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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Irda Ranger" data-source="post: 3961290" data-attributes="member: 1003">Sure.  I just meant that pop size can be affected by food supply, attrition from wandering monsters, lifespan/reproduction statistics, tech & magic available and other factors I'm probably not thinking of.  And all of those things are effected by a dozen other factors (e.g., food is effected by arability of land, grain-types available, natural food sources, magical spells like Plant Growth, fresh water access and more).  Pile on all of those variables and you could get an equilibrium population density from 10 per square mile to 1,000 per square mile.And yeah, as the underlying factors change over time the equilibrium population varies over time.  For instance, the population of medieval northern Europe and China swung up and down with the length of wheat's growing season (which changed from century to century).  True; but an overly similar world to our own medieval one would leave little room for adventuring careers as we expect them in D&D.  And our medieval world never had to deal with monsters or magic, so you have to expect some differences.It doesn't sit well with me either.  That's why in my worlds I have certain tropes I rely on that assume that fixed position magical structures (like Stonehenge or enchanted castle walls) are a low-level magic that require a lot of time and money to construct and are non-portable, but allow defenders who are primarily levels 1-3 to defend themselves from bigger baddies.  They still need the PC's to venture out into The Wild or to defend the town from dragons, but low level threats (like orc raids) can be handled reliably and with little danger.A favorite of mine, if you're interested, is the assumption that a perfect circle of silver (of any size) will hold a Protection From Evil Spell, X' Radius (where X is the size of the silver) and spell for 1 year.  A town with a circular stone wall with silver built into the foundation will thus be off-limits to demons and (IMC) teleporters (another house rule - you can't teleport through a magic circle).  Building such a perfect circle is expensive in material components and a real architectural / surveying challenge, but once accomplished a low-level caster needs only renew the protections once a year.Perhaps.  Is is "Worlds & Monsters", so it's topical, and I think the Amazon description said something about world-building.</blockquote>

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