D&D 5E What proportion of the population are adventurers?

Mirtek · May 27, 2019

At least about the logistics needed to Support so many people we're back to widespread use of economy breaking spells

Parmandur · May 27, 2019

Hussar said:
Heh. It really depends on which sources you want to read. FRCS pegs it at about 150 000 ish. In any case, 2 million is a ludicrous number for a city that size. I mean, the inside of the walls are less than 5 miles by 2 miles. 2 hundred thousand people per square mile? That's a bit much.

Because Magic. Given the underground complexes beneath the city, you have to think cubic space for the population density, and don't forget a huge number of peoole are outside the walls.

The 3E FRCS lists a population of 1,347,840. A quick look in Dragon Heist didn't show any demographic statistics, but there was a sidebar stating that many versions of Waterdeep have been written, bit what really matters is the DM's personal version.

TwoSix · May 27, 2019

Hussar said:
Heh. It really depends on which sources you want to read. FRCS pegs it at about 150 000 ish. In any case, 2 million is a ludicrous number for a city that size. I mean, the inside of the walls are less than 5 miles by 2 miles. 2 hundred thousand people per square mile? That's a bit much.

I just tend to assume the huge farming area necessary to support the city is factored into the population number. Kind of like how New York's population is 8.4 million, but the New York metro area's population is slightly over 20 million.

Parmandur · May 27, 2019

TwoSix said:
I just tend to assume the huge farming area necessary to support the city is factored into the population number. Kind of like how New York's population is 8.4 million, but the New York metro area's population is slightly over 20 million.

The magic fueled Abbey of Goldenfields gets some attention in Storm King's Thunder, explaining the food situation:

https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Goldenfields

Draegn · May 27, 2019

In my game area the casters are represented at one in 10000, non casters one in 500.

Mercurius · May 27, 2019

77IM said:
The monster population maintains an equilibrium with the adventurer population.

And with itself. The Underdark has various powerful groups--illithids, drow, duergar, kuo-toa, etc--that keep each other in check. On the other hand, you could build an awesome campaign out of the premise that the illithid figure out a way to drastically increase their population and have designs on taking over the world.

Parmandur said:
Sounds like a good rule of thumb, so about 1 in 20,000. That would give a huge city like Waterdeep with 2 million people about 100 adventurers total. With the major factions headquartered there, like the Harper's and Force Grey, that sounds about right for traditional D&D Sword & Sorcery shenanigans.

Seems way too low to me. To each campaign their own, but you could probably fit 100 adventurers in the Yawning Portal alone. There are many other taverns that adventurers hang out in the city.

Parmandur said:
Because Magic. Given the underground complexes beneath the city, you have to think cubic space for the population density, and don't forget a huge number of peoole are outside the walls.

The 3E FRCS lists a population of 1,347,840. A quick look in Dragon Heist didn't show any demographic statistics, but there was a sidebar stating that many versions of Waterdeep have been written, bit what really matters is the DM's personal version.

That population is for the region or city-state. If you look at the population section it says the metropolis has 132,000.

I think it is safe to assume that the city itself--within the walls--has somewhere in the 130-200,000, while the surrounding region is about ten times that.

Mercurius · May 27, 2019

Here's a very cool map that gives a sense of the area around Waterdeep, giving a sense of a much larger population. And this is only part of the city-state - which extends for more miles.

Quote from the artist:

"It’s funny how ppl sometimes imagine fantasy cities without the grains and supplies to keep the city alive. Waterdeep has more than 1M inhabitants, but only 250k fit inside the walls. Most of the Waterdhavians live outside the walls, and that’s the main purpose of this map."

Umbran · May 27, 2019

Parmandur said:
Because Magic.

Let us be clear - Manhattan island has a population density of about 72,000 people per square mile. So, we are talking about Waterdeep thus having about 3 times the population density of the most densely populated urban area on Earth.

Given the underground complexes beneath the city, you have to think cubic space for the population density, and don't forget a huge number of people are outside the walls.

I'm sorry, but Waterdeep is not mostly populated by dwarves. It isn't like it is billed as the largest *underground* city in the world. The way this shapes up, the majority of the people would have to be living underground for that to make sense... and that's not how the city is described.

If we want to consider outside the walls - well, if we take *two thirds* of that population outside, we are down to the population density of Manhattan.

Or, we can just accept that population size is unreasonable, and go with that.

Mercurius · May 27, 2019

Umbran said:
Or, we can just accept that population size is unreasonable, and go with that.

Or we can just accept that, as I pointed up just two posts before yours, the 1.3 to 2 million figure refers to the region/city-state, not the city itself.

Umbran · May 28, 2019

Mercurius said:
Or we can just accept that, as I pointed up just two posts before yours, the 1.3 to 2 million figure refers to the region/city-state, not the city itself.

Well, consider - the population of England and Wales together, in 1500, was probably about 3 million. Is the city state/region of Waterdeep comparable to... half of Renaissance England? If yes, then fine. If not...