Quote from: Scott Anderson;785503Okay here's my supporting evidence.

Of the donations from professors to republican candidates and to Obama for president in 2008 and 2012, 92% went to Obama. And his number one stated purpose is to fundamentally transform America. Which he has done.

That's how I know they hate America. You wanna fucking call me the fuck out on fucking America-hating academics, you can fucking bite me.  I know my enemies. Do you?

yeah.  You can yank this thread now.
this is about as close to political trolling as you can get.
92% of a highly educated group went to one candidate.  and because they voted a way I disapprove of, they hate America.

Please raise the average IQ of the country slightly by leaving.

Back on topic.

AD&D set a 16% chance of any given hex being habited. 14% being actual dwellings, the other 2% being ruins. So about 1 hex in 7 having someone living in it ranging from 1 to 60,000+.

Alright now gentlemen lets let that particular portion of the thread lie. I think this has been a productive thread on the subject and I'd like to see it continue to be so rather than end up locked.

So back on topic, just how much can we account for fantastic elements in setting demographics before it becomes to cumbersome to do so? I know that this will vary from setting to setting, one thing that most seem to agree on though is that it would lead to a more militarized style of living. Having wandering hordes of monsters, or even the threat of the small groups of them, seems like over time combined with the normal threats a society faces might would drive a very high emphasis on the warrior class. That or end up in a society where everyone is expected to be something of a warrior. I am leaning more toward the first for the current setting I am working on for 5e.

Quote from: Arkansan;785529Some good stuff in there, thanks! Looks like population density by county was pretty low in 1086, I wonder how much lower it would have been in say 500? Or even 700?

Northern European populations were very low until the invention of the mouldboard plough allowed wheat farming in the heavy northern European clay soils. Even civilised areas like Roman Britain seem to have had low populations.

Quote from: Arkansan;785552So back on topic, just how much can we account for fantastic elements in setting demographics before it becomes to cumbersome to do so? I know that this will vary from setting to setting, one thing that most seem to agree on though is that it would lead to a more militarized style of living. Having wandering hordes of monsters, or even the threat of the small groups of them, seems like over time combined with the normal threats a society faces might would drive a very high emphasis on the warrior class. That or end up in a society where everyone is expected to be something of a warrior. I am leaning more toward the first for the current setting I am working on for 5e.

Yes - for worlds with wandering orc hordes and such, generally I find that classical (pre-Roman) and dark ages eras give me better inspiration than high-medieval, unless I am creating a world with large civilised areas ("Realm of Man") behind violent frontiers, in which case I can go more Gygaxian with civilised-medieval societies combined with frontiers that resemble the Scottish borders or the wild frontiers of medieval eastern Europe.

The 4e D&D World of Nerath was a good approach to a Dark Ages, post-empire type world. The Wilderlands has more of a Classical feel, or pre-Hellenistic Greek Dark Ages feel (with the Gnoll Times substituting for the Dorian Invasions). Greyhawk would work for High Medieval + Frontiers if the population numbers weren't so low; I think 3e multiplied them by 5 but really they need to be much larger still to fill the map in any plausible manner.  Forgotten Realms is a bit of an odd case, but closer to the Frontier approach - for the core Sword Coast & Heartlands I tend to treat it like the American Frontier minus any major centralised State, while Cormyr and a few other areas are traditional High Medieval. Core FR culture has a very modern 'Ren Faire' feel so historical analogues are weak, but the late 17th or early 18th century is probably closest.

On 'everyone a warrior', I mix it up a fair bit - in FR the typical frontier situation is most people are yeoman farmers who are fairly capable of defending themselves and their steadings or villages from wolves, bandits, goblins, Uthgardt etc. Some more populous areas have feudalism with a knightly class pledged to defend their peasant farmers; their tax demands have to be light though since there is plenty of unfarmed wilderness land for disgruntled peasants to flee to - only danger keeps peasants under the knightly shield.

My current Wilderlands Ghinarian Hills games are set in a kind of mini version of Mycenean or Greek Dark Ages culture, with local warlords defending their little realms with a small warband, and ruling over a mass of subjects whose status somewhat resembles medieval peasantry, but mostly sheep herders rather than wheat farmers (they also grow olive trees, but that hasn't featured in-game yet, whereas the sheep herding has come up a fair bit). In this setting the lightly armed 'peasants' use slings, javelins and such to ward off wolves from the flocks, and in support of the warlord's small force of heavily armoured elite soldiers.

