# Khorvaire:Two Problems



## mythusmage (Jul 11, 2004)

Too few people. Too few countries. Multiplying both by five would help a lot.

Discuss.


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## Snoweel (Jul 11, 2004)

I really don't get the people who are amazed at the lack of population in the setting.

I mean, *that* is how many people live there.

The Earth was as sparsey populated once. It *must* have been.

If your beef is with population vs technology level as compared to RL Earth, then get a life - Eberron's not Earth.

Really, it's not.


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## SteelDraco (Jul 11, 2004)

The continent should be rather empty. A whole heck of a lot of people have just died, and the population of the civilized parts of the world haven't even started to recover. After all, the Last War JUST ended. Think of Britain or France two years after the end of WW2. Things are still being rebuilt. In my mind, most large cities in Eberron are now about half empty. That's how many people had died. There were so few able-bodied warriors left that they had to start building them. Think about how desperate they would have needed to be in order to do something that expensive.

As to the low number of countries, I can see that better. Seems to me that things would have ended up a bit more fractured than they are in the book, with small warbands ruling the fringes of all the major nations, where they couldn't afford to keep things patrolled. I'd say there was a lot of lawlessness as one reaches the edges of a nation.


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## demiurge1138 (Jul 11, 2004)

Too few people? Possibly. But considering the fact that the continent has been decimated by a century long war helps to mitigate this. Also, consider, as other threads have brought up, the fact that in modern society, there are large, well-developed countries with low population densities (such as Canada and Australia). I might put more people in Eberron, but certainly not by a factor of five.

Too few countries? No. The setting's range of nations is more than sufficient for my needs, especially considering the Dragonmarked houses and other political movers and shakers that don't happen to have a nation. Also, it's worth pointing out that large tracts of land are either not governed (the Mournlands) or have central government only in theory (Droam, Darguun).

Demiurge out.


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## Express (Jul 11, 2004)

I just spent 5 minutes looking for an earlier thread abouth this very topic from a week or 2 ago. But no dice.

You can play with the numbers however you want, but I agree with Snoweel. Eberron isnt Earth.


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## Derulbaskul (Jul 11, 2004)

I seem to recall that the population per square mile numbers for Eberron were about the same as Australia in the present day so it definitely can make sense.


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## Hellcow (Jul 11, 2004)

mythusmage said:
			
		

> Too few people. Too few countries. Multiplying both by five would help a lot.



On the subject of countries, my original 100-page bible DID have more countries. We reduced the number of countries during the development process (largely by merging ideas) and I'm very glad that we did. As it stands, we *still* didn't have enough room to give each country as much of a focus as they deserve, and who knows how long it will be before we can provide supplimental material for each. Simply double the countries, and you'd be dealing with half as much space for each in Chapter 7 - would you really be happy with the results? It might be more realistic, but this is fantasy -- I think fewer countries with strong identities is better than more countries that you know less about. 

But with that said:
* Bear in mind that the Lhazaar Principalities, Mror Holds, Talenta Plains, and Q'barra are really aggregate entities as opposed to solid countries with one clear leader.
* Need more? Civil war in Karrnath splits the nation between Kaius and Vol fanatics! Thrane splits between the monarchy and the Church! The Queen of Stone lays claim to her own section of Droaam! The Kech Volaar proclaim their own nation in Darguun! Bam! Four new countries in the blink of an eye...

As for population, the war is a factor, and folks are spread out. If you want to increase it, pretend that it doesn't include children and double it (since city populations don't).


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## storyguide3 (Jul 11, 2004)

Snoweel said:
			
		

> I really don't get the people who are amazed at the lack of population in the setting.
> 
> I mean, *that* is how many people live there.
> 
> ...




First off, who peed in your cereal today?

Second, try these figures on for size.

Khorvaire has an area of some 9.3 million square miles.

It has an estimated population density of 1.6 per square mile.

14th century England had a pop.density of about 42/Sq. Mile

Let us assume that before the war, Khorvaire was slightly less populated than England (even though England was the least populous namtion in Europe at the time. Let's set the density to 1/2 that of England, 21/sq. mile. 

That gives us a population of about 195,000,000. There are now about 16,000,000 people of all the counted races on Khorvaire. That means somewhere around 179,000,000 people died during the Last War. Some died of natural causes and accident, but then again others were born.

That's one heck of a war. I should think that a war that could kill that many people would have left the place far more devastated than comes across in the book. Civiallization would be a total shambles. Less than 10% of the people survived. 

There is no reason given in the text as to why the prewar population should be any lower than that encountered in Europe during the late Middle Ages or early Reanaissance. In fact, given the amount of magic available and the fact that the Dragonmarked Houses had been around for centuries, there should be more people than I used above. The only reason we are given for the low poopulation is the war. Again, one heck of a war.

Frankly, there probably shouldn't be any countries left after a war that devastating, let alone functioning rail lines, newspapers and people adventuring. The adventure of Eberron should be, "get the crops in so we don't starve".

Now, if you like the population figures the way they are, fine. Whatever floats your boat is no problem with me. Just don't act like a jerk and tell people to "get a life" when they pose a very valid comment about a part of an otherwise excellent setting that just doesn't hold up to any scrutiny.

By the way, I'd say the last time any major continent on Earth was that sparsely populated, we were inventing agriculture and cities, certainly not creating liiving machines and printing newspapers.


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## mythusmage (Jul 11, 2004)

Derulbaskul said:
			
		

> I seem to recall that the population per square mile numbers for Eberron were about the same as Australia in the present day so it definitely can make sense.




Khorvaire is not Australia. Khorvaire has the resources Australia does not. Australia has the population it does because it is a barren land. European or even American levels of fertility are few and far between.

First, Khorvaire is a dang sight larger. It's some 5,000 miles across east to west. 'Bout half that north to south. Khorvaire is about the size of Asia. With a smaller population than California. With that level of population the civilized folks should be living along rivers in city states, with the interior inhabited by roving bands of nomads.

Let me put it this way, Asia as a whole last had that few people back before the first pre-Sumerian towns were established in Mesopotamia.

Eberron presumes a 14th century level of technology. Twenty-six million people in a fantasy Asia is not enough to maintain that technology and the infrastructure needed to support it.

Furthermore, even if Khorvair had about 150 million people, the peoples of Khorvair don't have the infrastructure necessary for nations of the size presented on the maps. Going by the write-ups the Five Kingdoms are more like the Five Counties. The feel is small nation, not large.

To put it another way, when I look at the map of Thrane and the space between *Sigilstar* and *Morningcrest* I don't see a a month long trek but a day long hike.

Dammit, if you're going to present huge countries they should look like huge countries.

As for the Last War, even with a pre-war population twice the size it is now there wouldn't have been enough people to sustain the fighting over the distances involved.

No, Eberron tries to present a population the size of Italy's in a land the size of the old Soviet Union, with the level of organization and government seen in feudal times. It doesn't work. It can't work.

Even with magic. Even with magic more prevalent and more affordable than is found in modern day Khorvair. Because you need people to maintain things. People Khorvair does not have. Remove 90% of Europe's population and see what happens to her road and rail network alone.

So it's a fantasy. Whoop. The better fantasies make sense where the mundane details are concerned. At least the hobbits of The Shire had visible means of support. As it stands Eberron is a world with no visible means of support, and that's an unhealthy way to live.


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## mythusmage (Jul 11, 2004)

Hellcow said:
			
		

> On the subject of countries, my original 100-page bible DID have more countries. We reduced the number of countries during the development process (largely by merging ideas) and I'm very glad that we did. As it stands, we *still* didn't have enough room to give each country as much of a focus as they deserve, and who knows how long it will be before we can provide supplimental material for each. Simply double the countries, and you'd be dealing with half as much space for each in Chapter 7 - would you really be happy with the results? It might be more realistic, but this is fantasy -- I think fewer countries with strong identities is better than more countries that you know less about.
> 
> But with that said:
> * Bear in mind that the Lhazaar Principalities, Mror Holds, Talenta Plains, and Q'barra are really aggregate entities as opposed to solid countries with one clear leader.
> ...




Keith, you put too little into too much. The place is simply too big for the number of people given. It would've been far better to place the current nations of Khorvair in the east, leaving the bulk of the continent to be developed later.

As for the war. Any event that dropped the population of a land mass the size of Asia to less than 30 million would not leave countries behind.

Eberron 2e: Let's get it right this time.


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## Jasemonkey (Jul 11, 2004)

Yes Keith, please change the setting because a minority of people on a messageboard are whining about it.


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## Anabstercorian (Jul 11, 2004)

So multiply all the numbers by five and add that many children as well.  Bam.  Cohesion successfully achieved.  I mean, YES, you've found a legitimate error in the logic of the setting.  Don't spend so much time gloating about it, offer more suggestions on how to fix.


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## Snoweel (Jul 11, 2004)

storyguide3 said:
			
		

> First off, who peed in your cereal today?




I'm Australian. Thus:



			
				Derulbaskul said:
			
		

> I seem to recall that the population per square mile numbers for Eberron were about the same as Australia in the present day so it definitely can make sense.






			
				storyguide3 said:
			
		

> Let us assume that before the war, Khorvaire was slightly less populated than England




Why?

As I see it, Khorvaire and 14th century England have little in common. Especially given how much more *dangerous* Khorvaire is to 1st level commoners than 14th century England was.



> _By the way, I'd say the last time any major continent on Earth was that sparsely populated, we were inventing agriculture and cities, certainly not creating liiving machines and printing newspapers._




Or... erm, taming dinosaurs, right?



			
				mythusmage said:
			
		

> Khorvaire has the resources Australia does not.




Khorvaire also has the entire population of the Monster Manual threatening civilisation as opposed to a couple of snakes, spiders and jellyfish.

I think I've made my point.



> _With that level of population the civilized folks should be living along rivers in city states, with the interior inhabited by roving bands of nomads._




I agree with you 100% here.



> _Eberron presumes a 14th century level of technology. Twenty-six million people in a fantasy Asia is not enough to maintain that technology and the infrastructure needed to support it._




Who's to say that they couldn't _with Eberron magic levels?_



> _Furthermore, even if Khorvair had about 150 million people, the peoples of Khorvair don't have the infrastructure necessary for nations of the size presented on the maps. Going by the write-ups the Five Kingdoms are more like the Five Counties. The feel is small nation, not large._




As I said before, I'm with you here.

However, historically, nations often claimed uncontrolled wilderness as part of their official domain even thought those wildernesses were effectively anybody's.



> _As for the Last War, even with a pre-war population twice the size it is now there wouldn't have been enough people to sustain the fighting over the distances involved._




Good point. It appears I may have been wrong to criticise you peoples' population complaints.



> _It would've been far better to place the current nations of Khorvair in the east, leaving the bulk of the continent to be developed later.
> 
> As for the war. Any event that dropped the population of a land mass the size of Asia to less than 30 million would not leave countries behind._




Well I'm feeling better about my lightly populated city-states-only homebrew.


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## Dr. Strangemonkey (Jul 11, 2004)

Hmmm, I have to side with the population conservatives here.

I mean I just haven't seen enough to make me believe that 14th century population levels are necessary for 14th century levels of population.

Might also be good to keep in mind that this continent was pretty recently settled.  Hasn't had nearly the timeline that Asia did for distributing and building up the sentient species.

And that numbers of nations are generally fairly arbitrarily arrived at, and certainly have nothing to do with levels of technology.

Plus, I would guess that a pretty direct effect of having labor saving but human capital intensive magic is that your population growth and levels drop below what they would be in the real world.

But, if you want to up the population go ahead. 

Though do keep in mind that though Khorvaire may, and I'd submit that that's a huge assumption, have more resources than  Australia, almost no place has as the resources of California. 

The only strong game effect I can see is that the world might become less interesting by dint of less cultural diversity and general wilderness to wreck your mind upon.


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## ironmani (Jul 11, 2004)

Ok lets take into account that a good chunk of people died during the War. Also remember, and entire country was wiped out in a flash. Try and imagine the state of New York wiped out to every last man, woman and child. Thats a lot of people. If that still doesnt work for you then think of it like this....you want more people in your Eberron ** claps hands ** Done. Put a one in front of all the population numbers. Its really that simple. First it was Warforged are too powerful, now its there arent enough people.   Cant you find something not to complain about?


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## Dr. Strangemonkey (Jul 11, 2004)

Intriguingly, I can't find anything that indicates the population of 14th century Asia was anywhere close to 195,000,000.

Europe, nearly always the second most populous continent and always most populous per square mile, was around 73 million, but that's after a major population boom and before the plague reduces it to around 40-50 million.

Mind you Asia has some nice population advantages, such glorious river valleys.


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## Caliban (Jul 11, 2004)

mythusmage said:
			
		

> Too few people. Too few countries. Multiplying both by five would help a lot.
> 
> Discuss.



No.


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## Snoweel (Jul 11, 2004)

Go on... everyone else is doing it...


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## Destil (Jul 11, 2004)

I've never understood this arguemnt at all. Unless you're basing your game around the PCs as a bunch of census takers, what does it matter? It's all about how the DM presents the world, the actual numbers just shouldn't come up in most games...


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## Snoweel (Jul 11, 2004)

*DM:* The wizened old man squints at you through his one good eye and speaks: "To cross this bridge you must answer these questions, three... *What* is your name?"

*Player:* Jeiki of Turnike

*DM: What* is your favourite colour?

*Player:* Blue.

*DM: What* is the population density of southern Khorvaire?

*Player:* Err... umm... I, ah... I don't kn-aaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!


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## Cam Banks (Jul 11, 2004)

I've heard this same complaint from _Dragonlance_ fans before. "But Ansalon must have X number of people! You're talking like it doesn't! XXth century Europe had Y people!"

Right, and Ansalon had a fiery comet smack one corner of the continent and come out the other side of the world, in the process creating titanic upheavals, tidal waves the size of mountains, lifting mountain ranges up where none used to be and plunging parts of the landscape under the water. Followed by a hundred years of famine, disease, strife, and the loss of a healing magic they'd depended on prior to the comet removing the largest most populated urban area in the world.

And then they want to make the place three times as large, too.

Cheers,
Cam


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## WizarDru (Jul 11, 2004)

Destil said:
			
		

> I've never understood this arguemnt at all. Unless you're basing your game around the PCs as a bunch of census takers, what does it matter? It's all about how the DM presents the world, the actual numbers just shouldn't come up in most games...



Seconded.  When are the PCs actually going to notice any of these kind of details?  It's the same thing as complaining about the logical inconsistincies of the geographic layout of a campaign world like Greyhawk.  You may be right, but even if you are, who cares?  My players don't care if the river is too large for the mountain range it comes out of, or if it doesn't run to the ocean according to proper science.  They just want to know if they can follow the trail of the bugbear bandits across it, and whether they can run them to ground.  It's a non-issue.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Jul 11, 2004)

Destil said:
			
		

> Unless you're basing your game around the PCs as a bunch of census takers, what does it matter?




Tee hee! Thirded.

Do you folks ever actually PLAY THE GAME?

Or does your gaming experience consist entirely of years spent perfecting your home-brew world-building skills and hoping that someday some players might eventually come along who are worthy to stomp their boots across your beloved land?


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## Derulbaskul (Jul 11, 2004)

mythusmage said:
			
		

> (snip) Eberron 2e: Let's get it right this time.




What a horrid little man you are. Expressing an opinion is one thing; insulting the bloke who actually got himself published is another.


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## Lonely Tylenol (Jul 11, 2004)

Doesn't a low population density indicate that there's lots of room left to expand into, which hasn't yet been expanded into?  Just because there are some big city-states doesn't mean they've done anything with the lands inbetween.  Especially when those lands are full of trolls.  Trolls eat people.  It's a bit of a pain in the butt.  Especially when the only people who are willing to go out and settle into those lands are commoners (read: troll chow).  You may insert your favourite wandering monster where I place troll, above.

I always thought that fantasy settings were too heavily populated considering the number of natural predators the PC races have.  If you can't go further than ten miles from town before a sphinx eats you, you don't go any further than that.  That land doesn't get settled.  It might get some primitives that can live in a hostile situation, but they're not going to be very well-established if there's a day-to-day threat of being devoured by a hostile organism.

And as for the technology infrastructure needing support from a large population base...the technology in Eberron is magical.  It doesn't need a support structure.  You craft the item, it works forever.  End of story.  The lightning rail isn't a regular railroad that needs a constant crew of maintenance workers keeping it going.  It's a huge friggin' line of magic items that carry the train around.  You don't need to have any support structure except someone to serve you lunch on the train.

The _only_ issue I can see is the XP cost of building all these magic items everywhere.  A magewright only has so much to give before he just peters out.  But since pretty much everything was built before a really big war that decimated the population, you can assume that there used to be more people, and many of those people were crafters.


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## SkidAce (Jul 11, 2004)

Snoweel said:
			
		

> *DM:* The wizened old man squints at you through his one good eye and speaks: "To cross this bridge you must answer these questions, three... *What* is your name?"
> 
> *Player:* Jeiki of Turnike
> 
> ...




Beautiful....

Besides, pick a point in time and you can get any population you want (within reason).  I. E. ,500 years from now in Eberron the population may explode to what would be more "realistic".  

I could have a completly empty world except for one kingdom..they could be fairly advanced...just not expanded out yet...too dangerous.  Set the campaign thousands of years later and the whole world could be populated.


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## WayneLigon (Jul 11, 2004)

I think the so-called 'low' population works well when you consider that you also need large tracts of unexplored and unexploited lands to have that 'Age of Exploration' feeling. And you need room for all of the other sapient races as well, plus room for monsters. 

Midieval England had 14 number of people per square mile in the Middle Ages and it was the lowest population density we know of; France, with much, much better farm land supported about 100 people per square mile. All I have for those sources, though, is a webpage on Midievil demographics. How they can know the population density when people still come to blows over what types of helmets and swords they used is another question. But let's be generous and say that there can be a population varience as much as 50% either way. 

Earth's Middle Ages didn't have to contend with monsters and magic at all. By the time of the 14th century, when we get that 14 person/square mile number, most of England has been carpeted in worked land and settled lands. There's precious little room for monsters and such; certainly no room for goblin tribes, hobgoblin clans, huge stretches of woodland where no-one goes because it's too dangerous. It also hasn't suffered through a magical WWI, either.


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## AdmundfortGeographer (Jul 11, 2004)

Okay, so we know that the population counts DO NOT include children.  That is worth knowing.  

But the population counts also count a lot of creatures that some folks might not consider worth counting in population tallies. Goblinoids (goblins, bugbears, hobgoblins), orcs, kobolds, rakshasas, medusas, harpies, hill giants, minotaurs, ogres, trolls, lizardfolk.  That's less "people" in the numbers, in the minds of some.  Myself, I'm glad that some of these creatures that have societies are taken into account and "counted".

Another thought I had is that humans are colonists of Khorvaire. (How long have humans been in Europe as original inhabitants without monsters to deal with?)  A first wave settled the islands to the northeast 3,000 years ago, and then another wave settled the mainland 1,500 years ago.  These seas ARE actually monster filled. How many would have actually made the trip?

Starting from that small base of original settlers that spread across the continent to find their 1,000 acres to farm, were they thinking of coming over to start empires with metropolises? The majority would be looking for a farm for their own. Most of those first farmers would have been slaughtered by the monsters in the wild, so there goes another batch of original humans. So instead those first humans would have grabbed good defensible territory which could be farmed and collectively defended. Not until 500 years after the original humans the distinctive settlements that become the "Five Nations" begin to be recognizable. Khorvaire doesn't sound like it was populated by wave after wave of continuous colonization from a continent going through an industrial revolution like North and South America. Just an original wave followed by a second instance.  

Then the history of Khorvaire is one of repeated conquering, attempted annexations, civil wars, inquisitions (like against lycanthropes), rebellions, invasions from Khyber (like when medusas came up and took possession of Cazaak Draal).  In 987 there were still settlers moving out to farm new land in "civilized" lands like Breland, as when King Boranel pulled settlers back.

And I don't think there are any peoples in Eberron that have discovered Norman Borlaug's "Green Revolution" or modern farming techniques. A population is only as big as it can feed itself, no matter how many lightning trains it can build.

Regards,
Eric Anondson


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## RangerWickett (Jul 11, 2004)

This thread gives me a headache.

Keith, I suggest that next time you publish a campaign setting (*grin*), just don't include census details.  Eberron's a great setting, and I'm mining it for ideas left and right, but even if I played in it, knowing that a city has a population of 51,201 doesn't affect my game if you detail the city as being a  small town (and really, how were there _that_ many people in Twin Peaks?).

My personal campaign setting has two continents, one the size of Europe, the other as big as Texas.  Not much space, but there are, oh, about twelve major nations.  The party has only ever been to three, but they knew the rest were out there, because they saw the occasional oddball traveler.  As long as there is a diversity of cultures in a setting, which helps make adventures more flavorful, I don't worry about how many nations there are.

This is a silly thread, and I am not going to interview it.


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## Kichwas (Jul 11, 2004)

Large countries with low density are only possible with trucking, refrigeration, and highways.

Food need to get from farm to market, and goods need to be dispersed.

Traditional pattern has always been dense populations, even going back to primordial prehuman days - humans lived in tight bands close together for security, food, and reproduction.


I don't know the population of Khorvaire, but if it gets too far below 40 per square mile it will break aparrt - the means of keeping a food supply going are not there.

This is especially true in a post war situation, not less true, but more so.

If the population had been dramatically lowered by the war - despite people reproducing throughout those hundred years and not having the technology to do sudden population drops until the last day of the war with the creation of the Mournland - if the population had gone down, people would move away from their homes into central areas - making the kingdoms very small again, with a lot of wildlands in between.


Even at the height of the black plague, England's population only dropped from about 99 people per square mile to roughly 50 - if I'm reading this  and this  and even this right (remember, a square kilometer is about 1/3 of a square mile - England: 50,085 square miles, 130,395 square kilometers). Most of -that- death was in the cities.

Look at old world civilizations - a village every mile. You see that in Europe, Africa, Asia, New England, and everywhere else that had advanced civilization before electricity.

Without the means to distribute goods, food, law, and sex you cannot have a civilization at low density. You can have a land mass with low density - merely because most of it will be uninhabbited, the size of the actual civilization will just shrink back from its old borders.


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## Kichwas (Jul 11, 2004)

Eric Anondson said:
			
		

> (How long have humans been in Europe as original inhabitants without monsters to deal with?)



About 40,000 years.

DNA shows that Europeans, Native Americans, and Asians share a common ancestor who's line is still living in Central Asia (Afghanistan and its neighbors). We all left Africa way back when, went to Central Asia, and there from there all split at around the same time for our seperate continents.

And we -did- have monsters:

Rival humans, Wolf, black bear, and other predators in Europe. Worse in Asia and even still worse in the Americas.

Until the gun, these places were full of creatures that would rip a person into shreds at whim and with ease.

What counts isn't the monsters but the resources (America lacked beasts of burden for example) and the factors needed for advanced civilization: ability to control and disperse food, goods, law, and reproduction.

That's why in -every- developed region on earth that got that developmen in pre modern times (before electricity), settlements are dense - a village every mile or so, where you can walk between them in an afternoon.

They might -also- be vast unsettled wilderness between and around each civilization, but in themselves they are dense.


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## AdmundfortGeographer (Jul 11, 2004)

arcady said:
			
		

> I don't know the population of Khorvaire, but if it gets too far below 40 per square mile it will break aparrt - the means of keeping a food supply going are not there.




This implicitly assumes the area of nations in Khorvaire are fully settled. They are not. Every nation in Khorvaire are small clusters of dense settlements separated by vast wilderness with capability to project power over the vast terrain to the next settlement. And the ability of settlements in a magical fantasy setting to project power are vastly different than Middle Ages Earth. There are spells like _plane shift_, _teleport_, _shadow walk_, _fly_ spells, aerial mounts, etc.  In a world with spells like these it is not too easy to find your own private corner of the world to control before others hundreds of miles away feel threatened and show up to let you know how they think of your ambitions. The ability to project power and control over vast unsettled territory is simple is a world with such magic in available.

Khorvaire doesn't have the historical development of ANY real world "old world" nation or continent.  Khorvaire is a continent of colonies.  Politics are timeless, and the current political climate of Khorvaire DOES have analogues to real world situations.

Regards,
Eric Anondson


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## Gez (Jul 11, 2004)

I'll reiterate my point from last time this subject popped up.


Countries contain lots of uncivilized places. Why? Because it's necessary for them to have large no-man's-land.

Remember that, "if it's in D&D, it's in Eberron". Now, open your MM. You have lots and lots and lots of kind of predatory carnivorous monsters. To support them, you need lots of game, which need lots of smaller game, which need lots of vegetation, which need lots of space.

All this space is lost for civilized creatures. I'm willing to bet that at least half the land is made-up of such no-man's-lands. Civilizations make up a spider webbing patterns, with dots (settled areas) connected by strands (policed traderoutes), and surrounding lots of empty spaces (monsterlands).


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## micromaximum (Jul 11, 2004)

All of this talk about Australia has led me to notice that the map of Khorvaire bears some resemblence to the map of Australia flipped upside down and mirrored so the left side is now on the right.  I can even sort of see Tasmania and New Guinea.


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## Hellcow (Jul 11, 2004)

Hey all!

I don't intend to be too concerned about this, I'm afraid. What's done is done. However, for what it's worth, the population of Khorvaire is not supposed to be evenly spread across the land. As people have said, there are monsters here (and while some of the monstrous population has been counted in the population numbers, certainly not all), and the idea of stretches of dangerous and uninhabited forest and moor is part of what I *LIKE* in a fantasy world; if there are farmers everywhere, why haven't *they* dug up those goblin ruins? There's a lot of open space, and people cluster together. You have a mass of people in Sharn. You have farming communities around Sharn. But that's not to say that you have a solid continuous level of population from Sharn to Zilspar, let alone Sharn to Orcbone. By comparison, 14th-century England was a relatively safe island where the most dangerous predators were people. 

This will be expanded upon when the different nations are dealt with in more detail, because different nations do have differing density; Zilargo and the Mror Holds in particular have tight population centers in a lot of open space. But the big thing is: if it bothers you, quintuple the numbers. Yay for you! On my end, I've never had the party counting each peasant. Perhaps the population should have been higher for maximum realism, but it is what it is -- and that's not the sort of thing I'm going to worry about erratawise, because unless you do get all of the citizens of Breland in one room it shouldn't adversely affect your game. 

One thing I will say is that I believe that the goblinoid population is most likely higher than has been revealed. The goblinoids dominated the continent before the arrival of humanity, and despite their wars and troubles, there don't seem to be enough of them for that. However, this doesn't concern me, because what's in the book is what is known. A hundred years ago, people didn't realize how many goblinoids were in the region of Darguun; now they do. The goblinoids retreated to the mountains, to Khyber, to the depths of forests, and its possible more will appear, especially if one of the Heirs of Dhakaan consolidates the power of the clans.


