This reminds me of a children's book I read to my daughter last night; Stone Soup (by Jon J Muth).

In that book, three monks visit a frontier village in medieval China, which has been plagued by famine, flood and war, and which is unwelcoming of strangers.

The image of the town begins like this (and it's surrounded by mountains on several sides as well):



That's a defensible frontier village. Which her children's book gets more right than many fantasy frontier villages.

You don't even need to go Medieval for walled towns. Catal Huyuk is worth a look. It's a neolithic, pre-bronze age city.

QuoteThe population of the eastern mound has been estimated to be, at maximum, 10,000 people, but the population likely varied over the community's history. An average population of between 5,000 and 7,000 is a reasonable estimate. The sites were set up as large numbers of buildings clustered together. Households looked to their neighbors for help, trade, and possible marriage for their children. The inhabitants lived in mudbrick houses that were crammed together in an aggregate structure. No footpaths or streets were used between the dwellings, which were clustered in a honeycomb-like maze. Most were accessed by holes in the ceiling and doors on the side of the houses, with doors reached by ladders and stairs. The rooftops were effectively streets.

Quote from: HappyDaze;1112923Does this strain anyone else's suspension of disbelief?

Yep, all the time.  In my own games, I put in such defenses.  All the "young" settlements have walls, or at least, a palisade.  They also cover less area so walls are easier to put around them.

My current setting is public and has sections on settlements, construction, and defenses.

Why are s many people ignorant of the fact not all 'frontier' towns had or have now walls for whatever reasons?

I have no clue. But this thread sure shows a-lot of ignorance of this.

The easiest and worst sin an RPG can commit is to not conform to what a gamer believes is logical.  Because that's obviously just incorrect.

Quote from: HappyDaze;1112923Over the years I've noticed that many fantasy games show small towns (often of <500 inhabitants) existing in areas several days travel from other friendly towns that are sitting in areas teeming with monsters and even hostile bands of humanoids. These towns generally have no fortifications (e.g., walls, towers, etc.) and are not even built in a manner where the structures themselves can be fortified (often the structures are rather spread out... which might be a benefit when the orcs start torching them). To top it off, they often have very few defenders (which might be OK if they had some fortifications) to drive off attackers--except for the conveniently present PCs. Does this strain anyone else's suspension of disbelief?

It never occurred to me to have a village, town or city that did not have walls. That is to say cities have defensive walls, towns and villages have stockades lacking the resources to have full blown walls.

Quote from: ElBorak;1113198It never occurred to me to have a village, town or city that did not have walls. That is to say cities have defensive walls, towns and villages have stockades lacking the resources to have full blown walls.

^^This^^

At the frontiers, my fantasy games usually have at least a simple motte & bailey fortification every few hexes to protect the peasants working the farmland around them. They also work as nice mini-dungeons when abandoned and taken over by humanoids.

The big issue is density and mobility. Mobility allows avoidance, and raiding, yet hampers entrenching. However, unless the environmental stress is off the charts, exceedingly few cultures really avoid density. Prey clusters to have more eyes to watch for predators. And remember, density does not mean quantity; you can have small bands and tribes sprinkled around regions, but they will still cluster densely around reliable shelters.

As for examples of the above exceedingly hostile environments, you have to remember all these American frontier towns are in the Great Basin, and surrounding deserts. Australia Outback, Arabia, Sahara, Atacama, Namib, Gobi, Arctic, etc. are good examples where the environmental stress favors mobility and harmony over entrenching. (Fighting still happens, we are still humans and our default state seems to be war.) That is why these areas have cultural techniques to allow quick friendships and diffusion of tensions. You see this in traditions like: honor of hospitality (e.g. Arabia), exceedingly distant family relationship moieties (e.g. Australia), entheogenic hallucinogen ritualized gathering (e.g. Great Basin, Atacama & Paracas), and so on.

Humans are truly, truly a fascinating animal in their ability to adapt to survive. What you think is crazy may have more to do with near-sightedness with what is familiar, which interestingly enough applies to both sides of this RPG issue. Certain things work if their context ensures it. But often there is that other business tension of how much to leave open for personal use, how much is ignorance of breadth of human experience, and further how much is sheer laziness out of greed ("101 Towns to Murderize Your PCs!").

