Over 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?
Even when I started gming at 11 my villages always had stockades. I often have to draw them around published villages. Definitely bugs me.
Suburb in, suburb out.
http://qualityminiatures.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/DSCN0748wr.jpg (http://qualityminiatures.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/DSCN0748wr.jpg)
Even a cluster of fortified homes like the picture above would be a huge improvement over the open farms and structures we usually see in D&D (and similar) art.
Quote from: HappyDaze;1112923Does this strain anyone else's suspension of disbelief?
It depends on the context. Frontiers can move in two directions; maybe when the town was first built the territory
wasn't frontier-land -- the encroaching orcs may be responding to the withdrawal of the local lord's knights as civil war is brewing in the distant capital, and thanks to decades of farming the timber needed to build a palisade is no longer readily available, or is in a forest already controlled by the orcs. Or perhaps the lord who gave the settlers permission had an attack of paranoia and granted them the land solely on condition they build no fortifications of their own; it wouldn't be the first time a distant government shafted the locals. Or the settlers themselves (or their controlling leadership, at least) are radical pacifists and believe that living life as if you were under siege is no life at all.
That said, if I can think of these reasons with a few minutes' thought, it is a strike against setting designers if they don't bother to do so.
As for the origin of this trope I actually suspect it has more to do with the Western, or with stories based on
The Seven Samurai, than unconscious emulation of suburbia -- if the local innocents were already well-defended against the encroaching threat, there wouldn't be much for the PCs to do.
One 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 (https://mythicrussia.wordpress.com/2014/07/06/what-does-a-medieval-russian-village-look-like/)
Village Structures (http://sofyalarus.info/russia/villagestructures.html)
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 (https://mythicrussia.wordpress.com/2014/07/06/what-does-a-medieval-russian-village-look-like/)
And just like that. My gaming reality has changed.
I think the issue is just an artifact of "small starter town in reasonable proximity to dungeon that is now a threat" thing, which gets lifted as the default village pattern everywhere. When the creatures are in the dungeon but not raiding, and that is the threat, then maybe the village/town hasn't adapted to the threat yet.
It becomes much more obvious in a sandbox, when you have multiple possible threats, many of them nomadic, and some of them capable of doing serious damage to the civilized area. Anyone doing that from scratch and employing any thought at all will make the village more defensible.
Of course, this is also one of the limitations of the frequent advice to a new GM to "start small"--that's a home base and a dungeon. If it turns out you wanted some moving, wilderness threats nearby too, then you really needed to think about that when you started.
The issue of distance has always bugged me. I just can't get my head around a village of 500 or so people with rich residents, shops, etc. that's 50 miles, or a three-day walk, from the next nearest settlement. D&D-ish fantasy worlds are almost always ridiculously low-density. I suppose there are practical reasons (it would get onerous to depict a dozen or so villages in a 30 mile hex). And as others have suggested, D&D has more than a few American frontier tropes baked into its DNA.
As for why no fortifications, it may be something as simple as the first popular D&D settlement - Hommlet - was regarded as the template for everything that came after.
I'd say the no walls or other defenses is as much to do with looking into historical medieval town maps that show lots of undefended villages. Of course those don't tell you what villages would be like on the frontier with monsters ravaging the region.
It's definitely a good point that such frontier settlements should be at least defensible against small raids.
For the West Marches inspired campaign I'm working on, I'm planning on having the town (safe) located in a defensible location and it will certainly have walls and other defenses. The idea of a West Marches wilderness itself might not be very realistic, but that part is certainly set up for a certain play experience and I can accept a certain lack of realism for the sake of game play, but there's nothing wrong with setting up the town to be defensible.
Keep in mind, maps won't show most settlements. Anything on a map should have a network of satellites. My rule of thumb is any entry on the Greyhawk town chart also has several of the smaller rungs clustered around it, with the periphery of one map-point's cluster not too far away from the periphery of another map-point's cluster. So you have a town, with a few villages who themselves are surrounded by hamlets and thorps. Going from the farthest thorp in a different direction will encounter other thorps that increase to hamlets and villages, etc., until the next cluster-center is reached, which might be another town but could also just be a village, etc.
Any cluster center should be defensible, because that's where the outlying smaller settlements will flee to. If a settlement isn't protected then it's probably just a minor satellite with a defense plan of "flee".
Keep on the boarderlands is a fortified frontier town. Pretty much every single settlement in Chult is walled. It really depends on the module. Some are not set near hotspots. Others may have been settled in areas no one was aware was a hotspot or about to become one.
Other times the writer or designer just did not think of it. It is an easy thing to overlook. But using the wild west and Africa as two hostile frontiers. People did indeed build farms and towns undefended. From what I've been told by friends in Africa. Some of that was because when the places were set up the locals were friendly. Or the settlers really had no idea of how hostile the land itself can be.
And this is true even to modern times.
he other factor is... logistics. There may not be enough manpower or materials to erect a viable fortification. Or people with the tools, knowhow and especially time to work on it. Remember that farming and other subsistience lifestyles take up alot of time and energy. But places that could often did try to erect some sort of defense.
Also not every culture builds walled in settlements even when living in hostile environs. Why? I have no clue.
Maybee the home itself becomes the 'fort' as it were? Or the basement. Considering how stocked and defended some were. Why did my great grandparents place out in the middle of nowhere in Tennessee have a reinforced crossbar on the inside of the basement outer access door? (and I think the kitchen access hatch had one on the inside too?) What was out there that they believed that this sort of fortification was needed?
Fantasy frontier towns are tactically indefensible because they only ever get attacked if the DM wants them too.
Quote from: Shasarak;1112977Fantasy frontier towns are tactically indefensible because they only ever get attacked if the DM wants them too.
Thus straining my suspension of disbelief.
Quote from: Haffrung;1112970The issue of distance has always bugged me. I just can't get my head around a village of 500 or so people with rich residents, shops, etc. that's 50 miles, or a three-day walk, from the next nearest settlement. D&D-ish fantasy worlds are almost always ridiculously low-density. I suppose there are practical reasons (it would get onerous to depict a dozen or so villages in a 30 mile hex). And as others have suggested, D&D has more than a few American frontier tropes baked into its DNA.