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## Kichwas (Jul 11, 2004)

All flawed excuses aside, at the end of the day you have to, on a mundane daily level be able to meet four basics needs for your population in order to hold a civilization: you need the ability to manufacture or import and then disperse food, reproduction, law-security, and basic goods.

Without that, you will not be able to hold a population - you will not survive.

There is no way around it.

You have to do it.

If density is too low, you cannot do it unless you have something that can get around density on a massly available, cheap, and mundane level.

The USA didn't begin to spread into the 'heartland' and the west until the railroad made it possible, and it didn't begin to hold onto and grow that new development until electricity brought refrigeration allowing for shipping, and the highways brought trucks making that shipping and transportation mass available.

If Eberron has an equivalanet it can do low density, but the lightning rail isn't that - it isn't developed enough and cheap enough as described.

If there is no other factor, at best you could have a series of 'New England like' colonies that claim to control huge expanses of land much like the USA claimed from east to west long before genocide cleared out the first nations and the rail and trucking gave it control and population spread.


If Eberron has that 'packed in colonies' model, then I've no objections. But if it tries to claim that these nations are settled over the land they claim then I have issues with that claim.

Keith's statement just before this post seems to indicate the 'packed colonies' model, but also seems to indicate that he just doesn't care about making his setting something people can get past a 'sense of disbelief' over (the not going to be concerned comment - which is easy to read in a negative light).

And frankly, I don't and have never bought the 'monsters keep it down model' because we have monsters in the real world, and we used to have worse - yet we rose up over them anyway and now see them as 'animals' because our modern tech makes them so easy to overcome.

If the monsters are tough enough to keep you down when you're already advanced past the stone age, they would have never let you get out of the trees in the first place - and frankly, the monsters of Earth almost were that tough. If the Africans had to deal with the monsters the Inuit do today, back when they were just getting out of the trees, I wouldn't be posting this right now.

-The Inuit by the way make a good example of what you get when you get too low in density.


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## Hellcow (Jul 11, 2004)

arcady said:
			
		

> The USA didn't begin to spread into the 'heartland' and the west until the railroad made it possible, and it didn't begin to hold onto and grow that new development until electricity brought refrigeration allowing for shipping, and the highways brought trucks making that shipping and transportation mass available.



The lightning rail isn't the standard form of freight transportation; the Orien Caravan is. And refrigeration doesn't require electricity: it requires _prestidigitation_. While most folks could afford such a thing in their homes, I have no doubt that Orien has shipping coaches that make use of a permanent area effect version of _prestidigitation_'s cooling effect. 

It is also the case that the lightning rail *was* more developed; the rail system was severely impacted by the war.



			
				arcady said:
			
		

> If there is no other factor, at best you could have a series of 'New England like' colonies that claim to control huge expanses of land much like the USA claimed from east to west...



Which is more or less what you do have. That's the point. You have central major cities, surrounded by supporting villages and thorps -- and then a lot of wide open space before you get to the next community. There is still exploration and dark territory to be found. There's gold in them thar hills, or dragonshards, at least.


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## Kichwas (Jul 11, 2004)

Hellcow said:
			
		

> The lightning rail isn't the standard form of freight transportation; the Orien Caravan is.



How cheap is that caravan, how able to distribute goods in mass is it?

Caravan travel is nortoriously difficult and expensive. It costs as much to go one mile inland as it does a hundred by river, if not more so.

You will note that I've said an equivalant is needed, not the same thing. If prestidigitation can be cast by even the common market stall owner, and put in every shipping 'vehicle' that travels the land at a rate fast enough to bring goods to market... then it works.


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## Breakdaddy (Jul 11, 2004)

arcady said:
			
		

> All flawed excuses aside, at the end of the day you have to, on a mundane daily level be able to meet four basics needs for your population in order to hold a civilization: you need the ability to manufacture or import and then disperse food, reproduction, law-security, and basic goods.




Wow, thanks for attempting to ruin a perfectly good setting with your opinion on what would keep a magically aware (and completely imaginary by the by) continent populated. Your game must be very fun, what with your vast repository of demographic data brought to bear on all of the players. Not at all repressive or boring, no sir...


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## Gez (Jul 11, 2004)

arcady said:
			
		

> And frankly, I don't and have never bought the 'monsters keep it down model' because we have monsters in the real world, and we used to have worse - yet we rose up over them anyway and now see them as 'animals' because our modern tech makes them so easy to overcome.
> 
> If the monsters are tough enough to keep you down when you're already advanced past the stone age, they would have never let you get out of the trees in the first place - and frankly, the monsters of Earth almost were that tough. If the Africans had to deal with the monsters the Inuit do today, back when they were just getting out of the trees, I wouldn't be posting this right now.




Well, compare the CR of a dire boar or brown bear with that of a aboleth or pyrohydra... Our "monsters" can bleed, and can be killed. They can't cast spells, they can't outthink us.

Fortunately, D&D monsters don't seem to need to be very numerous. Most are, naturally, very long-lived, so they don't rely on a high density to find mating partners often enough to stay alive as a species. Unlike, say, wolves.

Oh, and by the way, I think that lions, elephants, hyaenas, rhinos and hippopotamii are well worth the challenge of auks, seals, and polar bears.

So you have monsters that are too dangerous for the average hunting party to bring down, but rare enough to be merely avoided safely by simply not stepping into its territory. So, civilization spreads _around_ the monster's territory. Sometimes, when people encroach too much, or once every 37 years when it's hydras' mating seasons, a few villages get slaughtered by monsters.

Seems reasonnable.



			
				arcady said:
			
		

> -The Inuit by the way make a good example of what you get when you get too low in density.




You get people who thrive and survived just fine until we arrived and introduced alcohol and candies. *shrug*


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## Pseudonym (Jul 11, 2004)

These threads make me wonder if some folks want the Eberron RTS to be a glorified Sim Earth retread, where they can manipulate population variables until their heart is content.


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## Banshee16 (Jul 12, 2004)

mythusmage said:
			
		

> Too few people. Too few countries. Multiplying both by five would help a lot.
> 
> Discuss.




Given that they just got through the equivalent of an arcane WW I that lasted 100 years, I'm not surprised that there are so few people.  I mean, one entire nation was destroyed, with their entire population, and they were probably like 20% of the population themselves.  Obviously, there were other kingdoms than the five, but the five probably had the largest bulk of populations.

I'm not surprised that there are so few.

Midnight has a similar problem....big map, few people.  But given they lost the war against their "Dark Lord", and civilization has been crushed, the nations destroyed, organized agriculture halted, etc., I wouldn't be surprised.

And, I'll point out that Athas, the world of Dark Sun, had all of 1.5 million people in the tablelands....and possibly not significantly more across the entire planet..

Banshee


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## Kichwas (Jul 12, 2004)

Breakdaddy said:
			
		

> Wow, thanks for attempting to ruin a perfectly good setting with your opinion on what would keep a magically aware (and completely imaginary by the by) continent populated.



Fact is not the same thing as opinion. If you can't get food, reproductive diversity, security, and goods to your people you cannot maintain them. That is fact, not opinion.

As for opinion, if a setting can answer those four needs, then it isn't broken with regards to this aspect of suspension of disbelief and thus people can get into the mood of it without being jarred out by the sillyness every few minutes.

I think you're being highly presumptuous, assuming I'm trying to 'ruin' something. If it lacks an explaination for this it's already ruined and not by my hand. If it has it, then I have no issue here.

If a setting is unreal to the point of sillyness, with no rationale within it for such, then it is not going to be enjoyable to people who like rich detail, internal consistancy, and a sense of believability.

If Eberron can explain how it does it, it has no issue. If it can't, it has issue.

On the extreme example end, this is what seperates from Lord of the Rings from He-Man...


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## Banshee16 (Jul 12, 2004)

arcady said:
			
		

> I don't know the population of Khorvaire, but if it gets too far below 40 per square mile it will break aparrt - the means of keeping a food supply going are not there.
> 
> This is especially true in a post war situation, not less true, but more so.
> 
> If the population had been dramatically lowered by the war - despite people reproducing throughout those hundred years and not having the technology to do sudden population drops until the last day of the war with the creation of the Mournland - if the population had gone down, people would move away from their homes into central areas - making the kingdoms very small again, with a lot of wildlands in between.



That's the point....that's part of what may be going on.  What if the population was 2 or 3 times what it is now, before the Last War?  Keith has mentioned before that when running a game, DMs can easily depict PCs travelling through multitudes of abandoned and burned out villages.

With less people, the civilization might shrink.....which leaves more abandoned areas for bandits and monsters to infest, and more reasons for PCs to be going to the border to solve problems.

I'm thinking that the Last War would have been far more devastating than Earth wars in the medieval ages....afterall.....European armies didn't have fireballs and meteor swarms and armies of warforged.  There were likely multiple population drops.  The destruction of Cyre may have been the largest one, but villages and towns were razed, water supplies probably poisoned, entire crops burned, starvation, possibly plague, etc.  And this would have gone on for 100 years.  IMO that could have a huge effect on a population.

Perhaps Khorvaire is on the cusp of a huge population/baby boom, now that things are stabilizing.  It's 2 years after the war....soldiers will be going back to start families and businesses and such....business may be booming, as the process of rebuilding begins.

Banshee


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## Kichwas (Jul 12, 2004)

Gez said:
			
		

> arcady said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



That shows both that you know nearly nothing about Inuit and that you missed the core point.

I'll skip the Inuit lesson, start here if you want to learn it.

The point is that you get nomadic bands that wander the land searching out resources. They cannot hold a settlement together, even in the lack of enemies, and they need to search out and meet with other bands on a regular basis in order to enable stable reproduction.

You don't get advanced civilizations, you get familial tribes living at subsistance level with subsistance based technology.


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## coyote6 (Jul 12, 2004)

arcady said:
			
		

> If it lacks an explaination for this it's already ruined and not by my hand. If it has it, then I have no issue here.




Ruined for _you_, and others who share your opinion. Your requirements for you to suspend your disbelief are not universal.


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## MDSnowman (Jul 12, 2004)

I just want to throw in my two cents and pretend this thread never existed. I see a lot of people harping over issues of population density and what not while they forget a very important point.

...It doesn't really matter...

As a DM your focus should really be on your players... this is even more true in Eberron where they get action points to demonstrate that fact. Now unless your characters are governing a large portion Khorvaire issues of population density should be at best secondary... they should be more worried about the scheming noble who sent them into the Mournlands and the Warforged Titan that started chasing them when they grabbed the golden idol. 

Few things annoy me more than when some people focus with laser pin-point accuracy on some piece of setting information that they don't find plausible. While ignoring the simple fact that unless you're playing a large scale sim population density is simply _not going to be a factor in play_. Game design should not require a masters in any of the following... Sociology, Political Science, Theology, physics, and Economics. It's a _creative_ medium... if you want cold hard facts buy a Physics text book.


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## Henry (Jul 12, 2004)

Ladies and Gentlemen, I've seen a few rather mean comments from one poster to another. Let's please discuss civilly. Thanks.


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## RangerWickett (Jul 12, 2004)

This thread isn't that annoying.  That would require someone misspelling 'lose' as 'loose.'  *wink*

I am curious, though.  Why are the people who are concerned about it, concerned about it?  Why is the population density important to you?


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## jgbrowning (Jul 12, 2004)

RangerWickett said:
			
		

> This thread isn't that annoying.  That would require someone misspelling 'lose' as 'loose.'  *wink*
> 
> I am curious, though.  Why are the people who are concerned about it, concerned about it?  Why is the population density important to you?




For me at least, it's because Eberron is not a game. The book isn't a game, it's a made-up world where the game can be played. We're not talking about game design, even though the world must be created with the game design in mind to maximize utility and game design is used in the creation process,  what we're really talking about is world-building. Ideally, a campaign setting would handle both world-building and design with equally good facility.

To me at least, Ebberon doesn't appear any different than almost every other published setting in terms of density/magic/time/civilization cause and effects. It is, as is almost every rpgworld I've ever seen, vastly underpopulated to support the civilizations thriving there in their suggested space. But, considering that Middle Earth (the original vastly underpopulated setting) is a very engaging and immersive world, I don't see Eberron as having any exceptional issues on this end.

But as one poster said, it doesn't really matter because Eberron is just part of a game we play from the PC perspective. On the other hand, it does matter, because there is a set of the gaming population that is just as bothered by such things as the greater set of gamers who're bothered by rivers that flow uphill. I'm sure that eventually, both game design needs and world-building realities will mesh into one amazing setting that deals as expertly with one as it does the other.

joe b.


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## BiggusGeekus (Jul 12, 2004)

jgbrowning said:
			
		

> considering that Middle Earth (the original vastly underpopulated setting) is a very engaging and immersive world, I don't see Eberron as having any exceptional issues on this end.




And Eberron doesn't have any square mountain ranges.

Middle Earth: The only planet where tectonic plates are created with a level and straight edge.


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## mythusmage (Jul 12, 2004)

RangerWickett said:
			
		

> This thread isn't that annoying.  That would require someone misspelling 'lose' as 'loose.'  *wink*
> 
> I am curious, though.  Why are the people who are concerned about it, concerned about it?  Why is the population density important to you?




Simple, some people are asking the population of Italy to run Russia. Can't work, you need a certain population minimum to maintain nations of a certain size at a certain level of technology. A United States with only 30 million people would be a far different place than it is now.

Keith mentioned oasis of civilization separated by wilderness. Yet the Five Nations are supposed to be feudal nations. Don't work that way. Given his scheme the Five Nations would be confederations, with one city-state having pride of place over the others. If the whole thing didn't fall apart into independent city states in the first place.

Having thought upon this for some time an alternative has occurred to me. Khorvaire is too big. Instead of 5,000 miles east to west, make it 500 miles east to west. Still underpopulated, but not disastrously so.

Why does it matter? Because people have noticed. People will noticed. When it's a week's travel time between thorps people are going to notice. They will ask embarrassing questions of you. It damages the versimilitude of the setting. 

A Thrane that's 50 miles across east to west works a lot better than a Thrane that's 500 miles across. (I like Thrane, sue me).

BTW, Keith, I fuss because I love. Now stop fidgeting, you'll wrinkle your suit.


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## jgbrowning (Jul 12, 2004)

I think the main issue is that many of the typical D&D tropes are basically incompatable with reality.  So something has to give...

joe b.


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## RangerWickett (Jul 12, 2004)

I suppose it's just that most people don't know what a necessary population density is, but we do know that rivers flowing uphill is weird.  If I told the average person playing in Oriental Adventures, "Why were your characters talking to the daimyo like that?  You used the word 'you'.  You can't say 'you' in Japanese!  It's rude.  Your characters should've been executed," then most people would be like, "Dude, it's just a game, and I don't speak Japanese."

I mean, complain all you like about the flavor of the setting, or how certain rules are broken, or how it doesn't make sense that the Lightning Rail has never exploded by running into a cow that got stuck on the tracks.  And if Keith Baker had said he was a medieval scholar of population statistics, then sure, criticize him.  But he was hired to create an engaging setting that was fun to play in, and I think expecting him, or us, to know what the proper population density of a continent should be requires a bit of, "Dude, it's just a game."


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## Derulbaskul (Jul 12, 2004)

RangerWickett said:
			
		

> This thread isn't that annoying.  That would require someone misspelling 'lose' as 'loose.'  *wink* (snip)




"Lose" and "loose" is a bad one, yes, but I still think the inability of 90% of messageboard users to use "it's" (this is NOT the possessive form of "it") and "its" (this is the possessive form of it and it does NOT have an apostrophe) correctly is a far more egregious sin.

In fact, I think this thread would be better used for improving the manifold spelling, syntax, punctuation and grammatical errors that are like a plague here. This is far more important than the population detail of some fantasy world (which is spelt with one B and two Rs).


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## jgbrowning (Jul 12, 2004)

RangerWickett said:
			
		

> I suppose it's just that most people don't know what a necessary population density is, but we do know that rivers flowing uphill is weird.  If I told the average person playing in Oriental Adventures, "Why were your characters talking to the daimyo like that?  You used the word 'you'.  You can't say 'you' in Japanese!  It's rude.  Your characters should've been executed," then most people would be like, "Dude, it's just a game, and I don't speak Japanese."




Close, one however is a physical reality, the other is cultural reality that the characters would be aware of. In otherwords, one's an issue in world-building, the other's one of player vrs. PC knowledge.



> I mean, complain all you like about the flavor of the setting, or how certain rules are broken, or how it doesn't make sense that the Lightning Rail has never exploded by running into a cow that got stuck on the tracks.  And if Keith Baker had said he was a medieval scholar of population statistics, then sure, criticize him.  But he was hired to create an engaging setting that was fun to play in, and I think expecting him, or us, to know what the proper population density of a continent should be requires a bit of, "Dude, it's just a game."




Tomaytoe, tomahtoe.  For me, population disparities are like water running uphill. To me, complaining about how the listed population doesn't work is no different than complaining about a river that flows over a mountain, it's a piece of data to store and consider when building my own worlds. To expect a creator to make no mistakes is very unreasonable, but what constitutes a mistake to one person isn't important to many others. It looks like Keith was more focused on the part of the world (setting, style, action) that more people are interested in. And rightly so, I think.

joe b.


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## mythusmage (Jul 12, 2004)

"Gee, that river's running uphill. Is it magic? If it is, what's the cause?"

"Gee, there aint many people around. How do they communicate? Is it magic? If it is, how is it done?"

Folks, we are a social people. We need company. If the humans of Eberron don't need that much company, then they really aint human.

We need contact with others. Both those within the community, and those outside the community. Without that contact we get strange. We are so used to having ready contact with literally millions of people we have no real idea what true isolation is like. The closest anybody comes in American society is someone kept in isolated confinement, and even then he has occasional contact with somebody else.

My sin is that I'm asking people to think about things they'd much rather not think about. I'm pointing out the Emperor's cheap banana hammock, when he should be wearing a pricey one. (He's the Emperor after all, he should care about his (minimalist) clothing.)

Why does it matter? Because it bugs our sense of rightness. It flies in the face of our knowledge of ourselves. An innate, nigh instinctual sense of what makes a human a human. Not something you learn in school or through experience, but something about us that makes us human. Something that we can't really explain, but which we notice when it is wrong or missing.

We are social animals. We like to live in relatively closs proximity to others. Any setting that does not acknowledge that has problems, and this includes Eberron.


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## RangerWickett (Jul 12, 2004)

But Myth', no DM is gonna run Eberron and say, "You enter the city of towers, and you walk through its empty streets for ten minutes before you finally see a person.  He leans out the window and says, 'Wow, sure is crowded, ain't it?'"

I'll bet dollars to d20s that they didn't intend to have the world be underpopulated.  They just didn't do their research because a quick eyeball said, "Eh, eighty million people sounds about right."

I suppose the best example I can think of is when I read comics and then talk about them with my ex-girlfriend, who majored in comic art in college.  I'll say things like, "The story was a little weak, and really, do they have to have so much cleavage?" and she'll say things like, "I can't believe he had that guy facing left in the top panel on page 6.  And then there was that tangent where her sword looked like it was stabbing the wall."

But no, that's not even right.  Because I might notice that the art looks a little funny, and just not be able to describe why.  This situation would be more like if she read a comic and then said, "They obviously decided to use XYZ ink instead of QVC ink, because look here, see how the light reflects from this angle but not when you look straight down at it?  And the credits page forgot to mention the secondary anti-alias programmer.  I hate it when they do that."

I would then respond and say, in a very stupid sounding voice, "There were pretty pictures."  I admit that my knowledge of the subject is not as great as hers, but I'd rather discuss the story of the comic than the production process.

Likewise, worrying about population densities, when you could be worrying about plot stuff, just seems a bit silly to me.  Then again, I've replied to this thread 4 times now, so I'm a little silly too.  I'll just say that I get frustrated with people saying things suck.  I want to see a little more optimism for a change.  Maybe I'm just in a snarky mood, and am only seeing the criticism.


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## dwilgar (Jul 12, 2004)

I raised this question early in the "Ask Keith Baker" thread, and am rather surprised at the number of other people who have taken an interest in a somewhat trivial tidbit.  I think the numbers are low, but more on the order of a factor of 2, not the type of numbers others are suggesting.  I have no idea where someone gets the idea that the 40 people per square mile is some magical minimum number.  The USA didn't hit this threshold until 1950.  For a good comparison, the USA had a population density of about 5 people/square mile from 1790 to 1820.  Based on the conversation in this thread, it is a wonder the USA still exists today.  Compare this with Eberron at a population density of about 2 (give or take, as it is hard to get the area all that accurately) and I really don't see a huge problem with the Eberron numbers, especially if you take Keith's advice and double to include children.

(US population data from: http://www.census.gov/population/www/censusdata/hiscendata.html )

Dwilgar


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## jgbrowning (Jul 12, 2004)

RangerWickett said:
			
		

> Likewise, worrying about population densities, when you could be worrying about plot stuff, just seems a bit silly to me.  Then again, I've replied to this thread 4 times now, so I'm a little silly too.  I'll just say that I get frustrated with people saying things suck.  I want to see a little more optimism for a change.  Maybe I'm just in a snarky mood, and am only seeing the criticism.




Just to clairify on my end, crticism doesn't mean something sucks, it just means that this part of something isn't accurate, or it could be more accurate. It's part of the process of continually getting better at what we do. I don't think Eberron sucks because it's population is off. It would suck if that was one of *many* problems, but it's one of its few problems.

I understand your feelings though as it often seems that people nitpick on relatively unimportant matters and that doing so often appears to be part of a larger attack. As an author, criticism (well, at least relatively accurate criticism) is something that's generally good, as its another thing I now know about that I didn't before. Bad crticism is just ignored. What's good and what's bad? Well, I make that part up as I go.... 

But with all that in mind, the same general sentiment can be reversed to those who belittle criticizers. Just because I like something, doesn't mean that parts of it *don't* suck or that the people who are bothered by a particular aspect of a world are the strange ones to be ridiculed when they point these things out. I always find it important for me to remember that often the negative tone I see in other's posts appears hightened because of the things I like, as opposed to any real negativity. It's much easier to tell in person than through text.

joe b.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Jul 12, 2004)

Derulbaskul said:
			
		

> "Lose" and "loose" is a bad one, yes, but I still think the inability of 90% of messageboard users to use "it's" (this is NOT the possessive form of "it") and "its" (this is the possessive form of it and it does NOT have an apostrophe) correctly is a far more egregious sin.




This isn't just any messageboard. We're gamers.

Nothing rises to the utterly inexcusable level of rouge/rogue.


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## mythusmage (Jul 12, 2004)

RangerWickett said:
			
		

> ...Likewise, worrying about population densities, when you could be worrying about plot stuff, just seems a bit silly to me.  Then again, I've replied to this thread 4 times now, so I'm a little silly too.  I'll just say that I get frustrated with people saying things suck.  I want to see a little more optimism for a change.  Maybe I'm just in a snarky mood, and am only seeing the criticism.




First, I doubt anyone would run a settlement the way you have your hypothetical DM doing. I'm referring to the huge gaps between settlements. Gaps that occur for no good reason.

Second, population density affects plots. A man alone against the wilderness is kind of hard to pull off when the protagonist is in the middle of Yonkers.

And, as I will keep pointing out until it penetrates, population density affects what is possible in an area. You need a certain population density to sustain certain types of society. If San Diego County had an overall population density of 1.7 people per square mile it would not have the urban culture it does now, even if everybody was concentrated along  one mile of the San Diego River.

Population density affects things. It affects culture and society. It affects settlement patterns. It affects what a people can support in the way of infrastructure and knowledge without outside assistance. In a monster filled world such as Eberron it impacts personal and societal security. When the ankhegs out number you farming becomes a useless activity.

All of this changes the world in fundamental ways, ways that are not reflected in the book.

The problem I think you're having is that you grew up in a crowded world. An uncrowded world is beyond your experience. My world was not a crowded one. There was ranch land between San Diego and Escondido when I was growing up, where now there are suburban tracts and strip malls. The world of my childhood was vacant compared to yours. So I have the experience with a (comparatively) low population density , and thus the knowledge thereof you don't have. I remember when the U.S. had about 150 million people, and it was a very different world back then. Even with household computers it would still have been a different world.

Suggestion: Try living for a month in North Dakota. City or rural, your choice. Keep a journal of your experiences and reactions. When you return to (crowded) civilization report back to us on what it was like. Even if you move to Fargo, it will still be a vastly different world than what you grew up in.


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## mythusmage (Jul 12, 2004)

Wulf Ratbane said:
			
		

> This isn't just any messageboard. We're gamers.
> 
> Nothing rises to the utterly inexcusable level of rouge/rogue.




Rouge rogue: A person who pilfers make-up.

Rogue rouge: Cosmetics gone bad.


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## Henry (Jul 12, 2004)

mythusmage said:
			
		

> Rouge rogue: A person who pilfers make-up.
> 
> Rogue rouge: Cosmetics gone bad.




Your rogue/rogue joke was funnie - its a classci. I hate speling adn gramar mistakes to.


The population density thing doesn't bother me that much; I've honestly never paid any attention to pop. figures in products before; the world was as crowded or empty as I've wanted it to be - making it kind of like those old "Weapon Type vs. Armor" rules.


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## jgbrowning (Jul 12, 2004)

dwilgar said:
			
		

> I raised this question early in the "Ask Keith Baker" thread, and am rather surprised at the number of other people who have taken an interest in a somewhat trivial tidbit.  I think the numbers are low, but more on the order of a factor of 2, not the type of numbers others are suggesting.  I have no idea where someone gets the idea that the 40 people per square mile is some magical minimum number.  The USA didn't hit this threshold until 1950.  For a good comparison, the USA had a population density of about 5 people/square mile from 1790 to 1820.  Based on the conversation in this thread, it is a wonder the USA still exists today.  Compare this with Eberron at a population density of about 2 (give or take, as it is hard to get the area all that accurately) and I really don't see a huge problem with the Eberron numbers, especially if you take Keith's advice and double to include children.
> 
> (US population data from: http://www.census.gov/population/www/censusdata/hiscendata.html )
> 
> Dwilgar




The US is quite a different case. Firstly, it wasn't feudal, wasn't roughly medieval, had access to much better agricultural technologies (and slaves), and most importantly, had a ready consumer demand that purchased the majority of its excess production (England) as opposed to having to internally balance a supply/demand cycle. It was also a situation of expansion into a previously unclaimed and fairly uncontested land (well, relatively, of course). 

And, although I'm not an American historian, I think you'll find that those numbers are (effectively) artificially low because of large territory "purchases" from other countries. Territories that could only in the fanciful dreams of colonial states be claimed as part of the actual country until a much later time.  From 1790 to 1820 the sq. miles of land doubled and total population increased by 2.5 times. Land sq. miles had doubled again by 1870, but population had increased four-fold from 1820. Had there been no territory purchases, density would have rapidly increased, even though the land/population growth feed-back cycle would have been absent.

