Khorvaire:Two Problems

[reanjr]

I'd also have to say that from what I've seen so far the simulationist's perspective is pretty skewed from that of the historian or the anthropoligist.

Though I can't speak for the economist, but there does seem to be some common ground there(with a for discretion).

Though it is pretty cool to see things spread around and mutated. Being in a fairly in between discipline myself I can accede to the value of a skewed take on things.

In D&D, I think the impression of accuracy is alot more important than actual accuracy. Accuracy is good, don't get me wrong, but the problems crop up when players notice inconsistencies. And to avoid that, the setting either has to have a minimal amount of them, or the DM has to do alot more work.

 

[WizarDru]

jgbrowning][/b]It makes me wonder, if numbers are to be given at all, why the numbers aren't accurate enough to satisfy the people who want the numbers? That's the target audience and the sole reason for population statistics for gaming worlds to begin with. If you're including them, you're putting them in for the people who do care, just like you'd put in a particular setting feature (say a prestige class) for the people who care about that particular feature and how it relates to game play.

I don't think I agree with joe's assement, there. I'm certainly not a simulationist, but I care about the numbers. I use those numbers for a sense of comparative scale, if nothing else. If I see that a city has a population of 10,000, and 10% of them are half-elves, that helps to inform my game...especially when I see the city of 20,000 with only 2% hafl-elves. I get a sense of perspective that 'there are few half-elves in City B, but City A finds a much larger population of them' doesn't offer me.

The veracity of those numbers in comparison to real-world concerns, which I think any standard game world defies on a number of levels, is not meaningless to me, but very inconsequential in the grand scheme. Quite honestly, until discussed, I wouldn't have been able to tell you or worry about the specifics of person/sq. mile utilization. I can see why it might matter to some, but it seems like complaining about pantone colors accuracy when you're using crayons on a coloring book, to me.

An interesting thought was broached by apsuman earlier in the thread: women are assumed, generally, to be complete equals to men in D&D, unlike fuedal history. Wouldn't that play some degree of havoc with those square milage numbers? Tasks are no longer unevenly divided, with women being able to accomplish all forms of trade and vassalage, like men. Wouldn't that have a tendency to drive up the efficiency of a society in supporting itself? Not necessarily in the food production, per se, but in the infrastructure and support.

 

[HamiltonDM]

Upkeep and repair

Just a thought on the repair and upkeep of infrastructure. The Magewrights have mending and other repairing spells.
Magecradt makes superior items faster and of better quality. Hoing up higher into the levels allows for Make Whole, minor creation, Hardening, stone shape and of course Fabricate.

Upper levels as mentioned would be very rare, at least after the war. before adn during the war? maybe there were more higher level people and the decline in population means that there are no replacement folks of high enough level to turn out the same number Fabricated goods now.

Forges: I must admit I am a little unsure of the differences between forges and a Wizard or Magewright with a fabricate spell. Certainly I think a Wizard with a high craft skill could fabricate a Warforged body much like the Creation Forges do. They could also turn out huge quantities of mundane materials.

I see Creation Forges sort of like 'Nano-factories', that use Schema as programs to construct finished high quality items from raw materials.


In my current (Non-Eberron campaign) I had an Ebola type plague that destroyed 80-90 percent of the population. Survivors banded together in city states and are only now trying to reclaim the "Kingdom". In any Eberron campaign I run I will make much of vast areas of empty land, or scattered families living in burnt out villages. Roads are in lousy condition, and trade is only starting to come back now. There are flaws in my campaign logic, but we still enjoy it, and that is the point to our group, having fun.


There is a book called "The Years of Rice and Salt" Which goes into an alternative history where the bubonic plague wiped out Europe completely and Asians moved West to settle. It makes some interesting points about disease, population and society.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

I haven't talked about civilation spreading and towns rising. I was talking about maintenance. If 10 million people were given the United States today, they couldn't possibly manage or defend it. It's about upkeep.

Who says there going to maintain it. Its only been 2 years since the end of the war, there probably defending it fine purely because no one wants to fight anymore. Heck most of the intelligent monsters are probably sick of the war since the wilderness where they lived was where troops traveled through and likely fought frequently. If over 100 years the united states in a big war shrank to 10 million adults we could maintian it for 2 years without a problem. Defend large chunks of the land if someone invaded nope, but maintain it sure. We'd have areas with dense enough population, and we'd maintain vital supply routes.

Also for maintianing it for 2 years the scale of problem isn't as bad since those kids that aren't counted are likely working. Heck even today kids can work on farms in america one of the few exceptions to child labor laws, which eberon liekly doesn't even have. Add it spells like unseen servant, make whole, fabricate, items like the lyre of building and you sudenly have a bunch or work hours done without the need to feed some workers.

 

[apsuman]

That was pointed out to me, but it only changes scale not the concept.

Maybe but it can change things really quickly depending on what assumptions you make. If only men fight (and thus die) then the number of women would out number the men mightily. Lets say 10 to one. Now if that were the case, men could easily take more than one mate, let's say 10. The number of children could be enormous.

I wasn't using Sharn (as I said I did not have those numbers) as an example. I was simply pointing out a reason why some people have a problem with unplausible population density. It doesn't bother me in the least. I see it as more a boon if the numbers are right, but not a bane if they aren't.



That may be true for some settings, but not all (Dragonalance and Ravenloft for instance are certainly more male-dominant while Dark Sun was entirely egalitarian; I don't know about Eberron, but they probably went the PC route and made it egalitarian). And there may be a difference between equal number of women adventurers and equal number of women leaders/soldiers. In addition, whether or not women are excluded, you still have to exclude about half the population as being taken up by raising kids and doing house duties, whether that be man or woman. I was simply using gender as a demarcation because it is familiar to the medieval (and as far as soldiers go, the modern) world.

Even in fuedal 20th century japan (certainly a male dominant society) the government was taking steps to "train" I use the word loosely woman to defend the home islands with crude weapons.

Generally police force is different from army, but they can be rolled into one (especially in smaller population centers). Not to mention the police force is the first to be levied into the army I would imagine. Foot soldiers did not manage policing the local citezenry in medieval European population centers (major cities). Though there are exceptions. Yes, an army would be raised, but it is quite likely that an army could not be raised and trained in time to accomplish much unless there is a sizable force to hold off an attack.

I know my european hisotry is weak, and I think applying medieval (or reniassance, or dark age) european historic models to a fantasy world is just plain silly. But, didn't one of the kings of england require that everyone learn and practice with the bow simply to make the whole training an army problem go away?

In timeline (was that the name of the book?) the areas outside the cities are considered lawless. And this country side was void of intelligent monsters of the D&D kind.

Well, I certainly wasn't thinking about a roaming band of 1,000 hobgoblins. I was referring to a state that decided to expand.

If the place is too sparsely populated to defend why would an aggressor state want to invade when they could simply expand north (or east, etc.) where there is nobody living?