D&D 5E "Monster density" and wilderness settlements in D&D campaign worlds

[Mercurius]

Good stuff [MENTION=2205]Hobo[/MENTION]. Not quite exactly what I was getting at, but certainly a closely related issue - and fits within the overall inquiry. What I hear you getting at is more on the "meta" level - that is, how the DM can bring back the scariness of monsters for the players. Although, as you said, there are ways that this can be supported within the context of the world itself.

I'm reminded of the old monster frequencies from AD&D - when a monster was common, uncommon, rare, very rare, or unique (that's from memory; I might have missed one or got it slightly wrong, but you get the picture). Now that's one of those unnecessary Gygaxisms that was more important for its descriptive value than for its functionality and, I think, added something of importance to the game. Perhaps what you are getting at is taking this more seriously, and of course this really depends upon the specific DM and world, as well as regional factors.

Another "D&Dism" that evokes some degree of cognitive dissonance for me is the fact that the most powerful creatures are also the rarest. Now one could argue that their power makes them targeted, but it is hard to come up with a logical reason why dragons aren't the dominant species in any given fantasy world, and some explanation seems in order. For example, and off the top of my head:
- The gods came and killed off most of the dragons, or
- The primordial war of the dragons and titans greatly reduced both of their numbers, or
- An extraplanar race of super powerful dragon hunters came to the world and killed most of the dragons, or
- most dragons eat their young so as not to be threatened by them when they grow older

And so on.

Now the simple fact of the matter is that for most DMs and players, none of this matters - the point is just to gather every week or three, eat large amounts of junk food that you normally wouldn't eat (or your spouse would frown upon), and kill monsters and take their stuff. If there is some semblance of a story or quest attached to it, all the better. But I've found that even in more invested groups, few players care about the nuances of the world.

But I do. On one hand, I find this sort of thing interesting. On the other, I care a great deal about aesthetics, so designing a world is an artistic process. On my third mutated hand, the better I feel about my creation, the more I'm invested in it - and the more I want to share it through DMing, and usually this results in greater player investment and enjoyment. So it is about inspiration - and every little bit counts, the subtle nuances lead to greatness.

I am reminded of why, or one of the reasons why, I'm generally a better cook than my wife - I don't skip details, I don't take short cuts. I think this is also one of the reasons Tolkien remains so popular, so imaginatively evocative - It wasn't only because hobbits are cute or that he had some catchy idea, or perhaps even that he tapped into some kind of universal mythos; all of these are important. But it is also because his world was so richly detailed, so finely crafted and "real."

On a side note, I think at one point I started thinking about how the Tarrasque could exist at all. I mean, as soon as it started rampaging wouldn't the most powerful heroes of the world gather together and get rid of it? If it was rampaging in the Forgotten Realms, wouldn't the Simbul, Elminster, and Khelben Arunsun together and take care of the beastie between lunch and dinner? Now of course this sort of thing would prohibit our heroes from facing the monster, but I'd like to at least come up with some kind of reason that works for me.

 

[thalmin]

Have a reason for the town to exist. Is it a particularly fertile area for farming, maybe for a money crop that only grows in special volcanic soil? Is it supporting a local mining operation? Is it a fairly new settlement of refugees?
Now, what could have happened to stir up some monster activity. Did the volcano erupt, opening a passage to the elemental planes or the underdark, or did the miners dig to deep and do likewise? Or maybe something big happened many miles away, causing the monsters to flee/migrate? Or has something happened to a very powerful secret guardian that until now protected the area? Or maybe war has forced the king to call his troops, leaving the area defenseless.

And BTW, I agree with your approach to fantasy realism.

 

[Mercurius]

You are looking at your world quite backwards. Cities are not self-sufficient and spawn towns as a result of being successful and self-sufficient. Cities are quite an advanced form of habitation and arise from small towns being ridiculously successful so that they grow and grow and grow and then become a city.

Yes, in the modern world I suppose that a city that has become too built up might well spawn new suburbs from which people will drive in their cars to the city every day to do their jobs. But from that sentence alone it ought to occur to you that there are numerous reasons this isn't true in a low technology world, even with one that has some amount of magic.

Even your smallest little hamlet is the result of several farming families getting together and creating a center of trade and craft to make their lives easier and more successful. Any town, even the smallest hamlet, that was incapable of defending itself from that which would appear within a few years would be destroyed and gone well before any adventurers showed up.

All of which I understand - that farms allow for villages which allow for towns which allow for cities. But the "satellite" scheme I described has to do with the power and military protection. Power is centered in the cities and radiates out. Remember that my initial inquiry was how could smallish settlements survive in wilderness or frontier regions that were teeming with monsters?

