Population

[~Kalin~]

Ive been lurking around these boards for a while now reading the different campaign settings and such but never posting, so i thought now is a good of time as any to start, so im currently building a campaign world but i am having trouble figuring out the population size for my kingdom so i was wondering how you guys figure out population of kingdoms, cities, towns etc...

[Velox]

Well, the DMG has a decent average population breakdown for your standard "medieval" hamlets, towns, cities, metropolises... Truly popluation is at your whim, you just have to justify it. Or rather, think if certain changes to your world would justify greater populations.

Population is affected by many factors; food availability, sanitation, commerce, strategic value, natural resources, location, death rate, fertility/birth rate... but more than anything I'd say the more people can work, eat, and live with good health, the higher the population.

Steam technology? Check out 18th century population statistics. High magic? Obviously populations are going to be bigger due to curative magics and no doubt greater crop yields. I'd say make a high magic game similar to our modern world as far as average city size/population.

Also, check out the Civilization series of games. They will give you a good grasp of what makes a town, a city, a nation, and what makes it grow and prosper.

[Ishmayl-Retired]

Great way to start Kalin!

There are a few ways to go about this.  I decided a long time ago that I would go a certain route, and it's worked out for me well so far.  It's probably not scientifically accurate, but it's a way that makes sense to me.

The way I usually go about it, first of all, is I try to picture a simple question:

If my kingdoms went to war, how large would their armies be?  Army sizes can only be supported by certain population sizes.  If you want a campaign in which, if necessary, gigantic armies could fight titanic wars (such as WW2), then you've got to have pretty decent-sized kingdoms.  If, however, you want Final Fantasy 1-7 type wars, where an "army" consists of generally a few hundred, or at most, a few thousand troops, then you're going to have smaller kindoms.

Another thing to consider for this is industry.  People come where there's work, even in fantasy times.  Large mining cities/towns/kingdoms tend to have larger populations than cities/towns/kingdoms in the agricultural industry, because A - it doesn't require any sort of background to get into mining (where in farming, you have to know what you're doing), and B - it's generally better pay.  So if you have 2 kingdoms, one whose exports are mostly based on mining, and one whose exports are mostly based on raising animals, then you're going to have a larger population in the kingdom that's more focused on mining.

Velox brought a good point as well.  High Technology - or in the case of fantasy, High Magic - in certain areas will increase population size as well.

A few things to keep in mind - and these are stolen from the old 2nd edition "World Builder's Handbook" :

Villages are dependent on towns are dependent on cities.  If you want many small villages, spread out over large distances, so that your PCs spend tons of time traveling from place to place, then you're going to statistically have smaller populations.  According to said referenced book, every 10 villages can support one major town, and every 10 towns can support 1 major city.  So if your plan is to have about 15 spread-out villages in one area, then you simply won't have any major cities - unless you're doing some fantastical, like putting a library or university in an area that isn't urbanized yet... even there, though, that's going to attract more people, and eventually make larger populations (think "college towns").  However, if you want travel time to be minimized between larger villages, smaller towns, and even multiple bustling cities, then you're looking at a large population size.

Of course, all this ranting means next to nothing as far as actual numbers go.  In my world (Shadowfell), cities tend to be large and spread out, with many towns and villages in between.  The kingdom of Riddesgaard has in the upwards of 2 million people, but they're spread over an area the size of SW USA (Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, South California, for instance), so that's actually rather sparse.  The largest city, the capital, has 30000 people.  THis would be considered relatively low population for that size, so there's a lot of travel in that area.  Far to the south, in the slightly more industrious areas, there are smaller kingdoms (each the size roughly of Arizona), with 3 - 5 million population.  Much more dense, more large cities with many more towns in between.  The largest city is the capital of Laon, with around 90,000 people.  

Hope some of that nonsense helps, hopefully we'll get some discussion in here :)

[Túrin]

Use this app, which is based on this article. I use it all the time, thanks to KM.

[Ishmayl-Retired]

That app is now a link.  Woot!

[Poseptune]

Wow, that app is awesome.

[Túrin]

Good call, Ish. Can't believe I never thought of submitting it as a link.

[Poseptune]

You were hoarding it for yourself. I can hear you now saying "My Precious". :P

[Túrin]

I was not! I swear! :shifty:

[spoiler=Secret Thoughts]The precious will be ours, once the hobbitses other posters are dead![/spoiler]

[CYMRO]

Reading over the article, the only problem is that in a d20 fantasy setting, there is magic tech that will skew the numbers.
Magical healing and magical enhancement of agricultural and textile production allow for much greater populations, ones cloer to Age of Enlightenment or Good Feeling norms.
In my opinion.

[Xathan]

I'm with CYMRO on this one. Real world demographics only logically work in a low or no magic setting. When your first level cleric can cure most wounds that would be endured in a farm setting and purify water makes most drinking water safe, life expectancy should increase.

Just my 2 cp.

[~Kalin~]

@Ishmayl: Ill have relatively large kingdoms but sparsely populated so they will most likely have a couple of hundred possibly a thousand tops for an army and thanks i forgot how much of a part industry plays with population of cities, ill keep that in mind.


@Túrin: I discovered that link a few days ago while using google but as Cymro said its a d20 setting and im trying to get a more high magic medieval dnd setting (with little availability for healing), but the article does raise some good points.