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

[LostSoul]

You might want to check out this blog post:

http://hillcantons.blogspot.ca/2012/08/ad-apocalypse-and-hereafter.html

and the others under the same label. I found them interesting. A snippet:

“When the Invoked Devastation came upon the Baklunish, their own magi brought down the Rain of Colorless Fire in a last terrible curse, and this so affected the Suloise Empire as to cause it to become the Sea of Dust.”
- World of Greyhawk (1980)

“And no bells tolled and nobody wept no matter what his loss because almost everyone expected death...And people said and believed, 'this is the end of the world.'”
- Agnolo Tura of Siena (mid-14th century)

I've circled around the margins of theme before—as have a few others—but there is a heady whiff of apocalypse in old school D&D. It's seen not just in the rather obvious stock elements--the countless ruins, the lost artifacts, the former sprawl of civilization lost to the wilds—but hard-coded throughout the rules proper whenever broad human society is involved.

The closer in I go with this AD&D exegesis the more I see this perspective reinforced in spades.

Let's get started by bouncing back to an unlikely place, the Encounters section of the DMG (Appendix C) to pick apart a peculiar section on outdoor encounters (pages 182-183).

Civilization: A Thin Red Line
For starters you get smacked over the head with how desperate life must be even inside the few “inhabited” zones of the implied world. For you see with every encounter rolled in such areas, there is a full 25% chance that the random encounter table should be utterly ignored and a patrol encountered instead.

And by patrol we are not talking about a small group of muddling watch or a handful of tax collectors/wardens, we are talking armed-to-the-teeth, recon in force.​

 

[transtemporal]

So the inquiry is this: in terms of verisimilitude and some semblance of "fantasy realism," what is the proper ratio of "monster density" and population centers in a wilderness area? What sort of protection would a settlement need? It just seems to me that D&D campaign worlds, especially of the "points of light" variety, tend to eschew any sense of fantasy realism, and instead just offer a setting that is playable for D&D. Nothing wrong with that, but I so much enjoy the artistic aspects of campaign design and like it to "feel right" aesthetically, which for me must include some degree of internal consistency, fantasy realism, etc.

Anyone thought along these lines? Any ideas?

I have put some thought into this on my campaign worlds. Monsters in my worlds are part of an ecological system with normal animals and other monsters in which they prey on each other as much as they might prey on adventurers or villagers, especially since gatherings of two-legs can be quite dangerous. Its easier to go after something that won't fight back. They certainly don't spawn at the edge of the village, then automatically attack the nearest villager as they would in an MMO.

Intelligent monsters are different and I think villages would have trackers and hunters that would watch for signs of these monsters pretty diligently. They'd be watching for your garden variety orcs & goblins but also bigger, nastier things and trying to determine whether they're a threat to the village or not. If they were, they might circle the wagons to show they weren't going to be easy target and encourage the monster to move on. Or if the threat was too dire, they might just abandon the village. In a few rare instances, they might try to kill the monster themselves.

In addition, I figured that intelligent evil monsters were at least as focused on their own internal politics, tribal squabbles and intermonster hatreds as they were on the 'good' races. They don't hover around the edges of the map, Middle Earth style, making unlikely alliances with each other (unless they're being driven by a dark power).

 

[TerraDave]

Weird...a reply disappeared. Will post later.

I saw it thanks to the mention, without seeing it!

It showed up eventually.

I do think I almost blew up the thread.

 

[transtemporal]

They did keep one bloke from opening a waterskiing school on the lake iirc.

Heh, that appeals to me. Big incentive to stay on the skis.

 

[Hussar]

Something to consider is the simple tactics of things. If you are assaulting a dug in position, you want about a 3:1 advantage in numbers. Less than that and you are likely going to take some pretty unacceptable losses.

So, a dozen orc raiders aren't likely to attack a town, it would be suicide, even though they would probably kill a few people first. That outlying farm? Maybe, but, then again, that outlying farm has a family and a couple of farm hands, so, even there, you might have half a dozen combatants protecting the farm. You'd really want about 20 orcs to attack that farm just to be on the safe side that you aren't going to lose half your numbers in the assault.

A town? Even something with a simple wall - which in any situation like this, it would at the very lease have a palisade wall, you're looking at attacking with hundreds of orcs - far beyond the capabilities of any single orc group by and large.

So, unless someone starts unifying the humanoids on a fairly large scale, most towns would be pretty safe. Travel might be very difficult, and there might be sniping at the edges, but, by and large, both sides recognise that neither has the numbers to gain a strong upper hand.

