D&D General Need wheat. Too dangerous. (worldbuilding)

[Zubatcarteira]

I'd go with introducing some Bread Elemental hunts.

 

[Krachek]

DnD is full of suspension of belief subject and they can be used to make interesting world building rather than stuck on a none sense situation.

Protect the field, so we need watch tower, militia, patrols.
Who are the farmer? Expendable slave? Or revered citizen trained to work under difficult conditions?
Special shock troops, a Knight order sworn to protect the land and the farmers.
High magic that make repulsive effect on great distance?

 

[Umbran]

Protect the field, so we need watch tower, militia, patrols.

While sometimes burning fields was a thing in times of war, monsters aren't likely to actually try to damage crops - the vulnerable bits are the people.

So, in terms of efficiency - a watch tower, standing militia, and regular patrols may be more expensive than a simple set of Sending Stones to alert the local Sheriff, or whatnot.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Agriculture cannot co-exists with large quantities of rampaging monsters. You are completely right about this. This means that there has to be "civilized" areas where agriculture is possible. Areas with lots of monsters simply don't have a lot of humans living there. It's "the wilderness".

I think this is entirely up to the world builder. We can say in human history there are general rules about where people live (settlements tend to built near rivers and lakes) but those rules are often worked around through resourcefulness and cleverness on the part of humans. There are always exceptions to the rules even in our real world. But in a fantasy world, you don't have to abide by such rules: it is fiction, and how important it is to cleave to that is entirely up to the person making the world (a lot of early fantasy is about breaking the laws of logic, reality, and applying things like dream logic). But even so, all it takes is the decision of the world builder to say something like 'monsters are common here, but they don't tend to attack settlements or farmland for X reason'.

Don't get me wrong, I think these are interesting ideas to ponder in a setting, and I think it is useful to set up restrictions for ones setting based on these kinds of criticisms (i.e. where are the monsters exactly, why are they not imposing themselves on this remote city all the time, etc). But those don't have to be important questions for every setting. I think we run the risk of settings getting very dull and homogenous when we are all answering the same set of criteria surrounding realism (and sometimes that simply isn't what the world builder is interested in even addressing).

 

[MGibster]

Protect the field, so we need watch tower, militia, patrols.
Who are the farmer? Expendable slave? Or revered citizen trained to work under difficult conditions?
Special shock troops, a Knight order sworn to protect the land and the farmers.
High magic that make repulsive effect on great distance?

The legitimacy of any political entity is predicated, in part at least, on its ability to protect their subjects/citizens from outside forces. Political leaders who won't or can't protect their realm probably won't remain political leaders for very long. So you're right, they're going to have some sort of system in place designed to protect them from outsiders (and insiders too). In most D&D settings, they can probably stop most of the big raids for ever happening but you're always going to have a few slip through the cracks. Those are the ones the PCs are going after.

 

[Bedrockgames]

DnD is full of suspension of belief subject and they can be used to make interesting world building rather than stuck on a none sense situation.

Protect the field, so we need watch tower, militia, patrols.
Who are the farmer? Expendable slave? Or revered citizen trained to work under difficult conditions?
Special shock troops, a Knight order sworn to protect the land and the farmers.
High magic that make repulsive effect on great distance?

I do like these kinds of thought experiments. And I think they can be lots of fun, add a lot to a setting. I tend to focus a lot on mercantile and trade realism in my home settings. Where it becomes an issue is when its viewed as mandatory. And there is a trade off. When you make a setting that answers all these questions, it is going to take a very particular shape and have a certain feel. And that is good if its a feel you want. But if you just want big cities in the wilderness without stuff like special shock troops, it is going to be less enjoyable for you.

 

[MGibster]

So, in terms of efficiency - a watch tower, standing militia, and regular patrols may be more expensive than a simple set of Sending Stones to alert the local Sheriff, or whatnot.

And once again, I'm reminded of just what a game changer magic would be.

 

[Bedrockgames]

While sometimes burning fields was a ting in times of war, monsters aren't likely to actually try to damage crops - the vulnerable bits are the people.

There are already plenty of real world things that pose threats to crops. We aren't worried so much about monstrous animals with crops and livestock, we are worried about locusts, blight, coyotes and wolves. Just because a monster is supernatural or something that doesn't exist on our world, doesn't mean it has to pose a risk to the farmland itself (unless it really likes wheat or corn).

If you really need a wheat eating monsters, maybe the monster prefers bread and it would rather let the humans process the wheat for it? So it poses a risk to people in the homes at night (like a bear breaking in for some food), but not the fields themselves

 

[Bedrockgames]

I'd go with introducing some Bread Elemental hunts.

Bread that screams when you chew it would be an interesting entry to the monster manual

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I've been having a suspension of belief recently over a commodity that is buyable just about anywhere - bread.

Here's what got me stuck:

1. Bread is a cheap, freely available staple food.
2. You need huge fields outside the walls to make lots of bread.
3. Huge fields outside the walls will inevitably be attacked and overrun.
4. No more bread.

Assuming 1-3 to be true, how do you fix this problem while keeping bread generally cheap and plentiful?

Long distance trade from a fabled land of wheat where there are no monsters? Dwarven underdark wheat, grown in deep basements, if there is such a thing?
I'm just drawing a blank, since every town should be surrounded by acres and acres of wheat fields, and so many places in many different settings, that just isn't possible. 1 cup of flour would need maybe three square feet of wheat plants. That's an awful lot of land to protect.

ideas pls?

Why is #3 correct?

Farms tended to be clustered near castles for a reason. So if raiders attacked, the farmers could at least take shelter.

Unintelligent rampaging monsters probably aren't interested in wheat.

Non-farming intelligent monsters might know to raid farms, although such cultures are not present everywhere there are farms. D&D often occurs in weakly-held "border regions" for this kind of reason (not enough soldiers, so you hire adventurers). Monsters might steal wheat during harvest season, or burn crops. The best "cure" to this is proactive war, pushing the monsters away from areas you are claiming. While the lords don't farm themselves, they own farms and their peasants pay their taxes in farm goods. Lords can't ignore farm raids as this impacts their income, which impacts their military strength (lords often went into debt to fulfill their military obligations). Failing to control the monsters would push the frontiers backwards, and this undoubtedly happened in real life. ("Farms were wrecked three years in a row. We give up.")

I once used this as a plot in a D&D game. Goblins lived near a human/half-elf farming community where the PCs lived. Goblins don't farm, but there were "too many goblins". The goblins had found an artifact which replicated food, enabling them to reach numerical parity. After some investigation and a battle, the PCs got their hands on it. Needless to say, suddenly hungry goblins showed up in large numbers. The PCs brokered a deal: they would teach goblins to farm. Specifically young, impressionable heirs to their throne. The goblins were miffed that the PCs held physical possession of the artifact, but they shared food per the agreement.