In fact, let's be quite clear about this... any region where just residing there or traveling there is almost certain to run into something too powerful for them to handle within even a 10 year span has no human residents. No towns, no cities, no hamlets. Not even farms. Agriculture would be literally impossible in the region. That means if when traveling through the region you pull out a random monster encounter table and say "okay, well within a day/week/month of traveling you are guaranteed to run into something on this list, so let's roll and see what tries to kill you" and literally everything on that list would be flat out impossible for a group of commoners to defeat... then that region has no human residents, it has no farms and thus no towns to speak of at all.

Except in D&D worlds. Consider the North in the Forgotten Realms, or even the Dalelands.

If you are even remotely interested in portraying your world in a way that is remotely realistic, you are going to have to just accept this. I suppose you can say 'well, we all know this is fantastical and utterly remotely unrealistic but we kind of need to accept this farcical situation in order to make this game function and we'll need to add this as part of the craziness of the world that we won't think about too much in order to create a story'.

And that is probably what most published D&D worlds do, and that is what I am questioning. But the point of this is to talk about how it might be possible for smaller settlements to exist in remote places where many threats exist. Again, I'm not talking about Cormyr, but the Dalelands - and even that is only "semi-wild," but it is still wild enough to question the survival of the dales.

Are there ways around this? Hmm...

Okay, let's say that you accept that humans and the like are limited to only a small region of the world. And in this area you have very powerful human guard/watchmen/soldier patrols that take out most of the dangerous stuff. The monsters that still exist in this region are either weaker than the average person so a human peasants with clubs and farm tools can kill them without vastly endangering their lives or at least drive them off (so you'll need to adjust the human commoner stats in the MM to be able to take a Kobold), they have little interest in killing humans and generally benefit from living under human's feet and stealing from them, but generally avoid lethal force (maybe alter the personalities of goblins in that region), are relatively docile 99% of the time and for some reason once every 50 or 100 years they just go completely insane and berserk destroying everything around them until they can be beaten down and calmed (probably works as a nice little fiction for Gnolls or Orcs), or are diplomatic and actually have sort of a general peace accord with humans and somehow that recently broke down into warfare (works for Hobgoblins, Dragonborn and possibly Drow). Everything else in the region needs to be so rare that most people go their whole lives without seeing one or laid dormant for ages and only recently erupted nearly overnight (dragons, undead and such works well for this) or they didn't exist in this plane at all and only now are they popping into existence (elementals, demons/devils/celestials, gith, etc.)

Now you're talking!

And let's be clear. The label "monster" being applied to kobolds, goblins, orcs, gnolls and especially hobgoblins is pretty questionable when the label isn't applied to elves or dwarfs. In truth, they aren't monsters at all and they wouldn't be in the above situations. They are just generally unfriendly neighboring tribes whose society's morale standards don't match your own and whose leader's goals and ambitions aren't favorable towards you.

In our world they'd probably be equivalent to either bandits or wild tribesman; either way, the more civilized settlements would need means of defense.

But if one were to walk back and forth across this land where you want to have towns and one is likely to run into Ogres or other things that would easily murder and eat you, then you would never have towns there. And if you have towns there then you need to accept that the very notion that they are there is plenty ludicrous enough that bothering to put any more thought into their details beyond that is self-defeating. They are mystical things that ought not to exist at all, so don't fret about the details regarding how they work.

So you're saying that either look at just about every published fantasy world as completely unrealistic and not to be used as a model for a more realistic creation, or just not worry about it and play.

See, I'm looking for something between - something that allows for a small village on the frontier of civilization, or a fortified hostel along a long road through wilderness. There are ways to explain this stuff, to make it work. Maybe the owner of the hostel is actually a powerful wizard, or maybe the small village has a pact with the neighboring tribe of orcs, giving them a tithe of one person per month on the full moon. I don't know, stuff like that.

I'm merely pointing out that most published fantasy worlds seem to avoid, ignore, or not care about this sort of thing - both in terms of monsters, but also--as has been pointed out--in terms of actual sustainability. I'm sure we could find numerous cities in the Realms or Greyhawk or Krynn that simply don't make sense for being where they are.

So how to bring a greater level of "fantasy realism" to the equation? How to keep the D&D fun-ness alive, yet with a sense of realness to it? It is an open-ended inquiry.

 

[jodyjohnson]

Monsters appear in areas due to the presense of adventurers.

It's a natural response from the Mother of All Monsters.