Quote from: jeff37923;1113204^^This^^

At the frontiers, my fantasy games usually have at least a simple motte & bailey fortification every few hexes to protect the peasants working the farmland around them. They also work as nice mini-dungeons when abandoned and taken over by humanoids.

This is what the characters in my campaign are going to have as a home base.  People expanding into the remnants of their ancestors empire.  The new lord of a heavily wooded area throws up a motte and bailey castle until he has the resources to build something more permanent.  Meanwhile the characters are exploring the area, clearing ruins, etc.

Greetings!

I always enjoy having a somewhat chaotic and violent frontier. It makes such a campaign area interesting and always fun!

I'm always reminded though, of how during the reign of Ghengis Khan, a merchant or a messenger could travel from an outpost in European Hungary, all the way to a great city somewhere in China, thousands of miles away in complete safety.

Such merchants, messengers, and ambassadors were given a special scroll by the Mongolian authorities. The scroll declared the bearers of such to be sacred friends of the Mongols, and any violation of them would bring down the wrath of the Mongols upon the perpetrators--they, their families, their clans, would be be hunted down and annihilated utterly.

Bandits, barbarian clans, entire kingdoms and nations seem to have taken the mere words on a Mongolian scroll very seriously. It has been recorded by historians that for many years, such travel along the trade routes within the Mongolian Empire, or under the Mongolian protection, were very safe.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: ElBorak;1113198It never occurred to me to have a village, town or city that did not have walls. That is to say cities have defensive walls, towns and villages have stockades lacking the resources to have full blown walls.

Agree, my gaming worlds always feature this. With the early Judges Guild, just about every town or hamlet was a walled stronghold, or had a tower or some other fortification nearby. Many of my towns and villages featured earthworks, palisades, or both along with one or more central Keeps or Castles. Looking through my artwork for games... D&D has many hazards in the wilderness and towns are almost always guarded either by strongholds or magic in my gaming worlds...

Oriental Palace


Madinas Al Shaib, a fortified Desert city from my Tamerthya homebrew Campaign...


The Snow Castle. one of the Frontier Forts of Kelnore, set in the Crystalmeer (Arctic) portion of my Tamerthya game world


Map of the Snow Castle


Byeshk Towers, Eberron


Snowdonya, Walled Coastal City in Crystalmyr, Tamerthya


Tiranis, Eleven City at Night from my 2001 D&D Campaign


The Crystal Caves, a walled Elven City in Tamerthya


Thinggold, Walled Dwarven City


Suzail in Cormyr, Notice the Guard Tower overlooking the port


Sicaris, Main Gate

Quote from: Haffrung;1112987Yes, Middle Earth is a prime example of a largely underpopulated fantasy world. The movies are even worse than the books - Minas Tirith rises out of an empty plain, as if a city of tens of thousands wouldn't need thousands of square miles of cultivated land to support it and dozens of towns and villages to support it.

And how do they get water up to all of those levels? Are there are aqueducts coming down from the mountains?

Quote from: estar;1112940One thread of D&D's DNA run through the popular image of the American Old West. In the late 60's and early 70s if you said frontier that likely the image that pop into one's head.

As for real world inspiration I would look at medieval Russia as an example of what people do where settlements are isolated amid a vast frontier with a implacable enemy (Mongols) not far away.

Medieval Russian Village

Village Structures

A similar concept are the Chinese Tulous. More advanced in that are made from brick and stone. Possibly a larger population but probably still quite insular and distrustful of outsiders.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fujian_tulou
http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20170531-the-chinese-village-concealed-in-an-ancient-fortress

Quote from: Haffrung;1112970D&D-ish fantasy worlds are almost always ridiculously low-density.

The presence of monsters may explain the low human population. Only the hardiest souls move to the area. Alternately, the area was once more highly-populated, but the monsters themselves dropped the population by eating them or driving them off. Rome had its barbarians, the d&d world has orcs, etc. My own model is generally Britain after the withdrawal of Roman legions - and most of the well-off citizens. The population appears to have dropped hugely. There were always stories of buried treasure, citizens leaving their riches there to come back and dig up later. I'd not be surprised if some of the Saxons, Angles and Jutes came over lured by the promises of such things.

Gamers: Castle walls make no sense in a fantasy world because dragons and wizards can just fly over them.
Also Gamers: Settlements need more walls.