Quote from: CRKrueger;1113027Yeah they are.  D&D based on the Old West style of the frontier means vast amounts of land and things are spread out.  There's one problem with spreading things out...you can't defend it or even stop simple animals from moving around (before the invention of barbed wire), it took too much wood.  So you build up, not out, with two, three, even four story buildings, narrow streets, etc. so that the outer palisade's circumference is less.  A large amount of medieval Europe is forest with good access to water, especially Eastern Europe, which allows for these kinds of structures.

One thing you see a lot of in medieval walled towns is that there really aren't separate buildings as such.  Structures, especially against a wall, are basically built right onto the ones next to them.  My friend had some really cool pictures of some small walled cities in Eastern Europe from when he went there as a kid, I'll ask him if he still has any.

I think a lot of this comes straight from the movies too. Even a lot of the Chinese martial arts films set in historical periods I watch, are influenced by westerns and sometimes you see western logic applied to these sort of things.

There are some great books out there on town and city architecture in different historical periods. The one thing I will say though, is I am often surprised by the exceptions to any general rules we can create. For a game, I think if you are going for realism and historical authenticity, then you want to account for these things. At the same time, I've found in my own experience, these kinds of details are often not very appreciated by players (I have had 1 or 2 players who would notice this stuff and engage with it). So for a lot of GMs, these kinds of details are not necessarily going to be where they have pressure to put their time thinking about or reading about. When I do have players like that, I do tend to start investing more effort than I otherwise would on it.

Because RPGs have largely abandoned their wargaming roots in favor of literary pretentions.

Only wargamers, or those with a similar level of history or military knowledge, would notice the indefensibility of the settlements in question.

Quote from: Lunamancer;1113316Gamers: Castle walls make no sense in a fantasy world because dragons and wizards can just fly over them.
Also Gamers: Settlements need more walls.

They need more walls to deal with the vastly larger proportions of monsters that cannot fly over them*. If large flying monsters (or hordes of smaller flying monsters) are a common threat, then walls would indeed be insufficient. In such case, perhaps dug-in bunkers/shelters might be an answer.

* Similar issues also exist for monsters that can rapidly burrow under walls, but these don't tend to be common either.

Quote from: HappyDaze;1113330They need more walls to deal with the vastly larger proportions of monsters that cannot fly over them*. If large flying monsters (or hordes of smaller flying monsters) are a common threat, then walls would indeed be insufficient. In such case, perhaps dug-in bunkers/shelters might be an answer.

* Similar issues also exist for monsters that can rapidly burrow under walls, but these don't tend to be common either.

That is why I raise objections if frontier towns don't have anti-aerial nets and catapults, and iron mesh fencing buried deep below the city wall

Quote from: RandyB;1113321Because RPGs have largely abandoned their wargaming roots in favor of literary pretentions.

Only wargamers, or those with a similar level of history or military knowledge, would notice the indefensibility of the settlements in question.

I hadn't thought about that, but it's an excellent point. The common attitude today seems to be "is this like the books/movies I love?" rather than "does this make sense in the world, knowing what I know about similar situations in history?"

Quote from: RandyB;1113321Because RPGs have largely abandoned their wargaming roots in favor of literary pretentions.

Only wargamers, or those with a similar level of history or military knowledge, would notice the indefensibility of the settlements in question.

So what? Sure experience in medieval wargaming would help identify whether a settlement was defensible or not. But unless that wargamer looks beyond battle and military campaign and reads up on history, that experience does little to help deciding whether a settlement should have defenses based on its history, geography, and current circumstances.

Quote from: Haffrung;1113346I hadn't thought about that, but it's an excellent point. The common attitude today seems to be "is this like the books/movies I love?" rather than "does this make sense in the world, knowing what I know about similar situations in history?"

Yup.

OTOH, there is the triage mindset. Too expensive to defend everywhere against even the most likely threats, so accept the losses and be proactive - hire adventurers - to prevent threats at key points.

Quote from: Lunamancer;1113316Gamers: Castle walls make no sense in a fantasy world because dragons and wizards can just fly over them.
Also Gamers: Settlements need more walls.

In regard to the first, depends how common wizards and dragons are.  

But there's always been a disconnect between gamers who want their games to be grounded in historical reality even if that might mean fudging some of the implications of the games rules and gamers who wanted to treat the games fantasy rules as sci-fi technology and have armoured griffin cavalry and magic powererd railways and the like.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;1113338That is why I raise objections if frontier towns don't have anti-aerial nets and catapults, and iron mesh fencing buried deep below the city wall

I think I saw something like this in a post-apocalyptic Gamma World-like setting, but it's not common for D&D-style fantasy. The latter will, if anything, build underground bunkers that have some way of repelling burrowing predators like the kaers from Earthdawn.

Quote from: HappyDaze;1113364I think I saw something like this in a post-apocalyptic Gamma World-like setting, but it's not common for D&D-style fantasy. The latter will, if anything, build underground bunkers that have some way of repelling burrowing predators like the kaers from Earthdawn.

I was kidding

Quote from: Lunamancer;1113316Gamers: Castle walls make no sense in a fantasy world because dragons and wizards can just fly over them.
Also Gamers: Settlements need more walls.

..and then again, maybe the Dragons and the Wizards can't just fly over the castle walls...

Quote from: estar;1113347So what? Sure experience in medieval wargaming would help identify whether a settlement was defensible or not. But unless that wargamer looks beyond battle and military campaign and reads up on history, that experience does little to help deciding whether a settlement should have defenses based on its history, geography, and current circumstances.

If there really was a human/monster frontiers, you would have either a string of castles and watch towers or, if more imperial, a great wall with mile forts. If you have small towns (i.e. villages) directly on your frontier, then you've already made a mistake.

Besides, a walled village is going to hold out exactly as long as it takes the monsters to build a ladder. Or less if the monsters can climb. You just don't have the manpower to defend it. All the wall does is keep the villagers close together to make it easier for them to be eaten as the monsters aren't going to be offering the villagers terms for their surrender. Better to have your village open and spread out so at least there's a chance that some villagers can run into the woods and hide.

In my games a frontier village - almost every Wilderlands village - has a stockade or wall and a reasonably competent militia that is well able to defend against raids by goblins, orcs, gnolls etc. If they were not then the village would not exist. These monsters are not much more dangerous than humans.

One thing I like about 5e is that this militia can credibly defend even against larger humanoids like ogres trolls and giants.

Obviously the wall has a walkway to respond to incursion and shoot from. In Wilderlands I treat a human village similar to eg an orc lair, they will have comparable defences.

In 'ridiculously underpopulated' D&D-type settings, especially those with the idea that the civilised 'Realm' is ruled by Law, I like to use Chinese walled villages as a model. Orderly, fortified, tightly packed.

In more sophisticated civilizations, defense is conducted on a regional basis by armies, and there is less need to have fortifications on every peasant village. You tend to have fortresses at strategic points to deny ingress into a region, say at the mouth of a river, or in a high mountain pass. The idea is that soldiers will deploy from a fortress and go out to meet the enemy in the field, preferably before they can enter the region. Instead of building town and city walls, the farmers and peasants pay taxes to support the army.

In migratory cultures, fortifications are rare, because you're not going to take them with you.

And once you have gunpowder, or sufficient magic, meaningful fortifications are far too expensive for farmers to build for themselves.