Another Voice on this and Putting it together (Part 1)
Ok I thought I would add another voice to this facinating topic
After digesting both of these threads here is what I came up with
First my world assumptions
I don't use the adept class. I just don't see the need for it and anyway taking it out won't hurt demographics much.
Ratio of farmers to folks 3-1. This means that 25% of the people are non food producing. This ratio includes magic spells such as Plant Growth and the non canonical (but likely) crop bless
A person achieves first level at 15
A non adventuring person gains 1000 xp per year (per Sean K. Reynolds) this amount is modifed by up to plus 50% in dangerous times and -25% for sheltered folks.
ABout 10% of the population has stats suitable for adventuring classes and is likely a member of one of those those classes. his is 40% of the non farmer types BTW
Non adventurers are created either with 15-20 point buy (higher point buy for the occasional higher level types or average dice i.e. 3 six sided dice, numbered 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5. People with very feeble stats will probably die young. The occasional INT 6 type might survive but the Con3 person will likely die of a childhood ilness or something
Adventurers are created with either 4d6/keep best 3 or point buy 25+.
Thye tend to have rather high stats.
Adventurers gain XP at a higher rate than NPC classes. I would suggest tweaking this amount to suit you campaign. As an example IMC the average mage is 5th-7th and about 26 Years old-- This will very from game to game and JMO should be adjusted for campaign necessity. I would as a default assume 2000xp per year
USing the demograhics modern iceland (from
here ) as a basis our population breakdown look like this
0-14 years: 23%.
15-64 years: 65% This is the age when someone is active
65 years and over: 12%
I would adjust them to account for social differences to
0-14 years: 30% slightly bigger familes and less infant mortality. Note that some of the kids (age 12-14) may have apprentice levels in one or more classes
12-64 years: 65% This is the age when someone is active and isa at
65 years and over: 5% The toughness of medievaloid life cuts life expectancy
OK now lets do a hypothetical kingdom-- The kingdom of Examplia (population 10,000,000)
This means that in Examplia there are 6,500,000 adults age 15-65.
Of those 4,875,000 are farmers or in similar trades and live in the countryside.
These guys are probably Commoners level 1-8 averaging 3-5. A scant 10% are unusualy high level or multi classed or whatever
THe total number of PC classed folks is around 200,000 (3% of the total population)as I figure that the countyside has a decent number of Clerics, most of the Druids, Barbarians and Rangers. The other classes are more city oriented IME
In the cities lives 1625000 folks among those 7/10 of the adveturing population. Thats means 585,000 folks with adventurer classes live in the various cities. These guys cover the gamut of levels from 1-20 and up
You can plug in SJohn Ross's formula
(from here) to determine the population of the largest city in the kingdom.
This is equal to (P times M), where P is equal to the square root of the country's population, and M is equal to a roll of 2d4+10 (the average roll is 15). Be warned though, to make the formula work with the new demographic you need to triple the M factor. I would just use a base of 45
Thus in examplia the largest city is around 160,000 or twice the size of London in 1300--
If you game favors bigger cities or a different composition double or triple the city size. This will approximate 17th century London in scope.
Whew
OK Once you have the demograhics together you can set down and do the NPC's I highly recomend And Everyone Else from Ambient
http://www.dreadgazebo.com/dnd/everyone.html
Most of them you won't need to worry about, after 4,000,000 of your folks live in the country and are commoners level 1-8 averaging level 3-5.
Well the rest comes later
