National Demographics

[anton1066]

I am currently making a world and was thinking about demographics. How do you guys do it? I really dont like the Way the DMG does it so i created my own little system. I was hoping that you guys would share your own methods and maybe comment about mine.

Thought I would share how I do national demograpics in my game. First let me say that, I have my own ideas about which classes are more common and how many people have NPC classes as opposed to PC classes. The numbers can be changed to fit your own style.

Let Y equal the population.
If we assume that there is a 9:1 ratio of people with NPC class levels as compared to those with PC levels then,
.9Y=People with NPC levels, and
.1Y=People with PC levels

Now I break NPC classed people into two strata. Those with levels from 1-5 and those with levels from 6-10. Who ever heard of an 11th level commoner? If we assume that this again is a 9:1 ration the the total number of NPCs with 1-5 NPC levels is .81Y, and the The number of NPCs with 6-10 NPC levels is .09Y. Sound good?

I also assume that, NPCs tend to be 50% commoners, 30% experts, 10% warriors and 1% aristocrats. So, multiplying .81Y times .01 will give you the number of aristocrats with 1-5 levels.

Now NPCs with PC levels get broken down into four strata. levels 1-3, 4-10, 11-15 and 16+. This part gets a bit complicated...
If x is the number of NPCs with PC levels in any one strata, and the ratio of the strata is 150:500 then, to find out the number of NPCs with PC levels in each strata can be figured out by using...
.1Y=x+(1/5)x+x(1/50)+x(1/500).
So ill you need to do is convert that to...
.1Y=611x/500
That will give you the number of NPCs with PC levels of the first strata and then just divide by 5/50/500 respectivly to get the other strata.

I also assume that there are four types of PC classes; Martial, Arcanist, Divine and skill monkey. The ratio i use is 52:2.

So, if you wanted to know the number of level 16+ arcanists (Let this be known as A) in a nation you would use A=Y/60,110

Any thoughts?
P.S. its really late here, but i think i did that last bit of math right.

 

[Crothian]

The way I do it is to really not care about the numbers. Most NPCs don't really need stats, levels, or anything like this. Most are going to be NPC levels, but important NPCs are the classes and levels I need them to be.

 

[anton1066]

Crothian, Thanks for the reply. I know its not really importat for most games, but i like to have an estimate of what resources are there for the PCs. How many wizards can cast wish or clerics and rez the PCs. Once i have numbers i can start putting faces to them.

A question i forgot to ask; how do you figure out population based on land area? I have just been guestimating. Coming up with a good formula seems to be beyond me.

 

[Crothian]

A question i forgot to ask; how do you figure out population based on land area? I have just been guestimating. Coming up with a good formula seems to be beyond me.

I guess as well. Again it rarely ever matters and there is no census bureau to do the counting. Different places are going to have a different population density, city being more crowded then farmlands or a desert.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

A question i forgot to ask; how do you figure out population based on land area? I have just been guestimating. Coming up with a good formula seems to be beyond me.

That entirely depends on what the land is being used for, and how good it is for that purpose. A forrest is going to have far fewer people per acre/square mile/whatever than farmland, which is going to have far fewer than a metropolis. And good farmland will have more people than maginal farmland, etc.

 

[Stalker0]

I used the dmg demographics just to get a rough idea, and then I wing it.

But for example, the dmg demographics show a big dropoff after about 12th level. So if a party is wanting an item made that requires a 13th caster level, they will find that item a lot harder to find than lower CL items.

 

[helium3]

http://www.lucidphoenix.com/dnd/demo/business0.asp

That link has a decent calculator.

http://www.io.com/~sjohn/demog.htm

That link has some decent raw information.

Crothian is right that player's generally don't give a rat's behind about accurate demographics, but some DM's care just the same.

 

[Tinker]

I made a webpage of my own system here.

To be honest the write-up is pretty poor, but you might get the idea. Let me know if anyone thinks it looks useful and I could see if I get time to revise it.

I can also endorse the links from helium3. I've used an earlier version of the article for campaign-building.

 

[anton1066]

I like your style Tinker.
Helium thanks for pointing out that link. I think i used it last year to come up with a system that did figure out population size of a nation....better check my notes.