As for why no fortifications, it may be something as simple as the first popular D&D settlement - Hommlet - was regarded as the template for everything that came after.
I think part of the "low density" trend can be attributed to the influence of Tolkien and LotR on D&D (I know that Gygax wasn't a huge Tolkien fan, I'm talking about everyone else). Especially in the early days of gaming, most people's main example and go-to reference for fantasy world building was Middle Earth. And Middle Earth during the late 3rd Age period of the LotR trilogy is portrayed as a howling wilderness.
Would the presence of dangerous 'wandering' monsters impact the trend of building smaller habitations radiating from central hubs? If creatures can pop out and wipe out farms/logging camps/etc. quickly, then I would think that those types of small settlements would be rare. I think that it would cause fewer but larger and more defensible settlements to become the norm outside the heart of long-tamed, peaceful nations.
For me when running a fantasy RPG. If I have a Frontier town that in my mind definitely has dangers to be considered, such as potential Monster/Bandit raids, then unless there's some compelling reason why, there'll be a Palisade or something to offer some sort of protection to a Frontier town at least.
There have been exceptions such as a natural feature or anomaly or perhaps some magical effect that might be protecting the town directly or indirectly.
I once designed a Cliff-face, facing the sea small town that was only accessible by a cave network which itself was guarded, trapped etc.
But I suppose yeah. Some old scenarios detailing frontier type towns have been poorly designed. Particularly when the scenario even details monster encounter lists, bandits etc.
Quote from: Dimitrios;1112980I think part of the "low density" trend can be attributed to the influence of Tolkien and LotR on D&D (I know that Gygax wasn't a huge Tolkien fan, I'm talking about everyone else). Especially in the early days of gaming, most people's main example and go-to reference for fantasy world building was Middle Earth. And Middle Earth during the late 3rd Age period of the LotR trilogy is portrayed as a howling wilderness.
Yes, 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.
Quote from: HappyDaze;1112981Would the presence of dangerous 'wandering' monsters impact the trend of building smaller habitations radiating from central hubs? If creatures can pop out and wipe out farms/logging camps/etc. quickly, then I would think that those types of small settlements would be rare. I think that it would cause fewer but larger and more defensible settlements to become the norm outside the heart of long-tamed, peaceful nations.
If you're going for what would suspend your disbelief, think like a monster. You don't need to eat the town to get a meal, so you're probably not going to risk it except in some few circumstances. Yes, you're the bigger and badder. That doesn't mean you kick a hornet nest just because you can. Hornets can hurt even when they don't kill.
This what the local settlement pattern would look like in an area dominated by manoralism (my own work).
[ATTACH=CONFIG]3959[/ATTACH]
With individual manors looking somewhat like this (from Harn)
[ATTACH=CONFIG]3960[/ATTACH]
As a rule the central authority i.e. the king keeps tight control over what is called crenellation licenses. A license to build walls or a castle. Most major settlements look like the below. (from Harn)
[ATTACH=CONFIG]3962[/ATTACH]
This is another settlement I created myself
[ATTACH=CONFIG]3963[/ATTACH]
And yet another (from Scourge of the Demon Wolf)
[ATTACH=CONFIG]3964[/ATTACH]
In general the layout of settlements depends on culture, time period, and geography. Russia had their way, Germany had another, England has another still. In general the high density population area of Western Europe during the Medieval Era (early or late) are not typical D&D milieu. In contrast Medieval Russia was pretty much exactly what you expect from a D&D milieu with wilderness running nearly up to the edge of the town wall. In general russian cities were on rivers and town and their food production was strung out along the main river and its tributaries. While population density was low for the country as whole.
While in Western Europe settlements tended to be at the center of a settled blob and the countryside a patchwork of blogs with gaps of wild land where the land wasn't a suited for agriculture.
Related are the differences between pastoralism, farming, and manoralism. A blog post on the topic (https://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2010/02/mapping-manors-vs-farms.html). In short there are several dials one can turn to get different plausible results.
A farming region
[ATTACH=CONFIG]3965[/ATTACH]
the same region under manoralism
[ATTACH=CONFIG]3966[/ATTACH]
Probably because the only real frontier towns were, as mentioned earlier, in the old West, not anything in Europe
But beyond that, I imagine defense is much more proactive than waiting for bands of random people/monsters to attack the town. One of the things I really dislike about hex crawls/sandboxes is that all too often monsters and such just appear magically from a roll of dice on a table. But everything should come from something. Scouts and rangers and the like should be aware of any threat entering the region, and be able to alert the townsfolk/miltia/etc
This thread (https://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?37215-Medieval-Feudal-Manorial-System-and-Subinfeudation-Patterns) has more detail from Rob on how he breaks settlement patterns down as well as links from other peeps.
Quote from: JeremyR;1112998Probably because the only real frontier towns were, as mentioned earlier, in the old West, not anything in Europe
Russia along the forest steppe boundary and towards the Urals.
The line retreats westward the further back towards the fall of Rome. During the era of Charlemagne the frontier lay just beyond the Elbe and Viking explorers i.e. the Rus were pushing beyond the Baltic into the Russian river systems. The Huns, Avars, Magyars, and Mongols all swept across the steppes into Europe pushing back the boundaries of settlement until they assimilated or were conquered.
Europe very much had frontier towns.
Quote from: CRKrueger;1112999This thread (https://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?37215-Medieval-Feudal-Manorial-System-and-Subinfeudation-Patterns) has more detail from Rob on how he breaks settlement patterns down as well as links from other peeps.
Thanks for mentioning that.
D&D settlements are always on the small side. You'll see a map of a town that's small even for a village and a city that's little more than a town. I think this has to do with how Americans use the term "town" as the name for a small settlement when, in medieval terms, it would be a village. So, while a town near a medieval frontier would be walled, most "towns" in D&D aren't actually towns at all. So, no, I have no problem with "frontier towns" in D&D not being defensible as they aren't towns anyway.
For example, the Keep in KotB is pathetically small. You should see plenty of buildings down the road and near the river. But instead it exists completely cut off from any source of food.
One factor that people haven't mentioned yet is:
Is the world full of danger around every corner which is why the PCs keep on getting tangled up in it everywhere they go?
