Fixing the DMG Demographics

[Xeriar]

It depends on what CR you give the commoner, of course. In my program they might make it to level 3 before croaking, if they're lucky. I didn't figure that was too big of a deal.

As the commoner ages, his tasks and challenges change and grow, too - raising children, maybe grandchildren, learning the subtler ways of the world.

 

[GuardianLurker]

This is a topic that I've given some thought to over the years, and am still modifying my views... One thing I haven't seen anyone mention is the "law of diminishing returns" effect of CR's; namely that as you go up in level you get less XP for common challenges.

Not directly, no. But that exact effect is what a number of us have been trying to emulate with our non-linear advancement rates.

As for the rates, I think we can safely ignor the futuristic populations (of many billions) that we see in the Star Wars and Dragonstar variants of d20. I think this is much more useful within the fantasy scale. Of course, we could always try to address the high-stat&high-level NPCs that would be a consequence of such a high population, but I'd rather leave that for later.

 

[GuardianLurker]

*bump*

Are we really done here?

No one has any further comments, ideas?

 

[willpax]

I have found this thread to be very interesting, but don't have much to add to it.

I've always started with where I wanted basic competence. Assuming a +10 to a skill allows the character to accomplish most mundane tasks with ease, and that 6 skill ranks, skill focus (I use the variant +3 to one skill or +2 to two related skils), and some basic talent (+1 or +2 stat bonus) is sufficient to accomplsih that. Therefore, I want most of my adult population to be levels 3 or 4.

It is also my assumption that most people don't go out of their way to really challenge themselves, so that Kid Charlemagne's observation about there being a point at which experience point accrual slows considerably fits with my assumptions. I don't have elves (I do, but they are immortal demigod-type beings that I would no sooner allow to be a PC class than I would a dragon), so the milder advantages of halflings and dwarves don't upset the balance too much.

Unfortunately for this thread, I've never bothered trying to make a mathematical formula to reflect all this. I assume roughly 15% at first and second level (young apprentices and those with less aptitude for learning), 30% at third and 20% at fourth level (the bulk of the adult population), with the remaining 20% spread out among the other levels (the bulk of them 5th or 6th). This "talented fifth" tend to be the wise elders or those who have continuously sought out challenges (like the PCs). Demihuman populations will have these ratios shifted one or two levels higher, but tend to have much lower overall populations.

One untested assumption: why should we assume that the overall population gets their stats distributed according to the same random spread as the PC's? I think we could just as easily assume that most normal people inhabit the thick part of the bell curve (a narrower distribution), with most people having only +1 or +2 bonuses. The PCs are special, after all.

 

[Xeriar]

Re: *bump*

Are we really done here?

No one has any further comments, ideas?

I'm still programming. Some interesting observations to be made about the top 1% of a given population...

 

[S'mon]

I tend to assume NPCs use 3d6 on average while PCs and elite NPCs occupy the top part of the bell curve, reflected in their rolling eg 4d6, drop lowest. For NPCS I'd treat a skill bonus of 10 as an expert, eg a master craftsman, who could be either unusually skilled - level 1 Expert, stat 18, 4 ranks & Skill Focus - given .5% of the population have 18 in any particular stat - or else have worked very hard - giving him a level higher than 1.

 

[GuardianLurker]

Restating the assumptions

OK, going back to the original goals, here's what I've understood from the discussion:

1) Ratio of farmers/commoners to non-farmers/commoners:
This ranges from 15:1 (for extremely primitive and hard agriculture) through 9:1 (typical medieval european) to 4:1 (Civil War era US), or stated in terms of percentages from 97% through 90% to 80%. Our general conclusion seems to be that magic use could shave another 5-20% from that, depending on the levels of magic. High levels of magic also seem to imply high numbers of elite PCs, so these should probably be directly related.

1b) The PC classes seem to range from 1-5% of the total population. 1% is roughly the 1e ratio, and represents a fairly fairly low (though full access) level of magic. Oathbound (an epic setting designed to handle extremely high power levels) quotes a 5%. The remainder would be the other NPC classes.

This does assume that the non-farming commoners and the farming commoners are a wash. OTOH, I'm not sure how big a difference it makes, since that lower boundary doesn't affect the PC/NPC boundary.

I'd also suggest the following mapping:
Magic Level__PC %__Base Ratio Improvement
Low________1_____5-8%
Medium_____2_____9-11%
High_______3_____12-14%
Ex. High____4_____15-17%
Absolute___5______18-20%

2) The corresponding ratio of each NPC class to each other.
3) The corresponding ratio of each PC class to each other.
Still not completely know, but seasong's "rarity" analysis should give the overall results.

