Mercurius
Legend
Obviously this is a vague question, or rather series of questions, and a lot depends upon what role said settlement will have in one's campaign, but I wanted to open up a discussion about city and town population and design and how you use settlements in your campaign. What population size is best for different usages? Do levels matter? Etc.
To refresh everyone's memories, D&D 3e breaks it down into thorp, hamlet, village, small and large town, small and large city, and metropolis. For the sake of simplicity, I like 4e's breakdowns with villages being up to about 1,000, towns up to about 10,000, cities up to about 25,000 and metropolises over 25,000, with small and large variations within those ranges.
It seems that most classic D&D campaigns start off in some kind of small town - whetherFallcrest (1,350) in Nentir Vale, Sandpoint (1,240) in Golarion, or Shadowdale (1,402) in the Forgotten Realms.
The large city is also a common setting, with Korvosa (18,486) and Magnimar (16,428) fitting that category in Golarion, and Neverwinter (23,192) in the Forgotten Realms.
The metropolis ranges widely, but each setting has its own - from Greyhawk (69,500) to Waterdeep (132,661) in the Realms, to Absalom (303,900) and Katepesh (212,300) in Golarion.
Historically speaking, the ancient cities of Mesopotamia and Egypt ranged in the tens of thousands, with cities reaching into the hundreds of thousands by classical antiquity (e.g. Carthage, Rome, Babylon), with Rome and Alexandria being the first cities to reach the million mark around two thousand years ago (according to this page). In Medieval and Renaissance Europe, the largest cities ranged in the lower hundreds of thousands, although some cities in China and the Islamic world were larger. But populations didn't go significantly above one million until after the Industrial Revolution of the early 19th century, with London over 6 million by 1900 (for those interested, this Wikipedia page is also very useful).
So tell me about your campaign. What is your preferred "homebase" size? Does it vary by level? In other words, do the PCs start in a village or small town and then graduate to a larger city or metropolis? Do your settlements range in population similarly to the D&D norms? While we're at it, what is the largest settlement in your world? Do you break the historical rules and have a city well over a million (remember Calimport in the old 2E days, with a population, I think, of 2 or 3 million?)
For my campaign, the starting settlement is a sizable village, with a small town about 10-20 miles away, a large city about 100 miles away, and a metropolis a few hundred miles away. I find that gives the setting a wilderness vibe, but also makes larger centers of population just close enough to be accessible, but not too easily.
The setting is pretty new so I haven't figured out all of the largest cities, but the largest probably range at a couple hundred thousand, with perhaps one city in my version of the far East being significantly larger. In other words, I stick to the historical norms, for the most part.
To refresh everyone's memories, D&D 3e breaks it down into thorp, hamlet, village, small and large town, small and large city, and metropolis. For the sake of simplicity, I like 4e's breakdowns with villages being up to about 1,000, towns up to about 10,000, cities up to about 25,000 and metropolises over 25,000, with small and large variations within those ranges.
It seems that most classic D&D campaigns start off in some kind of small town - whetherFallcrest (1,350) in Nentir Vale, Sandpoint (1,240) in Golarion, or Shadowdale (1,402) in the Forgotten Realms.
The large city is also a common setting, with Korvosa (18,486) and Magnimar (16,428) fitting that category in Golarion, and Neverwinter (23,192) in the Forgotten Realms.
The metropolis ranges widely, but each setting has its own - from Greyhawk (69,500) to Waterdeep (132,661) in the Realms, to Absalom (303,900) and Katepesh (212,300) in Golarion.
Historically speaking, the ancient cities of Mesopotamia and Egypt ranged in the tens of thousands, with cities reaching into the hundreds of thousands by classical antiquity (e.g. Carthage, Rome, Babylon), with Rome and Alexandria being the first cities to reach the million mark around two thousand years ago (according to this page). In Medieval and Renaissance Europe, the largest cities ranged in the lower hundreds of thousands, although some cities in China and the Islamic world were larger. But populations didn't go significantly above one million until after the Industrial Revolution of the early 19th century, with London over 6 million by 1900 (for those interested, this Wikipedia page is also very useful).
So tell me about your campaign. What is your preferred "homebase" size? Does it vary by level? In other words, do the PCs start in a village or small town and then graduate to a larger city or metropolis? Do your settlements range in population similarly to the D&D norms? While we're at it, what is the largest settlement in your world? Do you break the historical rules and have a city well over a million (remember Calimport in the old 2E days, with a population, I think, of 2 or 3 million?)
For my campaign, the starting settlement is a sizable village, with a small town about 10-20 miles away, a large city about 100 miles away, and a metropolis a few hundred miles away. I find that gives the setting a wilderness vibe, but also makes larger centers of population just close enough to be accessible, but not too easily.
The setting is pretty new so I haven't figured out all of the largest cities, but the largest probably range at a couple hundred thousand, with perhaps one city in my version of the far East being significantly larger. In other words, I stick to the historical norms, for the most part.