Ah, found what I was looking for...

http://www.rootsweb.com/~nycoloni/1790intro.html

"[in 1790] The gross area of the United Sates was 827,844 square miles, but the settled area was only 239,935 square miles, or about 29 percent of the total." Which means that real density of the neo-colonial state in 1790 was about 3 times greater or about 15 per sq. mile. England was roughly 70 at the time (about what the USA was in *1990*.)

From a more traditional european perspective, I don't think hardly any feudal medieval state had a population density less than around 40 (England). I think Scotland was maybe like 35 or so, but France was more like 100 or so. England was historically a small population country.

And yes, I have nothing better to do.  However, now I know that were I to make a similiar to USA type colonial invasion, 15 per sq. mile. is a respectable amount and that the "claims" on land can exceed 3 times the area actually settled. It wouldn't be perfect, but It would be a good place to start.

joe b.


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## Olorin (Jul 12, 2004)

If and when I run a campaign set in Eberron, there will be exactly as many people/beings as I need, in the places where I need them.

Problem solved (not that there ever was one). 

Perhaps the nagging sense of inconsistency will nag at my players as they explore the wild lands, wondering where the Wal-Marts and Home Depots are. I suspect they'll survive. Somehow.


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## mythusmage (Jul 12, 2004)

jgbrowning said:
			
		

> ...And yes, I have nothing better to do.  However, now I know that were I to make a similiar to USA type colonial invasion, 15 per sq. mile. is a respectable amount and that the "claims" on land can exceed 3 times the area actually settled. It wouldn't be perfect, but It would be a good place to start.
> 
> joe b.




When you do take into account settlement patterns and time. Lots can change in three thousand years.


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## Goobermunch (Jul 12, 2004)

Myth, I don't know if I agree with you.  I grew up in about as rural a part of these United States as it is possible to be in (Alaska), and I didn't think anything was weird about Eberron's population densities.

For those of you who don't know, Alaska has a population density of approximately 1 person/sq. mile.  We managed to get along fairly well with those kinds of population densities, and the government hasn't collapsed yet.

Just for some context, when I was growing up, the nearest community was about 35 miles north of town.  The next community after that was about 75 miles away (that was the nearest Taco Bell).

Admittedly, we have the advantages of air travel (not unlike House Lyrander airships, I suppose), some decent roads (along which Orien caravans could travel), and a rail system that connects parts of the state (you get the picture).

I think the effects of low population densities might be somewhat overstated in this thread, especially in light of the enhanced opportunities for a more modern style of feudal government permitted by the magical technology offered by the various dragonmarked houses.

--G


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## d4 (Jul 12, 2004)

Goobermunch said:
			
		

> For those of you who don't know, Alaska has a population density of approximately 1 person/sq. mile.  We managed to get along fairly well with those kinds of population densities, and the government hasn't collapsed yet.



i'm sure you'd agree though, that settlements in Alaska tend to congregate near the coast or along major rivers. there are vast stretches of pretty much empty, unsettled land. (and similarly in Canada and Australia, two other real-world regions with low population densities.)

however, i'm looking at the major kingdoms of Eberron, and i'm just not seeing the same kind of distribution. it looks like the settlements are pretty much all over, distributed evenly over the countryside. i'm not seeing huge tracts of empty land with the settled areas clustered in a narrow strip along sources of water (which is what you would reasonably suspect given the population density figures). so there seems to be a disjoint between the numbers and the maps/descriptions.


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## mythusmage (Jul 12, 2004)

d4 said:
			
		

> i'm sure you'd agree though, that settlements in Alaska tend to congregate near the coast or along major rivers. there are vast stretches of pretty much empty, unsettled land. (and similarly in Canada and Australia, two other real-world regions with low population densities.)
> 
> however, i'm looking at the major kingdoms of Eberron, and i'm just not seeing the same kind of distribution. it looks like the settlements are pretty much all over, distributed evenly over the countryside. i'm not seeing huge tracts of empty land with the settled areas clustered in a narrow strip along sources of water (which is what you would reasonably suspect given the population density figures). so there seems to be a disjoint between the numbers and the maps/descriptions.




And the folks of Khorvaire don't have the technolgy Alaskans have. Not even a telegraph.

(If email cost $5.00 a word how often would you use it?)


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## Lonely Tylenol (Jul 12, 2004)

*Good lord*

Someone should be writing anthropology papers on the topic of threads like these ones...  The things people think are important to argue about...  jeebus.


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## AdmundfortGeographer (Jul 12, 2004)

mythusmage said:
			
		

> And the folks of Khorvaire don't have the technolgy Alaskans have. Not even a telegraph.




No, that's because they have _whispering wind_, _animal messenger_, _dream_, and _sending_ and the Speakers Guild of House Sivis that controls and offers services in instantaneous long range communication. Khorvaire's Western Union?


Regards,
Eric Anondson


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## mythusmage (Jul 12, 2004)

Eric Anondson said:
			
		

> No, that's because they have _whispering wind_, _animal messenger_, _dream_, and _sending_ and the Speakers Guild of House Sivis that controls and offers services in instantaneous long range communication. Khorvaire's Western Union?
> 
> 
> Regards,
> Eric Anondson




And the price of these services?


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## Dr. Strangemonkey (Jul 12, 2004)

*The English level of Population isn't necessary.*



			
				arcady said:
			
		

> Large countries with low density are only possible with trucking, refrigeration, and highways.
> 
> Food need to get from farm to market, and goods need to be dispersed.
> 
> I don't know the population of Khorvaire, but if it gets too far below 40 per square mile it will break aparrt - the means of keeping a food supply going are not there.




I think this argument puts the cart before the horse and does little to recognize people who don't ride horses let alone carts.

First off, remember that large portions of Eberron do not seem to be dominated by any system that resembles classical Feudal rural and urban patterns.

Even one large dinosaur nomad nation is going to drop your overall density way the heck down.

So yeah, it's one tradition that you have dense settlement.  It's not the only one.

Second, population density is the result not the cause.

Food goes from the ground to your belly.

Goods need to be used not dispersed.  

Granted.  Markets are a nice step in that system.  But looking at human behavior from the top down is the wrong step to take.

When the population goes below 40 per square mile, and the right sorts of people are still around, mass starvation and poverty is not the result.

Instead you get better diets, simpler but more robust social structures, and, often, more stuff.

Post-black plague people eat better and are richer.  

Mongols had way more stuff per person than Englishmen and were far fitter.    



			
				arcady said:
			
		

> Traditional pattern has always been dense populations, even going back to primordial prehuman days - humans lived in tight bands close together for security, food, and reproduction.




It's true.  People live in tight groups.  But living thick to the ground is not an imperative.  

The traditional pattern.  The around 2 million year pattern is to disperse your population pretty widely.  You want to live in a group, but you don't want to  jostle with the next group over.   

It's pretty hard to argue for the desirability of population density from primordial days.  

Mind you, it's only tangential to the argument, but cavemen are badasses and I want them to get their widely dispersed props.

Also true of Eskimos, who have an amazingly high level of technology.  I wear a lot of Eskimo garb over the course of my year.  They did more than allright for people with an exceedingly low population density.


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## AdmundfortGeographer (Jul 12, 2004)

mythusmage said:
			
		

> And the price of these services?




And now we descend into the truly absurd nitpicks. Is it just possible that the prices are appropriate for the economy of Khorvaire?  Maybe you wouldn't pay for it... but the designers of the setting say that there are enough people who will pay the prices with little complaint.

I dunno, I'm a geography major. (It is far more than knowing state and national capitals, ). I've done enough reading on populations and urban centers, and how they can work and how they have worked throughout history and across various cultures that I'm NOT bothered by the population figures.

They certainly COULD work just fine, IMO. Rather than demand a fix to the numbers so that is fits how YOU think everything has to work on Khorvaire, try to consider just what might make the numbers work as they are listed.  There just might be some innovative thinking going on here that could make this different from other settings (or reality) that you keep trying to draw comparisons to.


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## Dr. Strangemonkey (Jul 12, 2004)

*Put it another way...*

...it seems to me that this argument is really, could you have something like Eberron with a population density around the size of turn of the millenium England rather than 14th century England.

I would say yes.  You could have it.  Not saying that's the way it would happen, or that it's the way it should happen, but it is possible.

Observe.

Khorvaire is the size of Asia, but a lot and a lot of it is not really running on anything like an English model.

There's an entire blasted area to make the Saharra cry, some good sized plains nomad regions, lots of difficult to inhabit mountains, large uninhabitable forests, and lots and lots of places that could only be described as irregular in organization.

Plus, it does not seem to have anything like the miracle for human populations that is Southern China and Southeast Asia.

As a result, I would say England is as good a barometer as any.

Now:  Eberron has a population of around a third to a quarter of 14th century Europe.  

14th century England had between 3-4 million people. 

But they were also at the limit.  Every historian I have talked to about the period has discussed it's tremendous overpopulation troubles.  The number of people around were stressing out everything.  

People couldn't eat as well, heating was expensive, and society became hopelessly complicated trying to account for everybody.  Alongside more complex it was also a lot less fluid.  There's loads of restrictions on travel and while classes might jockey for position your group priveleges are spelled out.  Peasants are not going to be knighted on the field.  All the religious orders that are gonna make it have already been founded. Internal unrest abounded.

14th Century does have tech, something like a feudal system, international trade, international orders, and nations.

Eberron does have a feudal system, tech, international trade, and international orders, and nations.

Now Eberron obviously has a lot in common with 14th century England.  And there is a big disparity in population.

But it reflects that disparity.

Eberron's population has:

Lot of room to expand in Eberron.  People eat very well.  Society is pretty simple.  You have lower class and you have high class, but it doesn't seem like you villiens, peasants, crofters, serfs, slaves, and yeomen all working with very clear definitions of themselves in the small scale farming level.  There's crime, but things seem to be fairly orderly as feudal systems go.

Adventurers can move around and people can get knighted or save the king.

And those are all features of 11th century England.

As are Feudal systems, international orders - churches and trade families and guilds and legal codes and empires - , and international trade.

Hell, in Pre-Carolingian Europe Byzantines ran the trade in France.

The tech is the issue and if you think that magic would advance society at a faster than normal rate, which I do particularly when it's organized as it is in Eberron, than you got where you're at already.

I mean a lot of 14th century tech is pretty population independent.  Metal working and art and academics don't tend to relly on cheap labour like a lot of modern industrial stuff does.

And magic makes labour more effecient, if expensive, so population is probably something of a draw.  You don't need as many peasants if you got druids, but you need more druids if you've got more peasants.

When contraceptives are available, magic is expensive, and property security is fairly low as a result of Medusa incursions?

Sure, everyone's gonna have huge families.


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## Caliban (Jul 12, 2004)

mythusmage said:
			
		

> And, as I will keep pointing out until it penetrates, population density affects what is possible in an area.



It has absolutely no effect.   I'm the DM, if I want it to happen, it happens.  




> You need a certain population density to sustain certain types of society. If San Diego County had an overall population density of 1.7 people per square mile it would not have the urban culture it does now, even if everybody was concentrated along one mile of the San Diego River.



Unless the PC's are playing census takers, it's really not going to have any impact on the campaign.



> Population density affects things. It affects culture and society. It affects settlement patterns. It affects what a people can support in the way of infrastructure and knowledge without outside assistance. In a monster filled world such as Eberron it impacts personal and societal security. When the ankhegs out number you farming becomes a useless activity.



It's a game.  I'm the DM.  The population density has exactly as much effect as I want it to have.   If I think there needs to be more people for something to work, guess what?  There are more people there. 

Eberron doesn't need to mirror the real world.     It just has to provide a place for the PC's to adventure in.

Besides, if you really think the population is too low, then set it at a level you find appropriate.  Your the DM, you can do that.  You don't even have to ask Keith's permission, or explain to him how foolish he was for not researching 14th century european populaton densities before designign a gaming world that is nothing like 14th century Europe.


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## Derulbaskul (Jul 12, 2004)

Wulf Ratbane said:
			
		

> This isn't just any messageboard. We're gamers. Nothing rises to the utterly inexcusable level of rouge/rogue.




Yep, have to agree there. Actually, "rouge" should be included in the list of words that are automatically replaced with other characters like certain well-known profanities.

Anyway, I think it's far more important that we improve our writing skills than worry about population densities....


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## mythusmage (Jul 12, 2004)

Eric Anondson said:
			
		

> And now we descend into the truly absurd nitpicks...




And the price of these services? A simple question. One easily answered I would think. Do you have an answer?

_Whispering Wind_: 2nd level spell . Minimum caster level 3rd. At a cost of 60 gold a casting at the minimum (10 gold per spell level times caster level according to NPC Spellcasting, p149 of the 3e Dungeon Master's Guide®). That's with a range of 2 miles, and a maximum of 25 words. For greater range you pay more. But, there's no assurance that there will be anybody at the target location who will hear the message. Or any assurance that if there is anybody there, it will be the intended recipient.

The other spells you listed using the same formula:

_Animal Messenger_:2nd level spell, minimum 60 gold to cast. Oh, and at third level it has a maximum range of 35 feet. Great method of long range communication.

_Dream_: 5th level. Minimum cost 450 gold. Unlimited range. Effectively unlimited message length. If it weren't for the price.

_Sending_:4th for Clerics,  5th for Wizards and Sorcerors. Minimum price; 280 gold (cleric) or 350 gold (Sorcerors and Wizards).

Each has additional limitations, but the big one here is price. Sixty gold for a message in a world where the typical peasant would be lucky to see 60 gold in a year. In 19th century America telegraph messages were pricey, but they were not expensive. For the average American of the time a telegraph message was affordable. for the average resident of Aundaire _Whispering Wind_ is not.

How often would you use the Internet if you made minimum wage and the cost was $10.00 per hour online? With a baud rate of 9600? What if it was $100.00 an hour for Internet access? Starting to see the problem here?

As for house Sivis, nowhere did I see any indication that the gnomes charge less for their services than a caster would. So a _Whispering Wind_ message sent by House Sivis will cost a minimum of 60 gold. With the same limitations, restrictions, and drawbacks as found in one activated by a trained caster.

Nitpicking? Hardly. This is a matter that impacts the very nature of the setting. Consider how cheap Internet access opened up the Web. Consider how many people would use _Whispering Wind_ on a monthly basis if the price were to drop to 60 copper pieces a casting. We're talking the end of feudal society in the Five Kingdoms. Remember, the Soviet Union fell in large part because of cheap, reliable communications.

The bigger the chunk an item takes of a person's bankroll, the less a person is apt to use it. In D&D® spells take a huge chunk of a person's bankroll.


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## glass (Jul 12, 2004)

Wulf Ratbane said:
			
		

> This isn't just any messageboard. We're gamers.
> 
> Nothing rises to the utterly inexcusable level of rouge/rogue.




My personal pet hate is PC's instead of PCs.

Or any possessive in place of a plural really, but that one seems to crop up a lot arround here.


glass.


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## mythusmage (Jul 12, 2004)

glass said:
			
		

> My personal pet hate is PC's instead of PCs.
> 
> glass.




Now that you mention it. I mean, how would the writer know what belonged to Pirate Cat and what didn't, unless PC informed him? And doesn't PC get a bit miffed at some of the things ascribed to him?


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## S'mon (Jul 12, 2004)

Game demographics - ever since Gary Gygax created the Flanaess (and probably before), game designers have been creating worlds with far too few people in far too big areas, so Eberron is hardly alone in this.  I don't own it, but it sounds like the best solution might be to reduce the map scale rather than increasing the population by the x10 you'd need to get a plausible density - this is true of many published worlds, including Midnight's Eredane (which I've been playing in).    If you halve the map scale that's a x4 density, still very low; 1/4 gives x16, which would instantly give European-level populations.  Or halve the scale and x2 or x4 the populations... ta-da! 

I think it's silly to deny that the listed figures aren't plausible even in a fantasy world, OTOH it's not hard to fix and I don't think too much should be made of it.


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## ironmani (Jul 12, 2004)

mythusmage said:
			
		

> And the folks of Khorvaire don't have the technolgy Alaskans have. Not even a telegraph.



But your also assuming that the average farmer in Eberron whats to talk to his neighbor everyday to chat about the weather. Back in the 14th century, you didnt have too much contact with neighbor. I honestly dont see a problem with the population. Almost every game I've run or played in, if we where going from Point A to Point B, it happened. Sure we camped overnight, but it never crossed our minds about what was in between. :: shrug :: I dont know, it just doesnt concern me.  :\


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## fredramsey (Jul 12, 2004)

Hellcow said:
			
		

> Hey all!
> 
> I don't intend to be too concerned about this, I'm afraid
> 
> <SNIP>.




Nor should you! This is perhaps the most pointless thread I've seen in a long time.

Read your favorite fantasy novel. I'm betting the characters spend days, weeks, even months getting from place to place. That's one of the very cool things I like about Eberron. There are large areas that are unpopulated and dangerous!

Man, a lot of you need to remember to take your Ritalen.


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## d4 (Jul 12, 2004)

fredramsey said:
			
		

> Nor should you! This is perhaps the most pointless thread I've seen in a long time.
> 
> Man, a lot of you need to remember to take your Ritalen.



i'm sure if you started a thread about some aspect of a game or setting that concerned or bothered you, you wouldn't take too kindly to people mocking you about that concern.

just because _you_ think it's "pointless" doesn't mean everyone will.


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## dwilgar (Jul 12, 2004)

jgbrowning said:
			
		

> The US is quite a different case. Firstly, it wasn't feudal, wasn't roughly medieval, had access to much better agricultural technologies (and slaves), and most importantly, had a ready consumer demand that purchased the majority of its excess production (England) as opposed to having to internally balance a supply/demand cycle. It was also a situation of expansion into a previously unclaimed and fairly uncontested land (well, relatively, of course).
> 
> And, although I'm not an American historian, I think you'll find that those numbers are (effectively) artificially low because of large territory "purchases" from other countries. Territories that could only in the fanciful dreams of colonial states be claimed as part of the actual country until a much later time.  From 1790 to 1820 the sq. miles of land doubled and total population increased by 2.5 times. Land sq. miles had doubled again by 1870, but population had increased four-fold from 1820. Had there been no territory purchases, density would have rapidly increased, even though the land/population growth feed-back cycle would have been absent.
> 
> joe b.




Yep, I realize substantial differences exist between the early USA and Europe, but my the point I was more interested in was that you could have a country where the population is highly concentrated (early US with 90%+ of the population near the Atlantic Ocean), there are large tracts of "wild" lands, and hence the overall population is low.  The other data point I thought was interesting was the it took the USA until 1950 to achieve a population density  that is representative of what some have argued as a minimal sustainable density.

Personally, I prefer having a world that has lots of empty places - it gives me room to place adventures and interest locales.  It I had a world with population densities representative of 14th century France or England, just where are the mysterious unexplored regions?

Dwilgar


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## Vaxalon (Jul 12, 2004)

Let me plant my banner in the "pointless" camp.


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## d4 (Jul 12, 2004)

dwilgar said:
			
		

> Personally, I prefer having a world that has lots of empty places - it gives me room to place adventures and interest locales.  It I had a world with population densities representative of 14th century France or England, just where are the mysterious unexplored regions?



excerpt from S. John Ross' excellent "Medieval Demographics Made Easy" article.



			
				S. John Ross said:
			
		

> At the medieval level of technology, a square mile of settled land (including requisite roads, villages and towns) will support 180 people. This takes into account normal blights, rats, drought, and theft, all of which are common in most worlds. If magic is common, the GM may decide a square mile of land can support many more people.



that means if medieval France had a population density of 100 people per square mile, cultivated land covered 55.5% of the country, leaving 44% of the countryside wilderness. England's 45 people per square mile means that _75%_ of the countryside was unsettled wilderness. plenty of room for "mysterious unexplored regions" there, and still having a population density 20 times higher than Eberron's.

at Eberron's given population density, only about 1.1% of the continent should be settled, cultivated land. i've seen some maps of the Khorvaire that had national borders and cities and towns drawn on it. it surely doesn't look like 98.9% of the continent is uninhabited. and note that this is based on a support limit modeled on 14th-century agriculture. if Khorvaire's spellcasters are able to increase crop yields, then a square mile of cultivated land could support even more than 180 people.


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## Whisper72 (Jul 12, 2004)

Definately pointless....

All the extrapolations and real-world modelling is useless. If in the real world think-tanks with the mose brilliant ppl on the world have difficulty overseeing all the consequences of something as simple as the doubling of the oil price on the world-economic stage, let alone its further effect on consumer behavior, how the hell are we going to be able to predict in any way the real effect of magic and monsters on eberron? All claims about 'the population is base is not able to support x or y' are nothing more then smoke, pointless and baseless claims, as there are way too many variables that are too alien in eberron compared to anything we know to make such claims... With magic and different evolution / development, not to mention divine and 'alien' interventions from other planes etc, anything is possible to have developed on eberron and can be maintained using similar explanations... what if the use of magic curing diseases and more stability allowing for a better old age means less need for large families, and hence a birthrate that has been around 2.3 for the past several centuries?? Population would develop completely different!

Let's not forget those monsters. Human spread across the real world is largely an effect of humans being the unchecked top of the food chain for the last 10,000 years or so, and thus being able to push out and establish without any problem in any type of landscape having all the time in the world to adapt. In eberron, as several ppl pointed out, there are many monsters / beasts that eat humans for breakfast, thus there are large swathes of land that are uninhabited. If you take out all the land not used by 'humans' in eberron, recalculate your population densities and think again.

So... eberron could have any population density you want. Claiming that it is 'broken' is total nonsense. If it does not fit with 'your' look and feel for the campaign, this is another matter. Change it by all means to fit your needs....


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## WizarDru (Jul 12, 2004)

mythusmage said:
			
		

> The bigger the chunk an item takes of a person's bankroll, the less a person is apt to use it. In D&D® spells take a huge chunk of a person's bankroll.



 How much would it cost for an artificer to create a magic item, such as the Stone of Sending from (iirc) Sep's Story Hour?  Since that item never goes bad, if a specific house creates 1 a year for 100 years, how expensive are they to use, now?  How busy were the artificers during the Last War?  Does it matter, per se?

 It sounds to me, so far, like the following:
  a) Khorvaire doesn't follow the currently established rules for societal density on Earth, primarily looking at Feudal Europe
  b) the believability of that aspect can be doubted or accepted with equal vigor
  c) The specifics of population density have virtually no impact on a game in real, practical terms
  d) the D&D core is about a game, not a reality simulator
  e) So is Eberron
  f) Some central D&D concepts lead to ridiculous situations when attempting world-building, and are best ignored (_hong's chickens_)
  g) Some readers find this detail far more distracting/interesting than others

 At the end of the day, I'm much more concerend about whether or not a setting facilitates adventures for my players and inspires me to develop stories for them to experience.  My only concern for population density numbers is to determine relativity from one city or country to the next.  

 I'm curious...do these details ruin your potential use of the setting?  I know that it irritates me when I see gross mistakes in a movie or TV show concerning my field of work, and I'm sure the same applies elsewhere...but I'm quite forgiving, depending on the context.  I don't care if Spiderman 2 plays fast-and-loose with science and physics: I want to see kickin' fights and well delivered characters.  The same holds true with Eberron, in it's fashion.  I don't care if Sharn doesn't have the correct amount of farmlands surrounding it to support it's food requirements any more than I like to think about all the logical improbabilities of Coruscant, the city-world of Star Wars.  I just want to kill monsters and take their loot.


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## d4 (Jul 12, 2004)

WizarDru said:
			
		

> I'm curious...do these details ruin your potential use of the setting?



for me? yes.

i have a lot of other, much stronger, reasons for not wanting to run Eberron, though. but even if i were interested in running a campaign in Eberron, i'd have to either change the map scale or change the population figures. yes, it bothers me that much. :\


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## sword-dancer (Jul 12, 2004)

storyguide3 said:
			
		

> That's one heck of a war. I should think that a war that could kill that many people would have left the place far more devastated than comes across in the book. Civiallization would be a total shambles. Less than 10% of the people survived.
> .




I don`t know the numbers, but the 30 Years war ravaged Germany, depopoulated entire Regions, and broke the realm in pieces.

A Commander in this war refused to helpt to an allie, because he couldn`t support his troops, through this wasted lands.(They couldn`t supprt thmeselves through plunder nad foraging, because the region had been wasted before).
Add to the direct damage and casualites of war, plague, hunger, despair and economic broke down, who would `ve killed a lot.


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## Breakdaddy (Jul 12, 2004)

arcady said:
			
		

> I think you're being highly presumptuous, assuming I'm trying to 'ruin' something. If it lacks an explaination for this it's already ruined and not by my hand. If it has it, then I have no issue here.




Well, Im a highly presumptuous guy. At any rate, take it in the spirit in which it was delivered, which was mostly as a kind of nod and wink. Honestly, however, I will lose no sleep at all trying to justify the whys and wherefores of daily life in my chosen campaign setting. I have been playing this game for over 15 years and never once has a group I participated in shown serious doubts as to whether an entire world or region was viable within the framework and strictures of our modern (or not so modern) world view. *shrug* YMMV of course.


----------



## Storm Raven (Jul 12, 2004)

mythusmage said:
			
		

> And the price of these services?




Whatever the economics of the setting dictate. The guidelines in the core books are just guidelines, in a setting with more casters around, the prices will fall as a result of the increased supply.



> _Animal Messenger_:2nd level spell, minimum 60 gold to cast. Oh, and at third level it has a maximum range of 35 feet. Great method of long range communication.




You are reading the range wrong. The animal has to be within 35 feet of a 3rd level caster to be affected to begin with. Once the caster has done that, the range of delivery is only limited by how far the animal can travel in three days.


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## jmucchiello (Jul 12, 2004)

RangerWickett said:
			
		

> I am curious, though.  Why are the people who are concerned about it, concerned about it?  Why is the population density important to you?



Anyone who posts on a RPG message board daily should know why people are concerned about population densities. It's the varying types of gamers explanation. Some people play RPGs for the Role Play. Some play for the Game aspect of playing.  Other players enjoy the Simulation aspects of the game. While this is not to say that you must plant yourself in only one of these 3 camps, the fact is that some players have a heavy skew toward the Simulation camp. Whenever a statistic surfaces in a game, if it doesn't match their view of how the game should act as a Simulation of reality, it takes them out of game -- they can no longer suspend their disbelief. Just because your need for Simulation is less than other players' need for Simulation doesn't invalidate the sense of annoyance a bad statistic gives them.

Quite frankly I'm appalled at the level of intolerance toward how some gamers feel in this thread. If I think there are too many harpies in Eberron, I'm entitled to that opinion. Don't tell me to get over it or just change it. If it bugs me, I am bugged. I know I can ignore it or change it. That doesn't stop it from bugging me.

I'm particularly shocked by the number RPG authors/creators on this thread who discount the Simulationist's view in their posts. And I'm not referring to Keith here. Someone else at WotC should have been in charge of number crunching.

Okay, I'll stop with the Theory of Role-Playing stuff, now.


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## Henry (Jul 12, 2004)

What I want to know is, why are those upset with the population numbers happier with altering the map scale, than altering the population density?

