Mapping the Town - What should a Fantasy Town look like?

[Hussar]

Let's also ignore all the magic and monsters that can walk through or destroy stone as easy as it is to destroy straw and wood... thereby making stone structures as the primary defense of an area a major waste of time and money as well.

But those are not the most common things you'd have to defend your town from. You're talking about invading armies. But, most communities don't have to worry about that all that often. You don't, generally, have large invading armies coming around every year. Or even every ten years, really. Most communities don't need these anti-flying, anti-high magic defenses for the same reason that the vast majority of homes in Canada or America don't have security services. Your odds of a home invasion are realistically so low that it doesn't make sense to spend that much money on security.

However, roving packs of owlbears or various common monsters and humanoids would be a pretty regular occurrence. Sure, your moat doesn't keep out a dragon, but, it does slow down a troll or an ogre, which, really, is why you have a moat in the first place.

That you cannot protect from everything 100% of the time isn't why you build walls. You build walls for the stuff that happens most of the time.

 

[Hussar]

Defensive walls are expensive to build, maintain, and man, so there's a reason you didn't see them in every community outside the larger ones or those built specifically for defensive purposes.

But, this isn'T true. Motte and Bailey style communities were built for very small, like under 50 people communities.

 

[Piperken]

Something that has always kind of bugged me about a lot of fantasy town maps is how, IMO, they aren't very realistic. Now, to be honest, I'm primarily thinking of D&D here, but, I'm sure it applies to other fantasy RPG's as well. A D&D world is a really, really dangerous place. There's monsters, there's roving bands of various humanoids, and there's flat out really bad stuff out there that wants to eat the townsfolk...

...But, inevitably, whenever we get some fantasy town, it's another version of Hommlet or Orlane. No walls. Pretty much zero defenses. It's great if your setting is 16th century England where there's no real risk of bands of marauders coming through every season or two to steal your crops. It makes zero sense in a setting like Forgotten Realms where roving bands of marauders are probably the least of your worries compared to the rampaging monsters and various other things you have to survive.

What do people think? Should we design settings for the in game reality, or should the settings mirror historical recreations with a layer of fantasy on top?

There's plenty of archaeological record that shows at least with human beings, demonstrating pliancy can be better.

Villages next to the sea do not construct massive bulwarks against tidal waves. Where those happen often enough, their elders pass on the old stories that say when you see the sea retreat onto itself... run.

In places where earthquakes occur, people tend to construct dwellings that are relatively easy to rebuild.

Early in Storm King's Thunder, Nightbane's inhabitants choose to flee into a nearby cave system, when they're attacked by cloud giants in the sky.

 

[kigmatzomat]

Defensive walls are expensive to build, maintain, and man, so there's a reason you didn't see them in every community outside the larger ones or those built specifically for defensive purposes.

Yes and no. The walls of Constantinople are super expensive. An earthen berm, moat and a hedge is cheap. Mold Earth can make a surprisingly big moat and berm in a matter of days. Plant a hedge on the exterior face. (Or get someone to cast the Instant effect of Plant Growth).

Will it stop an army? Nope. Will it keep out a lot of beasts and small groups of goblins or bandits? Yeah.

Now, is it worthwhile more than a couple days away from a dangerous border? Also probably not, except as a status symbol.

 

[DEFCON 1]

But those are not the most common things you'd have to defend your town from. You're talking about invading armies. But, most communities don't have to worry about that all that often. You don't, generally, have large invading armies coming around every year. Or even every ten years, really. Most communities don't need these anti-flying, anti-high magic defenses for the same reason that the vast majority of homes in Canada or America don't have security services. Your odds of a home invasion are realistically so low that it doesn't make sense to spend that much money on security.

However, roving packs of owlbears or various common monsters and humanoids would be a pretty regular occurrence. Sure, your moat doesn't keep out a dragon, but, it does slow down a troll or an ogre, which, really, is why you have a moat in the first place.