 

[Grainger]

Something to consider is the simple tactics of things. If you are assaulting a dug in position, you want about a 3:1 advantage in numbers. Less than that and you are likely going to take some pretty unacceptable losses.

So, a dozen orc raiders aren't likely to attack a town, it would be suicide, even though they would probably kill a few people first. That outlying farm? Maybe, but, then again, that outlying farm has a family and a couple of farm hands, so, even there, you might have half a dozen combatants protecting the farm. You'd really want about 20 orcs to attack that farm just to be on the safe side that you aren't going to lose half your numbers in the assault.

A town? Even something with a simple wall - which in any situation like this, it would at the very lease have a palisade wall, you're looking at attacking with hundreds of orcs - far beyond the capabilities of any single orc group by and large.

So, unless someone starts unifying the humanoids on a fairly large scale, most towns would be pretty safe. Travel might be very difficult, and there might be sniping at the edges, but, by and large, both sides recognise that neither has the numbers to gain a strong upper hand.

...but while the peasants are out in the fields, they're vulnerable. OK, they have farming implements to use as weapons (and if this is reasonably close to real medieval, farming implements is pretty much the best they have anyway), but they're dispersed, and without fortifications... unless they put palisades around all their fields. So I'd imagine they're toast, even to a small group of reasonably organised raiders.

OK, some monsters might be active only at night, while the farmers are safe in their fortified farmsteads, but others could just as easily rampage around in the day when the peasants need to be out in the fields. If the people are scared to do the farming, they hide in their fortified farmsteads/towns, and the farming doesn't get done. And while they hide indoors, the enemies burn whatever crops they have planted. The people starve, including the Knightly class, and the medieval society collapses.

It's true that a nation could survive this (large parts of medieval France were pillaged by wandering English armies in the 100 years war, and France survived), but not if it was sustained, and widespread, with groups of Kobolds, Orcs, Bugbears, Goblins, Hobgoblins, Ogres etc. all independently raiding the countryside, not to mention more bestial creatures such as Owlbears preying on farmers. Remember, we've got a whole Monster Manual of creatures to unleash on our poor medieval farmers. And that's before we even get to the lower medium-powered monsters...

 

[GreenTengu]

Something to consider is the simple tactics of things. If you are assaulting a dug in position, you want about a 3:1 advantage in numbers. Less than that and you are likely going to take some pretty unacceptable losses.

So, a dozen orc raiders aren't likely to attack a town, it would be suicide, even though they would probably kill a few people first. That outlying farm? Maybe, but, then again, that outlying farm has a family and a couple of farm hands, so, even there, you might have half a dozen combatants protecting the farm. You'd really want about 20 orcs to attack that farm just to be on the safe side that you aren't going to lose half your numbers in the assault.

A town? Even something with a simple wall - which in any situation like this, it would at the very lease have a palisade wall, you're looking at attacking with hundreds of orcs - far beyond the capabilities of any single orc group by and large.

So, unless someone starts unifying the humanoids on a fairly large scale, most towns would be pretty safe. Travel might be very difficult, and there might be sniping at the edges, but, by and large, both sides recognise that neither has the numbers to gain a strong upper hand.

No, they don't need to. Not at all. Not even remotely close.

You seem to be of the mindset that the Orcs are going to send a messenger the day before to announce that they are going to show up the next day at dawn and so everyone in that farm or in that town ought to grab their weapons and be ready to fight to the death to defend it. Why do you think that is going to happen?

Real life raiders have NEVER needed 1/3rd the number as the people they were attacking and here we are talking about a race of people who are bigger, stronger, tougher and generally way more menacing than the people they are attacking.

You think they are going to give a formal warning for people to prepare for them? Hell no they aren't. They are going to hit them fast and hard before they have any chance to prepare and grab their weapons and strap on armor and arrange themselves in a defensive formation.

You think they are going to attack in broad daylight? Hell no! They can see damn near perfect at night while the humans can't see 5' in front of their face. Orcs are plenty smart enough to comprehend that humans fight like crap during the night.

And you think FARMHANDS are going to stick around and throw their lives down needlessly to stop a few Orcs from grabbing as much food as they can carry and running off? What kind of suicidal idiot would do that?!

And these farmers and farmhands.. they aren't adventurers. They don't have adventurer levels. They haven't trained in or experienced any combat. And they almost certainly don't live their whole lives walking around in armor and keeping martial weapons at hand. Even if they did fight, at best they are fighting like Wizards without any spells. Meanwhile the Orc raiders are almost certainly level 2-3 fighters since they kind of do this whole raiding thing "professionally".

