World-building theory

[alpharaposa]

I'm back in the DM saddle, putting together a Pathfinder game on Google+. Monte Cook worked on Pathfinder, updating the D&D 3.5 rules to be more in the spirit of what came before.

So, in putting together a setting for this game, I have no problem with referencing my 2nd Ed sources.

One of the problems with building a world from scratch is figuring out how many NPCs will have class levels. 2nd Ed guidelines say that about 1% of the population should have class levels. Of those, the majority will be Fighters - 1st or 2nd level Elite troops. Then, you have rogues and priests. Rogues tend to be more common in cities. Finally, you have wizards, the fraction of a fraction.

You don't have to follow these guidelines. You can have settings where practically everybody is some kind of adventurer *cough*ForgottenRealms*cough*. For a standard setting, though, it makes sense to me.

It's important to keep in mind that not every soldier is a Fighter, Ranger, or Paladin. Not every priest is a Cleric. Most of humanity are 0-level types, doing their job. Not everything must be defined in terms of game mechanics.

So, when building a border town of, say, 1200 people (roughly), you'd have 12 people with class levels. Of those, probably 8 or 9 would be some kind of warrior, say 6 first level, 2 second level, and a leader of fifth level. Of the remaining 3, make one a Cleric and the other two Rogues, and you'd have a decent mix without flooding the town with Powerful People.

Of course, being a border town, it might have a few more Fighters than the normal percentage of the population, say an extra 5 assigned there. These would be found here instead of at farm villages. It's sort of how the military isn't spread perfectly evenly throughout our country. It gets concentrated in places that are important to strategy or provision.

Anyway, that's the theory. Now I need to figure out how many people live in certain medieval town types, and start deciding how to distribute the Important NPCs.

Comments

[zilvar.livejournal.com]

The only problem with the 2nd edition paradigm when held up to the 3.x (d20) ruleset is that there really isn't such a thing as a zero level creature.

There are, instead, npc classes (warrior, expert, etc) and people are expected to have levels in those (more than 1 if they're really good). Somewhere there's a document online that discusses 'realism' with regard to d20 class levels. The bottom line was that 5th or 6th level characters are capable of doing most of the heroic acts we see portrayed in our favorite movies (and thus, a 5th level expert (blacksmith) is probably an accomplished master well known for many miles around).

Did you look over the SRD section on settlements? It might be too generic for you, but it might not.

[zilvar.livejournal.com]

Found the document I was talking about.

http://www.thealexandrian.net/creations/misc/d&d-calibrating.html

[aefenglommung.livejournal.com]

The problem with this is that your PCs soon overmaster their environment. You have to keep providing them with bigger and bigger challenges, which means that your individual adventures evidence a larger number of classed and leveled persons than any real society could admit. In the end, you have to plan stories for your adventurers to fit into, and paint the background with as many low-level, ordinary folk as needed without crowding the frame.

[eric-hinkle.livejournal.com]

Good luck with this! I'm a big fan of Pathfinder and I think it's currently the best system and setting out there.

[prester-scott.livejournal.com]

In a world in which the magical and miraculous are known quantities and an accepted part of society, I would imagine one or more clerics of high enough level to provide healing services -- to the army if no one else. Similarly, if the action got hot, or there were reports of extraordinary magical activity, you might get a professional military (or mercenary) wizard or sorcerer.

If there's a lot of black market money to be made on this particular frontier, that will involve rogues, as well as fighters and maybe assassins. I mean beyond the usual pedestrian stuff like gambling, drugs and prostitution... thinking here perhaps of smuggling, poaching of exotic flora or fauna, mining or similar concerns without the proper licenses and taxes, or slaving (I assume slavery is illegal in the Yellow Empire?).

None of this of course includes the really bad stuff, like death cults, witches, evil wizard doing secret experiments, rebel training camp, etc. Bound to be multiple leveled individuals there.

[stryck.livejournal.com]

Man, I have awesome friends for stuff like this. I just have to say that.

I should give a little thought to corruption in the bureaucracy. The empire is LN in overall character, which can generate considerable pressure in "recently civilized" lands that haven't yet adapted to th governing paradigm.

Also, smuggling might be an issue. I'll add those thought into the plot mix for consideratio.