Or is the bulk of the world pleasant and peace and it's just that the PCs actively seek out the most dangerous bits in order to loot them.
If it's the first then you need lots of fortifications all over. The second... not so much. Kind of like in action movies the heroes always end up neck deep in violence but the overall world is peaceful enough to not need fortifications around the vast majority of towns.
Quote from: estar;1112940Medieval Russian Village (https://mythicrussia.wordpress.com/2014/07/06/what-does-a-medieval-russian-village-look-like/)
Village Structures (http://sofyalarus.info/russia/villagestructures.html)
Thank you estar!!! These are awesome!
Quote from: Spinachcat;1113015Thank you estar!!! These are awesome!
Yeah 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.
Quote from: Spinachcat;1113015Thank you estar!!! These are awesome!
From that same blog, check this out. (https://mythicrussia.wordpress.com/2019/07/24/abalak-basically-the-mythic-russia-theme-park/)
Lots of pictures of Abalak in travel guides and such.
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):
(https://i.imgur.com/fujThSJ.jpg)
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 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%87atalh%C3%B6y%C3%BCk) 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 (http://www.unicornbacon.com/leezard/gaming/The-Middle-Lands-of-Keltor.pdf) 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
(https://i.imgur.com/aX6NeLf.jpg)
Madinas Al Shaib, a fortified Desert city from my Tamerthya homebrew Campaign...
(https://i.imgur.com/sA8F0HQ.jpg)
The Snow Castle. one of the Frontier Forts of Kelnore, set in the Crystalmeer (Arctic) portion of my Tamerthya game world
(https://i.imgur.com/26Biw2D.jpg)
Map of the Snow Castle
(https://i.imgur.com/NykuJIt.jpg)
Byeshk Towers, Eberron
(https://i.imgur.com/HhgTJJp.jpg)
Snowdonya, Walled Coastal City in Crystalmyr, Tamerthya
(https://i.imgur.com/nj44HxR.jpg)
Tiranis, Eleven City at Night from my 2001 D&D Campaign
(https://i.imgur.com/kk57hme.jpg)
The Crystal Caves, a walled Elven City in Tamerthya
(https://i.imgur.com/1p1WTql.jpg)
Thinggold, Walled Dwarven City
(https://i.imgur.com/B125sjR.jpg)
Suzail in Cormyr, Notice the Guard Tower overlooking the port
(https://i.imgur.com/yuU2fGN.jpg)
Sicaris, Main Gate
(https://i.imgur.com/kaZgomx.jpg)
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 (https://mythicrussia.wordpress.com/2014/07/06/what-does-a-medieval-russian-village-look-like/)
Village Structures (http://sofyalarus.info/russia/villagestructures.html)
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.
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...
(https://i.imgur.com/PrHIExt.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/ysJ5SYT.jpg)
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 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walled_villages_of_Hong_Kong) as a model. Orderly, fortified, tightly packed.
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/Kat_hing_wai_kamtin.png)
(https://c8.alamy.com/comp/APWGH8/old-hakka-walled-village-in-chonglin-south-guangdong-china-APWGH8.jpg)
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.
Quote from: Shasarak;1112977Fantasy frontier towns are tactically indefensible because they only ever get attacked if the DM wants them too.
Quote from: Daztur;1113007One factor that people haven't mentioned yet is:
Is the world full of danger around every corner which is why the PCs keep on getting tangled up in it everywhere they go?
Or is the bulk of the world pleasant and peace and it's just that the PCs actively seek out the most dangerous bits in order to loot them.
If it's the first then you need lots of fortifications all over. The second... not so much. Kind of like in action movies the heroes always end up neck deep in violence but the overall world is peaceful enough to not need fortifications around the vast majority of towns.
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.
All good answers.
Since PCs show up to defend these unbarricaded towns on the rare occasion that they are threatened, it would not be accurate to say that they have no defense.
PCs are the wall.
Historically, settlements of the middle bronze age in Europe were open villages or clan steads. They were typically found on grain laden hillsides overlooking rich river basins. About 6500 BC the first Horse Lord invasions occurred from the East and the settlement pattern abruptly changed, with the central european settlements suddenly being found on hilltops with a wooden or stone palisade wall built upon ramparts that encircled most, or all of the town or village.
PCs arrive in town.
"Oh shit everyone get inside and batten down the hatches. It must be time for a monster attack!"
Quote from: TJS;1113358In 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.
One of the things I admire about "Gygaxian fantasy" RPGs is that it's good at doing both. If you run 1E with 0th level humans and no magic, it will do historical play really well. The "optimal" weapons will match historical expectations (within a reasonable range allowing for disagreement among historians). On the other hand, if everyone's got at least a few levels and a few magic items, you'll find what is "optimal" will match expectations of myths, legends, and fiction--again, within a reasonable range allowing for people to disagree what the mythology actually is and what fiction best suits their fancy.
If you do a mix, you've got PCs who more closely resemble heroes of myth rather than historical figures while the NPCs in the background will more closely resemble historical standards. So you can get a heroes myth feel against the backdrop of a historical setting. It's perfectly doable. You just need the RPG to have a broader scope than what "modern" RPGs offer, which despite their varieties and differences ultimately boil down to ragtag band of wandering borderline psychopaths get caught up in wacky adventures.
The fallacy in the first is assuming the walls aren't useful because they can't protect against everything. If the cost of the wall is 20% of the overall castle and manages to keep out 80% of would-be invaders, then it's a fantastic investment. And it's probably closer in fact to 10% of the cost and keeps out 95% of invaders.
The fallacy in the second is looking only at one side of the equation. Yes. Walls would be really nice for defense. However, the cost might not be justified, particularly if wealth is minimal. In general, there is a certain minimal level of defenses, call it ix, that is needed for a settlement to be viable. Walls are a good defense. But not the absolute minimum level. And the other side of it, is there is a certain maximum level of defense that can be justified/economically viable. Call that y. The actual defenses you should expect to see could be anywhere between x and y. Walls. No walls. Whatever.
