Need help with setting (just a bit)

[Byronic]

So, I'm busy creating my setting. Creating ecologies, economies, political systems, deities, theology, clothes, culture etc etc etc. However there's one question I can't quite answer.

Most of the larger cultures have a large capital city (let's say 10.000 people on average) but I'm not sure how many towns, villages etc a culture should have before it becomes a believable culture (assuming that most of them boast only one city).

Are there any guidelines for this in a book somewhere that you could recommend?

Any experience from DM'ing that could help me?

Real world examples that suit?

 

[mmu1]

So, I'm busy creating my setting. Creating ecologies, economies, political systems, deities, theology, clothes, culture etc etc etc. However there's one question I can't quite answer.

Most of the larger cultures have a large capital city (let's say 10.000 people on average) but I'm not sure how many towns, villages etc a culture should have before it becomes a believable culture (assuming that most of them boast only one city).

Are there any guidelines for this in a book somewhere that you could recommend?

Any experience from DM'ing that could help me?

Real world examples that suit?

Here's a useful page if you're into that sort of thing:

The Domesday Book - Medieval Demographics Made Easy

Though to be honest, I think trying to follow realistic demographics is way too much work - the amount of small towns and villages scattered about any real country is huge, compared to even the most detailed D&D setting. If you're determined to use those real-world medieval demographics as guidelines, I'd suggest using the numbers of cities and towns, and forgetting about even trying to account for all the villages.

 

[Starglim]

So, I'm busy creating my setting. Creating ecologies, economies, political systems, deities, theology, clothes, culture etc etc etc. However there's one question I can't quite answer.

Most of the larger cultures have a large capital city (let's say 10.000 people on average) but I'm not sure how many towns, villages etc a culture should have before it becomes a believable culture (assuming that most of them boast only one city).

Are there any guidelines for this in a book somewhere that you could recommend?

Any experience from DM'ing that could help me?

Real world examples that suit?

The best suggestion that I've seen is that towns should be about a day's journey apart. That means that villagers can sell their produce there and trade for necessary tools and services with half a day's travel.

The number of towns that a city can control depends on how long its army has to march to get to the most distant one. If its enemies can reach a town faster than its army can, the city will lose that town and the border will shift closer to the city. Fortresses and small cities extend this reach, provided that their rulers' loyalty is secure (otherwise they cease being assets and become rivals).

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The best book for this, always, is any edition of Expeditious Retreat Press' A Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe. It has as much math as you want, although personally, after a certain point, I just hand-wave that stuff (I don't really care how much gold the crops generate for a liege each season, for instance), but the rest of the book is loaded with great worldbuilding info, and all of it takes into account 3E magical reality.

 

[Daniel D. Fox]

Here's a useful page if you're into that sort of thing:

The Domesday Book - Medieval Demographics Made Easy

That, and this - ttp://www.thecbg.org

Campaign Builder's Guild

 

[ppaladin123]

::enter the sociologist::

Central place theory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You might use Central Place Theory to figure out how many settlements there will be, what size, how far from the hub city, etc. This theory is very good at predicting settlement placement in large flat expanses (plains) like in rural China. Mountains, rivers, and areas of scarce/bountiful natural resources complicate things a bit but in predictable ways.

 

[Byronic]

Oooohhh, thanks everyone for your suggestions. They're quite handy. I shall probably be using each and every one of them to a certain extent.

Now if you'll forgive me I have to get out of here and spend untold hours working on a setting...