If you want to be safe, don't let adventurers come to your town. The more powerful the adventurers, the greater the monster threat. Thankfully most people haven't figured this out because Adventurers are so rare.

As the Realms is crawling with Adventurers, it is also full of monsters.


At leasst that's what Mordenkainen and the Citadel of Eight used to say before they went all goody goody.
The forces of good become balanced by the forces of evil, a strong tendency towards Law brings about the balancing force of Chaos.

Vinz Clortho: Many Shuvs and Zuuls knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of the Slor that day, I can tell you!

 

[GreenTengu]

So you're saying that either look at just about every published fantasy world as completely unrealistic and not to be used as a model for a more realistic creation, or just not worry about it and play.

See, I'm looking for something between - something that allows for a small village on the frontier of civilization, or a fortified hostel along a long road through wilderness. There are ways to explain this stuff, to make it work. Maybe the owner of the hostel is actually a powerful wizard, or maybe the small village has a pact with the neighboring tribe of orcs, giving them a tithe of one person per month on the full moon. I don't know, stuff like that.

I'm merely pointing out that most published fantasy worlds seem to avoid, ignore, or not care about this sort of thing - both in terms of monsters, but also--as has been pointed out--in terms of actual sustainability. I'm sure we could find numerous cities in the Realms or Greyhawk or Krynn that simply don't make sense for being where they are.

So how to bring a greater level of "fantasy realism" to the equation? How to keep the D&D fun-ness alive, yet with a sense of realness to it? It is an open-ended inquiry.

I think you got my point with this.

Yes, plenty of published D&D worlds absolutely fail the simple common sense test.
How many times have we seen a published product where a group of level 5 to level 10 adventurers can't even manage to WALK through an area without something level 5 to level 10 that will not be reasoned with and is intent on killing them popping out of no where and yet... you have farms and villages in this exact same area where level 1 farmers LIVE. Not just spend a couple hours or days crossing the region, but are there constantly for their whole lives.

Those farmers could not exist. There is no method through which those farmers would not have been slaughtered, their farms torn up and their crops eaten. Not when you have Ogres and Trolls and Owlbears and the like wandering around randomly and free through the exact same region with no functional barriers separating these level 1s from them.

I don't know about an Orc tribe demanding a person. Not much they could do with that. But you know what they do need? Food! And lots of food! It would be a perfectly reasonable arrangement for the farmers to offer to pay the Orcs off with food in exchange for being left alone (and effectively protection as the Orcs will happily attack most else that would threaten the village). But that only works so long as you don't have anything trouncing through this area that a party of basic level 1-3 Orcs can't handle. Otherwise the Orcs will just get killed off or scattered by the threats before they destroy the humans too.

Probably, to create the more realistic world than low level characters will either face off only with threats that general human soldiers or even commoners in decent numbers could handle. Maybe the game is more about social interaction and handling criminals and such at the lower levels. Not all Orcs are out to kill you, most Orcs receive their bread and are happy to keep out on the plains or tundras out there not bothering anyone. You are looking for a SPECIFIC Orc and his band who has gone rogue and become a bandit to try to take more. Or maybe your enemies are Wood Elves and Forest Goblins who only got annoyed recently when the humans cut too far into their forest and destroyed their homes. Now they are rounding up bears and wolves and such to attack.

Then you have some other part of your world, some great wilderness blocked off by a natural (or magical!) barrier, where your low level humanoids, PC races included, simply don't reside. The problem is that once the PCs enter into that area, they are cut off from having any safe rest spots, any shops or markets, any well.. civilization and all that comes with it. Because unless the place is well enough defended that it can put up with weekly attacks by Ogre and Troll bands, it would have been torn down before the PCs ever get there.

Published D&D worlds, particularly the older and most traditional ones, never showed any particular consideration in this regard and just handwaved it all for the sake of focusing on enjoyable game play rather than an sensibly immersive world.

 

[ki11erDM]

I am doing battle with this beast right now building my 5e campaign and it sounds a lot like yours, it is based on my point of light 4e world. Maybe my struggles will help you…

Back in 4e I started in a small town and grew the world out from it, but I ran into some real issues when trying to deal with why this damn town was so far away from everything else and how was it not destroyed. But it was really gratifying when I finally discovered its real story and it added a lot of depth to my world. It was sheltered by a reclusive Elven kingdom on one side and, well, basically Ravenloft on the other (i.e. a wall of fog). It was only there because to be a trade center with the elves and dwarves for the remains of the northern portion of Nerath. That was a lot of work to just rationalize why this point of light was where it was and why it was still there.

