Only the Lonely: Why We Demand Official Product

[PsyzhranV2]

It doesn't say anything about an urban area. You could interpret it that way, but it could also be interpreted as meaning the area within its walls and the neighborhoods directly outside of said walls.

(Shamelessly stolen from Reddit)
The canonical population in 1372 was 1,347,840 (source, the 3e FR campaign guide). (more specifically: 64% human, 10% dwarf, 10% elf, 5% halfling, 5% half-elf, 3% gnome, 2% half-orc) The key is this - the CITY of Waterdeep population was 132,661, but Waterdeep is more than just the core city itself. Much like in the real world, the "greater metropolitan area" of a city is often counted in the population numbers. Especially when you take into account the fact that many medieval cities would have fewer permanent citizens and a significant number of people who lived outside the city walls, but who would fall back into the city itself in the event of an attack or siege. This is why so many sieges resulted in overcrowded conditions and bled resources so quickly - the city would be supporting far more population than it was normally designed to handle. So it's easy to believe that the Waterdeep scenario is that about 1/10th the population live within the the city walls on a permanent basis, while 9/10ths live outside. In 1372, the overall population of Waterdeep as an entity is 1.35 mil, give or take. Expanding to 2 mil over 120 years isn't entirely out of the question. The assumption would thus seem to be that any source giving Waterdeep's population as being 2 mil in the 1490s is almost certainly referring to the overall Waterdeep area (even if it explicitly refers to the "city"), and not just the literal city itself. The city itself, assuming the overall population ratio remains the same, is probably pushing closer to around 200,000 people. Which would only be an increase of about 70,000 or so people over 120 years. Again, plausible (though considering it would be a nearly 50% increase in population, which would necessitate a fair bit of new building, expansion, and potentially even extending the walls in some places to accommodate new buildings). It's also worth noting that Volo's account in Dragon Heist implies that the 120 year period between 3e and 5e was actually disruptive enough that the population in 1490 should actually be higher than it is, and that Waterdeep is only just recovering to pre-crisis levels.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

The Sword Coast, and Forgotten Realms in general, is way more 15-16th century europe than it is modelling any earlier period, and not just technology levels. You have guilds, centralised monarchies, a powerful merchant class. The only thing it lacks is firearms. And firearms appeared before all of those things...

Ok we need to start over.

Originally, I made a pitch for Greyhawk, saying that setting is more similar to Medieval Europe than the default setting, Forgotten Realms (it is not exactly Medieval, but it's closer than FR). I also had other arguments for GH including it's tone and larger theme.

Then I got dragged into this weirder debate where someone said "Oh actually, Greyhawk's not medieval either," which I know it's not, I just think it's closer to FR (and I wanted that difference to be emphasized).

Now I'm somehow in an even weirder argument that I don't even want to be in, about FR, of people saying how close it is to medieval history.

So I'm going to restate my original statement; I find Greyhawk to be a grittier setting than the default setting of 5e (being FR). Although this is not consistent throughout all GH products, I find that world to be a harsher one than FR, where the threats are more pressing and dangerous, where the rulers are typically more pragmatic and less heroic, and the focus is more survival than good vs. evil. In some respects, GH's society is more reflective of a realistic medieval setting, than FR's more high-minded renaissance one.

This POV by the way is largely shared by Mike Mearls, which you can hear his thoughts here;

 

[Benjamin Olson]

The Sword Coast, and Forgotten Realms in general, is way more 15-16th century europe than it is modelling any earlier period, and not just technology levels. You have guilds, centralised monarchies, a powerful merchant class. The only thing it lacks is firearms. And firearms appeared before all of those things...

Modern views of the material culture of the middle ages have always been more 15th century than anything recognizable as the early or high middle ages. This partly has to do with the anachronism of thought from the actual medieval and to a lesser extent early modern periods themselves. For example, within decades of the emergence of knighthood at the turn of the 12th century people were claiming it went back to Roman times. Similarly in the rather abstract legal and political theory of the period when centralized monarchies evolved they were quickly seen as having always existed, at least in principle. And of course later eras had a lot more plate mail left in collections than chainmail, what authentic medieval castles survived were often buried in later additions and motte-and-baileys had rotted away long ago, while the descendants of warhorses were alive an well the typical medieval traveling horses had been bred out of existence outside of Iceland, etc., etc. And then 19th century romanticists come along and just make the middle ages whatever they wished they were.

