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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Yora" data-source="post: 5988507" data-attributes="member: 6670763">When I recently made such calculations for my setting, my start was to come up with some basic ratios that I already knew would be assumed.1.) Elves and Lizardfolk are the major races, all others are the minor races.2.) There are more Wood Elves than Dark Elves.3.) There are more Elves than Lizardfolk.4.) There are more Lizardfolk than either Wood Elves or Dark Elves.Based on that, I set these ratios:- the major races make up 2/3 of all humanoid people.- The ratio for them is 4: 3: 2.- That means Lizardfolk 8/27, Wood Elves 6/27, Dark Elves 4/27 (or 30%, 22%, and 15%)For a generic fantasy world, I would start with making two big groups of "civilized people" and "monster people". I guess a ratio of 2/3 and 1/3 would be a good start.Then you could say you put humans, halflings, elves, dwarves, and gnomes at the ratio 12: 6: 4: 2: 1. The result is Humans 24/75 (32%), Halflings 12/45 (16%), Elves 8/75 (11%), Dwarves 4/75 (5%), Gnomes 2/75 (3%).And you can change all the numbers anyway you want.I think it's best to stay away from absolute numbers and even percentages for as long as possible and work with groups and ratios as much as you can. And it first, it only has to be "group A is bigger than group B".Things do get a bit complicated when you then start to split up the entire humanoid population into specific countries. I often end up with a homebrew race that I want to be 10% of the entire population, but it only lives in one small country that suddenly is many times more populous than any of the surrounding lands that are isolated pockets of elves and gnomes. So consider first if it is more important to have the global ratios, or to have the ratios for all regions individually? You may start with the plan, that there are only 5% dwarves, but you happen to make so many large dwarven kingdoms that the end result is almost 20%!</blockquote>

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