D&D 5E How advanced/civilized are your cities?

[Zardnaar]

People seriously underestimate how advanced Rome was culturally and technologically. They had invented a primitive steam engine, and had Greek and Arabic math's and philosophy at their disposal that led to engineering, technical, literary, and societal accomplishments that were not seen again till the renaissance nearly one and a half thousand years later.

That thousand year gap was called the Dark ages for a reason. It was dominated by feudal bondage obligations, serfdom and thousands of squabbling warlords.

No DnD setting is based on a a feudal or medieval baseline that I know of. Not Krynn, not Faerun, not Eberron, not Mystara, not Greyhawk and not Blackmoor.

Athas is post apocalyptic really, but it's its own thing.

DnD settings tend to mirror either Golden Age Rome or renaissance/ early industrial Europe sometime after the fall of the Holy Roman Empire and the rise of Nation States, with a free working class, private armies, limited - or even quite sophisticated - democracy, market economies, modern notions of ethics and justice, advanced sewage, plumbing, and medicine, nation States with clear national boundaries and so forth.

Rome also invented apartments.

I don't expect realistic in D&D but plausible yeah.

So if you have a million person city with fast food replication using magic you could do that but wouldn't be

 

[Flamestrike]

Rome also invented apartments.

I don't expect realistic in D&D but plausible yeah.

So if you have a million person city with fast food replication using magic you could do that but wouldn't be

With the level of access to magic assumed by the default settings (casters are quite common in all published settings) you would assume some level of magical crops sustainment, agriculture, plumbing, divining and predicting the future, communication, travel, medical services, food preservation and so forth.

A King with a Cleric and Wizard on staff can literally predict the future (and act accordingly).

I mean, magic must be common, or else any idiot with access to Divination can break the stock market in half.

 

[Zardnaar]

With the level of access to magic assumed by the default settings (casters are quite common in all published settings) you would assume some level of magical crops sustainment, agriculture, plumbing, divining and predicting the future, communication, travel, medical services, food preservation and so forth.

A King with a Cleric and Wizard on staff can literally predict the future (and act accordingly).

I mean, magic must be common, or else any idiot with access to Divination can break the stock market in half.

I tend to have magic common enough that elites have access to some but for the masses not so much.

Kinda like painters in renaissance. They exist but yeah not common enough.

Some locations might be an exception but they're exactly that exceptions.

 

[Democratus]

This is a great checklist for when I make my next city!

 

[Ace]

Cool. Did you update your votes with the other features added? If not, please do, and thank you for contributing!

I did and you are welcome.

 

[Lanefan]

DnD societies are not feudal. They're not analogous to our own middle ages. They more closely mirror our own late renaissance/ early industrial age, or the prior Golden Age of Rome.

In DnD:

• people are free men, and citizens of nation States
• Nation States exist,
• People earn money for labor, and can own land and property

None of those things existed in our own middle ages.

Those things don't always exist in D&D either; or not everywhere in the setting.

Most D&D settings are a complete mishmash, incorporating - somewhere - historical equivalences ranging from ancient Greece or earlier, through feudalism, and all the way up to the start of the industrial revolution (or even well into it, if the setting has any sort of region based on steampunk), meanwhile including elements of the Far East, Middle East, Central America, and historical Africa; all on the same world at the same time.

 

[Flamestrike]

Those things don't always exist in D&D either; or not everywhere in the setting.

Most D&D settings are a complete mishmash, incorporating - somewhere - historical equivalences ranging from ancient Greece or earlier, through feudalism, and all the way up to the start of the industrial revolution (or even well into it, if the setting has any sort of region based on steampunk), meanwhile including elements of the Far East, Middle East, Central America, and historical Africa; all on the same world at the same time.

You can add on to that list actual spacefaring civilizations as well with laser guns (Illithid etc).

 

[ccs]

I voted for the entire list.
Though some features are more/less prominent in certain cities or regions.