On the frontiers, the x is really high because monsters. And y is really low because less trade/networking. More often than not, x will exceed y. This keeps population sparse on the frontier, and also keeps pushing the frontier in check. In AD&D, this works out because populations on the frontiers have a much higher percentage of characters with classes & levels than more central locations, and that's how the x > y is reconciled. The differences in demographics are found by comparing the % of leveled characters found in the "Men" section of the Monster Manual with the % of leveled characters given in the DMG under recruiting henchmen. This explains the village of Homlet quite well.
These things were well-thought out a long time ago, and we had working solutions.
Quote from: Lunamancer;1113497One of the things I admire about "Gygaxian fantasy" RPGs is that it's good at doing both. If you run 1E with 0th level humans and no magic, it will do historical play really well. The "optimal" weapons will match historical expectations (within a reasonable range allowing for disagreement among historians). On the other hand, if everyone's got at least a few levels and a few magic items, you'll find what is "optimal" will match expectations of myths, legends, and fiction--again, within a reasonable range allowing for people to disagree what the mythology actually is and what fiction best suits their fancy.
If you do a mix, you've got PCs who more closely resemble heroes of myth rather than historical figures while the NPCs in the background will more closely resemble historical standards. So you can get a heroes myth feel against the backdrop of a historical setting. It's perfectly doable. You just need the RPG to have a broader scope than what "modern" RPGs offer, which despite their varieties and differences ultimately boil down to ragtag band of wandering borderline psychopaths get caught up in wacky adventures.
The fallacy in the first is assuming the walls aren't useful because they can't protect against everything. If the cost of the wall is 20% of the overall castle and manages to keep out 80% of would-be invaders, then it's a fantastic investment. And it's probably closer in fact to 10% of the cost and keeps out 95% of invaders.
The fallacy in the second is looking only at one side of the equation. Yes. Walls would be really nice for defense. However, the cost might not be justified, particularly if wealth is minimal. In general, there is a certain minimal level of defenses, call it ix, that is needed for a settlement to be viable. Walls are a good defense. But not the absolute minimum level. And the other side of it, is there is a certain maximum level of defense that can be justified/economically viable. Call that y. The actual defenses you should expect to see could be anywhere between x and y. Walls. No walls. Whatever.
On the frontiers, the x is really high because monsters. And y is really low because less trade/networking. More often than not, x will exceed y. This keeps population sparse on the frontier, and also keeps pushing the frontier in check. In AD&D, this works out because populations on the frontiers have a much higher percentage of characters with classes & levels than more central locations, and that's how the x > y is reconciled. The differences in demographics are found by comparing the % of leveled characters found in the "Men" section of the Monster Manual with the % of leveled characters given in the DMG under recruiting henchmen. This explains the village of Homlet quite well.
These things were well-thought out a long time ago, and we had working solutions.
If the minimum necessary defenses exceed the maximum justified defenses, then shouldn't the settlement simply not exist?
I don't think I've ever DM'd a village that didn't at least have a palisade and a ditch.
Given the existence of dungeons in fantasy RPGs, it is not much of a stretch to imagine underground defenses for villages and towns that have no walls/palisades. Think of places like Derinkuyu or Naours. Or even something like the erdstall tunnels, which may have been used as a defense, or not. Nearby caves -- modified or not -- made for places to shelter from marauders. Or nearby castles. Not every settlement in Fantasyland© needs a defensive perimeter when there are alternatives.
This thread should dovetail with the old thread talking about the ecologies of monsters... because it glaringly reveals how insane modern D&D's assumptions of fantasy are. These settings largely do not comport to the realities people assume from the game rules.
But it also simply illustrates - no one cares enough except us GM's that prune as needed. I'll go out on a limb and say *most* gamers today run modules and self-contained adventures that renders these concerns moot.
The only people that really care are those of us that run sandbox-style. Why *should* anyone else care, save for a little color? C'mon that Russian village looks awesome.
Quote from: HappyDaze;1113505If the minimum necessary defenses exceed the maximum justified defenses, then shouldn't the settlement simply not exist?
Well, let's be perfectly clear here. My exact words were "More often than not, x will exceed y. This keeps population sparse on the frontier." My intention was to not even open this can of worms. But since you asked it, the answer is no--minimum necessary defenses exceeding maximum justified defenses does not mean the settlement will simply not exist. Two key reasons. Time and Probability.
Probability: Just because monsters are favored to win, does not mean they automatically win. Some--I'm not going to guess the exact percentage, but some--settlements will be lucky enough to fend off the monsters long enough to optimize what works and gain some XP and levels to convert it into a permanent condition. That's where you get things like the village of Hommlet.
Time: But even if that's definitely not in the cards, then so what? Do the settlers have perfect knowledge enough to know this an advance and never settle there in the first place? Or do the monsters instantly teleport in the second the settlers get there? No. The ultimate demise is going to take time. How much time? A month? A year? A generation? That's plenty of time for the PCs to stumble upon the village, have a wacky adventure, then continue along their merry way.
I feel if you want to really, really take ecology seriously in an RPG, ecology shouldn't be a perpetual equilibrium state where the world makes perfect sense at all times. It's a process where unstable arrangements arise from time to time and then are snuffed out. Mistakes are okay. They're more than okay. Their comings and goings are the most worthy things to include in an adventure RPG. To wit, if you pick up a module and your first reaction is "What terrible design! This village would crumble instantly," then shut up and put your money where your mouth is. Run a campaign where your PCs burn it to the ground. Or perhaps hand the village over to them and send your monsters after it and see if the players can keep it. Find out whether or not it is defensible. Never assume you already know the answer.
Quote from: HappyDaze;1113505If the minimum necessary defenses exceed the maximum justified defenses, then shouldn't the settlement simply not exist?
Even if the defenses are insufficient, the settlement will exist for a time before it gets wiped out. Possibly just long enough to carve the word "CROATOAN" into a nearby rock or tree.
Quote from: Omega;1113193Why 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.
I live in Fort Worth, which as the name suggests, was founded as an army outpost for dragoons after the Mexican War. For the first ten years, this fort was nothing more than barracks, officers' quarters, stables and smith (in other words, several wooden shacks and barns) and a split-rail fence. The fort did have one side facing a 15-foot drop-off overlooking the Trinity River, and had the shacks arranged in a square, but other than that, there were no real defenses other than the small arms of the soldiers:
[ATTACH=CONFIG]3982[/ATTACH]
There were a number of farms nearby, but they were very spread out and attacks by Comanches and bandits in the area required regular patrols from the fort. So in addition to having no serious defenses, a good part of the garrison would be away at any given time. Still, the area surrounding the fort became a kind of village with shops of various kinds that started off by servicing the troops but also became the trading post for farmers, travelers and even Comanches and other indigenous peoples (one local town is still called White Settlement, a name given by the Comanches to place where they traded horses for iron goods).
