Campaign Setting: Population Control & The Frontier

"A few hundred I guess."

I don't know about other people, but I have a very hard time guesstimating the populations of cities and villages. It's like when someone asks you to guess their weight. I have no idea, I freeze. Ultimately it's probably not important at all. I'm willing to bet that players don't care that much. If they ask how many people live in a village, they're probably going to take your answer at face value and move on. An answer of "a few hundred" will be accepted and brushed over as they ask about the more interesting things like item shops and other typical adventure stops. I have small amounts of OCD though, so I want some method to my kingdom population. Luckily I stumbled across Medieval Demographics Made Easy and it answered just about every question I had. So for people with small or large amounts of OCD that want some sort of system or general idea of how to populate a kingdom.. there ya go. Pretty convenient, right?


The Frontier

The Frontier, for lack of a better or more original name, is the current setting for the campaign I'm running. The Frontier is based off of The Nentir Vale, a temperate wooded stretch set between two mountain ranges. The Frontier was settled around 300 years ago as The Empire expanded its holdings north. The Empire brought peace to the vale as it drove out hostile creatures and assimilated the native people. Now, 300 years later, The Empire is collapsing. Great fortresses are left abandoned and entire legions are dissolved as The Empire finally withdraws the last of its forces and people are left to defend themselves. Surrounded on three sides by untamed and unexplored wilderness, the vale quickly finds itself home to new and monstrous residents. Strongholds of civilization remain stubbornly entrenched along the Frontier, determined to make a life for themselves amid the deteriorating walls and crumbling keeps of their ancestors. Barbarians, usurpers, monsters, and worse constantly batter against the walls of humanity. The land is ripe for adventurers, legendary men and women anxious to make both name and wealth for themselves by selling their blades.


Yea that's nice, where are the characters?

"Okay so how many 0-Levels can  this village provide?".

Glad you asked! The party is currently adventuring out of the of the Delver's Dave Mining Camp located along the Eastern edge of the Dawnforge Mountains, a few days ride East of Hammerfast. Delver's Dale is a dwarven mining outpost with around 400 residents and a steady flow of trade. Most of the mined goods are sold directly to the dwarves while the rest go to trading caravans or river merchants. Delver's Dale is mostly residential and industrial with a few shops and a rotating population of merchants, businessman, and roughnecks. Two Temples, an Inn, and an apothecary dot the landscape of the village while the entire thing is looked over by a Stout dwarven fortress carved directly into the mountainside. Delver's Dale is home to several significant NPCs and host to several significant problems brewing outside the gates.

Other villages, trading hubs, ruins, and sites of interest surround Delver's Dale but are not detailed here. Basically I'll throw up the concept artwork, information, or maps to areas either at whim or if they become interesting enough to warrant the attention. It should be noted that none of the maps or artwork are mine, I mercilessly pillage and re purpose anything I can find online and press into service. That being said, kudos to the artists, whoever you are. You've used your skillsets and provided fuel for the imagination of one more game out there. Keep up the strong work.

A response to "How do you make/keep players interested in (whatever)?"

When setting the stage for your players, keeping it short and sweet is the key. Imagine a pitch black room and a flashlight. You can only really see what's within the beam of the flashlight, right? Everything else in the room is shadowy and mysterious. It makes you wonder, it elicits emotions like curiosity or fear. Same thing with D&D. Players have a very limited "cone of vision" within your campaign world, so there's no point in beating them over the head with excessive information. There's also no point in designing things that your players cone of vision will probably never fall upon. Drop knowledge on them as they actively look for it, as it falls within their cone of vision, or if it's vital to the particular quest/story they're embarked on. Other information is best left shadowy and incomplete. It can be tailored and unleashed as needed. The important thing to remember is that your players control the cone of vision, you control what's inside of it.

If they don't care about the villains background, so be it. Save your ultra cool story telling skills for that NPC or villain that they do decide to take an interest in. Just get some of the important details in there. Kinda like writing a thesis statement. "This bad guy is doing X because of Y, and you should  stop him because Z". That's all players need to hear 95% of the time. Awesome treasure and stories obviously help drive the desire to slay the bad guys.

As for main story lines.. I feel that you should always have one, but it should take a back seat to side quests. There are people out there who can explain this much better than I can. My friends, I think, are more interested in running short and sweet adventures that can be wrapped up quickly. Nobody likes dungeon crawls that become long and repetitive. Sometimes there's even room for two really short adventures in one session. A cool way to do this is to feed off of what your players are interested in and make short adventures focused around that, but that's a different topic.



- edit for one more little point...