It would seem less invasive than altering map scales, travel times, and surface areas as a result. If I think 30 million people should be living in sharn than 10 million, _fiat_, and all it affects are number my players never see, such as agriculture statistics. They still have a week to travel from Sharn to Flamekeep, or what have you.

Any thoughts on that?


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## Gez (Jul 12, 2004)

arcady said:
			
		

> The point is that you get nomadic bands that wander the land searching out resources.




Indeed they do. And why do they do? Because resources are scarce!

Resources aren't scarce because population density is low. Population density is low because resources are scarce. If you deported all of China and India together on the North Pole, you would have the world's most impressive population density ever, and yet people would still have nearly nothing to eat (except other people dead from starvation, I guess).

Khorvaire, to the difference of Arctica, is plentiful in resources. Farming is possible.



			
				arcady said:
			
		

> They cannot hold a settlement together, even in the lack of enemies, and they need to search out and meet with other bands on a regular basis in order to enable stable reproduction.




Two other things that fundamentally sets Eberron (heck, any D&D world, actually) apart from the Real World. Presence of things higher in the food chain (and presence of other chains of predation than food, by the way); and lack of importance of genetics. Frankly, if you risked degenerescence and inbreeding in a D&D world when your population numbers where low, you would have humans, goblins, and orcs, and that's about all. No elves, no dwarves, no gnomes -- they would all have died out.



			
				arcady said:
			
		

> You don't get advanced civilizations, you get familial tribes living at subsistance level with subsistance based technology.




Again, this is a question of resources. You are inverting the causality between population density and resources.


----------



## Lonely Tylenol (Jul 12, 2004)

*My vote*

I'm throwing my hat in with the "this is pointless" side.

What this looks like:

"Oh my god, how could they do this?  How am I ever to look my players in the eye and tell them that the carbon content of Khorvairian steel is 2.8%, when it should be no more than 2.1%.  They'll laugh me right out of the gaming room!  Oh, the humanity!  How could Keith do this to us?  There is no choice other than to demand that this be changed."

"Why yes, I'm going to have to agree with you.  You'd think that these people never studied any kind of advanced metallurgy before they tossed off some unimportant numbers that have absolutely no effect on play."

"Also, I don't plan on buying the book for other reasons, but despite the fact that I'm not a customer, I expect them to fix this egregious error because I don't believe anyone should be forced to apply the half-dozen easy fixes that have been proposed to solve the problem.  It must be *official*, damnit!"

...also, Eberron isn't earth.  Perhaps there are conditions on Eberron that make life somewhat different than it was in medieval Europe?  Perhaps?


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## Hellcow (Jul 12, 2004)

mythusmage said:
			
		

> And the folks of Khorvaire don't have the technolgy Alaskans have. Not even a telegraph.



No, but they have the speaking stone, which is just as effective. Most people won't use it because of the price, but we are still talking about a largely feudal society; how often does the farmer need to instantly talk to someone more than a day's travel away? If you're an important or wealthy person, you can send your message across Khorvaire in the blink of an eye. Heck, if you're REALLY important or wealthy enough, you can hire a Sivis _sender_ and have your message sent *directly* to your target wherever they are. If not, spend your copper and use the Orien post. 

In general, though, on this issue, I have to concur with what's been said before: "If and when I run a campaign set in Eberron, there will be exactly as many people/beings as I need, in the places where I need them." That's as it should be. There's a number that doesn't work for you. I'm honestly sorry to hear that. I set neither the final sizes of the maps, nor the final sizes of the population. But I can tell you right now, they are not going to change. I respect the opinion of those of you who are upset by this, but I do believe that you are in the minority, and that the average player does not calculate out the population density of the land. WotC trying to change this would be confusing to people who never noticed the issue to begin with, and you'd end up with people who follow things telling the DM "Haven't you been paying attention? The world's only half the size it says in your book." What's done is done. When I say "Change it yourself," it's not because I feel your pain is trivial, but because if you have a problem you _can_ change it yourself... and in this case, WotC simply isn't going to change it for you.

The problem is there, at least in your eyes. Quite simply, it's not going to be officially addressed. So what's left? Either find a solution on your end that works for you (for example, looking to what can be done with prestidigitation et al to suit your concerns instead of saying "the society will collapse without refrigeration") -- or not to play in Eberron. Obviously, I hope you can do the former. 

The secondary issue here is that no world is perfect. We do not have experts in every field developing the world. While I did not set the population numbers, I would also never ever have said "The population's too low to support civilization" -- because honestly, I'm not worried enough about realism to feel the need to calculate population density. I'm too busy enjoying my fantasy world. Likewise (and this is not something to talk about here unless you want the thread closed), some people have been offended because they perceive ties between Eberron and the Book of Revelations -- ties I never noticed or considered. Tomorrow, someone will say that it's impossible and insulting that orcs and goblinoids could have evolved on the same continent. We can't make a world that will please everyone. We can't spot every possible issue ahead of time, and we can't chase after and correct every gamer's individual concerns now it's out. You can make this work on your end if you choose to, and I hope that you do so.


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## Henry (Jul 12, 2004)

Hellcow said:
			
		

> ...Tomorrow, someone will say that it's impossible and insulting that orcs and goblinoids could have evolved on the same continent.




Ah, I see you missed that thread about two weeks ago.


----------



## Lonely Tylenol (Jul 12, 2004)

*Yeah, what he said!*



			
				Hellcow said:
			
		

> The secondary issue here is that no world is perfect. We do not have experts in every field developing the world. While I did not set the population numbers, I would also never ever have said "The population's too low to support civilization" -- because honestly, I'm not worried enough about realism to feel the need to calculate population density. I'm too busy enjoying my fantasy world. Likewise (and this is not something to talk about here unless you want the thread closed), some people have been offended because they perceive ties between Eberron and the Book of Revelations -- ties I never noticed or considered. Tomorrow, someone will say that it's impossible and insulting that orcs and goblinoids could have evolved on the same continent. We can't make a world that will please everyone. We can't spot ever possible issue ahead of time, and we can't chase after and correct every gamer's individual concerns now it's out. You can make this work on your end if you choose to, and I hope that you do so.




Here's a question for you all.  Why the heck is Eberron being raked over the coals for issues that are completely unrelated to the quality of the game and how much fun people are having with it?  This is all totally ridiculous.  The "Eberron = revelations" thread was a total sideshow that hijacked a thread where people were talking about their experiences with the game.  This thread is another pointless argument that's dominating the discussion to no constructive ends.  I would understand if Keith were getting a bit cheezed off that while everyone can have an argument over tangential (or fictional) minutia, they don't seem to be interested in having a discussion about the friggin' game he wrote!

Look, go here to see a real testimonial from someone who's actually been playing the game, rather than listening to the nitpicking of people who aren't playing it.  Do yourself a favour, and try to have fun with Eberron rather than using it at yet another launching pad for a career in lawyering.

Good god, you'd think Eberron punched someone's mom in the head, considering the reception it's been given.


----------



## Belen (Jul 12, 2004)

Dr. Awkward said:
			
		

> Here's a question for you all.  Why the heck is Eberron being raked over the coals for issues that are completely unrelated to the quality of the game and how much fun people are having with it?  This is all totally ridiculous.  The "Eberron = revelations" thread was a total sideshow that hijacked a thread where people were talking about their experiences with the game.  This thread is another pointless argument that's dominating the discussion to no constructive ends.  I would understand if Keith were getting a bit cheezed off that while everyone can have an argument over tangential (or fictional) minutia, they don't seem to be interested in having a discussion about the friggin' game he wrote!
> 
> Look, go here to see a real testimonial from someone who's actually been playing the game, rather than listening to the nitpicking of people who aren't playing it.  Do yourself a favour, and try to have fun with Eberron rather than using it at yet another launching pad for a career in lawyering.
> 
> Good god, you'd think Eberron punched someone's mom in the head, considering the reception it's been given.




Well, I will qualify this by saying that I have not read the entire thread, and I have purchased the book and found it wanting.

Basically, you're saying that people have no right to a negative opinion on Eberron.  At first, the fans of the setting said that we had to wait to read it before making a decision, now you're saying that we have to play it before we have a decision.

Well, I have read it and decided that I do not want to play it.  

Also, Eberron is being touted as THE setting.  WOTC is using it for DnD online  and seems to be supporting it much more than previous settings.  I believe this is cause enough to speak out about any problems that people may have with the setting.

No one is saying that you cannot enjoy the setting, but you're saying that we have to like or that we will like it if we play it.  That is a bit of a double standard.

Just some thoughts.


----------



## jgbrowning (Jul 12, 2004)

dwilgar said:
			
		

> Yep, I realize substantial differences exist between the early USA and Europe, but my the point I was more interested in was that you could have a country where the population is highly concentrated (early US with 90%+ of the population near the Atlantic Ocean), there are large tracts of "wild" lands, and hence the overall population is low.  The other data point I thought was interesting was the it took the USA until 1950 to achieve a population density  that is representative of what some have argued as a minimal sustainable density.




That's a very good point. I'm not so sold on the minimal sustainable density. I think it can get lower than some have speculated (I think though that 20 per sq. mile is probably about a low as you'd want to go.) But even then, what's probably going on is that certain areas are more dense than others so we're talking again about a situation such as you describe. Instead of saying that the wilds are part of the kingdom, I'd rather have a map that more adequately describes the reality of the situation while mentioning that "America" has claims on a bunch of land that it really has no control over.

There is a definite minimum population needed to sustain a feudal or quasi-feudal europeanesque system with it's layers of dependency and authority. There are even, I believe, more layers needed to sustain any highly commercial organization (say Venice levels) as there has to be a significant amount of surplus making it's way up the chain to a large enough group of people willing will frit it away on silk shirts.

One thing that I just thought of is that density would probably be a little greater than historical, not just because of magic weather/crop control, but because in a world where there really are monsters out there, weaker peasant will band together. Old man Green who lives by himself a mile outta town better be one tough fighter.. 



> Personally, I prefer having a world that has lots of empty places - it gives me room to place adventures and interest locales.  It I had a world with population densities representative of 14th century France or England, just where are the mysterious unexplored regions?
> 
> Dwilgar




That what I was talking about with the standard D&D tropes.  I think that the standard ops for D&D would usually only occur on "the borderlands." However, the borderlands are probably the least likely area to have enough time to create the dungeons, ruins, temples and all the other settings typical of D&D. This leads to lots of lost civilizations and or "we were once there, but now we're not" situations.

I think many D&D worlds would probably be similiar to the roman period in which safty was very strong at the center (not very many monsters, only those that can disguise or hide well enough) of any inhabited area and more typically D&D on the outskirts.

joe b.


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## jgbrowning (Jul 12, 2004)

Dr. Awkward said:
			
		

> Good god, you'd think Eberron punched someone's mom in the head, considering the reception it's been given.




Yes, it would seem that this criticism about Eberron does punch your mom on the head at least.

Just because some of us enjoy this type of stuff, doesn't mean that we're pointless, stupid, missing the bigger picture, or even for that matter *dislike Eberron*. If you don't like this thread, don't read it.

Keith's a professional. Any additional information he finds out about or thinks about will either be...

1. Used because it's cool.
2. Discarded because it doesn't fit what he wants to do.
3. Ridiculed in private. 

It's as simple as that. I think all of us would like to be as good as we can be when world-building in order to create the most pleasurable environment for many different types of gamers. No one's going to be pleased by everything, but anything that improves quality in one manner without decreasing quality in another is, "A good thing."

joe b.


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## WizarDru (Jul 12, 2004)

BelenUmeria said:
			
		

> Well, I will qualify this by saying that I have not read the entire thread, and I have purchased the book and found it wanting.
> 
> ...
> 
> ...



  Your really should read the thread.

 Most of it has been a discussion of how Eberron is a seriously flawed setting because it's population density doesn't mesh with that of feudal Europe. Some folks appear to be saying that the *setting is unusable based on that sole fact alone*.  

 Taken in context of the previous five pages of dialogue, Dr. Awkard's point was, I think, that a trivial piece of information, that can be easily changed by the DM on the fly, if anyone bothers asking (which virtually never happens) and has no practical effect on actual gameplay. The idea that the number of people/sq. mile is too low being an actual impediment to gameplay seems somewhat silly, to me. It may be a factual inconsistency, but as Keith points out: it wasn't his focus, and it doesn't really bother him. He's more concerned with the potential for adventure in the Mror lands then dwarven reproductive histories.

 You've got every right to dislike Eberron, whether you spent money on it or not. You can label it as failed or wanting. Everyone clearly doesn't agree, and that's Ok, too.


----------



## reanjr (Jul 12, 2004)

mythusmage said:
			
		

> Too few people. Too few countries. Multiplying both by five would help a lot.
> 
> Discuss.




You're playing the wrong campaign setting.  Eberron's strength isn't in its consistency or in being well though-out.  As a setting it isn't designed to make sense (or at lease it doesn't make sense), it's designed to be a fun place to adventure with lots of exciting larger-than-life ideas and cultures.

As has been stated, the population's waaaaay too low, the countries way too large, the geography of the map makes absolutely no sense, the cultures are archetypes not real cultures with history, the list goes on.  But none of these really makes too much of a difference to the average gamer when they go to find the X of Y that will grant P, but first must get past the M minions of B by getting to L and seeking the help of N (wonder what percentage of published adventures that formula works for).

If you want consistency and plausible fantasy, there are alot more options out there.  Eberron is for a totally different (not necessarily lesser) type of campaign.


----------



## Buzzardo (Jul 12, 2004)

I am writing a villian for Khorvaire right now.  I have picked out the perfect name for him.    

Ralph Nader.


----------



## DonAdam (Jul 12, 2004)

Yes, the population's too low.*

No, it doesn't make you a nitpicker to point that out. These statements have yet to run over anybody's dog.

Mostly, it doesn't matter much to the gaming experience. 

But it does affect it in one way, and that's using the community building guidelines in the DMG. You can't just increase the population and stick to those numbers; it'll throw off one of the dynamics of the setting, namely the paucity of high level npc's. And while, especially for small communities, I can make that stuff up off of the top of my head, its better for versimilitude to have access to the relatively consistent numbers for the sake of versimilitude.

*Incidentally, while I think it is low, it probably need not be as high as medieval Europe. It's too low because there's simply not enough there for the division of labor that would be required to sustain the level of technology and consumption implied in the setting. It's not way too low because, as of yet in my reading, I have not found anything suggesting price controls, something that consistently caused problems for medieval Europe. I could be wrong about that last point, though, and I'll know when I finish reading the setting.


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## Pseudonym (Jul 12, 2004)

Buzzardo said:
			
		

> I am writing a villian for Khorvaire right now. I have picked out the perfect name for him.
> 
> Ralph Nader.



I'll eagerly await the broadsheet: The Lightning Rail - Unsafe at any speed.


----------



## ragboy (Jul 12, 2004)

*Hellcow: There Aren't Enough Trees!*

I just wanted to chime in and let Keith know that he also didn't include enough trees for even the sparse population of Khorvaire. If you consider that the average tree puts out about 100x10^1000 cubic centimeters of oxygen per minute, then it's obvious that no one in Sharn would be able to breathe for more than a few minutes, once you "turned the lights on" in this setting. 

I'll start a new thread about the distinct lack of bushes on the campaign map. My rogue can't find a place to take a leak.


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## AdmundfortGeographer (Jul 12, 2004)

mythusmage said:
			
		

> And the price of these services? A simple question. One easily answered I would think. Do you have an answer?





You cut it from the excerpt you quoted. Here it is, "the prices are appropriate for the economy of Khorvaire".

And you got _animal messenger_ wrong on it's range, as has been pointed out. It's as far as a bird can fly in 3 days.



			
				mythusmage said:
			
		

> Each has additional limitations, but the big one here is price. Sixty gold for a message in a world where the typical peasant would be lucky to see 60 gold in a year.




Not that it matters for you, but the price of services on p. 121 has House Sivis charging 50 gp for _whipsering wind_.

Typical peasants in a feudal arrangement don't live lives where they need to chat with their relatives a hundred miles away.  They wake up, they work the land, they eat, they go to bed. They go to market seasonally where they pick up the latest news, unless their manor lord decides to tell the news he just heard from the latest _whispering wind_ or _animal messenger_.



			
				mythusmage said:
			
		

> How often would you use the Internet if you made minimum wage and the cost was $10.00 per hour online? With a baud rate of 9600? What if it was $100.00 an hour for Internet access? Starting to see the problem here?




Yeah, that this is nearly a non sequitur? Internet access? 

I think I see your point, but the world did do just fine before the Internet, before the telephone, before the telegraph. The Pony Express was a revolutionary idea at its time that folks thought would change civilization by being able to connect far flung settlements of  the American West.  Is anything in Khorvaire much different than the Pony Express? Did the West fly apart before the Pony Express? House Sivis has a network that can relay written messages, 5 gp per page... probably exactly like the Pony Express did it.

Plus the competitor House Orien has mail service that costs 1cp per mile... probably as long as it is along its coach/caravan network... and when you get too far from main settlements, other tiny villages are probably going to set up along those route, like the American West was settled with towns along rail lines.  So those "average pesants" have an affordable way to communicate with cousin Jeb in Sharn that doesn't violate the "feudal-like" lifestyle they live... and it's not an arcane Internet.



			
				mythusmage said:
			
		

> This is a matter that impacts the very nature of the setting. Consider how cheap Internet access opened up the Web. Consider how many people would use _Whispering Wind_ on a monthly basis if the price were to drop to 60 copper pieces a casting. We're talking the end of feudal society in the Five Kingdoms.




And keeping the prices where they are sustains the feudal-like society that the designers say it has?  Whew!  We can finally bury this thread. We agree.




			
				mythusmage said:
			
		

> Remember, the Soviet Union fell in large part because of cheap, reliable communications.




The fall of the Soviet Empire... Another non sequitur? In large part? Uh... ok...

I'll entertain this for a moment.  But who was it in the Soviet Union who used the "cheap, reliable communication" that brought it down? And how does bringing down the Soviets relate to Eberron?  Is there an totalitarian empire that needs to be dismantled, and _whispering wind_ is the secret weapon if it were only 60cp?


----------



## Destil (Jul 12, 2004)

“You’re all a group of census takers assigned by the government of Sharn to investigate…” instead of “You all meet in a tavern one night and...”

I *like* it.



			
				DonAdam said:
			
		

> Yes, the population's too low.*
> 
> No, it doesn't make you a nitpicker to point that out. These statements have yet to run over anybody's dog.
> 
> ...



 Even if you cut the area down by a factor of 
50 like some people sugggest (i.e. 500 miles across rather than 5000) the DMG demigraphics still don't work. Just look at Sharn in compairson to what it should have accordin to the DMG. It already breaks thoes standards without any scaling, simply for the flavor and intergerity of the setting (lack of many NPCs above the mid levels is one of the strongest selling points of this setting, to me).


----------



## KB9JMQ (Jul 12, 2004)

ragboy said:
			
		

> I just wanted to chime in and let Keith know that he also didn't include enough trees for even the sparse population of Khorvaire. If you consider that the average tree puts out about 100x10^1000 cubic centimeters of oxygen per minute, then it's obvious that no one in Sharn would be able to breathe for more than a few minutes, once you "turned the lights on" in this setting.
> 
> I'll start a new thread about the distinct lack of bushes on the campaign map. My rogue can't find a place to take a leak.





Well this just made my day better.


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## Whisper72 (Jul 12, 2004)

Yeah!! and with that lack of trees ragboy pointed out to us, the Ranger class is seriously BROKEN, I thought all core rules stuff would be accounted for in eberron, it clearly hasn't! This does it!


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## Hellcow (Jul 12, 2004)

Eric Anondson said:
			
		

> Not that it matters for you, but the price of services on p. 121 has House Sivis charging 50 gp for _whipsering wind_.



More importantly, it has them charging 5 gp/page for use of a message station, which is far more effective than _whispering wind_. The message station is your primary fast long-distance communication, if the post is too slow for you. Yes, 5 gp is still too much for the average peasant, but as Eric has noted, Eberron is feudal; we never wanted every farmer to have a _cellphone of sending_. Most people just don't have a need to communicate with people across the country; and for those that do, the Sivis message stations are just as effective as the telegraph.



			
				BelenUmeria said:
			
		

> No one is saying that you cannot enjoy the setting, but you're saying that we have to like or that we will like it if we play it.



Actually, if you read my previous post, you'll see that I said nothing of the sort. I said that if you don't like the setting, either find a way to address your concerns on your end or don't play it -- not because you may not have valid concerns, but because WotC cannot make the game perfect for everyone. I appreciate that you bought it and looked at it. I've never said everyone will like it. The fact of the matter is that many won't, and if you're in that camp, good for you -- don't play it. But if you don't like it for one specific reason, perhaps you can find a way to solve that problem, with or without the help of others on this board. 

To that end, I agree with both jgbrowning and Wizardru. This discussion is valuable if it provides the people who dislike the population issue with valid alternatives, so that someone who likes the setting can say "OK, I'll use the idea of reducing the continent to 1/50th its current size." If that makes the world work for you, go for it, even if it never will be official - and I applaud you for working around our perceived failings. If on the other hand, as Wizardru said, the point is simply to say "the game flat-out cannot be played because of the population issue" and to continue to harp on that -- well, if it entertains people to complain, then that has its own value, but you don't find a solution by piling on more complaints. 

On the other hand, if you want a "Why I hate Eberron" thread just for the sheer intellectual joy of discussing what idiots game designers are -- hey, a good discussion is its own reward.


----------



## WizarDru (Jul 12, 2004)

This raises an interesting question, to me.  Has anyone tried applying fuedal Europe to the DMG stats?  I've been hearing a broad assumption that they mesh, and I'm curious if they actually do.  

 I mean, we are talking a game where disparate technological levels coexists side-by-side, with nary a nod to realism.  D&D is about a fantasy medieval experience, unsullied by dirt, grime or actual historical progression.  I don't recall the last time I saw a historical retrospective about the musketeer, landesknecht and the shaolin fighting side by side with rifle, epee, zweihander and nunchakus all at the same time.


----------



## Gez (Jul 12, 2004)

I totally doubt they do. A lot of thing in the world-building section of the DMG just don't make sense, number-crunching wise. They are nifty for making stuff on the fly without too much aspirin consumption, but they're totally broken when you want to look at it with such a critical eye. Or even a less discerning critical eye.

Hong could talk to you about chickens.


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## Express (Jul 12, 2004)

Wow this thread is still going strong. (And Im contributing to it )

All this discussion of population density, division of labor, and technological levels remind of the wild eyed fervor of the Homo Sapien Harnworldius circa the 1980's. 

Note to self: never disdain the importance of "social" structures around an old school Harnworlder. 

I guess I have nothing to contribute after all


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## Kichwas (Jul 12, 2004)

Dr. Awkward said:
			
		

> Here's a question for you all.  Why the heck is Eberron being raked over the coals for issues that are completely unrelated to the quality of the game and how much fun people are having with it?



Because for many of us these issues are -DIRECTLY- linked to enjoyability.

It does -NOT- take an expert to get this stuff right. All you have to do is read TSR's own World Builder's Handbook, or Expeditious Retreat's Ecology and Culture, or this VERY SHORT website: 
Medieval Demographics Made Easy


Some of us can play in the He-Man universe, but some of us need something deeper and more solid. Something that holds up to basic middle school logic and consistancy. Something that makes sense in how the magic changes it from the mundane.

Without something solid, we keep getting jarred out of the ability to connect to the game, story,and characters by the sillyness.

I -NOT- saying Eberron is a 'He-Man' setting like FR is, I haven't read it fully yet.

I'm just listing the things Eberron will have to have to not be seen in that light. I'm telling you how it gets judged. I haven't made the judgement yet for myself.


----------



## Kichwas (Jul 13, 2004)

Gez said:
			
		

> Indeed they do. And why do they do? Because resources are scarce!
> 
> Resources aren't scarce because population density is low. Population density is low because resources are scarce. If you deported all of China and India together on the North Pole, you would have the world's most impressive population density ever, and yet people would still have nearly nothing to eat (except other people dead from starvation, I guess).



You're wrong about the food, but see my response to your second quote for that.

Actually no to what you presumed of me, and what you said in response. Not because you're wrong (you're correct), but because you're making a point about B, when I'm talking about A.

I'm not talking about the causes of low density - I'm using the Inuit to show what kind of society low density gives. If you have low density, it means you're spread thin. If you're spread thin you're nomadic and low tech at best.



			
				Gez said:
			
		

> Again, this is a question of resources. You are inverting the causality between population density and resources.



Actually, you'd be amazed at how rich Nunavut is in resources. Those few Inuit are sitting on the largest herds of herbavores in the world, the second largest ever (buffalo once topped them). They've also got massive fishing stocks, diamonds, and oil.

It's Africa, the Middle East, an unlimited fish market, and American Cattle all in one place under the control of some 29,000 people who look like Sunny Bono...   

In the southern half they've probably got a lot of lumber as well, but I didn't see that in my research on them back when I wrote them into a term paper...

And they're largely doing absolutely nothing with all of it... just waiting for global warming to get to the point where everybody else invades in 300 years...

Population density in Nunavut could get high on the natural resources... but its so dangerous living there that it never did. The Inuit can easily dispatch Carribu and fish, but even a rifle often loses the fight with a Polar Bear - and one swipe from it will leave you, if not dead, soon to be so in the cold.

If the dangers aren't enough to explain it I can't really say why it never did get high, but I can say what the low density resulted in.

For this discussion we don't need why it was low, we need what that low results in - a lack of a 'civilization infrastructure'.

Look to the plains Indians of North America. They also had very good resources, but until they had horses they were no better a predator than the wolves. Once they had horses they underwent a population explosion that was only checked when the Americans came in and killed off the Buffalo, and then the children.

Given another hundred years to grow, they would have outpaced the ability of the buffalo to support them, and had to move out and settle down - adopting their mountain camps most likely into full year round towns, but who can say.


'Civilization' and high density are linked to each other. You -CAN- have high density with a low population over a large area, it just means they're not really over that large area, but rather concentrated into a small part of it like the USA mostly is if you look at it in whole rather than parts.

Look at just New England and it's dense. Add it in the great plains and it looks low density, but it really isn't because you've just added a region claimed but not settled [until recently].


----------



## Kichwas (Jul 13, 2004)

RangerWickett said:
			
		

> But Myth', no DM is gonna run Eberron and say, "You enter the city of towers, and you walk through its empty streets for ten minutes before you finally see a person.  He leans out the window and says, 'Wow, sure is crowded, ain't it?'"



I'm going to have to remember this one. I can see some fun uses for it.



			
				RangerWickett said:
			
		

> Likewise, worrying about population densities, when you could be worrying about plot stuff, just seems a bit silly to me.



For some of us, the density is a vital 'plot stuff' element. If they tell me in the number that yes, that huge city with towers has only one other guy in it... then I get jarred out of the plot as a player, or have issue building a plot as a GM if my instinctive sense of things tells me it just can't be so.


