Population density in your setting?

[BigFreekinGoblinoid]

You left out the most important one: I choose a population density that's appropriate to the setting.

That is the crux of it. Ebberon is NOT your average European medieval setting. Even though the average person on Khorvaire may not be able to afford magical transportation or communications doesn't mean they don't benefit from it indirectly.

Throw out your old perceptions of D&D worlds where magic is used by a select few, and only for combat purposes. This is not that game.

So Khorvaire is largly uninhabited aside from support communities around larger cities - so what?

Looking at an Atlas (2004) I see that the majority of available land in North America, South America and even Asia has a population density of less than 1/square mile! Yes, most people live by the coast. Yes, the population density is much higher there.

An aggregated population/sq mile density for a continent ultimately tells us nothing of value. Anyone can manipulate numbers one way or another.

What is next for fantasy world demographics analysis?

Population anlaysis by age?
Population growth projections?
Infant Mortality rates?
Nutrional comparisons by region?

No, these minute details are not required for a healthy, believable setting.

Yes, a large city needs resource support for it's continued existance and growth. Beyond providing semi-reasonable justifications for this, no exact numbers are required in a fantasy setting.

 

[Driddle]

The last time one of my players' characters told his traveling buddy, "You're one in a million!" he was struck dead by a meteor cast from the sky by Kount'm, the god of the census, for committing the sin of population underestimation.

 

[jmucchiello]

* Do those numbers make your life any more or less "real" to you?

No, because I know the real numbers in my real life have many effects on my reality that I am both aware and unaware. This has no meaning to gamers who are Simulationists as reality is not a simulation. I fail to see what this and your other questions are supposed to accomplish other than poking fun at people who think differently than you. Intolerance of others is ugly even when it involves sarcastic gods of census.

 

[jmucchiello]

No, these minute details are not required for a healthy, believable setting.

For you.

Yes, a large city needs resource support for it's continued existance and growth. Beyond providing semi-reasonable justifications for this, no exact numbers are required in a fantasy setting.

For you.

I cannot understand why you (and others making similar posts) are telling other gamers what details are and are not important for their enjoyment.

Look, there is no wrong way to play RPGs as long as everyone at the table is satisfied with the game.

There is no level of detail or lack of detail that is perfect for all people.

There exist elements that some people will find perfectly exceptable in a campaign setting that other people will find completely unacceptable. There are different levels of unacceptable for each of these elements as well. (Consider such elements as gunpowder, flying ships, unseelie fey, etc.)

Embrace the differences.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

So Khorvaire is largly uninhabited aside from support communities around larger cities - so what?

I think the biggest issue in regards to that is the sneaking suspicion that the Eberron population numbers are what they are simply because the designers didn't even consider them - that they picked a number out of a hat. If there were more of a feeling of "this is odd, but we've got reasons!" there'd be no discussions about it.

In any case, since this isn't supposed to be an Eberron thread, I'll just mention that in my own campaign (which consists of two main continents and is around 4,000 miles from east to west) population densities vary wildly. In the "center" where the Empire is, it ranges up in the 70-100 people per square mile area. At the edges, it is far, far lower, much like your examples of rural America (South and North).

So long as it makes sense, choose the numbers you want. But make me believe you have a reason for what happens in the game. Every time something occurs in the game that has no good reason, it draws me out of the game. Again, that's just me. And clearly some others here.

 

[Dr. Harry]

... I think about the vast numbers of people in the area I live in every time I get into a massive traffic jam at 12pm on a SATURDAY afternoon (which is every Saturday). It is immediately apparent just how many people there are.

As for the second part, I don't really think about it. But if I were to be playing in a game set in a roughly modern world, with 8-lane superhighways leading into the city, and my DM told me that only 270,000 people lived in a 100-mile radius insted of the 2.7 million that there actually are, I'd be immediately forced to wonder how there could possibly be a traffic jam.

I've driven through Chicago several times. I can easily believe that there are 2.7 million people in Chicago, and I could also believe that all that 2.5 million of those people do is drive slowly between Gary and Racine and back.

I fall in the logical, medieval level of population. It seems like a good default. If you plan on changing it to something else, you should have reason, however simple.

Then I looked for info, and found my assumptions about population were way off. I adjusted my campaign accordingly. My players maybe unaware, but I'm happier.

The way I look at it, a job of the DM is too make the suspension of disbelief as easy as possible. One of the ways that I try to do that is to make the parts of my world that are not extraordinary as normal as possible, so that most of the player's day-to-day assumptions about the world can be reasonably drawn from their mental models of the mundane world. Like BelenUmbria, I recommend the Medieval Demographics Made Easy Site.

 

[Munin]

The largest city IMC has an urban population of more than a million people. The theme of the setting is 'larger than life': massive mountain chains that dwarf the tallest on earth; huge, dense forests that span for thousands of square miles, canyons thousands of feet deep, etc.

The world is flat, the cosmos is a firmament, not a universe, things are the way they are because God made them that way. Humanity clings to the edges of the world like a child to its mother.
In short, the main consideration is what fits the theme of the world. That's what determines how things are developed on that level of the setting.

 

[Blue_Kryptonite]

I suppose, there's.. People.. in... places. And.. In those places, they have... Some people. More in other places, and in some.. um.. not so many. Look, are you going to kick in the door or what?

 

[jgbrowning]

For the majority of you who've said population isn't important to your game, what reasons are there for needing those numbers to not be pleasing to gamers who do care about population?

For me, until the need for "realism" impacts negatively on my gaming, I don't think there's a reason to not have numbers that are more pleasing to people who care about realism (simulationists). People play the game differently, and until their style of play actually reduces my enjoyment of the game, there's no need for hostility or ridicule. Even then, there's no need.

Which is what many people (simulationists) were talking about in the Eberron thread. Population numbers reduce their enjoyment of the game whereas I'm having difficulty understanding how people who don't care about population numbers would have had their enjoyment of the game reduced if the numbers in the book were more pleasing to simulationists.

To me, anything that is more accurate in one aspect and that does not reduce enjoyment in another aspect is an improvement that should be done. Absurd arguments (counting the oxygen from trees) is one thing, population numbers (which are almost always in every campaign setting) are aspects which should be as accurate as possible in comparision to how we understand reality. Because for the people who don't care, they don't care if they're accurate or not, but for the people who do care, it is important. It's always best to try and please as many people as possible when in a situation to do so.

joe b.

 

[Haradim]

I suppose, there's.. People.. in... places. And.. In those places, they have... Some people. More in other places, and in some.. um.. not so many. Look, are you going to kick in the door or what?

That about sums up my vote. I have 'population'.

Where it all ends up would never hold up to scrutiny