I'm curious about how the populations of your D&D worlds break down, in terms of the core PC and NPC classes (PrCs are probably a whole other ball o' wax).
In another thread, someone wondered why spears are used so infrequently in D&D, as opposed to swords. The answer, it seems to me, is "because in real life, swords are far superior weapons, but most warriors/soldiers/fighters didn't know how to use them." This got me to thinking.
Player Characters, regardless of Experience Level, must be one-in-a-thousand, even within their field of expertise. How many "Fighters" would one find on a medieval battlefield? Heck, even NPC "Warriors" are dedicated, professional soldiers, if only for one sentence: "The Warrior is proficient in the use of all simple and martial weapons and all armor and shields." Yikes. The English longbowman, one of the classic warrior archetypes, would probably be a Commoner, distinguished by having a 14 Strength and 'Martial Weapon Proficiency - Longbow.'
It's easy to extend this line of thought to other vocations: How many people in the clergy are Clerics? How many are even Adepts? From a semi-realistic p.o.v., most of them would be Commoners whose only claim to fame is that they can read. How many criminals would know how to pick a lock? I imagine most thieves are just people with low scruples and a certain amount of chutzpah.
The magical classes are trickier, of course. If one assumes that they follow the general trends of the other classes, what do you get? What happens if you assume that they don't follow the general trends of the other classes? Do wizards rule the world? Well, that might be another topic altogether...
In another thread, someone wondered why spears are used so infrequently in D&D, as opposed to swords. The answer, it seems to me, is "because in real life, swords are far superior weapons, but most warriors/soldiers/fighters didn't know how to use them." This got me to thinking.
Player Characters, regardless of Experience Level, must be one-in-a-thousand, even within their field of expertise. How many "Fighters" would one find on a medieval battlefield? Heck, even NPC "Warriors" are dedicated, professional soldiers, if only for one sentence: "The Warrior is proficient in the use of all simple and martial weapons and all armor and shields." Yikes. The English longbowman, one of the classic warrior archetypes, would probably be a Commoner, distinguished by having a 14 Strength and 'Martial Weapon Proficiency - Longbow.'
It's easy to extend this line of thought to other vocations: How many people in the clergy are Clerics? How many are even Adepts? From a semi-realistic p.o.v., most of them would be Commoners whose only claim to fame is that they can read. How many criminals would know how to pick a lock? I imagine most thieves are just people with low scruples and a certain amount of chutzpah.
The magical classes are trickier, of course. If one assumes that they follow the general trends of the other classes, what do you get? What happens if you assume that they don't follow the general trends of the other classes? Do wizards rule the world? Well, that might be another topic altogether...