----------



## Kichwas (Jul 13, 2004)

dwilgar said:
			
		

> I have no idea where someone gets the idea that the 40 people per square mile is some magical minimum number.  The USA didn't hit this threshold until 1950.  For a good comparison, the USA had a population density of about 5 people/square mile from 1790 to 1820.



That's a false statistic because until recently most of the USA was not actually the USA - Washington only thought it was.

The settled regions had higher density. You can't look at total land, you need to look at settled/controlled land.

If Eberron assumes most of the claimed land is not settled land I would have no issue. I've seen hints that this is the case, but we will have to wait to see details on the nations for an answer to that.

Like jgbrowning said, this is just criticism, not an attack. And I frankly don't even know if the criticism correctly applies to Eberron. I'm just pointing out the bar I set for criticizing a setting over this issue, and that the issue is important to me.

Finally, it would be nice if WotC could realize that just like rules, sometimes setting details can be errata'd if they don't end up giving the desired results.

If they didn't intend Eberron to be a vastly open continent with little tiny pockets of civilization, then rather than try and rationalize it over and over for years and years and thus turn people likle me against it (as happened with FR), they could simply add a zero or some other number to some of the figures and call it a patch.

Just like you fix the fullblade or the halfling outrider when you realize it didn't give the desired result, a note in a setting can also get an errata and help to make a lot of people have a lot easier time accepting something they *want to like*.

And I -DO- want to like Eberron...

It looks very nice, but I am the sort of person who gets caught on the details, when those details are so basic and so vital to internal logic. Nor am I alone. I may be a vocal minority - but I represent a very large segment of consumers, even if they are still a minority. Satisfying us would not at all upset the parts of the community who don't care, and would be very easy.

If all I got was a little zero tacked onto to some numbers (or whatever fits the original intention) in a 'web enhancement' from WotC I'd be happy as a bug in a rug, and I doubt it would upset the people who don't care about numbers one bit.

Easier than it was to fix the two rules issues I mentioned above.


----------



## Kichwas (Jul 13, 2004)

jgbrowning said:
			
		

> And yes, I have nothing better to do.  However, now I know that were I to make a similiar to USA type colonial invasion, 15 per sq. mile. is a respectable amount and that the "claims" on land can exceed 3 times the area actually settled. It wouldn't be perfect, but It would be a good place to start.



So when does "Magical Society: Colonization, Conquest, and the Age of Imperialism" come out?  

 --- I'm actually working on a setting with empire building as a core theme.


----------



## Abraxas (Jul 13, 2004)

All I can say is wow.  No sarcasm intended, not trying to hack anyone off either - I'm just surprised, completely.

I've read all 7 pages and before today I have never known or heard of anyone who was concerned about the population density in a campaign world. Ever.  I've seen lots of campaign worlds in the last 26 years I've been playing - the closest thing to this I've ever come across is the density of high level characters is to high or the numbers of monsters near settled lands is too high, but never there aren't enough people.  Given the number of people I've gamed with and the number of settings we've used I'm not sure the population density is a problem crowd represents a significant number of consumers - but thats just a guess.

I just have a few questions

- Why does there need to be a minimum population density in a campaign world based on real world population patterns?

- How does having vast tracts of wilderness between population centers throw off your suspension of disbelief?

- How is a low population density internally illogical?

- If your answer to any of those questions is "because it doesn't work that way in the real world" why can't it work that way in a fantasy world?

- How do you overlook all the other elements in a campaign world that don't work like the real world?

- For those of you that see this as an "error", why does WoTC have to "fix" it for you when all you have to do is add the zero yourself?

- For those of you that would be satisfied with a web enhancement that increased the population by a factor of 10, what are you going to say to the vocal minority who thinks the population should have been increased by a factor of 5, 7 or 15 instead?  Where do the web enhancements end?

wow.


----------



## Kichwas (Jul 13, 2004)

jmucchiello said:
			
		

> Just because your need for Simulation is less than other players' need for Simulation doesn't invalidate the sense of annoyance a bad statistic gives them.
> 
> Quite frankly I'm appalled at the level of intolerance toward how some gamers feel in this thread. If I think there are too many harpies in Eberron, I'm entitled to that opinion. Don't tell me to get over it or just change it. If it bugs me, I am bugged. I know I can ignore it or change it. That doesn't stop it from bugging me.
> 
> I'm particularly shocked by the number RPG authors/creators on this thread who discount the Simulationist's view in their posts. And I'm not referring to Keith here. Someone else at WotC should have been in charge of number crunching.



Thank you.

The level of disrespect 'gamists' have for people with a different perspective is just plain unacceptable.

You can easily make a setting meet the bulk of needs for all three core camps, and there's no place for such a dismissive tone towards those who find simulation important in a setting.


----------



## Aaron L (Jul 13, 2004)

Hey, how about having the point of your campaigns be the migrating of populations to the remaining cities and power centers of the continent, and the nations that die off/form out of the rubble?  I see very little point arguing over the population figures after the war; this isnt what it looked like before the war.  This is the devestation that it caused.  If it bothers you that much, have it be a major theme of your campaign.  Have the world follow the logical progression that you think would occur.  


Many of us see no problem with it, as the infrastructure DIDN'T develop with these small pop. numbers in place, but since the infrastructure is already in place, why could't it continue to function?  The Houses were neutral during the war, and they control most of the civilization maintaining things like the lightning rail and the shipping lanes, comunications, and the international police.  Just because on Earth there was a villiage every mile or so, doesn't mean it must be that way on this world that has magic as science, a magical train encircling the continent, and powerful adventurers running around.  

The biggest complaint I have seen in this thread is that the civilizations presented couldn't have developed with such small populations.  

Well... they didn't.  

They were devestated by a hundred year war.

Now, how does the world progress from this point?

Really, it's like looking at a post bomb Hiroshima population number and saying that the city could never have been built the way it was because there were to few people.

In other words: maybe it's not a mistake?


----------



## Caliban (Jul 13, 2004)

arcady said:
			
		

> Thank you.
> 
> The level of disrespect 'gamists' have for people with a different perspective is just plain unacceptable.



If this is "just plain unacceptable", what form is your lack of acceptance going to take?  Or is that just hyperbole? 

You seem to be insisting that everyone conform to your view on how a world has to be built, and anyone who doesn't agree with you is being "disrespectful".

It's not your different perspective that causing the negative reaction. It's the attitude you and mythusmage have chosen to use when presenting it.


----------



## Kichwas (Jul 13, 2004)

Abraxas said:
			
		

> - Why does there need to be a minimum population density in a campaign world based on real world population patterns?
> 
> - How do you overlook all the other elements in a campaign world that don't work like the real world?
> 
> ...



Whether by magical or mundane means you just have to build up an answer to how people manage the four basic factors: food, sex, order, goods.

In the real world that takes population density. In fantasy, if you lack population density all you gotta tell me is what replaces it to meet those goals.

As for factors of 5, 7, 10, or 15... As soon as you have a number that can handle the kind of society described, in consideration of the four factors above being met by either mundane or magical means, and somebody out there can rationalize it given the explainations given - people will stop pointing it out.


The rudeness of all this, is the complete refusal by gamists to see any needs but their own as being valid for a game setting.

We could debate, for example, whether a long sword should be 1d4, 1d6, 1d8, 1d10, 1d12, 1d20, 1d30, or 1d100 till the cows came home... But gamists have their explaination for this in that weapon being so far on the scale of how deadly weapons are. Consensus is reached by there simply being an explaination that allows the game to continue without jarring them out of it. Everybody's shut up over it now, even if there are people who would have preffered 1d4 or 1d100...

It's trivial to stop this issue - just give an explaination  for how the basic needs are met, and a number that meets them according to how mundane or magical that explaination is. There is a -LOT- of research out there on this, and a lot of it has been simplified to very easy terminology.

What you do, is take a real world value that works if it was real world, and then up or down it according to how magic affects it - based on what magic is doing in your setting to those four basic needs.

The ball is in WotC's court on this for the same reason it was when the Halfling Outrider was given no BaB.


----------



## Aaron L (Jul 13, 2004)

I think it has been explained... several times already.


----------



## AdmundfortGeographer (Jul 13, 2004)

arcady said:
			
		

> The ball is in WotC's court on this for the same reason it was when the Halfling Outrider was given no BaB.




I disagree.


Regards,
Eric Anondson


----------



## Mythtify (Jul 13, 2004)

arcady said:
			
		

> Thank you.
> 
> The level of disrespect 'gamists' have for people with a different perspective is just plain unacceptable.
> 
> You can easily make a setting meet the bulk of needs for all three core camps, and there's no place for such a dismissive tone towards those who find simulation important in a setting.



How can something that has no real world model to be simulated, be simulated.  There is no way that the effect of magic on a world can be realisticly simulated. There is no way to collect the data and apply it to a model.  The effects of magic on any factor of a world can not be simulated.


----------



## Kichwas (Jul 13, 2004)

Eric Anondson said:
			
		

> I disagree.
> 
> 
> Regards,
> Eric Anondson



So it's "The only needs that are valid are those of people who only care about gamism in order to get into the game, never those who care about story or simulation". Everyone else can be rudely dismissed...

Figures.


----------



## Kichwas (Jul 13, 2004)

Mythtify said:
			
		

> How can something that has no real world model to be simulated, be simulated.  There is no way that the effect of magic on a world can be realisticly simulated. There is no way to collect the data and apply it to a model.  The effects of magic on any factor of a world can not be simulated.



Given how quantified DnD's magic system is - it's more scientific than science - it's quite easy to look at from a perspective of 'if we take real world thinking, and add this, that ought to be the result'.

Everytime people say 'well magic changes it, and makes that real world analogy not valid' there's an obvious reply:

How does it change it?


Even if your magic is totally unpredictable, there's still an answer to be found in that - it makes things unpredictable, so we start with the known, and introduce unpredictable elements.


Of course, DnD magic is -totally- predictable.


----------



## Mythtify (Jul 13, 2004)

arcady said:
			
		

> Given how quantified DnD's magic system is - it's more scientific than science - it's quite easy to look at from a perspective of 'if we take real world thinking, and add this, that ought to be the result'.



The only problem with that is that DnD dosen't quantify all aspects of magic.  Most of the magic that DnD describes applies to combat, or the effects of combat.  How magic effects the daily lives of individuals, or the make up of a society is usualy left largely in the hands of the DM.


----------



## Aaron L (Jul 13, 2004)

I am a Simulationist, and the reason for the population density has been quite well explained for me.


----------



## ColonelHardisson (Jul 13, 2004)

There seems to be a lot of expertise on how to properly designa game world here. It would be nice to see that expertise put to good use, by designing a new, coherent, totally logical (if fantastic) setting for a game. It would be interesting to see how well such settings would hold up under close scrutiny. Let's hope someone takes the leap and lets us see such a setting.


----------



## coyote6 (Jul 13, 2004)

jgbrowning said:
			
		

> Yes, it would seem that this criticism about Eberron does punch your mom on the head at least.




Perhaps it's not criticism about Eberron per se, but rather the tone of (some of) the statements of said criticism. That said, as others have said, I wouldn't dismiss the criticism itself. It does seem fairly easy to solve, and many have mentioned it.

That said, D&D, given its rules & peculiarities, always struck me as a horrible system for a simulationist (barring some very odd simulations). Any simulation that has to take into account a few fully-equipped 16th+ level fighters (who could probably demolish an entire army, if you assume the standard "most people are 1st level") will tend to fall apart, get really contrived (e.g., "they all cancel each other out!"), or become rapidly alien to most gamers' tastes. Then try to deal with 16th-20th level spellcasters (let's not even worry about epic level spellcasters, interventionist balors & solars, active great wyrm dragons, or the like). We also won't mention the default economy. 

I'd think population density would be a trivial problem, in comparison. 

(Besides, it's like old-school World of Greyhawk! Remember the original population figures of that setting?)

(My own simulationist D&D bugaboo is the insistence that most people are first level; that they never become more competent than they are at the beginning of adulthood. And that they are forever to be in danger of fatal injury should a small housecat become angry with them.  )


----------



## Abraxas (Jul 13, 2004)

> In the real world that takes population density. In fantasy, if you lack population density all you gotta tell me is what replaces it to meet those goals.



It seems to me they have told you.

The population of Eberron is A. The setting has the economic and social characteristics B and C. According to the description of the setting those characteristics function perfectly well with the population given.

Why does it have to be spelled out in a manner like "Because of the influence of the three dragons and the pervasiveness of magic the people and land are an order of magnitude more productive than the people and land of any medieval in the real world"?



> As for factors of 5, 7, 10, or 15... As soon as you have a number that can handle the kind of society described, in consideration of the four factors above being met by either mundane or magical means, and somebody out there can rationalize it given the explainations given - people will stop pointing it out.



Unless they don't agree with the factor given. If you think x5 is enough and MM thinks x12 is required why would MM stop saying the population is too low because you now think its OK?



> The rudeness of all this, is the complete refusal by gamists to see any needs but their own as being valid for a game setting.



Of course the simulationists seem to be doing the same.



> What you do, is take a real world value that works if it was real world, and then up or down it according to how magic affects it - based on what magic is doing in your setting to those four basic needs.



Why can't a tenfold increase in productivity/efficiency/whatever be assumed by the description instead of explicitly stated?

In the real world, in a world without magic, without everyday visible displays of divine power, without a multitude of different intelligent species, without elementals/living constructs/dragons/giants and a host of other creatures that break the laws of nature, these numbers don't work - why can't they work by default in a world with all that other stuff?

I guess we will have to agree to disagree.


----------



## Pseudonym (Jul 13, 2004)

Gez said:
			
		

> Hong could talk to you about chickens.



I'm turing up a blank of my forum search.  Could you elaborate a bit about Hong's chickens, please?


----------



## dwilgar (Jul 13, 2004)

arcady said:
			
		

> That's a false statistic because until recently most of the USA was not actually the USA - Washington only thought it was.




Excuse me?  In the early 1900s the USA was actually the USA.  In many ways the early 1900s of the USA is very similar to Eberron; highly populated regions combines with large, relatively empty areas.  Compare Alaska, the northern portions of the great plains, and the desert southwest (of the early 20th century) to the Mournland, Q'barra, The Shadow Marshes, and the Demon Wastes.  I am not saying the Eberron still doesn't have somewhat low population values, but I do question that 40/sq. mile value.  The value may be appropriate on some smaller, more localized level, but really doesn't seem to hold up when applied to populations with large density variations (such as Eberron).

Dwilgar


----------



## AdmundfortGeographer (Jul 13, 2004)

arcady said:
			
		

> So it's "The only needs that are valid are those of people who only care about gamism in order to get into the game, never those who care about story or simulation". Everyone else can be rudely dismissed...




Pout about it all you want.  I was being brief.  You took it as rudeness.  I've posted about it at length enough.

You already know this, but again, not all needs can be met by a single presentation.  And I am a simulationist. I love designing worlds. I don't see Eberron's anomolous population numbers to be a flaw to be corrected, but rather a mystery that may have an explanation. I've examined the facts of the situation enough to satisfy my interest.


----------



## Piratecat (Jul 13, 2004)

Folks, please walk away from the keyboard for twenty minutes if you're tempted to post here and be rude. We can discuss differences in opinion without sinking to personal swipes. Honest.


----------



## RangerWickett (Jul 13, 2004)

Likewise, I'm sorry if I came across as rude or dismissive.  I was only attempting to express my dislike of the argument, not to say that I dislike the people who ascribe to that belief.

I can see where the people who want realistic statistics come from.  If you're going to pay $40 for a rulebook, the rules need to be well done.  If you're going to pay $40 for a setting book, the setting needs to be well done.  I personally have never bought a setting book aside from Talislanta (I got my Eberron copy as a prize at Origins), so I approached the argument from the point of view of only wanting good rules.

Well, good rules and good ideas.  I like things that inspire me, and Eberron has a lot of inspiring elements.  I just had different criteria.

Since the discussion here has pretty much devolved into simply, "I care about population," and "I don't," let's just end the discussion.  Nothing's going to change, so why risk irking folks.


----------



## Hellcow (Jul 13, 2004)

arcady said:
			
		

> The ball is in WotC's court on this for the same reason it was when the Halfling Outrider was given no BaB.



No, it's not. 

If a class has no BaB, no one knows what the original intent was. If you guess and are wrong, you've changed the intended power of the class. Furthermore, it is clear to anyone who looks at the book "I do not have all the information that I require." The class cannot be used as is, and anyone who looks at it knows this. 

In the case of population density, it is an issue that concerns a small group of people. Most people don't even understand the issue. They are already playing using the current numbers. 

So, if WotC comes along and says "Oh, we've cut the size of the maps in half", it's confusing. Adding missing material is one thing, but contradicting what is already in print is quite another. Not everyone is going to see the errata. DMs and players will get into arguments about which size is correct. 

Thus, the ball is in your court. *YOU* have a problem with this number. You can fix it, easily, and make your game work by adding a zero in your campaign. The person who never saw it as a problem will stick by the numbers in his book and he'll still be happy. You can feel superior for having solved a problem, and hopefully enjoy Eberron. 

With that said, you said before that you've seen hints that Khorvaire may not be fully settled... which I've said a few times on this thread. You do realize that I'm the guy who designed the setting, right? Check back on my earlier posts. There are supposed to be large areas in all of the nations that are not settled by the human and demihuman races, along with areas depopulated during the war. Centers of development have formed around the most suitable areas, which may have been considered suitable because of pre-existing fortification or because of magical phenomenon (manifest zones)(which, of course, defy real-world logic). Where there is a major city, there will be thorps and hamlets around it, and then, yes, a large unsettled region until you reach the next major settlement. Largely, these areas are self-sufficient, which is why they have been established where they are to begin with. Thus, while House Orien can make cooling caravans, most of these settlements do not relying on the distant cities for survival. So Breland is more an alliance of far-flung city-states than one big massive settlement -- though all of the cities give their fealty to Boranel. 

It is not my intention to be disrespectful to you at all. My point is that WotC will not officially address this issue (while I'm not a WotC employee, I'm pretty confident about this). So, you're a clever simulationist. Can you either a) come up with a way to make the numbers work for you or b) come up with a new solution -- shrinking the continent, adding a zero -- that you can use in your campaign? Can you find a solution for yourself? Because if you can solve the problem for yourself, and another person never had a problem in the first place... everyone gets to play. Otherwise, you are the one who loses out in this scenario, which is unfortunate. 

More about the five nations -- population and all -- will be released in the future. But for the present, do what you have to do!


----------



## LostSoul (Jul 13, 2004)

Pseudonym said:
			
		

> I'm turing up a blank of my forum search.  Could you elaborate a bit about Hong's chickens, please?




I think it has to do with the number of chickens available in a town at any time.  It's based on the PHB price for a chicken (1 cp), and the gold piece limit or whatever it is that tells you how much you can buy of something in a town from the DMG demographics.  You get hordes and hordes of chickens available for purchase this way.


----------



## WizarDru (Jul 13, 2004)

Pseudonym said:
			
		

> I'm turing up a blank of my forum search. Could you elaborate a bit about Hong's chickens, please?



hong pointed out in one of the many D&D economics is silly threads, that you shouldn't think too hard about such details, because you get the city of Greyhawk having...well, read it for yourself right here.


----------



## Pseudonym (Jul 13, 2004)

Thanks for the chicken explanation.  That was amusing.


----------



## fredramsey (Jul 13, 2004)

Amen.

No one is standing over the simulationist's shoulders and telling them not to change things.

_EDIT: Comment snipped by Henry for ignoring Piratecat's warnings to be civil to one another in this discussion._



			
				Hellcow said:
			
		

> <snip>Thus, the ball is in your court. *YOU* have a problem with this number. You can fix it, easily, and make your game work by adding a zero in your campaign. The person who never saw it as a problem will stick by the numbers in his book and he'll still be happy. You can feel superior for having solved a problem, and hopefully enjoy Eberron.
> <snip>


----------



## Belen (Jul 13, 2004)

Hellcow said:
			
		

> More importantly, it has them charging 5 gp/page for use of a message station, which is far more effective than _whispering wind_. The message station is your primary fast long-distance communication, if the post is too slow for you. Yes, 5 gp is still too much for the average peasant, but as Eric has noted, Eberron is feudal; we never wanted every farmer to have a _cellphone of sending_. Most people just don't have a need to communicate with people across the country; and for those that do, the Sivis message stations are just as effective as the telegraph.
> 
> 
> Actually, if you read my previous post, you'll see that I said nothing of the sort. I said that if you don't like the setting, either find a way to address your concerns on your end or don't play it -- not because you may not have valid concerns, but because WotC cannot make the game perfect for everyone. I appreciate that you bought it and looked at it. I've never said everyone will like it. The fact of the matter is that many won't, and if you're in that camp, good for you -- don't play it. But if you don't like it for one specific reason, perhaps you can find a way to solve that problem, with or without the help of others on this board.
> ...




Now, I never said hate.  I may even pull stuff from the setting to incorporate in my homebrew.  When I read through the book, I get the feeling of over the top cartoons or action-movies.  The cartoony art really enhances that feeling for me.

This setting will be wonderful for a 10-15 year old to begin playing DnD, and it simulates a lot of the gaming styles I liked when I was younger, but it really does not serve my interests now.

Funny enough, I can almost see where your ideas must have been and where WOTC decided to deviate from them.

All in all, I think you did a great job, Keith, but I do not think that Hasbro will make a good go of things.


----------



## fredramsey (Jul 13, 2004)

*Insulting*

This is exactly the kind of insults I'm talking about.



			
				BelenUmeria said:
			
		

> <snip>
> This setting will be wonderful for a 10-15 year old to begin playing DnD, and it simulates a lot of the gaming styles I liked when I was younger, but it really does not serve my interests now.
> <snip>


----------



## Driddle (Jul 13, 2004)

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Folks, please walk away from the keyboard for twenty minutes if you're tempted to post here and be rude. We can discuss differences in opinion without sinking to personal swipes. Honest.




Everything I've said on this thread so far has been FAIR, OPEN-MINDED, LOGICAL and NON-INFLAMMATORY. If I've posted anything here, it's been the _Gawd's Honest Truth_, fully supported by extensive research and my own infallible logic. And I DARE anyone to prove otherwise! 

Oh, yeah, I'll walk away from my keyboard, Mr. Executive Tripod Feline Buccaneer. Because I'm always tempted to post here AND be rude, as you so eloquently put it.

But I won't be happy about it. Oh, no, I won't.

(Or maybe I will. Because I'm quirky that way. Never can tell...)


----------



## Belen (Jul 13, 2004)

fredramsey said:
			
		

> This is exactly the kind of insults I'm talking about.




Dude, how is saying that a setting does not serve MY interests insulting to you?

If Eberron is your bag, then fine.  If I want to say what makes me dislike the setting, then I will do so.  Not once did I tell anyone else to not play in this setting or insult those that do.  I stated my opinion after reading the book.

And since you're not in my group, then my opinion should have no effect on you.  Play in the setting and have fun, but I will not walk on eggshells because it's not "correct" to have an opinion that differs from yours.


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## fredramsey (Jul 13, 2004)

You conveinently left out the portion of your post I was quoting as "insulting": "This setting will be wonderful for a 10-15 year old to begin playing DnD, and it simulates a lot of the gaming styles I liked when I was younger, but it really does not serve my interests now."

I am 42, and have been playing for 25 years. Being called the equivalent of a 10-15 year old is an insult in my book.




			
				BelenUmeria said:
			
		

> Dude, how is saying that a setting does not serve MY interests insulting to you?
> 
> If Eberron is your bag, then fine.  If I want to say what makes me dislike the setting, then I will do so.  Not once did I tell anyone else to not play in this setting or insult those that do.  I stated my opinion after reading the book.
> 
> And since you're not in my group, then my opinion should have no effect on you.  Play in the setting and have fun, but I will not walk on eggshells because it's not "correct" to have an opinion that differs from yours.


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## Piratecat (Jul 13, 2004)

Err, Driddle? Less caffeine, buddy.  

Seriously, folks, it's easy to get passionate about something you care about. The trick is just making sure that you're not being a jerk to other people in the process -- or responding to someone else's inadvertent jerkiness.

Fred, Belen - that means you two, please. Let it go, guys. This isn't the place for a personal argument.


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## Belen (Jul 13, 2004)

fredramsey said:
			
		

> You conveinently left out the portion of your post I was quoting as "insulting": "This setting will be wonderful for a 10-15 year old to begin playing DnD, and it simulates a lot of the gaming styles I liked when I was younger, but it really does not serve my interests now."
> 
> I am 42, and have been playing for 25 years. Being called the equivalent of a 10-15 year old is an insult in my book.




Original comments deleted as being way too inflammatory and to avoid future chest pains which may be the result of heartburn or gas....I really have no clue at the moment...err...it could be both....


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## Belen (Jul 13, 2004)

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Err, Driddle? Less caffeine, buddy.
> 
> Seriously, folks, it's easy to get passionate about something you care about. The trick is just making sure that you're not being a jerk to other people in the process -- or responding to someone else's inadvertent jerkiness.
> 
> Fred, Belen - that means you two, please. Let it go, guys. This isn't the place for a personal argument.




Sorry, PC, I am not trying to get into an argument.  I was talking to Keith and got blind sided.  I am done now.


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## reanjr (Jul 13, 2004)

Dr. Awkward said:
			
		

> Good god, you'd think Eberron punched someone's mom in the head, considering the reception it's been given.




It's because it is a portent of what is to come out of Wizards now that they are controlling D&D.  Eberron is the design spec for any subsequent campaigns Wizards will make.  And face it, whatever you like better, Eberron is certainly NOTHING like the old TSR settings.  The focus of a campaign setting has changed dramatically since Wizards/TSR last introduced one (Birthright I believe).  And alot of people don't like the changes.

They would like their opinion to be heard so that Wizards may take notice and change things to how they like it.  That's the only way to get a company to change what it does.  There's nothing wrong with that.

I could be wrong, but I think that the fact that Eberron is the first campaign setting for 3e (FR was an old setting), people have a responsibility to voice their opinion about the direction Wizards went.

I personally am of the opinion that Eberron [I must quickly digress to disagree with Hellcow real quick; I don't care if you came up with the world, you pronounce "Eberron" wrong, and my players are haunting me with your semiofficial pronuncation guide ] has alot to offer to alot of gamers.  I think the campaign has oodles of potential as far as the ideas and stories behind it.  But I also think that Wizards is presenting it entirely wrong.

As a campaign setting, I would like to see more setting and less rules.  If it had been published as a 320 page (I think that's the page count) encyclopedia of Eberron, I think that would have been spectacular.  Maybe even a 20 page appendix for some integral creatures to be statted out, the Artificer class (which seems pretty important to the setting), and MAYBE the new races (but probably just the Warforged as they seem to be the most important to the setting).  I would have rather seen a secondary player's book that included the rules information, including new feats, dragonmark rules, spells, detailed information on religion, prestige classes, etc.