4) The mortality/advancement curves for each class.
The overall agreement seems to be that some CR-based curve (with diminishing returns) is the answer, and that the peak numbers (median, mode, or mean) should be in the level 3-5 range. I'd suggest pegging it at 5, as this is an EL +4 counter for a LV1 party.

5) The settlement size divisions.
Still seems to be some question here: the standard pseudo-medieval city caps out somewhere between 50-100K. However, the large teeming fantasy metropolis (Ed Greenwood aside) seems to be a popular fantasy trope, and I just can't seem to reconcile 30K (the size of my home-cow-tipping-town) with "teeming metropolis".

6) The ratio of size & number of settlements (i.e for every N thorps, yo have 1 village, or such like)
Again, mostly done, though the ones we have don't seem to capture everything we need them to.

7) Distilling all that into handy-dandy charts.
We're getting a LOT closer.

Did I miss anything?

 

[S'mon]

Re: Restating the assumptions

I'd also suggest the following mapping:
Magic Level__PC %__Base Ratio Improvement
Low________1_____5-8%

Yep, that fits my campaign world Ea, which started life as a 1e AD&D world, pretty well. As far as metropoli go, the campaign culture is as much Romanesque as medieval, and the largest city, Imarr, has a population of a million or so, equivalent to Rome or Byzantium at their height. Geographically Imarr has hundreds of miles of extremely fertile alluvial grain fields, similar to Fritz Leiber's Lankhmar, so it doesn't need to import large amounts of food in the manner of Rome. Ea still stretches real world paradigms though, but as you say, a 5-8% extra non-farming population (20% instead of 12%, say) seems right for my world.

I'd somewhat take issue with the idea that the modal level for NPCs should be assumed to be higher than 1, this is such a long way away from the DMG. The DMG demographics are screwy, but different people use different elements of them - eg some have 99% of NPCs be 1st level, some have lots of ultra-high-level NPCs, some have magic shops on every street corner, some have no cities bigger than 25,000 or so, and so on. Maybe some even have large towns and cities with more wealth than the US Federal Reserve.

I do wonder though, does anyone anywhere use the DMG demographics exactly as written?

 

[Xeriar]

Re: Restating the assumptions

1) Ratio of farmers/commoners to non-farmers/commoners:
This ranges from 15:1 (for extremely primitive and hard agriculture) through 9:1 (typical medieval european) to 4:1 (Civil War era US), or stated in terms of percentages from 97% through 90% to 80%. Our general conclusion seems to be that magic use could shave another 5-20% from that, depending on the levels of magic. High levels of magic also seem to imply high numbers of elite PCs, so these should probably be directly related.

Italy got to 3:2 during the end of the Renaissance - it's more than a 'fertility of the land' thing, it also has to do with political management of food (ie, don't drive away those who would try to sell food...)

1b) The PC classes seem to range from 1-5% of the total population. 1% is roughly the 1e ratio, and represents a fairly fairly low (though full access) level of magic. Oathbound (an epic setting designed to handle extremely high power levels) quotes a 5%. The remainder would be the other NPC classes.

1% is roughly 36 point buy at the bottom end (in a random population generated via 3d6), 4d6/25 point buy is more apt to the top 10% or so.

4) The mortality/advancement curves for each class.
The overall agreement seems to be that some CR-based curve (with diminishing returns) is the answer, and that the peak numbers (median, mode, or mean) should be in the level 3-5 range. I'd suggest pegging it at 5, as this is an EL +4 counter for a LV1 party.

Diminishing returns are unnecessary - at least if you work things right.

5) The settlement size divisions.
Still seems to be some question here: the standard pseudo-medieval city caps out somewhere between 50-100K. However, the large teeming fantasy metropolis (Ed Greenwood aside) seems to be a popular fantasy trope, and I just can't seem to reconcile 30K (the size of my home-cow-tipping-town) with "teeming metropolis".

Venice and Moscow topped out at around 200,000 people, IIRC.

But it takes halfway to FOREVER to generate and organize that many people. Got to get off my butt and use a quicksort

 

[Xeriar]

But it takes halfway to FOREVER to generate and organize that many people. Got to get off my butt and use a quicksort

Okay, it can now make a hundred thousand people with impunity

Takes 180 megs of RAM though... :-/