Khorvaire:Two Problems

[AdmundfortGeographer]

And the price of these services? A simple question. One easily answered I would think. Do you have an answer?

You cut it from the excerpt you quoted. Here it is, "the prices are appropriate for the economy of Khorvaire".

And you got animal messenger wrong on it's range, as has been pointed out. It's as far as a bird can fly in 3 days.

Each has additional limitations, but the big one here is price. Sixty gold for a message in a world where the typical peasant would be lucky to see 60 gold in a year.

Not that it matters for you, but the price of services on p. 121 has House Sivis charging 50 gp for whipsering wind.

Typical peasants in a feudal arrangement don't live lives where they need to chat with their relatives a hundred miles away. They wake up, they work the land, they eat, they go to bed. They go to market seasonally where they pick up the latest news, unless their manor lord decides to tell the news he just heard from the latest whispering wind or animal messenger.

How often would you use the Internet if you made minimum wage and the cost was $10.00 per hour online? With a baud rate of 9600? What if it was $100.00 an hour for Internet access? Starting to see the problem here?

Yeah, that this is nearly a non sequitur? Internet access?

I think I see your point, but the world did do just fine before the Internet, before the telephone, before the telegraph. The Pony Express was a revolutionary idea at its time that folks thought would change civilization by being able to connect far flung settlements of the American West. Is anything in Khorvaire much different than the Pony Express? Did the West fly apart before the Pony Express? House Sivis has a network that can relay written messages, 5 gp per page... probably exactly like the Pony Express did it.

Plus the competitor House Orien has mail service that costs 1cp per mile... probably as long as it is along its coach/caravan network... and when you get too far from main settlements, other tiny villages are probably going to set up along those route, like the American West was settled with towns along rail lines. So those "average pesants" have an affordable way to communicate with cousin Jeb in Sharn that doesn't violate the "feudal-like" lifestyle they live... and it's not an arcane Internet.

This is a matter that impacts the very nature of the setting. Consider how cheap Internet access opened up the Web. Consider how many people would use Whispering Wind on a monthly basis if the price were to drop to 60 copper pieces a casting. We're talking the end of feudal society in the Five Kingdoms.

And keeping the prices where they are sustains the feudal-like society that the designers say it has? Whew! We can finally bury this thread. We agree.

Remember, the Soviet Union fell in large part because of cheap, reliable communications.

The fall of the Soviet Empire... Another non sequitur? In large part? Uh... ok...

I'll entertain this for a moment. But who was it in the Soviet Union who used the "cheap, reliable communication" that brought it down? And how does bringing down the Soviets relate to Eberron? Is there an totalitarian empire that needs to be dismantled, and whispering wind is the secret weapon if it were only 60cp?

 

[Destil]

“You’re all a group of census takers assigned by the government of Sharn to investigate…” instead of “You all meet in a tavern one night and...”

I like it.

Yes, the population's too low.*

No, it doesn't make you a nitpicker to point that out. These statements have yet to run over anybody's dog.

Mostly, it doesn't matter much to the gaming experience.

But it does affect it in one way, and that's using the community building guidelines in the DMG. You can't just increase the population and stick to those numbers; it'll throw off one of the dynamics of the setting, namely the paucity of high level npc's. And while, especially for small communities, I can make that stuff up off of the top of my head, its better for versimilitude to have access to the relatively consistent numbers for the sake of versimilitude

Even if you cut the area down by a factor of
50 like some people sugggest (i.e. 500 miles across rather than 5000) the DMG demigraphics still don't work. Just look at Sharn in compairson to what it should have accordin to the DMG. It already breaks thoes standards without any scaling, simply for the flavor and intergerity of the setting (lack of many NPCs above the mid levels is one of the strongest selling points of this setting, to me).

 

[KB9JMQ]

I just wanted to chime in and let Keith know that he also didn't include enough trees for even the sparse population of Khorvaire. If you consider that the average tree puts out about 100x10^1000 cubic centimeters of oxygen per minute, then it's obvious that no one in Sharn would be able to breathe for more than a few minutes, once you "turned the lights on" in this setting.

I'll start a new thread about the distinct lack of bushes on the campaign map. My rogue can't find a place to take a leak.

Well this just made my day better.

 

[Whisper72]

Yeah!! and with that lack of trees ragboy pointed out to us, the Ranger class is seriously BROKEN, I thought all core rules stuff would be accounted for in eberron, it clearly hasn't! This does it!

 

[Hellcow]

Not that it matters for you, but the price of services on p. 121 has House Sivis charging 50 gp for whipsering wind.

More importantly, it has them charging 5 gp/page for use of a message station, which is far more effective than whispering wind. The message station is your primary fast long-distance communication, if the post is too slow for you. Yes, 5 gp is still too much for the average peasant, but as Eric has noted, Eberron is feudal; we never wanted every farmer to have a cellphone of sending. Most people just don't have a need to communicate with people across the country; and for those that do, the Sivis message stations are just as effective as the telegraph.

No one is saying that you cannot enjoy the setting, but you're saying that we have to like or that we will like it if we play it.

Actually, if you read my previous post, you'll see that I said nothing of the sort. I said that if you don't like the setting, either find a way to address your concerns on your end or don't play it -- not because you may not have valid concerns, but because WotC cannot make the game perfect for everyone. I appreciate that you bought it and looked at it. I've never said everyone will like it. The fact of the matter is that many won't, and if you're in that camp, good for you -- don't play it. But if you don't like it for one specific reason, perhaps you can find a way to solve that problem, with or without the help of others on this board.