I did not want to do that again… so with some of the dynamics of the world already in hand I am starting large this time and using the generators at donjon.bin.sh to fill in all the names and places for me so it really speeding things up.

In the end what I have done is created a kingdom that was the southern portion of Nerath (total area about 2x the size of Ohio but only about ¼ of that under real control). It has one major sea side trading city with three roads leading out from that, the north road is disused as it leads to the ruins of Central Nerath (which was utterly destroyed by the gnoll armies). No one would build a village that direction as gnolls and lizard people roam freely, from time to time raiding parties attack the towns on the northern edge of the kingdom but little that the army can’t handle.

The road to the west is heavily traveled and passes through good farmland. Dozens of castles and forts dot this road, only a large scale invasion or high CR monsters would threaten these folk (but rampaging gnolls are not uncommon). This area is the bread basket of the City and the Kingdom. You would have to travel for a few days north or south from this road to find anything other than outlaws and gnolls to fight.

The southern road leads into a more wildernessy area, but it is well maintained and patrolled as it leads to the major mining operations for the kingdom. It has villages that are mostly designed to support the patrols and the trade traffic and are built around small keeps. You could find nearly anything to fight a day’s travel from this road.

The other thing to keep in mind is that Nerath and all the empires before it were building all kinds of things in this area for 1000s of years, so there are lots of little places 2-4 days travel from the major roads that are interesting to explore.

Some resources I have found very useful:
Blog about distances: http://harbingergames.blogspot.com/2014/06/modern-minds-and-medieval-distances.html?m=1
Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe (http://www.amazon.com/Magical-Medieval-Society-Western-Europe/dp/0972937609)
Cityscape (http://www.amazon.com/Cityscape-Dungeons-Dragons-Roleplaying-Supplement/dp/0786939397/)

 

[Mercurius]

Good stuff [MENTION=6777454]TheHobgoblin[/MENTION].

I think I started considering this when I was designing a "points of light" world for 4E, back in 2008. My general solution, such as it was, was similar to what you describe - bifurcating civilized regions where there simply isn't a lot of monster activity, except for the occasional gnoll or orc raiding party, or perhaps a marauding huge monster, and then wilderness regions that were teeming with monsters but sparsely populated by "good guy races," if at all. Most adventurers were centered on a small city that was on the fringe between the two regions, that made a kind of economy out of adventuring. In other words, rather than the default of the typical D&D world where adventurers were everywhere, in my world they were mainly in the fringe lands, and centered from this one city.

I'm probably going to do something similar again: have a central civilized region that is surrounded by wilderness; between the two are the "fringe lands" - not unlike the American frontier - in which there are small settlements that sometimes have short life-spans, with only a few surviving to make it to the status of fortified town. Slowly, but inexorably, the frontier is pushed back.

Actually, that might be the closest real-world analogy - the American frontier. It could be an interesting, even subversive twist on D&D, with humans being akin to European settlers, and all "Others" being akin to American Indians, being continually pushed back, their lands taken and settled, and actually becoming more aggressive because of it. In some cases, some "tribes," it is outright racial hatred and genocide - orcs, for instance, would be akin to an Indian tribe that was very hostile and disliked. But then some, like elves, would be more like the Cherokee who integrated (except for some, who are pushed out in something akin to a Trail of Tears, which gives a nice explanation for "high" vs. "wood/wild" elves).

One could also play with issues of perception, that maybe the PCs consider the orcs to be evil, but they find out that before humans came they actually had a high civilization that was destroyed by the first human incursions, and history was re-written to make it seem like orcs were, and had always been, evil savages, rather than their savagery being the result of the loss of their civilization. Some rich possibilities there - and in writing this I think I have some seeds for my new setting!

 

[the Jester]

Imagine a village of 200 in a D&D world. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that those 200 include no adventuring types. How do they defend themselves?

First, walls. Even a simple palisade around the village discourages a lot of monsters. Likewise, fence in the fields. Even if the fence only slows attackers, it gives the farmers time to escape within the walls of the village proper.

Maybe, if the area is especially dangerous, the village also has a moat. Maybe there are wooden spikes set up to discourage predation. Even without extra defenses, though, when an owlbear comes up to the village wall, ten or twenty farmers, quivering in fear, start stabbing at it with sharpened farm implements (also called crude pole arms), carefully staying out of its reach.

Eventually, the owlbear gets sick of being poked and goes looking for some easier prey, such as a normal bear or something.

Meanwhile, the orc raiders get better pickings by attacking traveling merchants. The village has just about zero hard cash and loot. You want money? Raid merchants. You want turnips? Raid the village.