Quote from: Bren;1113608Even if the defenses are insufficient, the settlement will exist for a time before it gets wiped out. Possibly just long enough to carve the word "CROATOAN" into a nearby rock or tree.
Fort Worth (the actual fort) lasted four years before being torn down -not by Comanches or outlaws, but by newly arrived homesteaders looking for building materials for their own use.
Quote from: Elfdart;1113866Fort Worth (the actual fort) lasted four years before being torn down -not by Comanches or outlaws, but by newly arrived homesteaders looking for building materials for their own use.
If you don't watch them constantly, peasant farmers and their leaders will tear up roads, walls, forts, and castles to get existing building materials to use for their own constructions. Happened a lot in Europe.
Quote from: TJS;1113447PCs arrive in town.
"Oh shit everyone get inside and batten down the hatches. It must be time for a monster attack!"
I've started two campaigns that way: You're in a village (or town): what do you do?
A few minutes later: The village (or town) is under attack.
Quote from: Elfdart;1113947I've started two campaigns that way: You're in a village (or town): what do you do?
A few minutes later: The village (or town) is under attack.
I've had PCs that decided to raze a village a few minutes after arriving. They swore that somebody was a cultist and somebody else a thief (or something like that) and it was easiest to just knock everyone out (yes, 5e allows you to use your lethal weapons at full effectiveness as Nerf sticks) and then go from there.
Quote from: HappyDaze;1113993(yes, 5e allows you to use your lethal weapons at full effectiveness as Nerf sticks) and then go from there.
Does that apply to arrows and crossbow bolts?
Quote from: Bren;1114030Does that apply to arrows and crossbow bolts?
Depends on where the Rangers and Rogues shop, I suppose.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]3983[/ATTACH]
Quote from: Antiquation!;1114031Depends on where the Rangers and Rogues shop, I suppose.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]3983[/ATTACH]
:D You jest, but I'm currently running a 5E rogue and I did think about having some blunt quarrels made. (For all I know out DM would allow us to skewer people with arrows to subdue them, but the idea doesn't sit well with me. It's not like my character is Robin fucking Hood or the Green Arrow to where he could pin people to the wall by their clothes without hurting them.)
Quote from: Bren;1114033:D You jest, but I'm currently running a 5E rogue and I did think about having some blunt quarrels made. (For all I know out DM would allow us to skewer people with arrows to subdue them, but the idea doesn't sit well with me. It's not like my character is Robin fucking Hood or the Green Arrow to where he could pin people to the wall by their clothes without hurting them.)
Not a bad idea! I had a player in one of my GURPS games that used blunted arrows (and had a vow against killing). Now, GURPS doesn't separate lethal and non-lethal attacks or damage per se, but the blunt damage did generally help make targets go to sleep without poking big, leaky, fatal holes in them...
Now you've made me want to build a Green Arrow expy with the Heroic Archer trait and ridiculous bow skill, who really *can* legitimately pin people to the wall by their clothes (and wedge arrows behind their pistol triggers)! :cool:
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 (https://mythicrussia.wordpress.com/2014/07/06/what-does-a-medieval-russian-village-look-like/)
Village Structures (http://sofyalarus.info/russia/villagestructures.html)
Great pictures.
One thing that traditional Russian villages didn't lack was wood.
I have stayed in an Izba and they look like the log cabins I have seen on films about Frontiersmen in the USA and Canada. My mother-in-law's Izba was built over an excavated food store, for potatoes, grain and odds and ends. It was really warm in winter, due to the bread oven she fired up every day. We saw a museum representation of an Izba and it looked just like hers.
Of course, Russian Villages were often protected by being in the middle of vast forests, depending on where they were located. Mongol Horsemen don't do that well in forests.
Quote from: soltakss;1114037Of course, Russian Villages were often protected by being in the middle of vast forests, depending on where they were located. Mongol Horsemen don't do that well in forests.
That is what the Chinese thought about Great Walls as well.
Quote from: Bren;1114030Does that apply to arrows and crossbow bolts?
I'm pretty sure it's just melee weapon attacks (not ranged weapon attacks, or spells of any sort), but only the hit that takes them to 0 has to be a melee weapon attack for the Nerf Effect to work. This means you can reliably take them alive after burning them with fire and acid along with perforating them with arrows just as long as you gently strike them with your greataxe as their hit points run out.
Quote from: HappyDaze;1114058I'm pretty sure it's just melee weapon attacks (not ranged weapon attacks, or spells of any sort), but only the hit that takes them to 0 has to be a melee weapon attack for the Nerf Effect to work. This means you can reliably take them alive after burning them with fire and acid along with perforating them with arrows just as long as you gently strike them with your greataxe as their hit points run out.
Yes, only melee attacks; with a melee attack that brings an opponent to 0 points, the attacker can choose to knock out the opponent (unconscious, stable). The damage is the same number of points.
In my AD&D1e games, all blunt attacks just cause their damage, others cause bleeding or similar effects once the character is under 0 hit points. Thus clerics' use of blunt weapons - the good clerics want to spare them to give them a fair trial or chance to convert, the evil clerics want to spare them for enslavement or later sacrifice to their evil good.
Players are of course free to just beat up people and monsters and not kill them.
Quote from: HappyDaze;1114058I'm pretty sure it's just melee weapon attacks...
You are correct (PHB p 198).
Quote...but only the hit that takes them to 0 has to be a melee weapon attack for the Nerf Effect to work. This means you can reliably take them alive after burning them with fire and acid along with perforating them with arrows just as long as you gently strike them with your greataxe as their hit points run out.
Well that seems totally reasonable.
Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1114068In my AD&D1e games, all blunt attacks just cause their damage, others cause bleeding or similar effects once the character is under 0 hit points.