Quote from: Arkansan;785552Alright now gentlemen lets let that particular portion of the thread lie. I think this has been a productive thread on the subject and I'd like to see it continue to be so rather than end up locked.

So back on topic, just how much can we account for fantastic elements in setting demographics before it becomes to cumbersome to do so? I know that this will vary from setting to setting, one thing that most seem to agree on though is that it would lead to a more militarized style of living. Having wandering hordes of monsters, or even the threat of the small groups of them, seems like over time combined with the normal threats a society faces might would drive a very high emphasis on the warrior class. That or end up in a society where everyone is expected to be something of a warrior. I am leaning more toward the first for the current setting I am working on for 5e.

Right.
You need to figure out a lot of the base-level/historical demographics BEFORE you get to these.

What % of your population is 'level-capable'?  What % of that can cast magic?  And of that, how many are priest-like and how many are others?  Lastly, what type of power scale is your game?
These alone have a gigantic effect on the political and economics of your fantasy setting.  For example, If your setting is one where an average town has 8 churches with an average of 10 casting priests, how likely is an outbreak of disease when the city has 96 cure disease spells a day available?

On the opposite, how prevalent are undead and where do they come from?  What tribes of humanoids are out there, and how level capable are they?  How large do they have to be to thrive in a setting with all sorts of larger and more powerful threats?

Quote from: Scott Anderson;785543[...] I am also interested in learning both about medieval demographics, and their fantasy analogue.

I have to admit I have long since lost my taste for "realistic" clockwork universes, unless I am explicitly playing a low-magic, low-fantasy sandbox or something.  In the same way that "Tolkien with the serial numbers filed off" homogenized fantasy in the 1980's, "An era of medieval history with the serial numbers filed off" (GRRM being the biggest offender, but I'm also looking at you, Dave Duncan) is homogenizing fantasy badly now.

Give me flying ships, impossibly huge crystalline castles sticking out of the side of mountains at impossible angles, talking animals and royal families of water elementals whose social structure looks like the Chinese Imperial bureaucracy.  I want some fantasy in my fantasy.

Quote from: daniel_ream;785630I have to admit I have long since lost my taste for "realistic" clockwork universes, unless I am explicitly playing a low-magic, low-fantasy sandbox or something.  In the same way that "Tolkien with the serial numbers filed off" homogenized fantasy in the 1980's, "An era of medieval history with the serial numbers filed off" (GRRM being the biggest offender, but I'm also looking at you, Dave Duncan) is homogenizing fantasy badly now.

Give me flying ships, impossibly huge crystalline castles sticking out of the side of mountains at impossible angles, talking animals and royal families of water elementals whose social structure looks like the Chinese Imperial bureaucracy.  I want some fantasy in my fantasy.

I teeter back and forth on the issue. Sometimes I like a lower fantasy where things "make sense". However I do have the urge from time to time to just go over the top and truly be "fantastic".

There's a middle ground -- having a firm grasp of realistic demographics can help provide a solid jumping off point for fantastical weirdness.

It reminds me of art. Pablo Picasso's early work is surprising to most people, because it's very realistic portraiture. When he started doing cubism... it was a conscious decision to do things in a particular 'unrealistic' fashion. He did it _informed_ by how perspective normally works.

Basically, if you don't make an attempt to learn how things really work before changing things, you're kind of being lazy and missing an opportunity to improve your work.

Quote from: LordVreeg;785620Right.
You need to figure out a lot of the base-level/historical demographics BEFORE you get to these.

What % of your population is 'level-capable'?  What % of that can cast magic?  And of that, how many are priest-like and how many are others?  Lastly, what type of power scale is your game?
These alone have a gigantic effect on the political and economics of your fantasy setting.  For example, If your setting is one where an average town has 8 churches with an average of 10 casting priests, how likely is an outbreak of disease when the city has 96 cure disease spells a day available?

On the opposite, how prevalent are undead and where do they come from?  What tribes of humanoids are out there, and how level capable are they?  How large do they have to be to thrive in a setting with all sorts of larger and more powerful threats?

Right, the game books give you a lot of bits and pieces, but with rare exceptions (I'm thinking of some official lines in 4e) they leave it up to you how those fit together and in what proportions.

The best way to work up a plausible game situation is with actual play: Establish some premises, and cut people loose. What you learn from that dynamic process can then inform the background for another game.