When something too big or mean for the villagers to fend off arrives, it's time to look for adventurers to help out. Or else the village becomes yet another one of those hundreds of ruins that adventurers find everywhere.

 

[steeldragons]

There are a few general things to consider...

1) The settlement has a reason for being there. Farming is the most common, but far from filling all of the needs of society. Maybe it's a village in some timberlands for logging. Herding! Everyone always forgets the herding! Where is meat coming from? What types of meat? Wool for fabric and tapestries. Mining? What other goods of society can the common man provide from the outskirts of civilization?

Why do I bring this up? Because there is no formula for "monster density." The settlement has a reason for being there. The monsters need to have one too.

This, initial factor, would have a great impact. For a mining community, kobolds could be a recurring (if not constant) hazard. Mines that might be too wealthy or "delve too deep", well, we've seen what happens then. Dwarves and/or gnomes might be interested in "helping" and start moving into the area in significant numbers. Maybe a miner, unexpectently sinks a pick into a sleeping stone giant's toe. He's none too pleased to be awakened.

Farmers? Herders? Loggers? Probably not having these troubles.

Wolves (and dire wolves) will be a consistent threat to herding pastures. This might bring along or come with goblins who are interested in some fresh meat they don't have to feed/care for themselves. Or ogres...or hill giants. Were they already there or coming because they heard/found there was meat to be had?

That trading "town" (just an outpost, really) at the crossroads in the middle of nowhere, near Greymurk swamp, may have to worry about lizardmen or trolls (who are not pleased by their neighbors) or an odd reptilean infestation that occurs when the ancient black dragon moves in -or awakens, having slept through the last fifty years of the humans building their little matchstick outpost- completely unaware or unconcerned by the humanoid settlements nearby.

So, the first thing in determining how many monsters are in the area:
1) What monsters were in the area before the settlement?
and 2) Preexisting or new arrivals, WHY are there monsters there at all?

The next thing...particularly important in world development and making the idea of a formula kind of impossible...monsters can MOVE.

Maybe there weren't any threats when the village was founded. Maybe some "founding father" hero type "cleared the wilderness" [in good old school form] and made it safe...twenty/fifty/a hundred years ago. But now...

...an owlbear has wandered into the woods for a new hunting territory...then the woodsmen report seeing two..then five in a day...just like what Old Man Pappy said happened when he was "a spry young thing"! The village happens to be abutting a traditional mating area and, as every chimeric-creature sage will tell you, owlbears only mate every 20 years.

Other predatory beasts, e.g. manticores, griffons, etc... might just be "moving in" from a different area. Sure, their lair is miles away in the Onthehorizon Mountains. But flyers have/need huge swathes of hunting space. When young grow up they, typically, have to find their own territories.

Maybe the dryad and pixies just decided to keep themselves hidden from the locals and retreated deeper into the woods...or left for the woods over the next hill. Now these pesky humans are starting to build new homesteads over the hill. They moved once. Now they're ticked...and they've sent word to the druids to come "fix" things.

Maybe some orcs are moving through the region en route to some traditional wintering ground -the village is easy pickin' for supplies n' killin' stuff is always fun- or hobgoblins on a foray to assault the castle of the baron for their dark lord half the world away -this village just has the misfortune of being on the war path.

There might be a 'monster density" of "0" when the village is created...but in a living breathing world it doesn't stay that way.

A place with a preexisting "high monster density" simply wouldn't be settled...unless there was some crucial resource -or legendary power worth fighting/risking one's life for...in which case you understand that every day you are taking your life in your hands by walking outside. Such a territory might warrant an attempt to "conquer", maybe [see above regarding "clearing" the territory]...but not settled until threat levels were lowered.

 

[aramis erak]

Another "D&Dism" that evokes some degree of cognitive dissonance for me is the fact that the most powerful creatures are also the rarest.

That's not really a D&D-ism... it's a fundamental factor of carnivore and omnivore biology...

The more powerful, the more it needs to eat, the bigger its prey, and the lower its numbers must be.

That's why great whites are never going to exceed Makos, and neither exceed tuna...
That's why the racoon is always going to be more numerous than the bear. The Seagull versus the Eagle.

Being deadly takes energy.

There are some exceptions: crocodilians, due to a near perfect set of adaptations, outnumber their mammalian counterparts... but for every big croc, there's 100 smaller ones.

And when predators get too numerous, prey numbers drop radically, then the predators starve off - usually the biggest first, as the younger ones eat the juveniles of the prey, and there cease to be big ones to sustain the big predators, who have to expend more effort for less reward to simply break even...