Now THAT would have been a product I would not have cringed at paying $40 for.


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## WizarDru (Jul 13, 2004)

reanjr said:
			
		

> I would have rather seen a secondary player's book that included the rules information, including new feats, dragonmark rules, spells, detailed information on religion, prestige classes, etc.
> 
> Now THAT would have been a product I would not have cringed at paying $40 for.



 And you would not BELIEVE how many people would have yelled and howled at that idea.  Many folks would feel cheated at that process, and have already said so when other settings have taken that exact approach.  Some have been accused of just splitting the material to milk the customer base.  



			
				reanjr said:
			
		

> And face it, whatever you like better, Eberron is certainly NOTHING like the old TSR settings. The focus of a campaign setting has changed dramatically since Wizards/TSR last introduced one (Birthright I believe). And alot of people don't like the changes.



 Could you elaborate on that?  HOW is it different?  What makes Eberron radically different than the Forgotten Realms, when they were new, or Dark Sun, Ravenloft, Hollow Earth, Mystara or Birthright?  Personally, I think a lot of FR players are a tad miffed, now that the Greyhawk shoe is on the other foot, but that's just me being a wisenheimer.


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## reanjr (Jul 13, 2004)

Abraxas said:
			
		

> ...I'm not sure the population density is a problem crowd represents a significant number of consumers - but thats just a guess.
> 
> I just have a few questions
> 
> ...




Well, you'll probably not find players that care that much, I think it's mostly a DM issue, as the DM would hide these wacky things from the players anyway.  In addition, in all the settings I've seen, only Ravenloft has been as wacked-out as Eberron in demographics.  And Ravenloft is a demiplane.  In which countries disappear and reappear.  And people are created with memories from whole cloth.  And which has countries whose dimensions actually change.

One reason you may have never heard about a problem before is that there never really has been a problem this big before in a major setting (that I know of; I never played Greyhwak, Forgotten Realms, and a couple of others).

In answer to some of your questions, a minimum population density is required for suspension of disbelief.  If you've got a sprawling, towered city that covers 30 square miles with only 15,000 people in it (I don't know the actual numbers for Sharn, but...), it just doesn't make sense.  Using real-world demographics (all estimated, I'm just trying to show what some problems might be), of 15,000 people only half of them are male (7,500).  Of these, only about 1/7 are of fighting age (1,000 when rounded down).  Unless military servitude is a requirement by law, only about 5% of them are probably going to enter the military (50).  50 people cannot defend a town that size.  It doesn't work.  There's not enough people to provide food, either.  There's problems when the DM decides to create a campaign backdrop of a hobgoblin invasion or whatever and needs to muster enough troops to defend the place.  What happens to the local economy?  It would collapse.  Not to mention that with the troops spread out over such a large territory, they'd be forced to group to the center of the city.  The outer city would be easily taken by the invaders and be used for staging points and siege.  Supply lines would be cut off.  Trade would stop.  1,000 hobgoblins could raze the entire city.  No sweat.

There's nothing wrong with vast tracts of wilderness if there is a reason for them, but civilization doesn't naturally spread like that.  The next town is rarely farther than a day or two's walk or else the people would never have been able to migrate en masse to the town.  There, of course, are exceptions, especially in primitive cultures.  City-states were common and were often surrounded by pretty much nothing.  But they were huge in and of themselves with hoardes of people, making trade routes profitable.

I think I've specified several reasons why it is illogical.

You are correct in specifying that there are other non real-world elements, many of which are impossible to quantify (cultural norms and outlooks for example).  Those unquantifiable factors would have to be drastically different from all cultures on Earth, though, as Earth cultures, no matter how disparate, still follow certain patterns.

One of them is magic.  If magic were truly technology, alot of this would be possible.  Communication, distribution, food production, etc. could all be resolved with the judicious use of magic.  But whenever anyone mentions magic being technology in Eberron, they are blasted and it is shot down.  Apparently this isn't the case.

Another issue is intelligent monsters taking up the areas in between (as I do not believe they are counted in the population numbers).  While I think this can explain away some discrepencies, I also think that with the number of evil, intelligent humanoids, if monsters were REALLY taking up this much room, the humans, etc. would be hiding in their cities and would never travel.  I really don't think this argument holds up to logical discrepency.

And then there's the old adage in fanatasy that the fantastical should be fantastical and the mundane should be mundane.  A good example of this can be found in a current campaign of mine.  It's set in a feudal futuristic setting.  As they detract from the flavor of the setting, I have made video cameras highly expensive and rare.  In campaign, it is explained that privacy is a much stronger cultural issue in this alternate reality and the use of cameras, due to distaste, simply is low.  And therefore expensive.  The players balk at the entire idea, though.  The can't grasp how you can have a laser gun, but a video camera can't be attached to your helmet without exorbinant cost.  It is certainly possible for a culture like this to exist but it is too different from everyday reality that it causes a problem in grasping what the world is like.  The non-fantastical elements of a campaign should be as close to reality as possible to obtain suspension of disbelief and to give the players context in which to work.

Why does wizards give errata for rules?  They could just let the DM fix it...

You can do research and come up with a "correct" number for population that no one in their right mind would complain about.  It's not about just increase it until people are happy.  It's about looking at the actual implications and coming up with a reasonable number.  Each population number given should be looked at separately.

And for those who think that this is beyond the scope or possibility of a campaign setting, you're wrong.  I've seen a campaign setting with maps of grain, rye, cattlet, etc. production, migration pathsof various cultures, high and low pressure systems, ore deposits, etc.  All of this information is looked at to determine the correct population and economy of a given area.  The DM can simply use the setting and never worry about logical discrepency because the designers made a point to make it that way.

On a final note, I must add that I don' think Eberron can be retrofitted with correct population numbers.  You need all that additional information, which the setting does not have.  If they started doing logical resource distribution, etc. they would run into many other problems, such as the large size and low number of nations.  I don't think any of this is necessary to enjoy Eberron, but alot of people do.


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## reanjr (Jul 13, 2004)

ColonelHardisson said:
			
		

> There seems to be a lot of expertise on how to properly designa game world here. It would be nice to see that expertise put to good use, by designing a new, coherent, totally logical (if fantastic) setting for a game. It would be interesting to see how well such settings would hold up under close scrutiny. Let's hope someone takes the leap and lets us see such a setting.




It's called Kingdoms of Kalamar.  Would you like to know how Platinum mining seems to affect the local cattle industry in various nations?  What latitude sheep farming is most commnly found?  Perhaps the names of the major wind systems or ocean currents? Whether iron is more commonly found near copper or near silver? Troop concentrations?

It's been done.  Scrutinize away!!


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## reanjr (Jul 13, 2004)

coyote6 said:
			
		

> Any simulation that has to take into account a few fully-equipped 16th+ level fighters (who could probably demolish an entire army, if you assume the standard "most people are 1st level")




Not entirely true.  All they would have to do is grapple him.  They'd take him out.  In addition, one hits 5% of the time no matter what.  The fighter would be wittled down given some time and casualties (perhaps 50? not totally beyond the ken of possiblity)


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## reanjr (Jul 13, 2004)

Hellcow said:
			
		

> So, if WotC comes along and says "Oh, we've cut the size of the maps in half", it's confusing. Adding missing material is one thing, but contradicting what is already in print is quite another. Not everyone is going to see the errata. DMs and players will get into arguments about which size is correct.




I am amused to point out that Ravenloft has changed in size (several times I believe).  Not to say people didn't complain about it.  But Wizards has been known to do this.


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## reanjr (Jul 13, 2004)

BelenUmeria said:
			
		

> This setting will be wonderful for a 10-15 year old to begin playing DnD, and it simulates a lot of the gaming styles I liked when I was younger, but it really does not serve my interests now.






			
				fredramsey said:
			
		

> This is exactly the kind of insults I'm talking about.




Actually, you are being pretty insulting to youth by implying that they are somehow inferior and being referred to as youthful would be insulting.  There is such a thing as demographics marketing and it is possible that Eberron is popular among youth.  In fact, it would be a good strategy on Wizards part, since their players are aging.


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## Piratecat (Jul 13, 2004)

reanjr said:
			
		

> I am amused to point out that Ravenloft has changed in size (several times I believe).  Not to say people didn't complain about it.  But Wizards has been known to do this.




But the mists... The Dark Powers have been known to... Fluctuating island size... Err...

I got nothing.


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## Piratecat (Jul 13, 2004)

reanjr said:
			
		

> Actually, you are being pretty insulting to youth by implying that they are somehow inferior and being referred to as youthful would be insulting.  There is such a thing as demographics marketing and it is possible that Eberron is popular among youth.  In fact, it would be a good strategy on Wizards part, since their players are aging.




Reanjr, please *drop the subject.* I'm a little surprised that wasn't clear. You can start another thread to talk about youth marketing if you want to, but future digressions along that line in this thread (or anything continuing the previous argument) are going to make me a very peeved Admin. My thanks to everyone for keeping the thread on topic as we continue.


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## drothgery (Jul 13, 2004)

Hellcow said:
			
		

> No, it's not.
> So, if WotC comes along and says "Oh, we've cut the size of the maps in half", it's confusing. Adding missing material is one thing, but contradicting what is already in print is quite another. Not everyone is going to see the errata. DMs and players will get into arguments about which size is correct.



For what it's worth, FR became a lot bigger between 2e and 3e; ask SKR about it sometime.

As I see it, you've got several groups of gamers to deal with...

People who don't care much about demographics, or if the demographics make sense. This is probably the vast majority. They won't notice if the population or size of countries or continents are changed in errata, and won't care.
People who care about demographics to some extent, but don't care if the demographics make sense. This is probably a very small group. They'll use the numbers as printed, and won't care if there's erratta or not.
People who care about demographics, and care if the demographics make sense. If there's no errata to fix the population density problems, they'll house rule their own fixes on a campaign-by-campaign basis, or won't play in Eberron. While I suspect this is actually a larger group than group 2, it's still not many people.
People who wouldn't notice illogical demographics on their own, but if it's pointed out to them, it'll drive them nuts when they think about it. That's probably me.
So my guess is that issuing an errata would be helpful to the people who care about such things (admittedly a small group), as there'd be a consistent fix, and no one else would care. So why not do it?


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## reanjr (Jul 13, 2004)

WizarDru said:
			
		

> And you would not BELIEVE how many people would have yelled and howled at that idea.  Many folks would feel cheated at that process, and have already said so when other settings have taken that exact approach.  Some have been accused of just splitting the material to milk the customer base.
> 
> 
> Could you elaborate on that?  HOW is it different?  What makes Eberron radically different than the Forgotten Realms, when they were new, or Dark Sun, Ravenloft, Hollow Earth, Mystara or Birthright?  Personally, I think a lot of FR players are a tad miffed, now that the Greyhawk shoe is on the other foot, but that's just me being a wisenheimer.




I'd believe it.  It's all the same people who have been indoctrinated by Wizards to think that Prestige Classes are real content.

The DM would not need to buy the Player's Book and the player's would not need to buy the Campaign Setting.  If it was a quality product, people wouldn't complain too hard.  (On the other hand, if they hadn't spent so much damn money on promotion and artwork, the book would be $10 cheaper)

As to the difference between the old settings and the new, there is certainly a new focus on rules rather than setting.  I don't know about 3e GH, but if you take any 2e campaign setting and do a simple count of rules pages vs. content pages, you'll find that Eberron (and the new FR and possibly the new GH) are more rules-based.

In addition, the old settings didn't have the preconception that they had to fit the mold of FR or GH.  They didn't have to support all the rules and creatures of the basic game.  In essence, they were aloud to be alot more creative.  Especially the ones that TSR never expected to sell (like Dark Sun, which did so well, they rereleased it after it was cancelled) and didn't have much managerial oversight on.

All of the most beloved settings with the most hardcore fans seem to be the ones that TSR accidentally forgot to have managers and marketing teams look into until it was too late and they had to work with what the designers had already done.  They were done by the designers, making drastic creative decision with no oversight committee to tell them (as one example from the FR team) you can't remove the Paladin and Monk multiclass restrictions (they worked around this by allowing certain classes to freely multiclass).  Eberron is a product of marketing, not creative inspiration.  The only long term success Wizards/TSR has ever had with this approach was Dragonlance.  Most of the settings that are still alive today (FR, GH, DS [if you include the recent Dragon/Dungeon rules update], RL) were made by enormously talented people who labored for love of the idea.

Now, I'm not saying Keith is not creative or that the campaign wasn't important to him.  But it's simply a tool for Wizards to keep profits steady so Hasbro doesn't shut their RPG stuff down.  Admirable, yes, but not the same as the old 2e settings.  There's a lack of inspiration and discovery that I and alot of people miss from the TSR days.


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## reanjr (Jul 13, 2004)

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Reanjr, please *drop the subject.* I'm a little surprised that wasn't clear. You can start another thread to talk about youth marketing if you want to, but future digressions along that line in this thread (or anything continuing the previous argument) are going to make me a very peeved Admin. My thanks to everyone for keeping the thread on topic as we continue.




I apologize, I hadn't gotten to your post yet when I posted a response.


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## Quasqueton (Jul 13, 2004)

I asked this in one of the previous threads on this subject, but it never got answered:

Does the population numbers in the ECS book include orcs, goblinoids, gnolls, kobolds, etc.? Or does it just include the PHB races?

Also:


> Khorvaire has an area of some 9.3 million square miles.
> 
> It has an estimated population density of 1.6 per square mile.




Does the 9.3M square miles include places like the Mournlands and Demon Wastes? (I do not own the ECS book, so I may be getting the names wrong.) Does the pop/square mile sound better when the pop. is calculated only within the actual borders of civilized nations?

Quasqueton


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## Hellcow (Jul 13, 2004)

First off, please don't take these questions or comments the wrong way -- I'm just trying to cast things in the light of the setting. 



			
				reanjr said:
			
		

> Of these, only about 1/7 are of fighting age (1,000 when rounded down).



Out of honest curiosity, where are you getting this figure? Remember that population numbers for a community "represent the adult population". So once you rule out children, in D&D, how old do you have to be before you're unable to fight? Remember that in Khorvaire in particular, we're just coming off of a century of war, so they'll be stretching the limits. By the time you reach middle age (and the -2 modifier) you'll be less useful -- but there is also the question of average lifespan, and whether most people do become venerable at some point (especially in a wartorn world). 



			
				reanjr said:
			
		

> Unless military servitude is a requirement by law...



I realize you're talking in general terms, not specifically about Eberron. In Khorvaire, this is pretty much a given until recently. 



			
				reanjr said:
			
		

> 50 people cannot defend a town that size.



Agreed there. Of course, Sharn has 211,000 people, so we weren't saying it could.  And Sharn is dependent on the agricultural communities in the surrounding areas to provide food for the population.  

The rest of your points here are good, but they're about a Sharn-sized city with a small population, which we've never claimed exists. Hence the "there's lots of space with no people at all", allowing for a reasonable concentration of people within the cities and villages that do exist. 



			
				reanjr said:
			
		

> There's nothing wrong with vast tracts of wilderness if there is a reason for them, but civilization doesn't naturally spread like that... There, of course, are exceptions, especially in primitive cultures.  City-states were common and were often surrounded by pretty much nothing.  But they were huge in and of themselves with hoardes of people, making trade routes profitable.



And, as I've said, a nation like Breland is effective a collection of city-states. 

My point is that I'm not going to defend it as logical. I'm going to defend it as something that supports adventuring. Looking to what *I* see as logical, large areas of unsettled space are the only way you should be able to get dangerous monsters; otherwise, if civilization has been established for an extended period of time, these creatures should have been hunted down and destroyed by the rulers of the community. Likewise for dungeons. Khorvaire accounts for the presence of dungeons, with the existance of Dhakaani ruins, remnants of the War of the Mark or the Age of Demons, and Khyber. But if you've had a village in the area for 300 years, why hasn't someone explored it already? You're not the first group of adventurers in the history of the world (though with that said, in Sharn the ruins were only partially explored before being sealed off). Open space allows for adventure. Continuous urban spread, as logical as it may be from a real-world perspective, is going to be less exciting. We've always said that it's a pulp setting, so look to Conan: the emphasis is on what works best for the story. When Conan is wandering in the wilderness and finds a lost temple -- well, I as a reader didn't think "So why aren't there a few villages nearby?"

Again, it is not my intention to dismiss your concerns if this *does* bother you. I'm just saying that this is the purpose the space serves in the setting, and if you don't like it you should change it. But Khorvaire is not supposed to be fully settled from head to toe, and that's not something that will change. 



			
				reanjr said:
			
		

> One of them is magic.  If magic were truly technology, alot of this would be possible.  Communication, distribution, food production, etc. could all be resolved with the judicious use of magic.  But whenever anyone mentions magic being technology in Eberron, they are blasted and it is shot down.  Apparently this isn't the case.



Actually, in this thread alone I've said that magic *is* used for communication, and that it could be used for the long-distance preservation of food (though what I've also said is that you don't have a magic refrigerator in every house). Magic is used for irrigation and healing -- though again within limits, so it's not as though ever person in the world can afford _cure disease_ vacinations. Magic is used for transportation -- but it's not as widespread as it might be. Lightning rails do link the main cities, and while personal transport may be expensive, House Orien certainly deals in different prices for freight -- so if the farmers around Sharn have a huge surplus, enterprising merchants could buy it up and sell it in Starilaskur. It is neither as widespread or generally as effective as *21st century technology* The average house does not have a magic phone, a magic TV, and 1.5 magic cars. But it is used for many of the purposes technology has been used for in the past. 



			
				reanjr said:
			
		

> I also think that with the number of evil, intelligent humanoids, if monsters were REALLY taking up this much room, the humans, etc. would be hiding in their cities and would never travel.



Actually, intelligent humanoids (who are not necessarily going to be evil) will generally have created civilizations of their own, as found in Darguun and Droaam. Eating random passerby may not be top of their list. With that say, you may be refering to the "lost city of grimlocks" I suggested earlier, for which I had my previous Conan example in mind. Even there, my thought was "dungeon with small population of degenerate grimlocks", not "highly organized militant nation of grimlocks". There may be populations of goblinoids or orcs hidden away from the days of Dhakaan -- most of the population of Darguun was lurking in the mountains and marshes before being called out by the war -- but again, a goblin enclave in the middle of Breland is unlikely to go looking for a fight. When I mentioned monsters in the wastelands, I was thinking more of the wandering gray render, the pack of manticores that has just recently settled around the road, things like that. Not the intelligent monsters that should form their own civilizations -- but the animals and magical beasts that could pose a threat to adventurers. Hmm, just like in The Hobbit when the trolls "come down from the mountains" - the issue is not "why on earth do people ever travel when trolls and stone giants are out there".... but rather, there exists the chance that if you travel, you might encounter a troll or a giant, because they haven't all been hunted down and destroyed.



			
				reanjr said:
			
		

> Why does wizards give errata for rules?  They could just let the DM fix it...



Because, as I said, in the case of the missing BAB no-one can use the class until it is fixed... and if you make the wrong fix the class is unbalanced and provides a quantifiable advantage or disadvantage compared to other classes, as compared to population numbers which most people will say "there's as many people as I want for purposes of this scene". If a spell is too powerful and will cause written adventures to be too easy, it needs to be addressed. But if the issue in question has no quantifiable impact on most people's adventures, it does not *need* to be addressed. I am not arguing that certain people feel "well if I use these numbers as stand, they *would* have a quantifiable impact!" -- but that's only because you've gone to the trouble of figuring out precisely what those numbers should mean, deciding that the world needs to have a consisted spread to be logical, and enforcing those on the scene... and even then, if you pick up a published adventure, it's not going to say "use population denisty to determine the number of monsters in this scene." It is something that may make people uncomfortable in the world, but it will not prevent them from using game materials. And the less errata the better, because again, not everyone will have access to the errata in the first place. If you don't have to contradict what's been published, it's always better not to. In this case, people CAN adjust the population numbers to whatever they are comfortable with, and there's no danger that you'll make the population TOO dense and oh, that's going to ruin that printed adventure as well.  



			
				reanjr said:
			
		

> You can do research and come up with a "correct" number for population that no one in their right mind would complain about.



I respect your opinion on this, and as I said, I'm not the one who came up with these final numbers. But they don't bother me. I am content with the explanations that are provided. On the other hand, I don't read The Hobbit and say "Now, why are the dwarves sneaking into the troll's campsite? Shouldn't there be a village along the road, or at least an inn?" And, of course, you could try to come up with an explanation for how a system of city-states could come about. As I've said before, we never wanted a fully populated colonial sprawl. We're not going to change Khorvaire to be that. So it falls to you to either find a way to reconcile that to your worldview, or to decide that you just can't play Eberron if that's how things are. 



			
				reanjr said:
			
		

> And for those who think that this is beyond the scope or possibility of a campaign setting, you're wrong.  I've seen a campaign setting with maps of grain, rye, cattlet, etc. production, migration pathsof various cultures, high and low pressure systems, ore deposits, etc.



Sure, KoK. But did it have all of that in the very first book that came out? More importantly, that's not what Eberron is about. We've said all along: we're pulp adventure. Find a Conan book where he gets into a discussion of the grain harvest. If you want that level of realism, either add it in, or play KoK. We *will* be adding more detail as time goes by. But while I respect the views of the simulationist, Eberron is first and foremost designed as a world for adventure, and that is always going to come first. 



			
				reanjr said:
			
		

> I don't think any of this is necessary to enjoy Eberron, but alot of people do.



I respect that. And as I've said, Eberron's *not going to be the game for everyone*. It may be that it's simply not the right world for the hard-core simulationist. I'm sorry if that is the case, as it's not my intention to dismiss anyone's views. But Eberron was designed as for pulp adventure -- not deep realism. 



			
				reanjr said:
			
		

> I am amused to point out that Ravenloft has changed in size (several times I believe). Not to say people didn't complain about it. But Wizards has been known to do this..



Well, as I said, I'm not remotely in charge of what WotC will do: I'm just guessing.


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## WizarDru (Jul 13, 2004)

reanjr said:
			
		

> The DM would not need to buy the Player's Book and the player's would not need to buy the Campaign Setting.



 The DM wouldn't?  I can't speak for others, but I know that I would be forced to do so, so I could build NPCs and review all the information in it for my own use.  If I run Eberron, I'll need to read all about the Aritificer, to know how to handle a PC, NPC or monster.  So I just bought it.  And my players will want the setting book for the maps, data about various countries and histories, not just the crunchy parts.  How else can they roleplay in the setting?  They need that information just as much as the DM does.



			
				reanjr said:
			
		

> As to the difference between the old settings and the new, there is certainly a new focus on rules rather than setting. I don't know about 3e GH, but if you take any 2e campaign setting and do a simple count of rules pages vs. content pages, you'll find that Eberron (and the new FR and possibly the new GH) are more rules-based.




 Well, I'm not sure that that's even a valid comparison or not.  Under 2e, there were far fewer options under the core rules, so there were less need for crunch, I would expect.  But I can't really comment for certain, either way, as I have very little from 2e.  What I do recall, though, is that 2e engaged in the reprehensible cross-referencing practice, where a piece of crunch from one place was referenced, and not actually given.  So if you want details on Spellfire or the Shadowweave, you'll need to buy a separate product...this module just mentions it tangentially, and assumes you know about it.  3e ran far, far away from this practice, for which I am glad.




			
				reanjr said:
			
		

> In addition, the old settings didn't have the preconception that they had to fit the mold of FR or GH. They didn't have to support all the rules and creatures of the basic game. In essence, they were aloud to be alot more creative. Especially the ones that TSR never expected to sell (like Dark Sun, which did so well, they rereleased it after it was cancelled) and didn't have much managerial oversight on.



 The fact is that none of those settings did that well after the initial release.  Ryan Dancey referred to this as "the treadmill"...essentially, only the core books had any lengthy profitability.  In the 1990s, TSR fell victim to releasing tons of front-list material that had no shelf-life past the first few weeks of sales.  Material would be returned, and they would take a bath.  Further supplements would continue to decline in sales, and TSR would attempt to flood the market with materials, hoping to prop up badly flagging lines with only moderately profitable ones.  After a few months, the retailers would return the unsold product, and TSR took another bath.  The only people making any money at this strategy were the distributors. 

[quotereanjr]to freely multiclass). Eberron is a product of marketing, not creative inspiration. The only long term success Wizards/TSR has ever had with this approach was Dragonlance. Most of the settings that are still alive today (FR, GH, DS [if you include the recent Dragon/Dungeon rules update], RL) were made by enormously talented people who labored for love of the idea.[/quote] 
 Actually, I'd guess that Eberron is a product of marketing AND creative inspiration.  And that's a good thing, in my book.  TSR NEVER, EVER actually listened to their fan base, or did market research to see what they wanted...they just proceeded on gut feelings.  That was true from the first day to the last.  WotC submitted for a campaign setting that met certain criteria, and then selected the one that was the best compromise of creativity and long-term profitability.  I hear they even paid Keith for it. 

 There's no question the various settings under 2e were interesting and creative.  There's no question that they had very dedicated diehard fans.  Thanks the OGL and a very generous WotC licensing the material to people willing to do them justice on small print runs, they live again.  That's a win/win, I think.  WotC couldn't make money printing them.

 If Eberron being designed to meet the needs of the greatest majority of gamers is wrong, I don't wanna be right.


----------



## William Ronald (Jul 13, 2004)

Keith,  I think your explanations have been polite and sensible.  Ultimately, I think it is a DM and the players who create a sense of reality as well as a sense of adventure to a setting.  

Getting to the core issue of this thread, I think that people can probably make a simple change or two (adjust map scale or populations) to address what they may see as a flaw in the setting.  Perhaps it would be best to adjust the issues of population density in fantasy settings in another thread.  (I will wait to start such a thread on population issues and elements needed to give a campaign setting an air of verisimilitude until I see a few people here suggesting it would be a good idea.) 

However, I have been a bit disappointed at the tone of some of the disagreements.  Some people's criticisms  have been eloquent and insightful.  Some others verge on personal attacks.  I think we have to remember that we can hold different opinions and still respect each other. I think that the fact that much of this discussion has been civil and interesting speaks volumes about the posters at EN World.  (Keith Baker and jgbrowning alone have given people on these boards a lot to think about -- and write great products as well.)

Now, one thought that I have which might work for some Eberron DM's is that they might want to give a sense that the various societies are holding together ... just barely. This would probably be a very tense period to run a campaign in, as civilization seems to contract. (This would probably be a feeling for any campaign set just at the conclusion of the Last War.)  Historically, societies have gone through shifts in population levels and in levels of civilization.  (See Western Europe during the fall of the Western Roman Empire as an example.)


----------



## reanjr (Jul 13, 2004)

WizarDru said:
			
		

> The DM wouldn't?  I can't speak for others, but I know that I would be forced to do so, so I could build NPCs and review all the information in it for my own use.  If I run Eberron, I'll need to read all about the Aritificer, to know how to handle a PC, NPC or monster.  So I just bought it.  And my players will want the setting book for the maps, data about various countries and histories, not just the crunchy parts.  How else can they roleplay in the setting?  They need that information just as much as the DM does.