Think about some video games you play like Skyrim, Fallout, Dragon Age, any of the popular RPG titles. What are you doing 95% of the time? Running silly ass side missions, kicking ass, and taking names. The main story is still there. You're still aware of it because you're being exposed to it in the background of what you're currently doing. Eventually you move on from raping and pillaging short dungeons and you start knocking out storyline quests. When you DM.. be a video game. Some people will want to beat me to death for saying that, but I feel it's a format that works well for the casual Tabletop RPG'er. After all, we're in it to have fun, right? That means you, as the Dungeon Master, need to be flexible.

Some things I've learned as a journeyman Dungeon Master.

Dungeon Mastering is an art form. It is the art not only of telling a story, not only of entertaining your players, but also of giving those players the tools for them to create their own scenes, to affect the world around them, and to truly choose their own adventure. A DM should take pride in an entertaining and memorable session.

Although all players should be contributing equally to the creativity and immersion of the session, It's up to the DM to set the stage and ignite the fires of the imagination. If given the right details and prompts, players imaginations will flare to life and they'll run away with scenes. The DM's job is not to overlord a game session and beat players into the ground with oppressive rules and dialogue. The players don't care about your masterfully written campaign history or how many hours you spend fleshing out every NPC in your world. In the long run none of that will matter. The DM's job is to suggestively and seductively plant creative seeds in the players mind and carefully nurture them to fruition. This means that being a DM is an art. It requires a degree of empathy, the ability to read faces, interpret moods, alter the flow of combat/story to alleviate boredom and inspire immersion.The players will do the rest.

Details should be applied at the players request, or otherwise strategically to inspire curiosity and interaction. There is no need to tell the players every boring detail about your city if all they want to do is find an Inn/Tavern/Brothel/Store. A four paragraph description should not greet the players as they kick down the decaying door sealing the ancient wizard's tomb. A player does not need to know where the stitching pattern of the noble NPC's garment. Conversely no player should ever be left wanting of descriptions and imagination fuel. It's safe to strategically employ key details in scenes and gauge player's interest and reaction to the crumbs you sprinkle. While traveling through the city to find the Inn/Tavern/Brothel/Store there's no harm in mentioning key landmarks they pass en route. It's also a great time to introduce NPC's big or small. I recently introduced "Gorvi the Dungsweeper" as an NPC while the characters were searching for a Apothacary located along the waterfront district. An NPC of zero importance was briefly mentioned and the PC's took an immediate interest in his backstory... of their own free will and without beating them over the head with unwanted details. At the same time several of the main streets were name dropped and a few key buildings were passed... just enough for the players to remember "Oh yea, that theater place is on.. Circus Street? Festival Street? Something like that". It doesn't matter if the details are fuzzy, but it does matter that they are attempting to recall the information because it's being given to them in easy little bite-sized chunks. Knowledge of your setting and the ability to think on your feet are highly prized attributes to possess in order to strike this fine balance.

It was told to me that people think in terms of "scenes" not rounds, or hours, or even days. The more I think about it, the more it makes sense. Ask your players what their characters were doing seven days ago and you'll get answers like "well.. how long ago were we in that dungeon?" or "Well I think it took us about a week to journey through the forest right..?". As I'm sure most players do, mine think in terms of meaningful scenes. Ask them how many "adventures ago" something happened and they'll be much more able to recall the event in question. Enforcing a linear flow of time in a fantasy game is the equivalent of watching paint dry or trying to recall uninteresting pieces of information for a midterm. If the overland travel to a nearby city is uneventful then so be it! There is no need to make players set camp, create a sentry rotation, and re-memorize their spells every day for a four day peaceful journey through The Shire. Looking back on the previous point, and using overland travel as an example, details can still be strategically placed to inspire curiosity. Skipping straight to the third day of travel through a forest, when the PC's stumble past the ancient site of an overgrown fort, is perfectly fine.. in fact preferable. Players get bored easily, and DM's burn out quickly. Skip straight to the good stuff unless it's absolutely necessary for plot reasons.

The world goes on with or without the PC's. More importantly than your knowledge of rules is your familiarity with the world itself. Become intimately familiar with stage that your actors will tell their story upon. PC actions should have reactions. The better you know your setting, the better you can create a truly interactive environment. Don't drive yourself crazy trying to micromanage every NPC in 100 mile radius, but don't be afraid to place bold and conditional new details in the world based on your players decisions. The haunted forest they cleared out? It turns out some of the best wood in the region can be found there. Loggers from the nearby small village have set up a camp thanks to the players. My players recently probed the lair of a juvenile black dragon but didn't fight it. The result was a dragon rampaging across the farmlands the next day and taking out several farmsteads before returning to it's lair. Players have a direct role in the development of the story and the world itself, don't be afraid to explore the possibilities.

DM'ing is a constant learning experience, and I hope to improve my game in order to contribute to the entertainment of the players and myself. No one side should be clearly dominant. Players have an obligation to interact creatively and enthusiastically, but a DM's job is to inspire and facilitate those feelings and desires so that all players can enjoy our time spent together at the table.

What things have you learned to make you a better story teller?