Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="HeavenShallBurn" data-source="post: 3958825" data-attributes="member: 39593">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.</blockquote>

Verification