I suppose it's an issue of how you run a campaign.  While I agree the Player's Book would be useful for the DM, it shouldn't be necessary.  If a campaign can't stand without it's rules, there's a problem.  And as far as the players knowing about the world, I often start out campaigns where the players are country bumpkins who don't know anything about the world.  If there is something they should know I will explain it to them.  I think it's better that the DM select the bits of the setting that players should and shouldn't know.  I suppose I forgot to mention that I think the Player's Book should give a brief primer on what the world is about, and anything EVERYONE knows to get them acclimated.



			
				WizarDru said:
			
		

> Well, I'm not sure that that's even a valid comparison or not.  Under 2e, there were far fewer options under the core rules, so there were less need for crunch, I would expect.  But I can't really comment for certain, either way, as I have very little from 2e.  What I do recall, though, is that 2e engaged in the reprehensible cross-referencing practice, where a piece of crunch from one place was referenced, and not actually given.  So if you want details on Spellfire or the Shadowweave, you'll need to buy a separate product...this module just mentions it tangentially, and assumes you know about it.  3e ran far, far away from this practice, for which I am glad.




I guess, again, it's due to difference of opinion.  I absolutely HATE spending $40 on a book to find that material is repeated.  I'd rather get a new $20 book with the info plus a bunch of new info.  Sometimes it isn't entirely what I want, but overall I think it saves me money, as I buy alot of products that have alot of wasted space by repeating things.  I think if designed well, the books can do without REQUIRING the referenced books, but benefiting from them and supporting them.  It's due to this policy of not cross referencing that Psionics is an unmentioned part of the system in almost every book.



			
				WizarDru said:
			
		

> The fact is that none of those settings did that well after the initial release.  Ryan Dancey referred to this as "the treadmill"...essentially, only the core books had any lengthy profitability.  In the 1990s, TSR fell victim to releasing tons of front-list material that had no shelf-life past the first few weeks of sales.  Material would be returned, and they would take a bath.  Further supplements would continue to decline in sales, and TSR would attempt to flood the market with materials, hoping to prop up badly flagging lines with only moderately profitable ones.  After a few months, the retailers would return the unsold product, and TSR took another bath.  The only people making any money at this strategy were the distributors.




While I agree on certain points, I think they could have made the settinfgs more profitable by doing other things, such as raising prices (TSR was only making like $1-2 a book) and cutting down on some of the production cost (for instance releasing a full-sized map for a campaign as a separate product for $6.95) and not including handouts for campaigns that could be used once.  I think they failed profitability not on the design or ideas, but on the publishing end of the business.  I could be wrong, I'm not in that profession.  Also as stated, they would flood the market.  That's never a good idea.  A few high-quality, high-priced supplements, I believe, would have done much better.  And anyway, I was talking about the campaign settings, not the supplements (the campaign settings were relatively profitable IIRC; it was the continuing revenue from supplements that failed).


----------



## reanjr (Jul 13, 2004)

Hellcow said:
			
		

> First off, please don't take these questions or comments the wrong way -- I'm just trying to cast things in the light of the setting.
> 
> 
> Out of honest curiosity, where are you getting this figure? Remember that population numbers for a community "represent the adult population". So once you rule out children, in D&D, how old do you have to be before you're unable to fight? Remember that in Khorvaire in particular, we're just coming off of a century of war, so they'll be stretching the limits. By the time you reach middle age (and the -2 modifier) you'll be less useful -- but there is also the question of average lifespan, and whether most people do become venerable at some point (especially in a wartorn world).




I admit, that I didn't know that the numbers disclude children.  I was basing it off of a 70 year lifespan with 10 good years of fighting (say 17-28 years old).  Without children, I would say the number would increase to about 1/5 then.  I was really using exagerrated numbers just as an example of what can happen if the numbers are out of whack, not to show that the Eberron numbers WERE out of whack, necessarily.



			
				Hellcow said:
			
		

> I realize you're talking in general terms, not specifically about Eberron. In Khorvaire, this is pretty much a given until recently.
> 
> 
> Agreed there. Of course, Sharn has 211,000 people, so we weren't saying it could.  And Sharn is dependent on the agricultural communities in the surrounding areas to provide food for the population.
> ...




I understand where you're coming from and agree with you to a certain extent.  I aspire to explain the other side of the argument and why there is a significant minority of players for which a lack of this consistency can detract from the fun.



			
				Hellcow said:
			
		

> Again, it is not my intention to dismiss your concerns if this *does* bother you. I'm just saying that this is the purpose the space serves in the setting, and if you don't like it you should change it. But Khorvaire is not supposed to be fully settled from head to toe, and that's not something that will change.




As a player, I am not bothered at all.  I would have no problem playing in Eberron, or most any world with a good DM.  As a DM, I have some reservations not just about population, but about a world that is somewhat difficult to get a good grasp on the inner workings of.  It's a personal preference.  If I ran it, I'd probably stick with the current numbers but try to effectively present the relatively low pop. to the players (someone mentioned a near-empty Sharn that I found amusing but interesting).



			
				Hellcow said:
			
		

> Actually, in this thread alone I've said that magic *is* used for communication, and that it could be used for the long-distance preservation of food (though what I've also said is that you don't have a magic refrigerator in every house). Magic is used for irrigation and healing -- though again within limits, so it's not as though ever person in the world can afford _cure disease_ vacinations. Magic is used for transportation -- but it's not as widespread as it might be. Lightning rails do link the main cities, and while personal transport may be expensive, House Orien certainly deals in different prices for freight -- so if the farmers around Sharn have a huge surplus, enterprising merchants could buy it up and sell it in Starilaskur. It is neither as widespread or generally as effective as *21st century technology* The average house does not have a magic phone, a magic TV, and 1.5 magic cars. But it is used for many of the purposes technology has been used for in the past.
> 
> Actually, intelligent humanoids (who are not necessarily going to be evil) will generally have created civilizations of their own, as found in Darguun and Droaam. Eating random passerby may not be top of their list. With that say, you may be refering to the "lost city of grimlocks" I suggested earlier, for which I had my previous Conan example in mind. Even there, my thought was "dungeon with small population of degenerate grimlocks", not "highly organized militant nation of grimlocks". There may be populations of goblinoids or orcs hidden away from the days of Dhakaan -- most of the population of Darguun was lurking in the mountains and marshes before being called out by the war -- but again, a goblin enclave in the middle of Breland is unlikely to go looking for a fight. When I mentioned monsters in the wastelands, I was thinking more of the wandering gray render, the pack of manticores that has just recently settled around the road, things like that. Not the intelligent monsters that should form their own civilizations -- but the animals and magical beasts that could pose a threat to adventurers. Hmm, just like in The Hobbit when the trolls "come down from the mountains" - the issue is not "why on earth do people ever travel when trolls and stone giants are out there".... but rather, there exists the chance that if you travel, you might encounter a troll or a giant, because they haven't all been hunted down and destroyed.




I was thinking more along the lines of brigands and empirical expansions than marauding, people-eating monsters.  Not necessarily as presented in Eberron, but as presented in D&D in general (there are ALOT of intelligent evil monsters out there )



			
				Hellcow said:
			
		

> Because, as I said, in the case of the missing BAB no-one can use the class until it is fixed... and if you make the wrong fix the class is unbalanced and provides a quantifiable advantage or disadvantage compared to other classes, as compared to population numbers which most people will say "there's as many people as I want for purposes of this scene". If a spell is too powerful and will cause written adventures to be too easy, it needs to be addressed. But if the issue in question has no quantifiable impact on most people's adventures, it does not *need* to be addressed. I am not arguing that certain people feel "well if I use these numbers as stand, they *would* have a quantifiable impact!" -- but that's only because you've gone to the trouble of figuring out precisely what those numbers should mean, deciding that the world needs to have a consisted spread to be logical, and enforcing those on the scene... and even then, if you pick up a published adventure, it's not going to say "use population denisty to determine the number of monsters in this scene." It is something that may make people uncomfortable in the world, but it will not prevent them from using game materials. And the less errata the better, because again, not everyone will have access to the errata in the first place. If you don't have to contradict what's been published, it's always better not to. In this case, people CAN adjust the population numbers to whatever they are comfortable with, and there's no danger that you'll make the population TOO dense and oh, that's going to ruin that printed adventure as well.




Someone else brought up a good point though.  That changing the numbers is going to bother almost noone who doesn't have a problem with the current numbers anyway.  I don't think they HAVE to update them, I just wonder why they don't do fluff-errata.  It doesn't seem like it would do any harm and might accomplish good. *shrug*.  Whenever they publish a rules-change errata for balance, you always get detractors (i.e., you nerfed my Ranger!!!).  I just don't know why fluff would cause any more of a problem.




			
				Hellcow said:
			
		

> I respect your opinion on this, and as I said, I'm not the one who came up with these final numbers. But they don't bother me. I am content with the explanations that are provided. On the other hand, I don't read The Hobbit and say "Now, why are the dwarves sneaking into the troll's campsite? Shouldn't there be a village along the road, or at least an inn?" And, of course, you could try to come up with an explanation for how a system of city-states could come about. As I've said before, we never wanted a fully populated colonial sprawl. We're not going to change Khorvaire to be that. So it falls to you to either find a way to reconcile that to your worldview, or to decide that you just can't play Eberron if that's how things are.
> 
> 
> Sure, KoK. But did it have all of that in the very first book that came out? More importantly, that's not what Eberron is about. We've said all along: we're pulp adventure. Find a Conan book where he gets into a discussion of the grain harvest. If you want that level of realism, either add it in, or play KoK. We *will* be adding more detail as time goes by. But while I respect the views of the simulationist, Eberron is first and foremost designed as a world for adventure, and that is always going to come first.




Oh, of course not!  But there are people who have stated that you can't do a setting with that kind of consistency.  I was just pointing out that it is possible.  I think the main difference is that the KoK people planned for that kind of detail.  I agree, it's a different focus than Eberron and neither is right or wrong.  I think I mentioned that in another post, actually...



			
				Hellcow said:
			
		

> I respect that. And as I've said, Eberron's *not going to be the game for everyone*. It may be that it's simply not the right world for the hard-core simulationist. I'm sorry if that is the case, as it's not my intention to dismiss anyone's views. But Eberron was designed as for pulp adventure -- not deep realism.




And the setting is perfect for that.   Though, my complaints on rules vs. content still stands   I know it's not your fault.  Just had to throw that in.  I'm an argumentative person by nature.



> Well, as I said, I'm not remotely in charge of what WotC will do: I'm just guessing.




On that note, how much was in the 100-page version of Eberron that didn't yet make it into the setting, but hasn't been necessarily scrapped?


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## Dinkeldog (Jul 13, 2004)

Just a note for those watching from the sidelines.  The first comment here:

"Eberron is a product of marketing, not creative inspiration. "

is not excused by:

"Now, I'm not saying Keith is not creative..."

Actually, yes, you just did insult Keith (while he has been trying to maintain a professional, even friendly, conversation, even).  One of the nice things about EN World is that a lot of developers come here and talk to us about their work.  Comments like this poison the well, and tend to make the developers less likely to come back.


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## William Ronald (Jul 13, 2004)

Dinkeldog said:
			
		

> Just a note for those watching from the sidelines.  The first comment here:
> 
> "Eberron is a product of marketing, not creative inspiration. "
> 
> ...




Personally, my understanding of Eberron has benefitted from Keith posting to these boards.  I have also benefitted from the insights of other developers on thier products.

While I have not yet picked up Eberron, I am leaning heavily towards it or the Complete Divine as my next gaming purchase.  I have a better feel for Eberron than I did several months ago -- in no small part because of what Keith and others have posted on these boards.

I would like to see us have friendly discussions.  I believe that it is possible to be creative and want your product to sell.

Getting back on topic, a quick look at the Eberron map shows that sea and river travel might be a good way to keep goods and information flowing.  Elemental bindings probably help speed up delivery times considerably, as would the ability to accurate forecast the weather.   Similar, a few magewright or artificer spells might help to keep ships in good condition.


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## WizarDru (Jul 13, 2004)

reanjr said:
			
		

> If a campaign can't stand without it's rules, there's a problem. And as far as the players knowing about the world, I often start out campaigns where the players are country bumpkins who don't know anything about the world. If there is something they should know I will explain it to them. I think it's better that the DM select the bits of the setting that players should and shouldn't know. I suppose I forgot to mention that I think the Player's Book should give a brief primer on what the world is about, and anything EVERYONE knows to get them acclimated.



 We may not hold the same idea of what a player's book is; from our previous discussion, I was assuming this would be a book with prestige classes, changes to core classes, spells, feats and so forth. Either way, I'd need to know that information, be it fluff or crunch. If all bards in Eberron get 10+Int bonus skill points, that's something I need to know. If all sorcerors get to change spells every level, monks can freely multiclass or certain feats are available, I not only need to know it, too, but I may choose to use it for my NPCs and monsters.



			
				reanjr said:
			
		

> I guess, again, it's due to difference of opinion. I absolutely HATE spending $40 on a book to find that material is repeated. I'd rather get a new $20 book with the info plus a bunch of new info.



 I think WotC has stated that the majority, burned by TSR, tend to dislike it, but I'm honestly not sure. I do know that I like the Githyanki, but I don't want to feel obligated to buy the XPH just for them. Luckily, I don't have to, if I don't want to. Printing costs being what they are, based on Ryan Dancey's and Monte Cook's breakdown, even if the book were 50% reprint, it still wouldn't drive the cost down as singificantly as 50%. Check the d20 forum for a discussion on the costs of releasing such a book in today's market, and the costs therein.




			
				reanjr said:
			
		

> A few high-quality, high-priced supplements, I believe, would have done much better. And anyway, I was talking about the campaign settings, not the supplements (the campaign settings were relatively profitable IIRC; it was the continuing revenue from supplements that failed).



 Well, I agree that TSR had lots of problems, and this was only part of it...but some of it was a systemic problem with the company's culture and outlook. The total lack of anything other than gut feelings to determine what should be published was a big problem. That attitude led directly to the spellfire fiasco.

 Most of those box sets were sold at a loss...they sold well, but they didn't earn money - a classic TSR problem after EGG left. Most of the books made a good profit for the first month or two, but then stagnated on the shelves. No setting other than FR sold consistenly well, and even FR tended to go stale on the shelves after a certain point past release. Rather than stop supporting five or six settings, TSR attempted to support them all, and failed, as I understand it. 

  Here's what Ryan Dancey said about it a few years ago:


			
				Ryan Dancey said:
			
		

> Back into those financials I went. I walked again the long threads of decisions made by managers long gone; there are few roadmarks to tell us what was done and why in the years TSR did things like buy a needlepoint distributorship, or establish a west coast office at King Vedor's mansion. Why had a moderate success in collectable dice triggered a million unit order? Why did I still have stacks and stacks of 1st edition rulebooks in the warehouse? Why did TSR create not once, not twice, but nearly a dozen times a variation on the same, Tolkien inspired, eurocentric fantasy theme? Why had it constantly tried to create different games, poured money into marketing those games, only to realize that nobody was buying those games? Why, when it was so desperate for cash, had it invested in a million dollar license for content used by less than 10% of the marketplace? Why had a successful game line like Dragonlance been forcibly uprooted from its natural home in the D&D game and transplanted to a foreign and untested new game system? Why had the company funded the development of a science fiction game modeled on D&D - then not used the D&D game rules?
> 
> In all my research into TSR's business, across all the ledgers, notebooks, computer files, and other sources of data, there was one thing I never found - one gaping hole in the mass of data we had available.
> 
> ...


----------



## Victim (Jul 13, 2004)

reanjr said:
			
		

> Not entirely true.  All they would have to do is grapple him.  They'd take him out.  In addition, one hits 5% of the time no matter what.  The fighter would be wittled down given some time and casualties (perhaps 50? not totally beyond the ken of possiblity)




Try it.  

Let's use the 16th level fighter in the 3.0 DMG, since that's the one I have.  The fighter has grapple check of +20, AC 30, touch AC 13, an attack bonus of +24/+19/+14/+9 with his sword and does 1d10+9 damage.  Of his feats, the most relevant in this case is Great Cleave.

For his opposition, why don't we say first level human warriors.  They'll be just like the 1st level DMG fighter, except with 2 fewer HP.  They have 18 AC, 10 HP, an attack of +5 that does 1d10+2 damage, and a grapple of +3.

Our 16th level fighter is completely surrounded by the horde of warriors.  I'll even give the little guys the initiative.  

First they'll attack conventionally.  24 guys (since some have reach weapons) attack.  That's 1.2 hits per round for an average of 9 damage to the fighter every round.  He lasts 13 rounds against these attacks.  The warriors could use aid another with their spears, but when we include the cover modifier, their aid action will work only about 1/2 the time.  And each sword guy needs 2 successful aids in order to make a difference.  If all the reach guys aid one of the sword guys, then the average hits per round actually drops.

Now the fighter's counter stroke.  He takes a full attack action, and power attacks for 1.  His first attack has 95% chance of hitting and automatically KOs enemies.  Once Great Cleave in taken into account, he has a 66% percent chance of dropping the 8 foes nearest to him in one move.  His second attack is similarly effective.  So between his first 2 attacks, he probably kills all the guys who started next to him.  After a 5 ft step, his third attack is against guys with reach weapons (no shield) so it misses 15% of the time.   He has a 44% chance to kill the last 5 guys within reach with this attack.  His fourth attack should help finish the job.  He's killing 10-13 guys a round.  That's more than 100 guys lost, and possibly more than 150, not 50.  The possibility of trip attacks which help the warriors hit proabably indicates that the low end is more likely - of course, the fighter could use his potions of endurance and healing to get another couple rounds of life.  

Now let's try grapple attacks:

Warriors attempting to grapple the fighter will, at some point, have to make an opposed grapple check.  The warriors only have a chance of success if the fighter rolls a 1 or 2.  The chance of one warrior beating the fighter is .75%.  If 8 guys are grappling, then the fighter's chance of beat all of them is 94%.  In other words, the warriors are probably better sticking with trip attacks.  Especially when we look at the other factors involved.

Attempting a grapple provokes an AoO.  The soldier first attempting the grapple has an excellent chance of dying on this attack, and the attack can kill all the other warriors in reach (see above).  Unfortunately, this fighter doesn't have Combat Reflexes yet, so only gets the first AoO.  Then the soldier needs to hit with a touch attack.  He has a 55% chance of this, and will probably have aid another helping too.  Then there's the tiny chance of getting a hold.  If they do get a hold, each guy does less damage than before so the fighter lasts longer.  On the fighter's turn, he has several options.  He can attempt to escape from the grapple and will probably succeed on his first try (see above, also note that less than 8 foes will likely have succeeded).  He has 3 more too, although his chance goes down each time.  Once he's free, the warriors have to start over.  If he gets free right on the first shot, he can start to kill all the guys within reach again.  He could also attack with a weapon (like a shield bash) in the grapple.  The fighter would take significant penalties, but could probably bash one or two guys grappling him easily.  He can still use Great Cleave too.  

Grappling doesn't affect his AC enough to meaningfully increase the chances to hit for those outside the grapple.

I'd estimate that the warriors would kill the fighter faster with conventional attacks.

Additionally, we're dealing with an NPC fighter with a standard arrary, NPC wealth, DMG default choices on feats and items, and no buffs.  Also, I forgot to give the fighter a race too.     Even with the standard array and NPC wealth, it'd be possible to make far more effective army killers.  If you let a couple of mid level casters buff him up before dropping him in the middle of the army, he'd probably do much better.  Give him Adamantine armor, armor of Invulnerability, or make him a Barbarian or Dwarven Defender and then DR take the sting from the natural 20 hits.


----------



## Hellcow (Jul 13, 2004)

William Ronald said:
			
		

> ... sea and river travel might be a good way to keep goods and information flowing.  Elemental bindings probably help speed up delivery times considerably, as would the ability to accurate forecast the weather.



... or dictate the weather, if you have the Mark of Storms. Yes, certainly for port cities, Lyrandar elemental galleons are the most efficient combination of speed & cost.


----------



## El Ravager (Jul 13, 2004)

arcady said:
			
		

> Look at just New England and it's dense. Add it in the great plains and it looks low density, but it really isn't because you've just added a region claimed but not settled [until recently].




I don't get it.  Why can't this by applied to Khorvaire?  I have not read the book myself, but from this thread and others, the idea of vast unsettled areas is precisely what the creaters were after.  Its just a matter of unsettled areas artificially lowing the population density.


----------



## William Ronald (Jul 13, 2004)

Hellcow said:
			
		

> ... or dictate the weather, if you have the Mark of Storms. Yes, certainly for port cities, Lyrandar elemental galleons are the most efficient combination of speed & cost.




Another fact of life that could help sustain populations in Eberron are any spells or magical abilities pertaining to crops.  Plant growth and other spells to ward off insects and disease could help improve farm yields.  Artificial devices could help with gathering the crop.  The Romans at least experimented with a primitive mechanical reaper around modern Marseilles.  Add in a skilled artificer, and the Eberron setting could have the equivalent of the Cyrus McCormick reaper from the 1800s.  Or you could always use Warforged with scythes.


----------



## buzz (Jul 13, 2004)

reanjr said:
			
		

> It's called Kingdoms of Kalamar.



But what if you like settings that are actually fun?

:ducks:


----------



## buzz (Jul 13, 2004)

*Stupid tangent*

The first major civilization on Eberron (besides dragons, I guess) were the giants of Xen'Drik. Maybe Eberron is so dang big because, well, it was designed for *them*. The fall of the giants has left Eberron to the "little" races, and they simply don't take up as much space.


----------



## La Bete (Jul 14, 2004)

William Ronald said:
			
		

> Now, one thought that I have which might work for some Eberron DM's is that they might want to give a sense that the various societies are holding together ... just barely. This would probably be a very tense period to run a campaign in, as civilization seems to contract. (This would probably be a feeling for any campaign set just at the conclusion of the Last War.)  Historically, societies have gone through shifts in population levels and in levels of civilization.  (See Western Europe during the fall of the Western Roman Empire as an example.)




Quoted for truth. This was my thought as well, when I saw the comments about the pop levels. If I recall correctly, the column on the wizards site discussed the scars from the last war, both physical and psychological. It doesnt seem that much of a jump to translate the psycholgical effects of the isolation caused by low pop levels on people.

I.e. treat the percieved problem as a mystery or as 'scene-setting' rather than a problem to be 'fixed'.


----------



## mythusmage (Jul 14, 2004)

Eric Anondson said:
			
		

> You cut it from the excerpt you quoted. Here it is, "the prices are appropriate for the economy of Khorvaire"...




Do you have trouble thinking about things. Or is blind reaction more your style?
In either case, PLONK!


----------



## mythusmage (Jul 14, 2004)

Yes, I got ticked. If you must dismiss an analogy of mine show me why. Declaring something irrelevant does not make it so.

As for Eberron demographics.

1. Multiply all national and regional population figures by 10. This gives an average of 17 people per square mile. Still rather low overall, but much more workable than 1.7 per square mile.

2. Remember that the lands of Eberron are far more complex than shown in the setting book.


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## William Ronald (Jul 14, 2004)

La Bete said:
			
		

> Quoted for truth. This was my thought as well, when I saw the comments about the pop levels. If I recall correctly, the column on the wizards site discussed the scars from the last war, both physical and psychological. It doesnt seem that much of a jump to translate the psycholgical effects of the isolation caused by low pop levels on people.
> 
> I.e. treat the percieved problem as a mystery or as 'scene-setting' rather than a problem to be 'fixed'.




This might be a good idea, otherwise you might have a few jokes about characters doing their part to replenish the population of Khorvaire. At the risk of being risque, someone may want to be the father of his own country  

On a more serious note, if population levels are somewhat low (using the official numbers or modified numbers), would there be an interest in immigration or invasion from other continents or planes.  (Some people might view the weakened conditioned of the nations of Khorvaire as an opportunity to strike a blow for their cause.  Others might just want a little more elbow room.)


----------



## mythusmage (Jul 14, 2004)

William Ronald said:
			
		

> This might be a good idea, otherwise you might have a few jokes about characters doing their part to replenish the population of Khorvaire. At the risk of being risque, someone may want to be the father of his own country
> 
> On a more serious note, if population levels are somewhat low (using the official numbers or modified numbers), would there be an interest in immigration or invasion from other continents or planes.  (Some people might view the weakened conditioned of the nations of Khorvaire as an opportunity to strike a blow for their cause.  Others might just want a little more elbow room.)




Citizen of Sharn: I know Breland needs people, but _drow_?


----------



## Dr. Strangemonkey (Jul 14, 2004)

DonAdam said:
			
		

> Yes, the population's too low.*
> 
> *Incidentally, while I think it is low, it probably need not be as high as medieval Europe. It's too low because there's simply not enough there for the division of labor that would be required to sustain the level of technology and consumption implied in the setting. It's not way too low because, as of yet in my reading, I have not found anything suggesting price controls, something that consistently caused problems for medieval Europe. I could be wrong about that last point, though, and I'll know when I finish reading the setting.




That's an intriguing last point Don, and I'd be interested in seeing your argument parsed out.

Wouldn't the level of diversification and consumption depend more on the percentage of people necessary to work the ground to feed the population as a whole than on the true size of the population and the thickness with which it lay to the ground?

In terms of consumption, well, have we any statistics on raw tonnage?  There does seem to be a pretty high level of individual consumption at the upper levels and in the cities, but I don't know that was any less true during the far less populated portions of the middle ages.

Though I have often thought that dwarves and gnomes must be absolute fetishists/hoarders to do the amount of efficient mining that they do and not run into huge problems of transportation and oversupply.

Though on another note you might then envision dragon raids as an important redistribution mechanic. 

On a totally tangential note, price controls, eh?  There's an argument to be made either way there for the real period.  But Eberron's financial systems seem sophisticated enough, and basic supplies pentiful enough, so that I agree that it seems a non-issue in the setting.

When you have enough squirells that anyone can get locally produced fur at the local market price control is much less of an issue.  And boy howdy, let me tell you, squirrel fur is the salt of the medieval economy.

Price controls are yet another feature of the more populated than Eberron and totally unlike it later middle ages.


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## mythusmage (Jul 14, 2004)

Dr. Strangemonkey said:
			
		

> ...Though I have often thought that dwarves and gnomes must be absolute fetishists/hoarders to do the amount of efficient mining that they do and not run into huge problems of transportation and oversupply.
> 
> Though on another note you might then envision dragon raids as an important redistribution mechanic..




"Boss, we're running out of space to store the gems again."

"Damn, and we just had a sale to get rid of the last surplus. Tell you what, spread rumors in the human town that the dwarfs are sending a gem caravan to another location. I'll put together said caravan using _Charmed_ and _Polymorphed_ goblins to carry the excess. If that don't draw dragons down dragons are getting inbred."


