Khorvaire:Two Problems

[Kichwas]

But Myth', no DM is gonna run Eberron and say, "You enter the city of towers, and you walk through its empty streets for ten minutes before you finally see a person. He leans out the window and says, 'Wow, sure is crowded, ain't it?'"

I'm going to have to remember this one. I can see some fun uses for it.

Likewise, worrying about population densities, when you could be worrying about plot stuff, just seems a bit silly to me.

For some of us, the density is a vital 'plot stuff' element. If they tell me in the number that yes, that huge city with towers has only one other guy in it... then I get jarred out of the plot as a player, or have issue building a plot as a GM if my instinctive sense of things tells me it just can't be so.

 

[Kichwas]

I have no idea where someone gets the idea that the 40 people per square mile is some magical minimum number. The USA didn't hit this threshold until 1950. For a good comparison, the USA had a population density of about 5 people/square mile from 1790 to 1820.

That's a false statistic because until recently most of the USA was not actually the USA - Washington only thought it was.

The settled regions had higher density. You can't look at total land, you need to look at settled/controlled land.

If Eberron assumes most of the claimed land is not settled land I would have no issue. I've seen hints that this is the case, but we will have to wait to see details on the nations for an answer to that.

Like jgbrowning said, this is just criticism, not an attack. And I frankly don't even know if the criticism correctly applies to Eberron. I'm just pointing out the bar I set for criticizing a setting over this issue, and that the issue is important to me.

Finally, it would be nice if WotC could realize that just like rules, sometimes setting details can be errata'd if they don't end up giving the desired results.

If they didn't intend Eberron to be a vastly open continent with little tiny pockets of civilization, then rather than try and rationalize it over and over for years and years and thus turn people likle me against it (as happened with FR), they could simply add a zero or some other number to some of the figures and call it a patch.

Just like you fix the fullblade or the halfling outrider when you realize it didn't give the desired result, a note in a setting can also get an errata and help to make a lot of people have a lot easier time accepting something they want to like.

And I -DO- want to like Eberron...

It looks very nice, but I am the sort of person who gets caught on the details, when those details are so basic and so vital to internal logic. Nor am I alone. I may be a vocal minority - but I represent a very large segment of consumers, even if they are still a minority. Satisfying us would not at all upset the parts of the community who don't care, and would be very easy.

If all I got was a little zero tacked onto to some numbers (or whatever fits the original intention) in a 'web enhancement' from WotC I'd be happy as a bug in a rug, and I doubt it would upset the people who don't care about numbers one bit.

Easier than it was to fix the two rules issues I mentioned above.

 

[Kichwas]

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.

So when does "Magical Society: Colonization, Conquest, and the Age of Imperialism" come out?

--- I'm actually working on a setting with empire building as a core theme.

 

[Abraxas]

All I can say is wow. No sarcasm intended, not trying to hack anyone off either - I'm just surprised, completely.

I've read all 7 pages and before today I have never known or heard of anyone who was concerned about the population density in a campaign world. Ever. I've seen lots of campaign worlds in the last 26 years I've been playing - the closest thing to this I've ever come across is the density of high level characters is to high or the numbers of monsters near settled lands is too high, but never there aren't enough people. Given the number of people I've gamed with and the number of settings we've used I'm not sure the population density is a problem crowd represents a significant number of consumers - but thats just a guess.

I just have a few questions

- Why does there need to be a minimum population density in a campaign world based on real world population patterns?

- How does having vast tracts of wilderness between population centers throw off your suspension of disbelief?

- How is a low population density internally illogical?

- If your answer to any of those questions is "because it doesn't work that way in the real world" why can't it work that way in a fantasy world?

- How do you overlook all the other elements in a campaign world that don't work like the real world?

- For those of you that see this as an "error", why does WoTC have to "fix" it for you when all you have to do is add the zero yourself?

- For those of you that would be satisfied with a web enhancement that increased the population by a factor of 10, what are you going to say to the vocal minority who thinks the population should have been increased by a factor of 5, 7 or 15 instead? Where do the web enhancements end?

wow.

 

[Kichwas]

Just because your need for Simulation is less than other players' need for Simulation doesn't invalidate the sense of annoyance a bad statistic gives them.

