Winterhaven Capsule Hotels

[hong]

If I were 12, it wouldn't be. But my tastes have changed since I was 12 and I expect a richer, livelier, more dynamic environment than what this provides. At the very least, I expect a base environment - however simple - that doesn't require major changes to make it into something for grownups as well.

I can see your point. When I was 12, I pretended to be a halfling. Now, I pretend to be an elf, because I'm taller than when I was 12, and similarly elves are taller than halflings.

I don't believe that that is what I said. Many dungeons are converted dwellings originally purposed for something else. You wouldn't expect these to have toilets. You would expect that living inhabitants would have access to sufficient food and water sources and if not prisoners then the ability to enter and egress thier chosen lair. Putting a toilet in a dungeon doesn't necessarily even make sense, but if I wanted dungeons with 20'x20' rooms containing ancient red dragons linked by 10' corridors then we could just use adventures written by your average 10 year old and save ourselves the $19.95 (or whatever) WotC plans to charge us for this gem.

All your problems would be solved by having more disposable income than you know what to do with. Then you could spend the $19.95 and still have poo elementals.

 

[vagabundo]

<very good summery of the inconsistancies

I agree with pretty much everything in your post above.

A simple fix for the adventure is probably to quarter (hang and draw!!) the population to around 150-200 inside and immediately outside of the village and another 50 or so further afield.

I believe in a POL setting that the farming community would be compressed (so every bit of land is used for something) and the edges of that community fairly sharp, so suddenly you would walk outside the village limits and into possibly danger.

People are unlikely to travel very far into the forest on the edge of the last farm. There are reasons why those scare stories are told to children, as there are creatures that stalk the woods looking for wanderers.

In my POL setting all communities have to be self reliant, so all food would be grown locally and sourced locally. Trade is very infrequent and usually not foodstuffs, more like precious metals and unusual materials.

Also dangers are pretty constant, I'd guess that attacks on villagers and incursions would happen monthly. A militia of up to 40% of the population would be necessary, all able bodies men and women from 15-40+ would be trained in pikes (or spears), shortbow and sword. Professional soldiers around 1-5% of the population and of course a healthy dose of heroes, a nice mid-level warlord would make all the difference in the defence of against aggressors.

 

[Celebrim]

All your problems would be solved by having more disposable income than you know what to do with. Then you could spend the $19.95 and still have poo elementals.

Those statements are very illustrative of something, I just don't know what it is.

But suffice to say that I do not in fact have more disposable income than I know what to do with, and hense I'm not in the target market for this product.

 

[Hussar]

But, you mean that a module isn't a simulationist attempt at a functioning town? Oh no the horrors!

If your players actually sit down and do the demographics of the town, you're wasting WAY too much time with details. What self respecting adventurer even bothers with, let alone cares about, the demographics of a medieval town? Town is where you go when you aren't killing stuff. Occasionally you get to kill stuff in Town, but, that's just a fringe benefit.

So long as there's adventure to be had, who really cares about the capacity of farmland?

 

[thalmin]

1. The village withdrew inside the walls, the walls were not built to contain the village.
2. Hostile activity in the area has only recently changed (it's in the module.)
3. Hostile activity doesn't have to mean attempted genocide. A thief doesn't usually want to destroy the store/victim, just take some stuff.
4. It isn't easy to move a whole village, especially if you must travel through the wilderness (it's safer in here than out there. Even if I live outside the walls, I can run inside if there is real trouble.)

 

[Arnwyn]

My players like details. My players like consistency.

Making nonsensical statements about other peoples' preferences continues to make one look foolish.

[No comment about this adventure in particular, as I haven't seen it. As long as it mentions where the rest of the buildings for the 900+ people are beyond the 17, everything's good.]

 

[Wormwood]

So long as there's adventure to be had, who really cares about the capacity of farmland?

There has always been a segment of the D&D audience who really enjoys focusing on background details. Others are less interested in such things.

I'd always assumed those preferences were a matter of taste, not indicators of maturity.

Live and learn.

 

[Celebrim]

I agree with pretty much everything in your post above.

A simple fix for the adventure is probably to quarter (hang and draw!!) the population to around 150-200 inside and immediately outside of the village and another 50 or so further afield/

I believe in a POL setting that the farming community would be compressed (so every bit of land is used for something) and the edges of that community fairly sharp, so suddenly you would walk outside the village limits and into possibly danger.

People are unlikely to travel very far into the forest on the edge of the last farm. There are reasons why those scare stories are told to children, as there are creatures that stalk the woods looking for wanderers.

In my POL setting all communities have to be self reliant, so all food would be grown locally and sourced locally. Trade is very infrequent and usually not foodstuffs, more like precious metals and unusual materials.

Also dangers are pretty constant, I'd guess that attacks on villagers and incursions would happen monthly. A militia of up to 40% of the population would be necessary, all able bodies men and women from 15-40+ would be trained in pikes (or spears), shortbow and sword. Professional soldiers around 1-5% of the population and of course a healthy dose of heroes, a nice mid-level warlord would make all the difference in the defence of against aggressors.

All of this sounds reasonable except that part about pikes, shortbows, and swords. Those are all high skill weapons requiring considerable training. More likely given average D&D assumed technology, you'd be looking at local polearm of choice, crossbows, and axes. Swords in fact were considered the exclusive province and a distinguishing mark of nobility and in most localities were subject to a special tax or else down right illegal for non-nobility to carry.

You have a considerable advantage over the average American reader in that you've probably had the oppurtunity to actually see a landscaped shaped by medieval demographics. Pretty much no where in America is there such a landscape, though New England comes pretty close. I don't know whether there is an official term for this, but the civic topography of America is based on the train and the stagecoach rather than the horse and ox cart and much of it was settled post mechanization so it looks very different than Europe. It's 'villages' are larger and before urban sprawl much more widely spaced out. It's layout is enherently modern, and its cities are almost universally laid out with automobiles in mind - even its older and non-cosmopolitan ones. True foot traffic and oxcart cities dating back to antiquity just don't exist, and neither really do rural landscapes shaped by primitive farming practices. I'm sure that is a landscape slowly passing away in much of Europe, but the point is that its never really existed here - and the few places that come close are some of the first places that were overrun by metro sprawl.

So the anachronisms probably jump out at you more readily than some. For me, I've the advantage (or as Hong would have it, disadvantage) of having studied this stuff pretty extensively for 20+ years.

 

[Wormwood]

Making nonsensical statements about other peoples' preferences continues to make one look foolish.

I could not agree more.

 

[A--A]

Is d&d the game for lazy characters?

1 mile to Kobold lair.

1.5 miles to the Keep.

I thought the theme of Points of Light that things were dispersed in a big partially unknown/unknowable world?

A simple solution would to multiply the distances by 10 or 20. If an ordinary person like me can march 40 miles in a day (not recently but I can) then heroes can do that too, right!

Also the town map looks assembled from stock town bits rather a town being drawn.