Good thing hitting people with a mace never causes bone breaks or fractures. :D
Quote from: Bren;1114102Good thing hitting people with a mace never causes bone breaks or fractures. :D
Not to mention internal bleeding that can be every bit as deadly as the blood loss from an edged weapon.
Quote from: HappyDaze;1113505If the minimum necessary defenses exceed the maximum justified defenses, then shouldn't the settlement simply not exist?
Not necessarily. If the danger does not appear too quickly and unpredictably, you can have a number of settlements where nothing of real worth can't be moved, and a day's march away a fortress or castle, which will also include the granary of the settlements. When the threat appears, the farmers gather their families, the livestock, and any produce they can move, and reach the fortress. The settlements can be burned down, but then again they are nothing more than empty ramshackle huts of very little value, quickly replaced.
The problem is when the enemies are able to time their strike based on harvest time - which is why that's when indeed raiding used to take place first and foremost. If they are truly clever and lucky, they might arrive just as all the hard work is done, but while the harvest has not yet been moved to the fortress.
Quote from: Michele;1114178Not necessarily. If the danger does not appear too quickly and unpredictably, you can have a number of settlements where nothing of real worth can't be moved, and a day's march away a fortress or castle, which will also include the granary of the settlements.
That works
if there is a fortified shelter a short distance away. In many cases though, D&D has its indefensible towns isolated in the middle of nowhere with long journeys to get to any fortified shelter (and somehow much closer to where the monsters have their fortified lairs).
Quote from: Michele;1114178Not necessarily. If the danger does not appear too quickly and unpredictably, you can have a number of settlements where nothing of real worth can't be moved, and a day's march away a fortress or castle, which will also include the granary of the settlements. When the threat appears, the farmers gather their families, the livestock, and any produce they can move, and reach the fortress. The settlements can be burned down, but then again they are nothing more than empty ramshackle huts of very little value, quickly replaced.
The problem is when the enemies are able to time their strike based on harvest time - which is why that's when indeed raiding used to take place first and foremost. If they are truly clever and lucky, they might arrive just as all the hard work is done, but while the harvest has not yet been moved to the fortress.
This is more or less the premise of
The Seven Samurai. Villages don't really have much in terms of defenses. Their only hope is to squirrel away some of their crop where bandits can't find it and pray the bandits don't take everything and leave them to starve. Or they can try to recruit jobless samurai to defend them...
Another thing to keep in mind is that a good offense makes the best defense. Palisades might keep attackers away for a while, but sometimes fear of retaliation will
really scare off attackers. For example, let's say a band of outlaws sacks a village. Much of the loot they might gather is not something they can easily ride off with (sacks of grain, livestock, food and drink -even a hapless farmer's daughter). So either they don't take much or they're so loaded down with bulky goods that a mounted patrol is able to hunt them down fairly easily.
Quote from: Elfdart;1115102let's say a band of outlaws sacks a village. Much of the loot they might gather is not something they can easily ride off with
Or they just name themselves "baron" and take just a little bit, and fight off anyone else who takes stuff. A few generations later they claim divine right to rule. Ahem.
Quote from: Elfdart;1115102This is more or less the premise of The Seven Samurai. Villages don't really have much in terms of defenses. Their only hope is to squirrel away some of their crop where bandits can't find it and pray the bandits don't take everything and leave them to starve. Or they can try to recruit jobless samurai to defend them...
Another thing to keep in mind is that a good offense makes the best defense. Palisades might keep attackers away for a while, but sometimes fear of retaliation will really scare off attackers. For example, let's say a band of outlaws sacks a village. Much of the loot they might gather is not something they can easily ride off with (sacks of grain, livestock, food and drink -even a hapless farmer's daughter). So either they don't take much or they're so loaded down with bulky goods that a mounted patrol is able to hunt them down fairly easily.
Ah, but in 5e each bandit can carry > 150 lbs. before being encumbered in the least!
Quote from: HappyDaze;1115109Ah, but in 5e each bandit can carry > 150 lbs. before being encumbered in the least!
On foot or on horse?
Quote from: Elfdart;1115326On foot or on horse?
That's what a Strength 10 individual can carry on foot and still move unencumbered. The formula is very straightforward: Strength x 15 lbs.
Quote from: HappyDaze;1113505If the minimum necessary defenses exceed the maximum justified defenses, then shouldn't the settlement simply not exist?
This is a late reply, so sorry, but no. There are ample historical examples of cities and towns that were destroyed and rebuilt over and over again.
Often, the reason is simple geography. If you have a natural port, or the intersection of two rivers, or even just really nice weather, that is always going to be a good place to build a settlement.
Large bands of orcs that burn towns and villages to the ground are always going to be rare, because they have to keep moving on to the next target in order to keep going. If they run out of targets, they'll fight among themselves for the scraps, and the band will self-destruct. Or they'll run into a king with a real army, and that will be the end of them.
After a piece of prime real estate lies vacant for five years, someone is going to come around and say "this place looks good!"
Quote from: Lurkndog;1115358This is a late reply, so sorry, but no. There are ample historical examples of cities and towns that were destroyed and rebuilt over and over again.
Often, the reason is simple geography. If you have a natural port, or the intersection of two rivers, or even just really nice weather, that is always going to be a good place to build a settlement.
Large bands of orcs that burn towns and villages to the ground are always going to be rare, because they have to keep moving on to the next target in order to keep going. If they run out of targets, they'll fight among themselves for the scraps, and the band will self-destruct. Or they'll run into a king with a real army, and that will be the end of them.
After a piece of prime real estate lies vacant for five years, someone is going to come around and say "this place looks good!"
Wouldn't those factors increase the maximum justified defense? Is it cheaper to build a crap town and just rebuild it over and over again rather than building something that can survive attacks? This is similar to the varying views on how to build in hurricane/typhoon prone areas. Some people want to build lasting, hurricane-proof (or as close as they can get) structures at great cost while others go for light, cheap, and replaceable shacks.
Quote from: Lurkndog;1115358This is a late reply, so sorry, but no. There are ample historical examples of cities and towns that were destroyed and rebuilt over and over again.
Often, the reason is simple geography. If you have a natural port, or the intersection of two rivers, or even just really nice weather, that is always going to be a good place to build a settlement.