Quite frankly I'm appalled at the level of intolerance toward how some gamers feel in this thread. If I think there are too many harpies in Eberron, I'm entitled to that opinion. Don't tell me to get over it or just change it. If it bugs me, I am bugged. I know I can ignore it or change it. That doesn't stop it from bugging me.

I'm particularly shocked by the number RPG authors/creators on this thread who discount the Simulationist's view in their posts. And I'm not referring to Keith here. Someone else at WotC should have been in charge of number crunching.

Thank you.

The level of disrespect 'gamists' have for people with a different perspective is just plain unacceptable.

You can easily make a setting meet the bulk of needs for all three core camps, and there's no place for such a dismissive tone towards those who find simulation important in a setting.

 

[Aaron L]

Hey, how about having the point of your campaigns be the migrating of populations to the remaining cities and power centers of the continent, and the nations that die off/form out of the rubble? I see very little point arguing over the population figures after the war; this isnt what it looked like before the war. This is the devestation that it caused. If it bothers you that much, have it be a major theme of your campaign. Have the world follow the logical progression that you think would occur.


Many of us see no problem with it, as the infrastructure DIDN'T develop with these small pop. numbers in place, but since the infrastructure is already in place, why could't it continue to function? The Houses were neutral during the war, and they control most of the civilization maintaining things like the lightning rail and the shipping lanes, comunications, and the international police. Just because on Earth there was a villiage every mile or so, doesn't mean it must be that way on this world that has magic as science, a magical train encircling the continent, and powerful adventurers running around.

The biggest complaint I have seen in this thread is that the civilizations presented couldn't have developed with such small populations.

Well... they didn't.

They were devestated by a hundred year war.

Now, how does the world progress from this point?

Really, it's like looking at a post bomb Hiroshima population number and saying that the city could never have been built the way it was because there were to few people.

In other words: maybe it's not a mistake?

 

[Caliban]

Thank you.

The level of disrespect 'gamists' have for people with a different perspective is just plain unacceptable.

If this is "just plain unacceptable", what form is your lack of acceptance going to take? Or is that just hyperbole?

You seem to be insisting that everyone conform to your view on how a world has to be built, and anyone who doesn't agree with you is being "disrespectful".

It's not your different perspective that causing the negative reaction. It's the attitude you and mythusmage have chosen to use when presenting it.

 

[Kichwas]

- Why does there need to be a minimum population density in a campaign world based on real world population patterns?

- How do you overlook all the other elements in a campaign world that don't work like the real world?

- For those of you that see this as an "error", why does WoTC have to "fix" it for you when all you have to do is add the zero yourself?

- For those of you that would be satisfied with a web enhancement that increased the population by a factor of 10, what are you going to say to the vocal minority who thinks the population should have been increased by a factor of 5, 7 or 15 instead? Where do the web enhancements end?

Whether by magical or mundane means you just have to build up an answer to how people manage the four basic factors: food, sex, order, goods.

In the real world that takes population density. In fantasy, if you lack population density all you gotta tell me is what replaces it to meet those goals.

As for factors of 5, 7, 10, or 15... As soon as you have a number that can handle the kind of society described, in consideration of the four factors above being met by either mundane or magical means, and somebody out there can rationalize it given the explainations given - people will stop pointing it out.


The rudeness of all this, is the complete refusal by gamists to see any needs but their own as being valid for a game setting.

We could debate, for example, whether a long sword should be 1d4, 1d6, 1d8, 1d10, 1d12, 1d20, 1d30, or 1d100 till the cows came home... But gamists have their explaination for this in that weapon being so far on the scale of how deadly weapons are. Consensus is reached by there simply being an explaination that allows the game to continue without jarring them out of it. Everybody's shut up over it now, even if there are people who would have preffered 1d4 or 1d100...

It's trivial to stop this issue - just give an explaination for how the basic needs are met, and a number that meets them according to how mundane or magical that explaination is. There is a -LOT- of research out there on this, and a lot of it has been simplified to very easy terminology.

What you do, is take a real world value that works if it was real world, and then up or down it according to how magic affects it - based on what magic is doing in your setting to those four basic needs.

The ball is in WotC's court on this for the same reason it was when the Halfling Outrider was given no BaB.

 

[Aaron L]

I think it has been explained... several times already.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

The ball is in WotC's court on this for the same reason it was when the Halfling Outrider was given no BaB.

I disagree.


Regards,
Eric Anondson