That you cannot protect from everything 100% of the time isn't why you build walls. You build walls for the stuff that happens most of the time.

I would disagree that flying monsters would not be a regular occurrence. I think wyverns, hippogriffs, chimera, harpies, griffons, young dragons, and other flying creatures that require large animals for sustenance would be just as likely to invade populated areas to go after and grab cows, horses, sheep and then fly away as any ground-based invader would. And that's really my point... walls are an expected, obvious and really only defensive measure from our real-world point of view because we as humans never had to deal with flying invaders. But in a fantasy world... they would have evolved knowing and dealing with both types of invaders, and thus at the very least there would be a logical tandem of defensive measures that towns and cities would have come up with.

I am more than willing to go along with the idea that walls could have evolved for towns and cities over the centuries / millennia as a possible defense... so long as there be equal lip service to a simultaneous advancement of aerial defense. I mean at the barest minimum, ballista would be much more prevalent atop these city walls than usually get portrayed... but I also think that with Force magic being so prolific in use at even the lowest levels of magic-- Mage Armor, Shield, and "always hitting" Magic Missile-- that that magical technology could, would and should have had much more of a build-out over the years for larger-scale defense.

I mean heck... wouldn't one think that over the tens of thousands of years of high elven magic use that at least one of them might have said "Hey, you know... we have this magic that creates a defensive force armor barrier around a person... maybe we ought to see if we could expand that magic out to cover our horses? Or our carts? And then maybe after a while our homes?" And then eventually around entire villages, towns and cities. But nope... they got as far as inventing Mage Armor and then just said "I think we're good! There's nothing more to be done!"

 

[GrimCo]

@DEFCON 1

You mean something like mithals from Forgotten Realms?

 

[DEFCON 1]

@DEFCON 1

You mean something like mithals from Forgotten Realms?

If I'm understanding your reference correctly, yes.

I do know that Silverymoon has a force dome over their city, which means even in Faerun it is possible. So why no other cities ever bothered to advance their magical technology over the tens of thousands of years to make it easier and more affordable to create more of them is beyond me.

People will of course respond with "Well, magic is hard!"... to which I would respond with "Yeah? Well generating and using electricity was hard for us Humans but that didn't stop us from continually finding new ways to make it easier and cheaper to use. Why are Faerunian people so dumb that they've never been able to advance their magic in the same way?"

 

[aco175]

Game of Thrones (GOT) figured out aerial defenses rather fast once they saw that dragons made a come-back. Although just the biggest city that could afford it, and the one that was under the most threat you could say.

 

[TiQuinn]

If I'm understanding your reference correctly, yes.

I do know that Silverymoon has a force dome over their city, which means even in Faerun it is possible. So why no other cities ever bothered to advance their magical technology over the tens of thousands of years to make it easier and more affordable to create more of them is beyond me.

People will of course respond with "Well, magic is hard!"... to which I would respond with "Yeah? Well generating and using electricity was hard for us Humans but that didn't stop us from continually finding new ways to make it easier and cheaper to use. Why are Faerunian people so dumb that they've never been able to advance their magic in the same way?"

Because people don’t want to treat their fantasy world as a real world simulation. What’s good for Silverymoon distinguishes it as being Silverymoon. From a designer’s POV, having things unique to certain locations is of greater importance than establishing that every city has the same technology for verisimilitude.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Because people don’t want to treat their fantasy world as a real world simulation. What’s good for Silverymoon distinguishes it as being Silverymoon. From a designer’s POV, having things unique to certain locations is of greater importance than establishing that every city has the same technology for verisimilitude.

Well, of course. I keep saying the only reason why these things are as they are in the game is due to wanting to maintain the "fantasy" of their "medieval knights and princesses" stories. I get that.

But it's when someone says X "isn't realistic" in the game and should really be written or designed differently that I bring up the fact that their X is small potatoes compared to the actual large-scale issues that don't make sense. A perfect example of missing the forest for the trees.