Khorvaire:Two Problems

[Pseudonym]

These threads make me wonder if some folks want the Eberron RTS to be a glorified Sim Earth retread, where they can manipulate population variables until their heart is content.

 

[Banshee16]

Too few people. Too few countries. Multiplying both by five would help a lot.

Discuss.

Given that they just got through the equivalent of an arcane WW I that lasted 100 years, I'm not surprised that there are so few people. I mean, one entire nation was destroyed, with their entire population, and they were probably like 20% of the population themselves. Obviously, there were other kingdoms than the five, but the five probably had the largest bulk of populations.

I'm not surprised that there are so few.

Midnight has a similar problem....big map, few people. But given they lost the war against their "Dark Lord", and civilization has been crushed, the nations destroyed, organized agriculture halted, etc., I wouldn't be surprised.

And, I'll point out that Athas, the world of Dark Sun, had all of 1.5 million people in the tablelands....and possibly not significantly more across the entire planet..

Banshee

 

[Kichwas]

Wow, thanks for attempting to ruin a perfectly good setting with your opinion on what would keep a magically aware (and completely imaginary by the by) continent populated.

Fact is not the same thing as opinion. If you can't get food, reproductive diversity, security, and goods to your people you cannot maintain them. That is fact, not opinion.

As for opinion, if a setting can answer those four needs, then it isn't broken with regards to this aspect of suspension of disbelief and thus people can get into the mood of it without being jarred out by the sillyness every few minutes.

I think you're being highly presumptuous, assuming I'm trying to 'ruin' something. If it lacks an explaination for this it's already ruined and not by my hand. If it has it, then I have no issue here.

If a setting is unreal to the point of sillyness, with no rationale within it for such, then it is not going to be enjoyable to people who like rich detail, internal consistancy, and a sense of believability.

If Eberron can explain how it does it, it has no issue. If it can't, it has issue.

On the extreme example end, this is what seperates from Lord of the Rings from He-Man...

 

[Banshee16]

I don't know the population of Khorvaire, but if it gets too far below 40 per square mile it will break aparrt - the means of keeping a food supply going are not there.

This is especially true in a post war situation, not less true, but more so.

If the population had been dramatically lowered by the war - despite people reproducing throughout those hundred years and not having the technology to do sudden population drops until the last day of the war with the creation of the Mournland - if the population had gone down, people would move away from their homes into central areas - making the kingdoms very small again, with a lot of wildlands in between.

That's the point....that's part of what may be going on. What if the population was 2 or 3 times what it is now, before the Last War? Keith has mentioned before that when running a game, DMs can easily depict PCs travelling through multitudes of abandoned and burned out villages.

With less people, the civilization might shrink.....which leaves more abandoned areas for bandits and monsters to infest, and more reasons for PCs to be going to the border to solve problems.

I'm thinking that the Last War would have been far more devastating than Earth wars in the medieval ages....afterall.....European armies didn't have fireballs and meteor swarms and armies of warforged. There were likely multiple population drops. The destruction of Cyre may have been the largest one, but villages and towns were razed, water supplies probably poisoned, entire crops burned, starvation, possibly plague, etc. And this would have gone on for 100 years. IMO that could have a huge effect on a population.

Perhaps Khorvaire is on the cusp of a huge population/baby boom, now that things are stabilizing. It's 2 years after the war....soldiers will be going back to start families and businesses and such....business may be booming, as the process of rebuilding begins.

Banshee

 

[Kichwas]

-The Inuit by the way make a good example of what you get when you get too low in density.

You get people who thrive and survived just fine until we arrived and introduced alcohol and candies. *shrug*

That shows both that you know nearly nothing about Inuit and that you missed the core point.

I'll skip the Inuit lesson, start here if you want to learn it.

The point is that you get nomadic bands that wander the land searching out resources. They cannot hold a settlement together, even in the lack of enemies, and they need to search out and meet with other bands on a regular basis in order to enable stable reproduction.

You don't get advanced civilizations, you get familial tribes living at subsistance level with subsistance based technology.

 

[coyote6]

If it lacks an explaination for this it's already ruined and not by my hand. If it has it, then I have no issue here.

Ruined for you, and others who share your opinion. Your requirements for you to suspend your disbelief are not universal.

 

[MDSnowman]

I just want to throw in my two cents and pretend this thread never existed. I see a lot of people harping over issues of population density and what not while they forget a very important point.

...It doesn't really matter...

As a DM your focus should really be on your players... this is even more true in Eberron where they get action points to demonstrate that fact. Now unless your characters are governing a large portion Khorvaire issues of population density should be at best secondary... they should be more worried about the scheming noble who sent them into the Mournlands and the Warforged Titan that started chasing them when they grabbed the golden idol.

Few things annoy me more than when some people focus with laser pin-point accuracy on some piece of setting information that they don't find plausible. While ignoring the simple fact that unless you're playing a large scale sim population density is simply not going to be a factor in play. Game design should not require a masters in any of the following... Sociology, Political Science, Theology, physics, and Economics. It's a creative medium... if you want cold hard facts buy a Physics text book.

 

[Henry]

Ladies and Gentlemen, I've seen a few rather mean comments from one poster to another. Let's please discuss civilly. Thanks.

 

[RangerWickett]

This thread isn't that annoying. That would require someone misspelling 'lose' as 'loose.' *wink*

I am curious, though. Why are the people who are concerned about it, concerned about it? Why is the population density important to you?

 

[jgbrowning]

This thread isn't that annoying. That would require someone misspelling 'lose' as 'loose.' *wink*

I am curious, though. Why are the people who are concerned about it, concerned about it? Why is the population density important to you?

For me at least, it's because Eberron is not a game. The book isn't a game, it's a made-up world where the game can be played. We're not talking about game design, even though the world must be created with the game design in mind to maximize utility and game design is used in the creation process, what we're really talking about is world-building. Ideally, a campaign setting would handle both world-building and design with equally good facility.

To me at least, Ebberon doesn't appear any different than almost every other published setting in terms of density/magic/time/civilization cause and effects. It is, as is almost every rpgworld I've ever seen, vastly underpopulated to support the civilizations thriving there in their suggested space. But, considering that Middle Earth (the original vastly underpopulated setting) is a very engaging and immersive world, I don't see Eberron as having any exceptional issues on this end.

But as one poster said, it doesn't really matter because Eberron is just part of a game we play from the PC perspective. On the other hand, it does matter, because there is a set of the gaming population that is just as bothered by such things as the greater set of gamers who're bothered by rivers that flow uphill. I'm sure that eventually, both game design needs and world-building realities will mesh into one amazing setting that deals as expertly with one as it does the other.

joe b.