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

[DND_Reborn]

Here's a screen cap from our last game that shows what dnd4vr is suggesting - I put an iPad camera by the battlemap (and joined the meeting from two devices - laptop and iPad). In Zoom, the players can double click on an attendee (including the battlemap camera) to make it full screen as necessary. It's been a straightforward way to play over Zoom without going the VTT and tools route. (Plus I get to DM Tomb of Annihilation from within the Tomb of Horrors, lol).

View attachment 121242

That's great. Yeah, with a second device that would work as well. I just have my laptop so if I wanted a camera I would have to hook up a USB camera and share that.

Have you found an easy way on Zoom to share files directly with members instead of using DropBoox, etc.? That is the only thing missing IMO that I haven't found an easy way yet. It is probably obvious, but I just haven't found it.

 

[mcosgrave]

This thread had gotten me thinking, so I took a look at some old school starting bases, Hommlet and the Keep, and compared them to Phandalin, the iconic 5E starting village. Hommlet has 20% leveled characters, including several 8th level local lords, and a 7th level druid. Keep on the Borderlands is also in the 15-20% leveled characters range, with a 6th level fighter and 5th level cleric (plus another 140 level 1 fighters as garrison). Meanwhile, Phandalin has no one with character levels - all the named people in the village are "commoners".

I was thinking about something similar, but in the case of Waterdeep (which is where this thread started 10 pages back!), there are a number of named high level characters there, but we can’t assume that —all— the high level characters are named in sourcebooks and modules? Or can we? are there likely to be other high level NPCs who are not named anywhere? I’m going to go with a ‘Yes’ on that which raises the question: How many?
If we come up with a number of high level NPCs in a city like Waterdeep, and back fill to lower levels based on calculations like those done by Mercurius :

For every 1 20th level character, there are 15 total level 17-20 characters, 1008 level 11-16 characters, 64512 level 5-10 characters, and 983040 level 1-4 characters. Or to put it another way, only about one in every 65,000 1st level characters make it to 20th level. That doesn't seem that far-fetched, if you think about it.

Then we have quite a large number of PCs in a city : larger than the 1% or 2% suggested by some posters.
I haven’t actually done the math in this yet (because I don’t have a handy list of all the named Level 20 or higher characters in Waterdeep!) but I have a feeling this explodes out to a lot of levelled folk; this would tend to support the argument that everyone has some level.
(My interest and idle speculation here is because of my party of Level 5 players in Waterdeep who’ve annoyed a lot of people; I’m trying to figure out how much trouble they are in and how likely they are to attract official attention and notoriety. I think they’re doomed though: too much time hanging out with a certain Drow! )

 

[Krachek]

I was thinking about something similar, but in the case of Waterdeep (which is where this thread started 10 pages back!), there are a number of named high level characters there, but we can’t assume that —all— the high level characters are named in sourcebooks and modules? Or can we? are there likely to be other high level NPCs who are not named anywhere? I’m going to go with a ‘Yes’ on that which raises the question: How many?
If we come up with a number of high level NPCs in a city like Waterdeep, and back fill to lower levels based on calculations like those done by Mercurius :



Then we have quite a large number of PCs in a city : larger than the 1% or 2% suggested by some posters.
I haven’t actually done the math in this yet (because I don’t have a handy list of all the named Level 20 or higher characters in Waterdeep!) but I have a feeling this explodes out to a lot of levelled folk; this would tend to support the argument that everyone has some level.
(My interest and idle speculation here is because of my party of Level 5 players in Waterdeep who’ve annoyed a lot of people; I’m trying to figure out how much trouble they are in and how likely they are to attract official attention and notoriety. I think they’re doomed though: too much time hanging out with a certain Drow! )

Some advice, DnD is not a sim game. So there is enough leveled characters of appropriate level to keep the current adventure interesting and challenging.

 

[wingsandsword]

Some advice, DnD is not a sim game. So there is enough leveled characters of appropriate level to keep the current adventure interesting and challenging.

Some people like the worldbuilding and demographics.

There's more than one style of DM'ing. A more hands-off, free-form DMing style wouldn't worry about it, but other DM's like that kind of analysis and fiddly-bits management of the world.

There's a reason that official demographics rules about how common are characters of various levels has been published in multiple editions of the game (in High Level Campaigns for 2nd edition, and in the 3e/3.5e DMG as core rules), and that's something that some players and DM's like and find interesting.

 

[Krachek]

Some people like the worldbuilding and demographics.

There's more than one style of DM'ing. A more hands-off, free-form DMing style wouldn't worry about it, but other DM's like that kind of analysis and fiddly-bits management of the world.

There's a reason that official demographics rules about how common are characters of various levels has been published in multiple editions of the game (in High Level Campaigns for 2nd edition, and in the 3e/3.5e DMG as core rules), and that's something that some players and DM's like and find interesting.

I know some DM like demographic and precise world building, myself I have done that in the past. It’s a nice hobby, but I have experiment that all these numbers don’t produce great game most of the time. Having the precise picture of all boss and high level characters in a city can help to make some trouble for a level 5 party, but it can also produce an overwhelming plot and shut down all initiatives.

 

[R_Chance]

I know some DM like demographic and precise world building, myself I have done that in the past. It’s a nice hobby, but I have experiment that all these numbers don’t produce great game most of the time. Having the precise picture of all boss and high level characters in a city can help to make some trouble for a level 5 party, but it can also produce an overwhelming plot and shut down all initiatives.

This is a thread on demographics (titled "What proportion of the population are adventurers?"), so... all about the fidly bits and worldbuilding

 

[R_Chance]

I was thinking about something similar, but in the case of Waterdeep (which is where this thread started 10 pages back!), there are a number of named high level characters there, but we can’t assume that —all— the high level characters are named in sourcebooks and modules? Or can we? are there likely to be other high level NPCs who are not named anywhere? I’m going to go with a ‘Yes’ on that which raises the question: How many?
If we come up with a number of high level NPCs in a city like Waterdeep, and back fill to lower levels based on calculations like those done by Mercurius :



Then we have quite a large number of PCs in a city : larger than the 1% or 2% suggested by some posters.
I haven’t actually done the math in this yet (because I don’t have a handy list of all the named Level 20 or higher characters in Waterdeep!) but I have a feeling this explodes out to a lot of levelled folk; this would tend to support the argument that everyone has some level.
(My interest and idle speculation here is because of my party of Level 5 players in Waterdeep who’ve annoyed a lot of people; I’m trying to figure out how much trouble they are in and how likely they are to attract official attention and notoriety. I think they’re doomed though: too much time hanging out with a certain Drow! )

I've always assumed that large wealthy locations that are transportation hubs are going to draw a higher percent of the adventuring population than some dusty village in the farm belt. That's always been my go to reason for a higher proportion of mid to high level characters in a city like Waterdeep.

 

[Zardnaar]

Somewhere between one in a thousand or one in ten thousand.

We have a real life example with Spain. In 1492 I think Castile had a population of 4 million and Aragon about a million iirc.

A few hundred were willing to go fight the Aztecs. They looted a lot of gold attracting more so over the next few decades hundreds went and explored/conquered the Amazon, Peru, Florida etc.

This probably added up to a few thousand in multiple expeditions.

 

[Zsong]

Heck my pc’s aren’t even adventurers. They’re just trying to survive.

 

[Krachek]

This is a thread on demographics (titled "What proportion of the population are adventurers?"), so... all about the fidly bits and worldbuilding

So I will give my first law of demographic for DnD,
for any size of a location, there is always at least one group or individual rival, and one possible ally or in need for help.