PoL & population density

[Kintara]

Yeah, there's no better way to avoid having your city sacked than to not have your city in the same spot the scouts found it. It's also a great way to get the orc chieftain to kill his scout!

Besides, I got the impression that elves are semi-nomadic at best, on the whole. Ancient tree cities sending out long-term, far-ranging "tree hugging" adventurers.

 

[Derren]

I feel the same way. Every population is going to need defenses of some sort.

Which actually was something I was wondering about when reading the recent elf fluff. They're described as nomads who live in teepees and stuff. How do they defend themselves from orc raids and such? That seems like a very dangerous way to live; walls are much safer.

Considering what monsters are running around in a D&D world orcs are the least of the problems.
In 3E even small towns and cities had no real defense against higher CR monsters so nomads would loose badly against every encounter adventurers would only scoff at. And bigger cities needed this easy razeable towns for supplies (especially when they want to support adventurers which need quite a lot on resources, especially spellcasters).

But making this logical was never a priority of D&D and I guess it won't be in 4E too.

 

[bgaesop]

City size is ultimately limited by food supply though.

This is a really useful post, thank you.

In 3E even small towns and cities had no real defense against higher CR monsters so nomads would loose badly against every encounter adventurers would only scoff at.

Except for the high level characters that lived there. The PCs aren't the only ones with PC classes out there, at least in my worlds.

 

[Kintara]

N/m

 

[Aloïsius]

Considering what monsters are running around in a D&D world orcs are the least of the problems.
In 3E even small towns and cities had no real defense against higher CR monsters so nomads would loose badly against every encounter adventurers would only scoff at. And bigger cities needed this easy razeable towns for supplies (especially when they want to support adventurers which need quite a lot on resources, especially spellcasters).

But making this logical was never a priority of D&D and I guess it won't be in 4E too.

This is why I think that, in order to make sense in a world populated by giants, owlbear and wights, a PoL setting works best if it is literaly point of light : you need some common MacGuffin (eg : sacred fires) to explain why certain spots are protected from the worse dangers (aka high level monsters).

So, the Darkness must be a tangible thing, and the Points of light should be to. Plus, if the fate of a town rely upon the vigilance of a vestales order, it sounds cooler than if it's just "well, every other cities has been destroyed, but the behirs seem to not have spoted us, yet".

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

So if you want to know population sizes, just ask where the food comes from and how much there is. That's your answer.

I guarantee though that the half-hour it took me to write this post is a half-hour more than WotC spent thinking about it. You can expect that whatever numbers they propose in the DMG for "average town sizes" will be completely pulled out of their ass, and make no sense at all.

This is indeed a helpful post, aside from this last unhelpful, silly, and mildly insulting bit, but...

there are a number of other factors in population size for an urban area, the primary one being that people don't urbanize unless there are huge incentives for doing so, so taking account of the political and economic exegincies is important.

 

[Stogoe]

aside from this last unhelpful, silly, and mildly insulting bit.

I agree, that was unhelpful and insulting, not to mention almost certainly false. And even if Irda Ranger has an advanced degree in population biology, who cares? Fantasy. Roleplaying. Game. 4e has deliberately chosen a 'gamist' approach rather than (IMO) mind-numbing 'simulationsim', and I couldn't be happier.

 

[Piratecat]

I guarantee though that the half-hour it took me to write this post is a half-hour more than WotC spent thinking about it. You can expect that whatever numbers they propose in the DMG for "average town sizes" will be completely pulled out of their ass, and make no sense at all.

Great post, lousy ending - the blanket insult wasn't needed.

But don't let that hijack the thread, please, folks. Stay focused and move on.

 

[Betote]

I think population will be pretty sparse; most towns will have around 100 people, maybe one or two big cities (capitals et al) with over 2.000. At least, this is how I picture a PoL setting; no City of Greyhawk, no Ankh-Morpokh.

Besides, if we listen to the fluff, almost every race had once a great empire that fell apart (this has been said about Dragonborn, Tieflings, Elves, Eladrin, Humans, Giants and Dwarves, IIRC), so I expect to see more ruins than actual settlements

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

Even during the 6-7th centuries with the collapse of the remains of the Roman empire you're not truly looking at a point of light setting. Referencing Aloïsius you're still talking roughly 10 million humanoids in an area the size of Western Europe. To really get point of light there are two places to look, protohistory and the Americas post-Columbus.

For the first try the region where neolithic and bronze ages transitioned. All of Europe including European Russia a population in the range of 5-6 million. Not including European Russia only 3-4 million total. Remember this is total humanoids, both settled and not, so the barbarian hordes and orcs, goblins, etc all have to come from this total pool. Varying it depending on how you want to emphasize the relationship between civilization and barbarians or other evil humanoids. Then if using the 3e community size chart drop the smallest ones off the bottom. The threat environment is too harsh for them to survive. Start with large villages and small towns, all of them should be walled. In a D&D environment I would go further to say these communities should have a communal Dungeon/Bunker against the worse threats. Which also provides a reason for the existence of so many dungeons. Whatever their use now they were the defensive bunker at the center of a settlement a long time ago.

Use a two tier population density system. For determining total population use a Bronze Age like figure. Then to determine the area controlled by any individual settlement use a conservative medieval figure based on food consumption. Irda Ranger is on the right track with the Koku as a measurement device. Determine how many people per acre the land should support. Conservative medieval figures are generally around 2 with 3-4 on the high end, just as an example. With magic it could be significantly higher, even a modern like figure. Then go back and apply it to the settlements you've created an acre is ~.0015mile^2. This should give you the amount of territory actually under control by the settlement which is equal to the area it can farm successfully.

At the macro scale using the overall Bronze Age density means there will be enough distance between settlements to support the point of light feel. It has to be remembered that during the real medieval period, even the darkest days of the 6-7th century there were little farming settlements so thickly scattered that you often couldn't go more than a mile or two in any direction without encountering one. For point of light any two settlements must be at least a couple days walk apart from one controlled zone to another. And most importantly to the point of light concept the area between MUST be dangerous.

A lot of DMs have stopped using wandering monster tables. These are actually a big part of the entire POL style. Basically there needs to be an illustration of why there are so few settled humanoids and the way you do that is with monster attacks. Whether against the party or against other groups of humanoids. Have groups of farmers work the fields under protection of armed warriors, and occasionally a monster of some sort breaks from the cover just beyond the fields and rushes in to snag one or two with varying success. Emphasize the weirdness of the ecology. This isn't Earth with some monsters that occasionally show up, it's Monster Heaven. Dinosaurs, displacer beasts, tyrg, unicorns and gorgons prowl the wilds as commonly as deer and wild cattle.