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## d4 (Jul 14, 2004)

mythusmage said:
			
		

> "Boss, we're running out of space to store the gems again."



well people are always wondering where good dragons get their hoards from. obviously those over-productive, too-efficient dwarves are just giving the treasure away!


----------



## AdmundfortGeographer (Jul 14, 2004)

mythusmage said:
			
		

> Yes, I got ticked. If you must dismiss an analogy of mine show me why. Declaring something irrelevant does not make it so.




There is a whole lot worth considering in a simple statement of "the prices are appropriate for the economy."  And you simply dismissed out of hand without comment. Should I take it that you didn't even think about it like you are accusing me?

For part of your thesis that civilization of Eberron will fly apart at the seems, you claimed that people are too far spread apart and that as social beings humans must communicate with the fellows or else the connections that hold society together melt away and civilzation as it is known in Khorvaire ends. Especially since _whispering wind_ the cheapest arcane communication method costs 60gp (it is really 50 gp... As I said, this difference doesn't make a difference to the problem you are critical of, but it is the correct price nonetheless.). You said that the average peasant coun't afford such prices.

I mentioned that it is probably the right price for Khorvaire's economy. It is a feudal-like society which has a whole lot of implicit concepts for how such an economy must work... But Khorvaire isn't a pure feudal society and this cannot be ignored, the individual difference between Khorvaire's version and the real world model are many and compensating for the differences can only be guessed at by even the most competant economists. But the Eberron book pretty much lays out the peasant life as one might imagine... they aren't dying to plop hard earned coins for an arcane internet. So when I said "the prices are appropriate for the Khorvaire economy", I am saying the prices are probably set for those customers who have urgent need talk send a message pronto where time is of the essence... i.e. manor lords and nobility. Just because peasant can't afford it doesn't mean that there aren't ANY customers.

In the post of mine you quote from I extensively remark about the other methods of communication the Eberron Campaign Setting Book talks about.  The prices of these other methods are relevant to the pricing of _whispering wind_, and the continuum of prices for communication are all a part pf the whole of the "communication industry" in Khorvaire's economy.  In the post of mine I explicitly stated that House Sivis has a message relay service that transmits a full written page for 5gp per page.  While there is not much details on how the pages are moved from customer to customer, upon first reading it sounded like the Pony Express. Still not peasant-priced, but it is worth keeping this in mind with the context of how the Pony Express worked and who it serviced and its impact on society in the American West... and the settlement patterns across Khorvaire that seem to be spread apart as far as those in the American West.

I *also* mentioned that House Orien has post service that is priced at 1 cp per mile. So the peasant can send a message to the next village 60 miles away for 60cp... that "magic" number you pin-pointed as being the price that could end feudalism in Khorvaire.

So we have different price schemes for the different feudal classes. The upper classes can get near-instantaneous brief messages sent, but at a premium only they can afford. And the peasants have a slower postal delivery system available.

But the great body of this post is just repeating what I already posted.  The point being that there is a robust communication industry, differing long-ranged services affordable at varying levels.

In other words, ... "prices appropriate for Khorvaire's economy." I didn't dismiss out of hand, as the rest of the post (which I nearly entirely repeated here) dealt with your thesis.  That there are higher priced spells that deliver faster or longer range services, it matters little considering there are reasonably priced services, that have an historical analogue of working in a Khorvaire-like dispersal of population, to meet the "peasant market's" demand.


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## Piratecat (Jul 14, 2004)

mythusmage said:
			
		

> Do you have trouble thinking about things. Or is blind reaction more your style?




Mythusmage is banned for 48 hours. Folks, we're serious about staying polite here. Please don't abuse that.


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## Dinkeldog (Jul 14, 2004)

Eric, please avoid, "Pot meet kettle," and the like.  Calling someone a hypocrit, especially in so flippant a manner, does not improve the level of discourse.  

For everyone, "But it's the truth," is not a defense for being insulting or breaking any other rule.


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## Remathilis (Jul 14, 2004)

I guess I fall into the meh category. if the numbers are too low, none of my PCs have seemed to notice. 

I just came to watch a fight and a message-board discussion broke out.


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## Anabstercorian (Jul 14, 2004)

While I think Mythusmage is being waaay too confrontational, he's got some good points.  I'm definately going to boost the population levels for my game.  Hell, the mournlands are twice the size of California, Karrnath is twice the size of Texas - these are BIG places, and they need a BIG feel.  I'll be mostly changing things on the fly, but I'll be changing things.


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## William Ronald (Jul 14, 2004)

Anabstercorian said:
			
		

> While I think Mythusmage is being waaay too confrontational, he's got some good points.  I'm definately going to boost the population levels for my game.  Hell, the mournlands are twice the size of California, Karrnath is twice the size of Texas - these are BIG places, and they need a BIG feel.  I'll be mostly changing things on the fly, but I'll be changing things.




That is the key thing.  You are making changes because you, Anabstercorian, want to make changes that seem more logical to _you_ .  I think we can and should respect differences of opinion.  I think most games and settings are designed so that DMs have flexibility to pursue what they want for themselves and their players.  So, I say, live and let live.


----------



## reanjr (Jul 14, 2004)

Dinkeldog said:
			
		

> Just a note for those watching from the sidelines.  The first comment here:
> 
> "Eberron is a product of marketing, not creative inspiration. "
> 
> ...




I don't really know how I insulted Keith with that.  Any problems I have with the setting are in presentation only and not on the creative content in the book.  I think you are misinterpreting my post.  I simply don't like how 3e is being handled on many levels; and Eberron is our first taste of how Wizards is handling a new campaign setting.  Do I think that NONE of the authors that have worked on 3e are creative and talented just because I think the game has become uninspired?  Absolutely not.  Do I think Wizards is an uninspired company?  Absolutely.


----------



## reanjr (Jul 14, 2004)

buzz said:
			
		

> But what if you like settings that are actually fun?
> 
> :ducks:




I don't know.  I never saw a setting as fun or not fun.  That's the DM's job.  I see settings more as intriguing/derivative, or interesting/trite, etc.


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## Laslo Tremaine (Jul 14, 2004)

I'll just weigh in here as one of the people for whom the current population levels are not a concern...

 :\


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## Shard O'Glase (Jul 14, 2004)

The population numbers work for me.  Note I say they work for me not they aren't a concern.

1.  There be magic which can reduce the amount of labor needed to produce food, transport food, and store food.

2.  A huge war happend.

3.  There are giant areas of unused land.  Going back to a post about america's populaiton desisty way back in the day it's the same thing.  Sure near a city the populaiton density is fairly high, but there is the frickin louisiana purchase sitting out there completely unpoplated.

4.  there's a big country that no longer exists.

5.  many cities and towns also probably no longer exist.  Rememebr people comenting on town locaitons were off because they were not near rivers.  Well geez maybe those towns were easy pickings because the invading armies just had to follow the river to find them and remain well fed.

6. the war has been over for 2 whoppin years, the place is probably functioning more like city sates where each city is self sufficient so it doesn't need to have continuous towns from it to the next city.  Maybe eventually it will break apart and no longer be large countires, but two years after a 100 year war may be a bit too soon for some city to break away and start a civil war.


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## apsuman (Jul 14, 2004)

reanjr said:
			
		

> In answer to some of your questions, a minimum population density is required for suspension of disbelief.  If you've got a sprawling, towered city that covers 30 square miles with only 15,000 people in it (I don't know the actual numbers for Sharn, but...), it just doesn't make sense.  Using real-world demographics (all estimated, I'm just trying to show what some problems might be), of 15,000 people only half of them are male (7,500).  Of these, only about 1/7 are of fighting age (1,000 when rounded down).  Unless military servitude is a requirement by law, only about 5% of them are probably going to enter the military (50).  50 people cannot defend a town that size.  It doesn't work.  There's not enough people to provide food, either.  There's problems when the DM decides to create a campaign backdrop of a hobgoblin invasion or whatever and needs to muster enough troops to defend the place.  What happens to the local economy?  It would collapse.  Not to mention that with the troops spread out over such a large territory, they'd be forced to group to the center of the city.  The outer city would be easily taken by the invaders and be used for staging points and siege.  Supply lines would be cut off.  Trade would stop.  1,000 hobgoblins could raze the entire city.  No sweat.




Huh?  Your above assumptions make several real D&D mistakes, imho. 

First, a disclaimer, I have not yet managed to put the money together for Eberron.  I have read the book at the store and want it.  So, if the book says something that I directly contradict, I apologize up front.  But I really wanted to comment on your post.

Now onto my list.

I get the impression that every population density number I have seen is one calculated by the poster.  Nobody seems to have gone back to the idea that the population numbers do not include children.  If on average every person has two children (meaning a couple would have 4 on average) then the population is actually 3 times the number in the book.  Keep in mind that without birth control (is there a dragonmark for that one?) I would expect the average family to have more than 4 children, which would make up for the singles and those too old to have children.

Next, I think that Sharn is much larger population wise (by a factor of 10 or more).

D&D stresses that women are just as equally qualified to be in any class, so your assertion that "half are men" seems (to me) to be a non starter.

Next in the real world, I thought that standing armies would be quite small.  They were more of a police force than anything else.  When actual combat was required the lord would pay for an army, or if attacked, press the local populace into service.  I know that my feudal European history is weak but there were simply not that many knights relative to foot soldiers.  So if 1000 anything show up to disrupt supply lines if it is too big for the actual standing army, I would expect that the lord would do his best to raise an army to fight them off.

Also, I think that Keith has pointed out that if there were 1000 hobgoblins, or goblins, or bugbears, or anything, rather than simply roam the countryside (which would be barren if the population numbers are kept as published) they (the 1000 goblins/ogers/whatever) would have there own society and their own tribes, town, outposts, etc.



			
				reanjr said:
			
		

> There's nothing wrong with vast tracts of wilderness if there is a reason for them, but civilization doesn't naturally spread like that.  The next town is rarely farther than a day or two's walk or else the people would never have been able to migrate en masse to the town.  There, of course, are exceptions, especially in primitive cultures.  City-states were common and were often surrounded by pretty much nothing.  But they were huge in and of themselves with hoardes of people, making trade routes profitable.
> 
> I think I've specified several reasons why it is illogical.




But you have not stated how it could be logical.  Let us assume that Khorvaire was settled as a continent on real world non-magic earth would be.  Fine.  Now lets throw in a 100 year long war.  Is it possible that the current Khorvaire could have resulted from such events?  Add in monsters, then magic, then fantasy, and I have ABSOLUTELY no problem saying "yeah, works for me."

In other words, civilization did not spread like that.  It spread then it got royally messed up.  Furhter, maybe there were lots of small town that were one day's walk away, and they are not there now, and have not been there for 90 years.


----------



## Dinkeldog (Jul 14, 2004)

reanjr said:
			
		

> I don't really know how I insulted Keith with that.  Any problems I have with the setting are in presentation only and not on the creative content in the book.  I think you are misinterpreting my post.  I simply don't like how 3e is being handled on many levels; and Eberron is our first taste of how Wizards is handling a new campaign setting.  Do I think that NONE of the authors that have worked on 3e are creative and talented just because I think the game has become uninspired?  Absolutely not.  Do I think Wizards is an uninspired company?  Absolutely.




Reanjr, if you really have a problem understanding this, e-mail me.  Thanks.


----------



## AdmundfortGeographer (Jul 14, 2004)

Dinkeldog said:
			
		

> Eric, please avoid, "Pot meet kettle," and the like.  Calling someone a hypocrit, especially in so flippant a manner, does not improve the level of discourse.




I agree, I'll edit that sentence out.


Regards,
Eric Anondson


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## Kichwas (Jul 15, 2004)

coyote6 said:
			
		

> That said, D&D, given its rules & peculiarities, always struck me as a horrible system for a simulationist (barring some very odd simulations).



There's some validity to that statement. But we don't need to live in extremes either.

There's the simulationist who plays Civilization III because it's a cool kick for world design, and there's the simulationist who can't stand Civilization III because the ships are too slow and it doesn't factor in the effects of whether your civilization uses rice, wheat, corn or something else as it's staple.

A pure simulationist plays ARIA or napoleon wargames to the exclusion of all else. 
A pure dramatist plays Theatrix, or joins the local theater company.
A pure gamist left RPGs to play Diablo or Magic the Gathering.
 

The rest of us live somewhere in the ranges, and we all accept some sacrifice of one interest over another from time to time.

Where you cane 'make it look good on the surface' you might as well, simply to avoid triggering the jarring moments that break people out of game.

You don't want combat mechanics where cats kill t-rex's (V&V),
You don't social interaction rules that take over your character,
and you don't want settings that make He-Man look like plausable by comparrison.

Population density may seem like a strange and unusual thing to key on to those who have very little simulationism in them, but to those of us with a strong interest in simulation it's like building a brick house without mortar.


----------



## Goobermunch (Jul 15, 2004)

Anabstercorian said:
			
		

> While I think Mythusmage is being waaay too confrontational, he's got some good points.  I'm definately going to boost the population levels for my game.  Hell, the mournlands are twice the size of California, Karrnath is twice the size of Texas - these are BIG places, and they need a BIG feel.  I'll be mostly changing things on the fly, but I'll be changing things.




I just want to correct a slight factual error here.  Karrnath isn't twice the size of Texas.  It's nearly twice the size of Alaska!  That means its nearly four times the size of Texas.

Even so, Karrnath has nearly 4 times the population of Alaska (8 if you double the numbers to account for children).  In addition, unlike Alaska, where nearly 50% of the population is centered in one city (Anchorage), the largest city in Karnnath has only 85,500 people.  Furthermore, the vast majority of Karrnath's settlements are concentrated in the southwest.

While things are probably fairly spread out, I'm not convinced that it lacks verisimilitude.

But the analogy does give me the opportunity to spread one of my favorite Alaskan sayings: "One of these days we're going to cut Alaska in half and make Texas the third largest state in the Union."

--G


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## Saeviomagy (Jul 15, 2004)

arcady said:
			
		

> There's some validity to that statement. But we don't need to live in extremes either.
> 
> Population density may seem like a strange and unusual thing to key on to those who have very little simulationism in them, but to those of us with a strong interest in simulation it's like building a brick house without mortar.




Yeah, but the guy playing civilisation, complaining about grain and the like probably doesn't play master of magic and complain about population growth rates of his troll cities with idols of population in them as being unrealistic.

And really - what's the thing with he-man? AFAIK, he man had basically four locations: Evilville, which was the castle of the bad guys, Goodville, the castle of the good guys and Castle Greyskull, where that winged chick lived, and the wilderness, where they all fought..

And no other population. Because the rest of the population didn't matter. None of them fought skeletor. None of them were targets for evil schemes. The fact that there was no other population really didn't affect the story, nor my enjoyment of it.

But somehow I don't think that's your point.

Oh, and a brick house without mortar?


----------



## Dr. Strangemonkey (Jul 15, 2004)

I'd also have to say that from what I've seen so far the simulationist's perspective is pretty skewed from that of the historian or the anthropoligist.

Though I can't speak for the economist, but there does seem to be some common ground there(with a  for discretion). 

Though it is pretty cool to see things spread around and mutated.  Being in a fairly in between discipline myself I can accede to the value of a skewed take on things.


----------



## Kichwas (Jul 15, 2004)

Just want to quote two things said in the population density thread:




			
				jgbrowning said:
			
		

> For the majority of you who've said population isn't important to your game, what reasons are there for needing those numbers to not be pleasing to gamers who do care about population?




And:



			
				jgbrowning said:
			
		

> It makes me wonder, if numbers are to be given at all, why the numbers aren't accurate enough to satisfy the people who want the numbers? That's the target audience and the sole reason for population statistics for gaming worlds to begin with. If you're including them, you're putting them in for the people who *do* care, just like you'd put in a particular setting feature (say a prestige class) for the people who care about that particular feature and how it relates to game play.
> 
> And for future reference, if you're really trying to show people how another type of gaming style is enjoyable, it's best to not start off the converstation by telling them that their current style is unecessary. It's much better to show how other styles of play are additive: how by including different aspects of gaming into a gaming session usually improves the experience for everyone involved.


----------



## reanjr (Jul 15, 2004)

apsuman said:
			
		

> First, a disclaimer, I have not yet managed to put the money together for Eberron.  I have read the book at the store and want it.  So, if the book says something that I directly contradict, I apologize up front.  But I really wanted to comment on your post.
> 
> Now onto my list.
> 
> I get the impression that every population density number I have seen is one calculated by the poster.  Nobody seems to have gone back to the idea that the population numbers do not include children.  If on average every person has two children (meaning a couple would have 4 on average) then the population is actually 3 times the number in the book.  Keep in mind that without birth control (is there a dragonmark for that one?) I would expect the average family to have more than 4 children, which would make up for the singles and those too old to have children.




That was pointed out to me, but it only changes scale not the concept.



			
				apsuman said:
			
		

> Next, I think that Sharn is much larger population wise (by a factor of 10 or more).




I wasn't using Sharn (as I said I did not have those numbers) as an example.  I was simply pointing out a reason why some people have a problem with unplausible population density.  It doesn't bother me in the least.  I see it as more a boon if the numbers are right, but not a bane if they aren't.



			
				apsuman said:
			
		

> D&D stresses that women are just as equally qualified to be in any class, so your assertion that "half are men" seems (to me) to be a non starter.




That may be true for some settings, but not all (Dragonalance and Ravenloft for instance are certainly more male-dominant while Dark Sun was entirely egalitarian; I don't know about Eberron, but they probably went the PC route and made it egalitarian).  And there may be a difference between equal number of women adventurers and equal number of women leaders/soldiers.  In addition, whether or not women are excluded, you still have to exclude about half the population as being taken up by raising kids and doing house duties, whether that be man or woman.  I was simply using gender as a demarcation because it is familiar to the medieval (and as far as soldiers go, the modern) world.



			
				apsuman said:
			
		

> Next in the real world, I thought that standing armies would be quite small.  They were more of a police force than anything else.  When actual combat was required the lord would pay for an army, or if attacked, press the local populace into service.  I know that my feudal European history is weak but there were simply not that many knights relative to foot soldiers.  So if 1000 anything show up to disrupt supply lines if it is too big for the actual standing army, I would expect that the lord would do his best to raise an army to fight them off.




Generally police force is different from army, but they can be rolled into one (especially in smaller population centers).  Not to mention the police force is the first to be levied into the army I would imagine.  Foot soldiers did not manage policing the local citezenry in medieval European population centers (major cities).  Though there are exceptions.  Yes, an army would be raised, but it is quite likely that an army could not be raised and trained in time to accomplish much unless there is a sizable force to hold off an attack.



			
				apsuman said:
			
		

> Also, I think that Keith has pointed out that if there were 1000 hobgoblins, or goblins, or bugbears, or anything, rather than simply roam the countryside (which would be barren if the population numbers are kept as published) they (the 1000 goblins/ogers/whatever) would have there own society and their own tribes, town, outposts, etc.




Well, I certainly wasn't thinking about a roaming band of 1,000 hobgoblins.  I was referring to a state that decided to expand.



			
				apsuman said:
			
		

> But you have not stated how it could be logical.  Let us assume that Khorvaire was settled as a continent on real world non-magic earth would be.  Fine.  Now lets throw in a 100 year long war.  Is it possible that the current Khorvaire could have resulted from such events?  Add in monsters, then magic, then fantasy, and I have ABSOLUTELY no problem saying "yeah, works for me."
> 
> In other words, civilization did not spread like that.  It spread then it got royally messed up.  Furhter, maybe there were lots of small town that were one day's walk away, and they are not there now, and have not been there for 90 years.




I haven't talked about civilation spreading and towns rising.  I was talking about maintenance.  If 10 million people were given the United States today, they couldn't possibly manage or defend it.  It's about upkeep.


----------



## reanjr (Jul 15, 2004)

Dr. Strangemonkey said:
			
		

> I'd also have to say that from what I've seen so far the simulationist's perspective is pretty skewed from that of the historian or the anthropoligist.
> 
> Though I can't speak for the economist, but there does seem to be some common ground there(with a  for discretion).
> 
> Though it is pretty cool to see things spread around and mutated.  Being in a fairly in between discipline myself I can accede to the value of a skewed take on things.




In D&D, I think the impression of accuracy is alot more important than actual accuracy.  Accuracy is good, don't get me wrong, but the problems crop up when players notice inconsistencies.  And to avoid that, the setting either has to have a minimal amount of them, or the DM has to do alot more work.


----------



## WizarDru (Jul 15, 2004)

[b said:
			
		

> jgbrowning][/b]It makes me wonder, if numbers are to be given at all, why the numbers aren't accurate enough to satisfy the people who want the numbers? That's the target audience and the sole reason for population statistics for gaming worlds to begin with. If you're including them, you're putting them in for the people who *do* care, just like you'd put in a particular setting feature (say a prestige class) for the people who care about that particular feature and how it relates to game play.



 I don't think I agree with joe's assement, there.  I'm certainly not a simulationist, but I care about the numbers.  I use those numbers for a sense of comparative scale, if nothing else.  If I see that a city has a population of 10,000, and 10% of them are half-elves, that helps to inform my game...especially when I see the city of 20,000 with only 2% hafl-elves.  I get a sense of perspective that 'there are few half-elves in City B, but City A finds a much larger population of them' doesn't offer me.

 The veracity of those numbers in comparison to real-world concerns, which I think any standard game world defies on a number of levels, is not meaningless to me, but very inconsequential in the grand scheme.  Quite honestly, until discussed, I wouldn't have been able to tell you or worry about the specifics of person/sq. mile utilization.  I can see why it might matter to some, but it seems like complaining about pantone colors accuracy when you're using crayons on a coloring book, to me.

 An interesting thought was broached by apsuman earlier in the thread: women are assumed, generally, to be complete equals to men in D&D, unlike fuedal history.  Wouldn't that play some degree of havoc with those square milage numbers?  Tasks are no longer unevenly divided, with women being able to accomplish all forms of trade and vassalage, like men.  Wouldn't that have a tendency to drive up the efficiency of a society in supporting itself?  Not necessarily in the food production, per se, but in the infrastructure and support.


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## HamiltonDM (Jul 15, 2004)

*Upkeep and repair*

Just a thought on the repair and upkeep of infrastructure.  The Magewrights have mending and other repairing spells. 
Magecradt makes superior items faster and of better quality.  Hoing up higher into the levels allows for Make Whole, minor creation, Hardening, stone shape and of course Fabricate.

Upper levels as mentioned would be very rare, at least after the war.  before adn during the war?  maybe there were more higher level people and the decline in population means that there are no replacement folks of high enough level to turn out the same number Fabricated goods now.

Forges:  I must admit I am a little unsure of the differences between forges and a Wizard or Magewright with a fabricate spell.  Certainly I think a Wizard with a high craft skill could fabricate a Warforged body much like the Creation Forges do.  They could also turn out huge quantities of mundane materials.

I see Creation Forges sort of like 'Nano-factories', that use Schema as programs to construct finished high quality items from raw materials.


In my current (Non-Eberron campaign) I had an Ebola type plague that destroyed 80-90 percent of the population.  Survivors banded together in city states and are only now trying to reclaim the "Kingdom".  In any Eberron campaign I run I will make much of vast areas of empty land, or scattered families living in burnt out villages.  Roads are in lousy condition, and trade is only starting to come back now.  There are flaws in my campaign logic, but we still enjoy it, and that is the point to our group, having fun.


There is a book called "The Years of Rice and Salt"  Which goes into an alternative history where the bubonic plague wiped out Europe completely and Asians moved West to settle.  It makes some interesting points about disease, population and society.


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## Shard O'Glase (Jul 15, 2004)

reanjr said:
			
		

> I haven't talked about civilation spreading and towns rising.  I was talking about maintenance.  If 10 million people were given the United States today, they couldn't possibly manage or defend it.  It's about upkeep.




Who says there going to maintain it.  Its only been 2 years since the end of the war, there probably defending it fine purely because no one wants to fight anymore.  Heck most of the intelligent monsters are probably sick of the war since the wilderness where they lived was where troops traveled through and likely fought frequently.  If over 100 years the united states in a big war shrank to 10 million adults we could maintian it for 2 years without a problem.  Defend large chunks of the land if someone invaded nope, but maintain it sure.  We'd have areas with dense enough population, and we'd maintain vital supply routes.  

Also for maintianing it for 2 years the scale of problem isn't as bad since those kids that aren't counted are likely working.  Heck even today kids can work on farms in america one of the few exceptions to child labor laws, which eberon liekly doesn't even have.  Add it spells like unseen servant, make whole, fabricate, items like the lyre of building and you sudenly have a bunch or work hours done without the need to feed some workers.


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## apsuman (Jul 15, 2004)

reanjr said:
			
		

> That was pointed out to me, but it only changes scale not the concept.



Maybe but it can change things really quickly depending on what assumptions you make.  If only men fight (and thus die) then the number of women would out number the men mightily.  Lets say 10 to one.  Now if that were the case, men could easily take more than one mate, let's say 10.  The number of children could be enormous.




			
				reanjr said:
			
		

> I wasn't using Sharn (as I said I did not have those numbers) as an example.  I was simply pointing out a reason why some people have a problem with unplausible population density.  It doesn't bother me in the least.  I see it as more a boon if the numbers are right, but not a bane if they aren't.
> 
> 
> 
> That may be true for some settings, but not all (Dragonalance and Ravenloft for instance are certainly more male-dominant while Dark Sun was entirely egalitarian; I don't know about Eberron, but they probably went the PC route and made it egalitarian).  And there may be a difference between equal number of women adventurers and equal number of women leaders/soldiers.  In addition, whether or not women are excluded, you still have to exclude about half the population as being taken up by raising kids and doing house duties, whether that be man or woman.  I was simply using gender as a demarcation because it is familiar to the medieval (and as far as soldiers go, the modern) world.



Even in fuedal 20th century japan (certainly a male dominant society) the government was taking steps to "train" I use the word loosely woman to defend the home islands with crude weapons.



			
				reanjr said:
			
		

> Generally police force is different from army, but they can be rolled into one (especially in smaller population centers).  Not to mention the police force is the first to be levied into the army I would imagine.  Foot soldiers did not manage policing the local citezenry in medieval European population centers (major cities).  Though there are exceptions.  Yes, an army would be raised, but it is quite likely that an army could not be raised and trained in time to accomplish much unless there is a sizable force to hold off an attack.



I know my european hisotry is weak, and I think applying medieval (or reniassance, or dark age) european historic models to a fantasy world is just plain silly.  But, didn't one of the kings of england require that everyone learn and practice with the bow simply to make the whole training an army problem go away?

In timeline (was that the name of the book?) the areas outside the cities are considered lawless.  And this country side was void of intelligent monsters of the D&D kind.



			
				reanjr said:
			
		

> Well, I certainly wasn't thinking about a roaming band of 1,000 hobgoblins.  I was referring to a state that decided to expand.




If the place is too sparsely populated to defend why would an aggressor state want to invade when they could simply expand north (or east, etc.) where there is nobody living?


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