Wulf Ratbane
Adventurer
Derulbaskul said:
This isn't just any messageboard. We're gamers.
Nothing rises to the utterly inexcusable level of rouge/rogue.
Khorvaire:Two Problems
- Thread starter mythusmage
- Start date
This isn't just any messageboard. We're gamers.
Nothing rises to the utterly inexcusable level of rouge/rogue.
RangerWickett said:
First, I doubt anyone would run a settlement the way you have your hypothetical DM doing. I'm referring to the huge gaps between settlements. Gaps that occur for no good reason.
Second, population density affects plots. A man alone against the wilderness is kind of hard to pull off when the protagonist is in the middle of Yonkers.
And, as I will keep pointing out until it penetrates, population density affects what is possible in an area. You need a certain population density to sustain certain types of society. If San Diego County had an overall population density of 1.7 people per square mile it would not have the urban culture it does now, even if everybody was concentrated along one mile of the San Diego River.
Population density affects things. It affects culture and society. It affects settlement patterns. It affects what a people can support in the way of infrastructure and knowledge without outside assistance. In a monster filled world such as Eberron it impacts personal and societal security. When the ankhegs out number you farming becomes a useless activity.
All of this changes the world in fundamental ways, ways that are not reflected in the book.
The problem I think you're having is that you grew up in a crowded world. An uncrowded world is beyond your experience. My world was not a crowded one. There was ranch land between San Diego and Escondido when I was growing up, where now there are suburban tracts and strip malls. The world of my childhood was vacant compared to yours. So I have the experience with a (comparatively) low population density , and thus the knowledge thereof you don't have. I remember when the U.S. had about 150 million people, and it was a very different world back then. Even with household computers it would still have been a different world.
Suggestion: Try living for a month in North Dakota. City or rural, your choice. Keep a journal of your experiences and reactions. When you return to (crowded) civilization report back to us on what it was like. Even if you move to Fargo, it will still be a vastly different world than what you grew up in.
Wulf Ratbane said:
Rouge rogue: A person who pilfers make-up.
Rogue rouge: Cosmetics gone bad.
Henry
Autoexreginated
mythusmage said:
Your rogue/rogue joke was funnie - its a classci. I hate speling adn gramar mistakes to.
The population density thing doesn't bother me that much; I've honestly never paid any attention to pop. figures in products before; the world was as crowded or empty as I've wanted it to be - making it kind of like those old "Weapon Type vs. Armor" rules.
jgbrowning
Hero
dwilgar said:
The US is quite a different case. Firstly, it wasn't feudal, wasn't roughly medieval, had access to much better agricultural technologies (and slaves), and most importantly, had a ready consumer demand that purchased the majority of its excess production (England) as opposed to having to internally balance a supply/demand cycle. It was also a situation of expansion into a previously unclaimed and fairly uncontested land (well, relatively, of course).
And, although I'm not an American historian, I think you'll find that those numbers are (effectively) artificially low because of large territory "purchases" from other countries. Territories that could only in the fanciful dreams of colonial states be claimed as part of the actual country until a much later time.
From 1790 to 1820 the sq. miles of land doubled and total population increased by 2.5 times. Land sq. miles had doubled again by 1870, but population had increased four-fold from 1820. Had there been no territory purchases, density would have rapidly increased, even though the land/population growth feed-back cycle would have been absent.Ah, found what I was looking for...
http://www.rootsweb.com/~nycoloni/1790intro.html
"[in 1790] The gross area of the United Sates was 827,844 square miles, but the settled area was only 239,935 square miles, or about 29 percent of the total." Which means that real density of the neo-colonial state in 1790 was about 3 times greater or about 15 per sq. mile. England was roughly 70 at the time (about what the USA was in 1990.)
From a more traditional european perspective, I don't think hardly any feudal medieval state had a population density less than around 40 (England). I think Scotland was maybe like 35 or so, but France was more like 100 or so. England was historically a small population country.
And yes, I have nothing better to do.
However, now I know that were I to make a similiar to USA type colonial invasion, 15 per sq. mile. is a respectable amount and that the "claims" on land can exceed 3 times the area actually settled. It wouldn't be perfect, but It would be a good place to start.joe b.
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Olorin
Into the West
If and when I run a campaign set in Eberron, there will be exactly as many people/beings as I need, in the places where I need them.
Problem solved (not that there ever was one).
Perhaps the nagging sense of inconsistency will nag at my players as they explore the wild lands, wondering where the Wal-Marts and Home Depots are. I suspect they'll survive. Somehow.
Problem solved (not that there ever was one).
Perhaps the nagging sense of inconsistency will nag at my players as they explore the wild lands, wondering where the Wal-Marts and Home Depots are. I suspect they'll survive. Somehow.
jgbrowning said:...And yes, I have nothing better to do.
joe b.
When you do take into account settlement patterns and time. Lots can change in three thousand years.
Goobermunch
Explorer
Myth, I don't know if I agree with you. I grew up in about as rural a part of these United States as it is possible to be in (Alaska), and I didn't think anything was weird about Eberron's population densities.
For those of you who don't know, Alaska has a population density of approximately 1 person/sq. mile. We managed to get along fairly well with those kinds of population densities, and the government hasn't collapsed yet.
Just for some context, when I was growing up, the nearest community was about 35 miles north of town. The next community after that was about 75 miles away (that was the nearest Taco Bell).
Admittedly, we have the advantages of air travel (not unlike House Lyrander airships, I suppose), some decent roads (along which Orien caravans could travel), and a rail system that connects parts of the state (you get the picture).
I think the effects of low population densities might be somewhat overstated in this thread, especially in light of the enhanced opportunities for a more modern style of feudal government permitted by the magical technology offered by the various dragonmarked houses.
--G
For those of you who don't know, Alaska has a population density of approximately 1 person/sq. mile. We managed to get along fairly well with those kinds of population densities, and the government hasn't collapsed yet.
Just for some context, when I was growing up, the nearest community was about 35 miles north of town. The next community after that was about 75 miles away (that was the nearest Taco Bell).
Admittedly, we have the advantages of air travel (not unlike House Lyrander airships, I suppose), some decent roads (along which Orien caravans could travel), and a rail system that connects parts of the state (you get the picture).
I think the effects of low population densities might be somewhat overstated in this thread, especially in light of the enhanced opportunities for a more modern style of feudal government permitted by the magical technology offered by the various dragonmarked houses.
--G
d4
First Post
i'm sure you'd agree though, that settlements in Alaska tend to congregate near the coast or along major rivers. there are vast stretches of pretty much empty, unsettled land. (and similarly in Canada and Australia, two other real-world regions with low population densities.)Goobermunch said:
however, i'm looking at the major kingdoms of Eberron, and i'm just not seeing the same kind of distribution. it looks like the settlements are pretty much all over, distributed evenly over the countryside. i'm not seeing huge tracts of empty land with the settled areas clustered in a narrow strip along sources of water (which is what you would reasonably suspect given the population density figures). so there seems to be a disjoint between the numbers and the maps/descriptions.
d4 said:
And the folks of Khorvaire don't have the technolgy Alaskans have. Not even a telegraph.
(If email cost $5.00 a word how often would you use it?)
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