Large bands of orcs that burn towns and villages to the ground are always going to be rare, because they have to keep moving on to the next target in order to keep going. If they run out of targets, they'll fight among themselves for the scraps, and the band will self-destruct. Or they'll run into a king with a real army, and that will be the end of them.
After a piece of prime real estate lies vacant for five years, someone is going to come around and say "this place looks good!"
A town being attacked doesn't mean it has to get wiped out (especially if the aim of the attack is raiding). Also not every period in history is like the middle ages.
Quote from: HappyDaze;1115330That's what a Strength 10 individual can carry on foot and still move unencumbered. The formula is very straightforward: Strength x 15 lbs.
That's quite... geneous.
Quote from: Elfdart;1115377That's quite... geneous.
No shit. I was quite surprised the first time I DM'd for a group where all of the characters were Strength 8 and I figured they would suffer for it when it came to carrying loot. Nope. The base rules (there is a more complex variant) allow each of them to hop, skip, and jump around freely while carrying up to 120 lbs. I've traveled with a 40-50 lb. pack on my back, and sometimes doubled-up and carried my wife's pack across my chest. It balances alright, and I can walk with it no problem, but acrobatics or melee fighting with both packs (or three packs for a 120 lb, load) would be quite a different story. But D&D encumbrance isn't meant to be even remotely realistic.
Quote from: Elfdart;1115377That's quite... geneous.
Quote from: D&D Player's Basic RulesThe rules for lifting and carrying are intentionally simple.
Here is a variant if you are looking for more detailed rules for determining how a character is hindered by the weight of equipment.
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If you carry weight in excess of 5 times your Strength score, you are encumbered, which means your speed drops by 10 feet.
So 50 pounds for a strength 10 character; over 10 times strength for heavily encumbered with minus 20 feet movement and disadvantage on all physical ability based rolls. The rules alluded to in the previous post are a (generous) simplification for groups who mostly don't care about encumbrance, but still want some limit to rule out abusively extreme cases.
Quote from: Elfdart;1115377That's quite... geneous.
Welcome to D&D for Generation Z, where everybody gets a level just for participating.
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Take a look at the history of the border reivers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_reivers)of the English-Scottish border. Most of the people built quick and cheap, and hid away, possibly in one of the hopefully nearby tower homes, which few could ever afford to build, when the reivers came.
Quote from: Franky;1115389Welcome to D&D for Generation Z, where everybody gets a level just for participating.
With regard to how much characters can carry? :confused:
OD&D listed weights in gold pieces; with a man weighing 1750, we set that at 10 per pound (5e has lighter coins, 50 per pound). Weights of equipment listed for armor and weapons are similar at that rate between OD&D and 5e, with OD&D a little heavier, but the only other weight given is "Miscellaneous Equipment (rope, spikes, bags, etc.)" at 80 (8 lbs). That's ridiculously low weight by 5e standards, where a torch weighs 1 lb, a spike is 1/4 lb, silk rope is 5 lbs (hempen is 10 lbs), and a sack is 1/2 lb.
I already posted the limits for the variant encumbrance rules in 5e: for strength 10, unencumbered up to 50 lbs, then encumbered (-10 feet move) up to 100 lbs, then heavily encumbered (-20 feet move, disadvantage on all saves, ability checks and attack rolls based on strength, dexterity or constitution) up to 150 lbs (the maximum the character can carry), or movement of 5 feet while pushing or dragging up to 300 lbs.
In OD&D, the rules were: light foot movement (12") up to 750 (75 lbs), heavy foot movement (9") up to 1000 (100 lbs), armored foot movement (6") up to 1500 (150 lbs) and half normal movement (3") up to 3000 (300 lbs). No adjustment for strength, although the Greyhawk supplement added a table for that (with 7-9 being normal): a character with +1 to hit/+1 damage (16 strength) added 150 (15 lbs) to unencumbered limit, +2/+2 (17 strength) added 300 (30 lbs), +3/+3 (18/51-75 strength) added 600 (60 lbs), and the highest strength (18/00) added 1200 (120 lbs); but a 3 strength only subtracted 100 (10 lbs).
The simplified rule for groups that didn't want to add up weights carefully and which I saw a lot in OD&D days was unarmored/leather 12" move, chain 9" move and plate 6" move; drag large amounts of treasure at a speed (measured in wandering monsters rather than feet) with amounts and speed determined by the DM (who might resort to adding up weights carefully).
I realize that there's a lot of hatred against newer editions; but maybe you should instead complain about things you don't like that actually differ instead of stuff that's pretty similar.
"Weights" in D&D for any version have never been exactly "weight". Instead, they are a combination of weight and awkwardness, accounting for the difficulty in carrying the thing. It's one of the reasons that weapons "weigh" too much compared to reality.
The simplified 5E defaults are generous, but not nearly as much as one would think once the above is taken into account.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1115420"Weights" in D&D for any version have never been exactly "weight". Instead, they are a combination of weight and awkwardness, accounting for the difficulty in carrying the thing. It's one of the reasons that weapons "weigh" too much compared to reality.
The simplified 5E defaults are generous, but not nearly as much as one would think once the above is taken into account.
While that would favor OD&D for using an abstract and largely undefined weight, as opposed to 5e using an apparently real world weight, my point was that OD&D and 5e variant encumbrance were similar in complexity, effect and the difficulty the player characters might face, and that in practice some OD&D campaigns used a simplified version of the original encumbrance rules.
Given that OD&D incorporated some elements from Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom, we can't even be sure that the force of gravity was consistent with real world Earth. :)
Quote from: rawma;1115446While that would favor OD&D for using an abstract and largely undefined weight, as opposed to 5e using an apparently real world weight, my point was that OD&D and 5e variant encumbrance were similar in complexity, effect and the difficulty the player characters might face, and that in practice some OD&D campaigns used a simplified version of the original encumbrance rules.
Given that OD&D incorporated some elements from Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom, we can't even be sure that the force of gravity was consistent with real world Earth. :)
I was more supporting your point than otherwise. 5E doesn't use real world weights, either. They are closer than some of the earlier versions, but still off. None of it matters, because as you say, all it does is provide a system to eyeball an encumbrance to keep the worst offenders away.