GDW did something like this to create the background for Traveller 2300 (later disambiguated with the title 2300 AD).

Quote from: Phillip;785636Right, the game books give you a lot of bits and pieces, but with rare exceptions (I'm thinking of some official lines in 4e) they leave it up to you how those fit together and in what proportions.

And this is so critical to making the game seem like it works.

Things can be totally fantastic and make sense, or be gritty and low powered and make sense.  And somewhere in between can be pretty cool as well.

Quote from: Arkansan;785552So back on topic, just how much can we account for fantastic elements in setting demographics before it becomes to cumbersome to do so? I know that this will vary from setting to setting, one thing that most seem to agree on though is that it would lead to a more militarized style of living.

I'd say that very few settings -- and certainly fewer published settings -- have thought this through.

If you have wandering monsters and orc raids routinely rampaging through the countryside -- deep within the notional borders of nations, and powerful enough to require PCs to kill -- then the nations' ability to produce the food and luxury goods that the players rely on having in affordable abundance is seriously compromised.

If, by contrast, you have a countryside militarized enough to handle or cordon off such threats, a lot of PC plotlines go away ... and, incidentally, the PCs' ability to push around or intimidate schmuck villagers should be sharply reduced.

Good point about wandering encounters being an external pressure to be accounted.

I personally work plain wildlife and travelers/merchants/etc. heavier in the Common & Uncommon slots while in civilized areas. I allow smaller races to overlap on the periphery, such as halflings/gnomes/goblins/kobolds, as long as there's agreement to tolerate each other. I use wilder, less organized races like goblins & kobolds to be buffers to utter wilderness.

In this way civilized areas are safer, though still dangerous rarely, and then progressive rings of less safe organization.

Quote from: Haffrung;785185That makes perfect sense. However, the villages and towns presented in most published D&D settings are nothing like the fortified, beleaguered communities you would expect to find in such locales. Instead, we get prosperous, cheerful places with several bustling inns, shops full of all kinds of marvelous goods, artisans of all stripes bedecked in jewelry, and farmers who keep sacks of gold in the barn.

Take the Vault of Larin Karr, for example. We have a valley that's 150 miles by 100 miles, with two villages in it 75 miles apart. Each of them is a bustling, rich community full of highly skilled artisans, finely worked buildings, and cheerful prosperous folk. By the description, they wouldn't be out of place in an especially peaceful and prosperous period in the early Renaissance Rhineland. They sure don't come across as fortified outposts on the hostile wilds.

Well there's only one situation I can think of in which that kind of society would make sense: a post-apocalyptic area in which the human population has been reduced to a tiny fraction of its former value (or in which humans are new colonists) but where there aren't many threats about at the moment.

Obviously this state of affairs is passing as the human population will boom rapidly but it's possible and I think it shows up a lot in fantasy because it fits with two things that would be very familiar to a lot of people when the fantasy genre was getting its legs under it: Tolkien and the Wild West.

Middle Earth in Tolkien is absolutely post-apocalyptic which explains the very low population density but it doesn't seem THAT dangerous as long as you're not poking your nose in scary places, which is why Bree exists and why the dwarfs were able to travel around for years and years and years without dying before the start of the Hobbit. Dangerous, sure, but not so dangerous when there's not a war going on that you can't have prosperous unwalled villages in some areas.

Same goes for the American West (and in a lot of ways D&D can really feel like a Western), which was again post-apocalyptic due to the massive die-off that hit America as a result of the Colombian Exchange etc. This resulted in a lot of small, unwalled and fairly prosperous villages with massive areas of wilderness in between. Again, certainly dangerous but no so dangerous that you can't have prosperous unwalled villages.

So the sort of demographics you're complaining about are certainly POSSIBLE, but yeah, using them as a baseline is rather weird and not my preference either.

Quote from: daniel_ream;785271I pull right out of Faux-Medievalia and assume things look like the fortified city-states of Mesopotamia and pre-Columbian Central America.  Everybody lives close enough to the city that they can retreat inside the walls when shit happens.

My own preferences are for things to be on a bit smaller scale. I suppose fortified manors/large farmhouses make sense if there are small scale but endemic threats while fortified cities make more sense if there's occasional but massive threats. There's a trade-off between quality of fortification and how quickly people can get behind the fortifications, for example it'd be hard to have a sizable city in which all of the people who farm food to feed it get behind its walls every night.