D&D General Humanoids...and world demographics

[Yaarel]

For one setting, I assume a planet of about 10 billion sapient creatures, but only about a 10th are Humans. I havent needed to specify yet what portion is Humanoid.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

True, but I don't know of many people who used them...

Level limits for Demi humans?

My group who is still together surely did.

 

[ezo]

Level limits for Demi humans?

My group who is still together surely did.

Fine... N + 2 then.

 

[Yaarel]

I do think about local populations.

1 million inhabitants is equivalent to about one nation, or one vast city.

The amount influence (fame, recognizability) that a player character has depends on level. I tweaked an earlier formula.

Fame = 10^([L+2]/2)

At level 0 (background), the character will be well recognized by about 10 people. Whether they will be popular or not depends on Charisma and behavior.

At level 1: fame is about 30 noters
At level 2: fame is about 100 noters
At level 3: fame is about 300 noters
At level 4: fame is about 1000 noters

Levels 1 thru 4, start about 20, and correspond roughly to college students, the Student tier.

Professional tier: Level 6, 10,000 (a town), Level 8, 100,000 (a city)

Master tier: Level 10, 1 million (a nation), Level 12, 10 million (an empire)

Grandmaster tier: Level 14, 100, million (larger than the Roman Empire), Level 16, 1 billion (a species)

Legend tier: Level 18, 10 billion (a planet), Level 20 (unavoidably famous across the multiverse)



The corollary is also true.

A town of about 10,000 citizens can be expected to have a few citizens reach up to around level 6 (and its CR equivalent).

A nation of about of about a million has a few members of about level 10 (compare Beowulf). These can show up randomly from any town or village within the nation.

And so on.

The world setting is generally low-levelish. Player characters gain higher levels at a freakish pace. Other high tier NPCs also exist, but are rare, and make some sense their populations.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

Fine... N + 2 then.

Haha please!

 

[Voadam]

LOL, as I said, I didn't know many... now I know N + 1.

I tried to DM by the RAW and so level limits were a thing as a default, though advancement in my decade and a half long AD&D campaign was slow and it never got to the point where the elven PCs' limits were hit, particularly with the revisions in UA and then 2e.

I did think about whether a wish would allow pushing past those limits, either one wish per level or one wish for removing limits. Phrasing a wish in game for meta game rule stuff like level limits though is awkward.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

I tried to DM by the RAW and so level limits were a thing as a default, though advancement in my decade and a half long AD&D campaign was slow and it never got to the point where the elven PCs' limits were hit, particularly with the revisions in UA and then 2e.

I did think about whether a wish would allow pushing past those limits, either one wish per level or one wish for removing limits. Phrasing a wish in game for meta game rule stuff like level limits though is awkward.

Advancement was slow…we did not have many high level fighter magic user elves…we did get a party up to 9th level and were drunk with power…relative power…

We did not push limits with any triple class characters! That is for sure!

 

[Oryzarius]

It seems he truly believed us homo sapiens were the cream of the crop and destined to rise higher than any other species. That clashes rather demonstrably with what the average player is interested in.

Gygax had some vile attitudes by modern standards, undoubtedly. But level-limits could also be seen as a game-balance mechanic, to give humans an edge since they lacked the special abilities of the other races. Later designers did it much better, but that doesn't mean Gygax, in this specific, early instance, wasn't simply trying to balance races mechanically.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

Gygax had some vile attitudes by modern standards, undoubtedly. But level-limits could also be seen as a game-balance mechanic, to give humans an edge since they lacked the special abilities of the other races. Later designers did it much better, but that doesn't mean Gygax, in this specific, early instance, wasn't simply trying to balance races mechanically.

Of course like a tone of other things this was a game thing!