I did graduate work focusing on anachronism in Medieval and Early Modern European thought, so it's actually one of the things that fascinates me about D&D.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

In some respects, GH's society is more reflective of a realistic medieval setting, than FR's more high-minded renaissance one.

I'll agree as long as by "some respects" we mean a very few respects. Fundamentally, outside of the more familiar elements of material culture, these settings have nothing really to do with either era. And fundamentally even enthusiasts of these periods tend to have a very shaky understanding of them so it couldn't really be any other way. Even if the settings were designed by medieval studies PhDs almost no players and DMs would actually run it true to the era.

Please nobody take that personally, but I was a huge enthusiast who upon reading several hundred academic books on the subject in the course of graduate work learned how fundamentally little I had known. Even studying actual primary sources without a serious background in how to read between the lines will give you fairly inaccurate impressions of a lot of things.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

I'll agree as long as by "some respects" we mean a very few respects. Fundamentally, outside of the more familiar elements of material culture, these settings have nothing really to do with either era. And fundamentally even enthusiasts of these periods tend to have a very shaky understanding of them so it couldn't really be any other way. Even if the settings were designed by medieval studies PhDs almost no players and DMs would actually run it true to the era.

Please nobody take that personally, but I was a huge enthusiast who upon reading several hundred academic books on the subject in the course of graduate work learned how fundamentally little I had known. Even studying actual primary sources without a serious background in how to read between the lines will give you fairly inaccurate impressions of a lot of things.

To be fair, I almost mean more that Greyhawk feels more medieval and more realistic, rather than it actually being so (at least compared to FR). It's something that I think is expressed largely in its tone/theme rather than it's actual qualities. This is something that is immensely difficult to actually prove so debating it is probably completely pointless.

 

[schneeland]

So I'm going to restate my original statement; I find Greyhawk to be a grittier setting than the default setting of 5e (being FR). Although this is not consistent throughout all GH products, I find that world to be a harsher one than FR, where the threats are more pressing and dangerous, where the rulers are typically more pragmatic and less heroic, and the focus is more survival than good vs. evil.

All debates about how close to the actual Middle Ages Greyhawk really is: a more down-to-earth and somewhat grittier setting is something that 5e currently lacks from the WotC side (there are a number of 3rd party products, but I think that's not what we are discussing here). I'm not sure they can really make that happen with 5e, but it would be one of the few products that are still interesting to me at this point.

 

[Don Durito]

Of the 3rd party settings "The Lost Lands" by Frog God Games probably hews closer to the spirit of early Greyhawk.

Really it's probably more Greyhawk than Greyhawk is.

 

[Maxperson]

They don't care about that level of realism, but, they are so incredibly fussy that 1 level of an NPC would matter? Or the name of some NPC they aren't even meeting?

Yes.

 

[Hussar]

Specific subclasses like maybe Scarlet Brotherhood, maybe a feat or two, some specific backgrounds like the FR book has, etc.

Heh. Funny you should mention this. I just had to have some Scarlet Brotherhood monks in my Ghosts of Saltmarsh game.

Reskinned Githzerai monks and poof, instant Scarlet Brothers.

Please leave my beloved Greyhawk out of your wish list. Greyhawk is the toolkit setting where nearly everything was left vague for a reason.

You want encyclopedic material? Stick with Forgotten Realms.

 

[Hussar]

whats funny is that you just reminded me that someone did release a 3rd party conversion of Barrier Peaks on DMsGuild. Not related to the thread, but now I have a VERY strong desire to run a 5e version of Barrier Peaks for a group as a limited series. Limited because I don’t want to deal with the consequences of releasing all those tech items into a long campaign.

It’s done by MT Black and it’s very good. I ran it in my Primeval Thule campaign. Not a direct update but certainly in keeping with the original.