Sharn is a virtual ghost town!

[reanjr]

Rel,

Welcome to the mystical hand-waving that is Eberron's population figures.

Keep in mind that I think Keith said over on the WotC forums that those figures do not include women and children, and that the war depopulated everything a bit, and things look a lot better. Even considering the world outside of Sharn, the pop. figures are too low for square land area. Someone once came to the calcuation that Khorvaire has (with the pop. figures in the book) a population density of 1.9 people per square mile. Triple that and you get almost 5 people per square mile, which is enough to build a pre-to-early industrial society.

Why not include women? From the campaign setting, I was under the impression that most of Eberron was fairly egalitarian gender-wise

 

[Turanil]

All this empty space would be cool for adventuring purposes. Discover ratmen, zombies, mind-flayers, and what not that have unknowingly taken up residence 23 floors above your appartment!

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

two-acres sounds about right, but then again I live in a plains state.

And if you are interested in running a depopulated urban center I highly recommend looking up Do Androids Deam of Electric Sheep.

 

[Nightchilde-2]

How I handle it.

a) Ignore the actual population numbers.
b) Populate areas as needed.

But then, I've done that in other "limited population" type setups too..fortunately my players don't question such things.

However, if you don't want to simply handwave...

a) That's probably known population. There could be hundreds of thousands of little goblinoids wandering around the cogs.
b) That probably doesn't include the homeless.
c) That figure most likely doesn't take into account visitors. Sharn would, I would think, see a lot of visitors from all throughout Eberron; from Karnnathi ambassadors to people just there for a vacation. All those visitors gotta stay, eat and shop somewhere.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Why not include women? From the campaign setting, I was under the impression that most of Eberron was fairly egalitarian gender-wise

It is that whole head of household thing and tax payers only being counted. Population counts have always been fuzzy, equal rights, slavery, not even counted (Americian Indian). Sure this is a fantasy game and really should have a more correct number but the system for determining popluation is in error and carries over.

The quickest thing to do is call the number: households, a phase you hear all the time today because it is more accurate. Average household is 4.3 units last I heard.

 

[Arnwyn]

I wish I read these threads before I purchased the book.

Looks like inadequate thought went into the writing and/or design of this book. Not impressive.

 

[Hand of Evil]

I wish I read these threads before I purchased the book.

Looks like inadequate thought went into the writing and/or design of this book. Not impressive.

Its math, if you don't look at it it just does not matter, your players will not be asking you, how many people in the street, mmmm, that does not add up.

 

[Dragonblade]

Well, the premise of the thread is correct. Sharn's population is unrealistically small.

Medieval London or Edo (Tokyo) had populations of a million people. Heck, even Waterdeep has a million people!

Sharn's population is far too small for such a big metropolis.

 

[Knight Otu]

Keep in mind that I think Keith said over on the WotC forums that those figures do not include women and children, and that the war depopulated everything a bit, and things look a lot better. ...

At the very least, I'm pretty sure that all demographics in WotC products exclude children. I don't think it excludes women, though. But I suppose there had to be a lot of children to bring the population to "more acceptable" levels.

 

[Rel]

I wish I read these threads before I purchased the book.

Looks like inadequate thought went into the writing and/or design of this book. Not impressive.

I honestly don't feel this way and I certainly hope that the various Sharn threads that I've started or participated in have not heightened any disappointment you have with this product. As it happens, I think this is one of the best, most inspiring, gaming books I've read in years. There were adventure ideas literally jumping off every page at me. At this point I feel like I could run Sharn campaigns exclusively for the next 5 years and still not run out of ideas.

And, like I've said, even the parts that seem inconsistent have adventure hooks.