You don't need 7 Orcs to take out a farmer and 20 farm hands. 3 Orcs could easily slaughter and scatter them all without any casualties. The first few farmhands aren't even going to have time to grab weapons, they are either going to have to run screaming or stand there in stunned silents pissing themselves before their short lives are ended. Remember, if the attack happens during the day then the farmhands are going to be scattered around the farm, so they will not at all be in position to assist one another. Maybe they could be all gathered up if they were sleeping when the Orcs attack at night... but then why do the Orcs even need to attack? They can just steal the food right from the fields and no one would be the wiser until morning. Even after they are alerted, they are going to have to go running for something they can use as weapons and chances are the Orcs are going to get a few more of them before they get there.

Most of the remaining farmhands will probably go fleeing for town since they have no need to die over a damn seasonal job. That leaves only the farmer if he is fool hardy enough to try to die protecting his farm. That leaves you with a level 1 guy with no armor and a crappy weapon against 3 level 2-3s who have at best taken minor wounds rooting all the CR 0s.

And that is assuming that the Orcs attack the farm in such small numbers. If the goal is to raid food for the whole tribe, why not bring as many able bodies Orcs as you have.

As for attacking the town? Utterly unnecessary. Sure, I suppose they could do that and maybe, given their nature, they might eventually go ahead and do that just to see if they can. Even if they take some casualties, well it just means more honor for the survivors.

But, in the meantime, they are free to attack all those CR 0 humans laden with food and treasure traveling around the town. They enrich themselves and the town will eventually get starved out of existence. Remember, the people in the town need to eat and if raiders are constantly stealing their food, then the whole town falls apart defensive wall or not.

 

[Zardnaar]

...but while the peasants are out in the fields, they're vulnerable. OK, they have farming implements to use as weapons (and if this is reasonably close to real medieval, farming implements is pretty much the best they have anyway), but they're dispersed, and without fortifications... unless they put palisades around all their fields. So I'd imagine they're toast, even to a small group of reasonably organised raiders.

OK, some monsters might be active only at night, while the farmers are safe in their fortified farmsteads, but others could just as easily rampage around in the day when the peasants need to be out in the fields. If the people are scared to do the farming, they hide in their fortified farmsteads/towns, and the farming doesn't get done. And while they hide indoors, the enemies burn whatever crops they have planted. The people starve, including the Knightly class, and the medieval society collapses.

It's true that a nation could survive this (large parts of medieval France were pillaged by wandering English armies in the 100 years war, and France survived), but not if it was sustained, and widespread, with groups of Kobolds, Orcs, Bugbears, Goblins, Hobgoblins, Ogres etc. all independently raiding the countryside, not to mention more bestial creatures such as Owlbears preying on farmers. Remember, we've got a whole Monster Manual of creatures to unleash on our poor medieval farmers. And that's before we even get to the lower medium-powered monsters...

And that is what adventurers are for. Or the militia and knights or the local baron etc etc etc. Something like a large river (Rhine/Danube) would also help.

 

[Savage Wombat]

I dunno - being a raider is like being a large predator (like a lion). You have to kill something to eat every single time. You can't afford to fight something that could even conceivably kill or badly injure you.

On that note, the food chain on most D&D words is just as out of whack. Can the average hillside really support enough rabbits to keep a whole pack of displacer beasts fed? Shouldn't they be spread out with one beast having a range of a couple of miles to herself?

 

[transtemporal]

You think they are going to give a formal warning for people to prepare for them? Hell no they aren't. They are going to hit them fast and hard before they have any chance to prepare and grab their weapons and strap on armor and arrange themselves in a defensive formation.

You think they are going to attack in broad daylight? Hell no! They can see damn near perfect at night while the humans can't see 5' in front of their face. Orcs are plenty smart enough to comprehend that humans fight like crap during the night.

No of course not, but people aren't stupid. I imagine people who live in isolated towns/villages on the border of a kingdom live in a state of heightened awareness of danger. You don't just sit in your village waiting for people to attack you. They will have scouts, rangers or patrols ranging for signs of raiders or other threats. Unless the invading force is supernatural ing ninjas, the villagers will have plenty of warning of an enemy advance.

And sure, people can be lazy. If an attack has never happened before, then maybe a village wouldn't see a need to have these defenses. But if they have been attacked before and they still don't have any way to detect a possible attack, I would seriously question the logic of the game world.