Maybe set in a 'mythic future'.  This sounds perfect.