We had a little misunderstanding in our game last week. Some of the players thought "javelins" were apparently more like big darts than small spears. Another player asked me how many he had. My standard answer is 3, because of the bulk. He wanted to have 5 because he had found some. Fine, no problem. I'm not quibbling over a couple of javelins, especially for a strong character. Turns out one of the other players thought his character had 17 javelins. No. You can have 5 also.
That's the actual encumbrance system we use at the table: Does your stuff pass the GM bullshit test, taking into account a generous estimate for what a D&D character that is a little over the top can carry? You can have all that stuff. :)
Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1115482I was more supporting your point than otherwise.
Oh, sorry for getting defensive. 5e could do better at explaining its assumptions there.
The only more accurate alternative to abstract measure of bulk and weight combined would be to give accurate weights but have a separate scale of bulk/awkwardness to total. I do not think I have ever seen a game that went that far.
Quote from: rawma;1115523The only more accurate alternative to abstract measure of bulk and weight combined would be to give accurate weights but have a separate scale of bulk/awkwardness to total. I do not think I have ever seen a game that went that far.
AD&D 2nd Player's Options: Skills & Powers added optional rules for Bulk. They were kinda hidden in the Weapon Proficiency & Mastery chapter, but I was able to find them eventually.
Quote from: Player's Options: Skills & PowersRecording Bulk (Optional Rule)
In addition to weight, the items of equipment are given a bulk rating--an expansion of the earlier categories S, M and L. The bulk ratings are separate from weight, and represent how much space each object takes up.
Small Size (S) = 0, 1, 2 bulk points
Medium Size (M) = 3, 4, 5 bulk points
Large Size (L) = 6* or more bulk points
*Some large objects, particularly weapons, will actually have lower bulk points than 6. Since the weapon size is primarily a factor of length, these items can be transported with relative ease.
Players who want the added realism can keep track of how many points of bulk they are carrying. The rule is especially useful for planning a trading caravan and calculating how many goods an individual porter or beast of burden can carry. Vessels such as packs and pouches are limited in how much bulk they can carry:
Backpacks can vary in size, and they can hold an amount of bulk equal to a character's Strength score.
Belt pouches can hold up to 3 bulk points. A single character can wear no more than two belt pouches.
Saddlebags (horse or mule) can hold up to 40 bulk points, and each animal carries two saddlebags. The capacities of some other animals include (per saddle-bad): dog=8; donkey/burro=30; camel=100; elephant=200.
Effects of Bulk
A human character can carry an amount of bulk equal to his Strength/Stamina score without suffering any ill effects. If he tries to carry more bulk than his score allows, he suffers a penalty in encumbrance class. For example, if Blutar, with a Strength/Stamina of 17, is loaded down with 20 bulk points of light material, his encumbrance might only be Light, but for game purposes it is treated as Moderate.
Smaller characters can carry less than their Strength/Stamina score in bulk before they suffer the encumbrance penalty as follows:
Halflings and gnomes can carry 1/2 their Str/Stamina score in bulk.
Elves can carry their Strength/Stamina -3 in bulk points.
Dwarves can carry their Strength/Stamina -1
A character's weapon does not count towards his bulk rating, though a shield does. Armor is not counted as bulk, but it has the effect of lowering the total bulk the character could otherwise bear. See the equipment tables to determine the capacity penalties for each type of armor.
No character can carry more than twice his Strength/Stamina score in bulk.
And it has a bunch of equipment tables for weapons, armor and miscellaneous items that's too much to type out, but you get the idea. Basically Leather Armor has 1 Bulk, other light armors and chain have 2, most medium armor have 3, lighter plate armor have 4, Field Plate 5 and Full Plate 6.
VisionStorm, I've played around with something similar in 5E as a house rule. Haven't got it to the point where it is good enough to share, as there is a tension between the modeling, ease of use, and making it useful.
However, the basic idea is that "encumbrance weights and bulk" are in "stone". A character can carry 1 stone per Str point. The big stuff counts directly, usually as 1 or 2 stone. The small stuff is either a number per Stone or combined in packs, riffing off of the 5E packs that are already in the game. Then the character needs to reserve 1 to 3 stone for "miscellaneous" depending upon how much of that they want to carry, which is mostly me eyeballing their list. Characters picking up treasure typically don't care about the weight, as long as the treasure isn't a particularly heavy item or they have plenty of "miscellaneous" room left. If they exceed encumbrance a little, I start imposing exhaustion at the end of the day. If they exceed it a lot, it's usually fairly obvious that the thing is difficult in game, and the players usually manage it by roleplaying. I've had two characters grab either end of a chest with a lot of silver in it, when they needed to get it to a safer place to divide up the coins.
For the British, that might not be much of an improvement to using pounds. For most Americans, it's exotic enough that they can make the mental jump that "stone" is an abstract game term that encompasses weight and bulk. :)
I like the LotFP encumberance system. Basically everyone can carry 10 "things" (can't remember the real name) before being encumbered. High strength lets you carry more. Each item in the game is rated as to its size in "things" - so a bag of coins is 1 thing, a sword is 1, a large shield might be 3 or 4, plate armour is 8 or so. Works well and is pretty easy to keep track of and expand as necessary.
Quote from: spon;1115591I like the LotFP encumberance system. Basically everyone can carry 10 "things" (can't remember the real name) before being encumbered. High strength lets you carry more. Each item in the game is rated as to its size in "things" - so a bag of coins is 1 thing, a sword is 1, a large shield might be 3 or 4, plate armour is 8 or so. Works well and is pretty easy to keep track of and expand as necessary.
I use this system in my homebrew, and second that it works great.
It seems like a lot of messing about just to stop the players saying they'll drag those 20,000CP out of the dungeon.
Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1115664It seems like a lot of messing about just to stop the players saying they'll drag those 20,000CP out of the dungeon.
Yes, it is. On the other hand, when the party is lost in the wilderness, running short of food, and are scrounging arrows off of every monster that uses them just to keep their quivers full, some kind of moderate system is helpful.
I prefer a system that I can mostly ignore, but that sets a baseline for when that situation arises. It's not the most common thing in my games, but it or something like it does happen often enough to be worth having a way to handle it. Not dragging the 20,000 cp out is just a bonus.