To that end, I agree with both jgbrowning and Wizardru. This discussion is valuable if it provides the people who dislike the population issue with valid alternatives, so that someone who likes the setting can say "OK, I'll use the idea of reducing the continent to 1/50th its current size." If that makes the world work for you, go for it, even if it never will be official - and I applaud you for working around our perceived failings. If on the other hand, as Wizardru said, the point is simply to say "the game flat-out cannot be played because of the population issue" and to continue to harp on that -- well, if it entertains people to complain, then that has its own value, but you don't find a solution by piling on more complaints.

On the other hand, if you want a "Why I hate Eberron" thread just for the sheer intellectual joy of discussing what idiots game designers are -- hey, a good discussion is its own reward.

 

[WizarDru]

This raises an interesting question, to me. Has anyone tried applying fuedal Europe to the DMG stats? I've been hearing a broad assumption that they mesh, and I'm curious if they actually do.

I mean, we are talking a game where disparate technological levels coexists side-by-side, with nary a nod to realism. D&D is about a fantasy medieval experience, unsullied by dirt, grime or actual historical progression. I don't recall the last time I saw a historical retrospective about the musketeer, landesknecht and the shaolin fighting side by side with rifle, epee, zweihander and nunchakus all at the same time.

 

[Gez]

I totally doubt they do. A lot of thing in the world-building section of the DMG just don't make sense, number-crunching wise. They are nifty for making stuff on the fly without too much aspirin consumption, but they're totally broken when you want to look at it with such a critical eye. Or even a less discerning critical eye.

Hong could talk to you about chickens.

 

[Express]

Wow this thread is still going strong. (And Im contributing to it )

All this discussion of population density, division of labor, and technological levels remind of the wild eyed fervor of the Homo Sapien Harnworldius circa the 1980's.

Note to self: never disdain the importance of "social" structures around an old school Harnworlder.

I guess I have nothing to contribute after all

 

[Kichwas]

Here's a question for you all. Why the heck is Eberron being raked over the coals for issues that are completely unrelated to the quality of the game and how much fun people are having with it?

Because for many of us these issues are -DIRECTLY- linked to enjoyability.

It does -NOT- take an expert to get this stuff right. All you have to do is read TSR's own World Builder's Handbook, or Expeditious Retreat's Ecology and Culture, or this VERY SHORT website:
Medieval Demographics Made Easy


Some of us can play in the He-Man universe, but some of us need something deeper and more solid. Something that holds up to basic middle school logic and consistancy. Something that makes sense in how the magic changes it from the mundane.

Without something solid, we keep getting jarred out of the ability to connect to the game, story,and characters by the sillyness.

I -NOT- saying Eberron is a 'He-Man' setting like FR is, I haven't read it fully yet.

I'm just listing the things Eberron will have to have to not be seen in that light. I'm telling you how it gets judged. I haven't made the judgement yet for myself.

 

[Kichwas]

Indeed they do. And why do they do? Because resources are scarce!

Resources aren't scarce because population density is low. Population density is low because resources are scarce. If you deported all of China and India together on the North Pole, you would have the world's most impressive population density ever, and yet people would still have nearly nothing to eat (except other people dead from starvation, I guess).

You're wrong about the food, but see my response to your second quote for that.

Actually no to what you presumed of me, and what you said in response. Not because you're wrong (you're correct), but because you're making a point about B, when I'm talking about A.

I'm not talking about the causes of low density - I'm using the Inuit to show what kind of society low density gives. If you have low density, it means you're spread thin. If you're spread thin you're nomadic and low tech at best.

Again, this is a question of resources. You are inverting the causality between population density and resources.

Actually, you'd be amazed at how rich Nunavut is in resources. Those few Inuit are sitting on the largest herds of herbavores in the world, the second largest ever (buffalo once topped them). They've also got massive fishing stocks, diamonds, and oil.

It's Africa, the Middle East, an unlimited fish market, and American Cattle all in one place under the control of some 29,000 people who look like Sunny Bono...

In the southern half they've probably got a lot of lumber as well, but I didn't see that in my research on them back when I wrote them into a term paper...

And they're largely doing absolutely nothing with all of it... just waiting for global warming to get to the point where everybody else invades in 300 years...

Population density in Nunavut could get high on the natural resources... but its so dangerous living there that it never did. The Inuit can easily dispatch Carribu and fish, but even a rifle often loses the fight with a Polar Bear - and one swipe from it will leave you, if not dead, soon to be so in the cold.

If the dangers aren't enough to explain it I can't really say why it never did get high, but I can say what the low density resulted in.

For this discussion we don't need why it was low, we need what that low results in - a lack of a 'civilization infrastructure'.

Look to the plains Indians of North America. They also had very good resources, but until they had horses they were no better a predator than the wolves. Once they had horses they underwent a population explosion that was only checked when the Americans came in and killed off the Buffalo, and then the children.

Given another hundred years to grow, they would have outpaced the ability of the buffalo to support them, and had to move out and settle down - adopting their mountain camps most likely into full year round towns, but who can say.


'Civilization' and high density are linked to each other. You -CAN- have high density with a low population over a large area, it just means they're not really over that large area, but rather concentrated into a small part of it like the USA mostly is if you look at it in whole rather than parts.

Look at just New England and it's dense. Add it in the great plains and it looks low density, but it really isn't because you've just added a region claimed but not settled [until recently].