Chris Kutalik of Hill Cantons has written a couple of posts [here and here] ostensibly
talking about Greyhawk’s population density, and comparing it to what we know
of Medieval Europe. Shorter: Greyhawk is largely empty, at least given the demographics
that Gygax proposed. Whatever Gygax’s intentions – and it seems to me that Greyhawk
is intended to be much more populated, settled and civilized than the
population densities imply – this produces a suitably post/near apocalyptic
world, in which settled peoples are living on a knife edge, in which to play
D&D style games.
Why is this world covered in ruins and packed with lost
treasure? Why are all the lords 9th level fighters, all the archbishops
9th level clerics, in a world/system in which that degree of
advancement can only be gained by a life of great danger? Why is there anything
adventuresome at all for lowly 1st level characters to do? Well, as Edgar Johnson says in the comments, “this used to be a place once, but now it's not”,
which is the best summary of what a D&Dish setting should be. Sure, for a
game in which character advancement can be achieved by engaging in diplomatic
plots, or subtle schemes, etc., a well settled, civilized place is fine. But if
the game system describes a world in which personal (and political) power is
derived (only) from adventuring, from risking great danger and looting the remains
of dead societies, the world that accompanies such a system needs to be one of ‘howling
emptiness’.
This is what is wrong with Mystara as a D&D setting (even
as Mystara is lots of fun, and a perfectly decent setting for a system that
doesn’t rely on the same method of character advancement) – so much
civilization makes D&Dish adventuring implausible. Most fantasy settings
are too settled, indeed, it is one of the mistakes I almost always make when
engaging in world building (embryonic worlds that mutate and are reborn with
each campaign re-setting TPK). That is why I wrote myself a Titanic Lesson Plan
– with point 5 “Pay no attention to real medieval settlement patterns.
Civilisation exists as pockets of light amid the fantastical peril. Culture can
vary tremendously within a short distance - European inspired fantasy can sit
alongside fantastical names inspired by a trip to Thailand”. I did this to
remind myself that in order to remind myself that I’m not writing novels, I’m
creating the locations for fantasy adventure gaming, and ‘game’ has different
demands to ‘story’. The setting has to fit the game, and if the game is D&D…
Adventurer, Conqueror, Queen? They look like late 1980s, early 1990s D&D adventurers, don't they?
I recently re-read the TSR UK modules "The Gauntlet" and "The Sentinel" which are set in Greyhawk, and very much came to the conclusion that either they were set in an almost deserted "Backwater" or that apart from the occasional city or town this was what all Greyhawk was like.
ReplyDeleteInterestingly Middle Earth feels this way as well.
Indeed, Middle Earth seems largely empty. The feel that I got from MERP, though, was of a world pretty empty of adventure too. Set in the Fourth Age, the magic and evils of the world seemed to be diminished remnants.
ReplyDelete