Area of a medieval town?

[Keith Robinson]

Hey, there's some good stuff here. Thanks

Firstly, I should say to the OP that I wouldn't worry too much about realism, as it is more about getting together a backdrop that suits the needs of your game and your players. Most people don't really care about what the reality is so long as it feels real to them.

Having said that, reflecting on the real world is a great way to improve your skills when constructing urban centers.

Here are a few websites that might offer additional insight:

Medieval England - Medieval towns - a look at daily life in a medieval town, which is easy to read and offers a lot of insight without being overly detailed.

Medieval Towns - supplies some historical data (or lack of it!) of medieval towns and looks briefly at why towns were likely to emerge and what it might be like to live in one.

Medieval Life - Towns and Villages - just a fun look at what you might need if you were going to build a town in medieval times. Just some things to think of when designing your own.

http://ads.ahds.ac.uk/catalogue/adsdata/arch-769-1/ahds/dissemination/pdf/vol06-07/6_202_239.pdf [PDF, 2.4 meg] - a very detailed look at medieval houses, which includes sketches. Probably more info than you need, but still offers some interesting insights.

And here's a list of medieval jobs for commoners and experts from my own site, which might help fill some stuff out

 

[gizmo33]

I am in agreement here. I did explore the magicpseudohistorical arms race, and that is actually when I stopped It became a case of "where do you draw the line".

I draw the line where it's sufficient for me to give the players some idea that there's a possible reason why castles exist in the world, for example.

If you have both a "rock to mud" spell and an "anti-rock to mud" spell existing in the world, then I think it's easier to argue that somehow castles are a believable part of a fantasy world. Players who know that taking down a castle is probably not as simple as walking up to it and hitting it with a single spell can believe, IMO, that castles are useful enough to justify their cost.

All I need for my game is enough uncertaintly that player's don't see taking down a castle as some sort of freebie. I also don't hesitate to inform the players that there are spells, rituals, and materials that counter-act various spell effects.

Like every other aspect of world-building and DMing, I only feel the need to develop the particulars to the degree that the players want to investigate the situation (or as time and my own curiosity permits).

 

[Treebore]

Being a simulationist, and someone that studies history in depth, I used to ponder this all the time. In fact, I was at one point ready to get rid of a fantasy Icon... the castle because magic made castles even more obsolete than did the bombard. With flying creatures and spells there was no purpose to walls or moats. One Rock to mud spell was more valuable than any trebuchet.

Simply I STOPPED pondering these things. I still have tons of castles, even though air attacks are possible. My campaign is still a western medieval world even though magic would render it obsolete. I found it was no longer fun to make things technical. At that moment I was even able to watch star trek again without complaining about impossible molecular biology.

I research history, and I am a scientist by profession. I frequently have to leave those disciplines behind just so I can enjoy the game without worrying about technicalities.

Still it is very hard for simulationists to do that.

I agree, I too am a "scientist" in that I have a BS in Psychology and Biology, and by virtue of being married to my wife, who has degrees in history, biology, and other degrees, I am by default somewhat of a historian myself. So it definitely would be easier to ignore the "realities" of magic in our fantasy worlds, however, like the other poster (gizmo) pointed out, that problem can be largely addressed by bringing more defensive spells into existence. Plus having some mundane tricks work, like sheets of lead, blood of gorgons in your wall cement, etc... will at least make well established and well funded towns and cities viably defendable against such assaults.

So I would like to dig out my old 1E and 2E books and find all the old defensive spells, and defensive tricks like the lead and gorgons blood, and make that a part of my campaign world again.

 

[NewJeffCT]

So I would like to dig out my old 1E and 2E books and find all the old defensive spells, and defensive tricks like the lead and gorgons blood, and make that a part of my campaign world again.

If you could find where that is, I'd love to know - I still have most of my 1E and 2E books somewhere... I could swear I remember that the blood/ichor of an umber hulk added to your walls would prevent somebody from teleporting through them - or something like that.

 

[Treebore]

If you could find where that is, I'd love to know - I still have most of my 1E and 2E books somewhere... I could swear I remember that the blood/ichor of an umber hulk added to your walls would prevent somebody from teleporting through them - or something like that.

Well I haven't done any research yet, but I am pretty sure they are somewhat obscure sentences in the 1E DMG. Meaning they certainly weren't written in a section where it was clearly labelled as such.

 

[AnthonyRoberson]

Well I haven't done any research yet, but I am pretty sure they are somewhat obscure sentences in the 1E DMG. Meaning they certainly weren't written in a section where it was clearly labelled as such.

It was Gorgon blood IIRC. But there is a cheaper method - vines. I don't believe you could teleport through living things, including plants...

 

[Aloïsius]

The first new fortified urbanisation during western europe middle age happened in southern France, and took the form of "circulade". It looks like this :

The outer ring of houses allowed for "easy" defence of the town.

Two centuries latter, there was a lot of "bastides" build in the south-west, because of anglo-french rivalry here. They are "squared" rather than round :

There was no fireball thrower during the middle age, but fire was a danger anyway.

 

[Treebore]

The first new fortified urbanisation during western europe middle age happened in southern France, and took the form of "circulade". It looks like this :

The outer ring of houses allowed for "easy" defence of the town.

Two centuries latter, there was a lot of "bastides" build in the south-west, because of anglo-french rivalry here. They are "squared" rather than round :

There was no fireball thrower during the middle age, but fire was a danger anyway.

Those are cool! I love Google Earth! I've been using it a lot looking at locations around the world that I am considering running my Twilight 2000/2013 game in/at.

One thing about "normal" fires, they were usually small in origin and slow moving, initially, in becoming bigger, so "fire brigades" have time to respond and get it under control and keep it under control and ultimately extinguish it. With Fireballs you have an area 40 foot in diameter to start off with, immediately, plus the fire is intense enough to incinerate people many times over, so it spreads quickly. So it is far more likely to be too big to get under control with normal fire brigades. So hopefully you have spell casters powerful enough to quickly extinguish such large fires on call. Otherwise, you better seriously consider redesigning how you lay out your towns, especially if your a town/city with a lot of "adventurers" in it. You never know when they will toss a fireball, or how many. Or at least build completely with stone and bricks to reduce the amount of ready fuel.

 

[Henrix]

One thing about "normal" fires, they were usually small in origin and slow moving, initially, in becoming bigger, so "fire brigades" have time to respond and get it under control and keep it under control and ultimately extinguish it.

Heh.

A house with a thatch roof can become a real firetrap within seconds. (Not modern houses, though, there are ways to prevent that.)

Now, your firefighting largely depends on one well within 50-100m, and as many buckets you can scrounge.
Your firefighters are volunteers, and at home sleeping.

Normal fires were not fun, nor in any way easy to control.

 

[Treebore]

Heh.

A house with a thatch roof can become a real firetrap within seconds. (Not modern houses, though, there are ways to prevent that.)

Now, your firefighting largely depends on one well within 50-100m, and as many buckets you can scrounge.
Your firefighters are volunteers, and at home sleeping.

Normal fires were not fun, nor in any way easy to control.

Yeah, my only firefighting experience was my training in the Navy, and we only did the trainer once per year. Never had to deal with thatch roofs.