Quote Originally Posted by OzzyKP View Post
The biggest thing, as you said, is figuring out what is happening in your world. What factors are killing people and what factors are keeping them alive. Assuming a pre-birth control world there will likely be more births than we see in the modern western world, but with less health care and food, new births are less likely to survive past infancy. With war and such, there are plenty of opportunities for people to die later on.

I think so, for the purposes of fantasy games, people need to consider different factors related to race. Many of the fantasy races have much longer life spans than humans, yet typically lower populations. I think the general assumption is the other races have lower birth rates.

You're right, about the lack of birth control, but I think you missed a few things. The availability of birth control also affects people psychologically, and sociologically. If there's no way to prevent or terminate an unwanted pregnancy, a woman (especially a young fertile woman) will be less likely to risk *becoming* pregnant. If there's a *stigma* attached to pregnancy in your society, this is doubly true. And poor/unadvanced health care includes prenatal care, so not only will young children/infants die at a higher rate - there will also be a smaller percentage of live births ... miscarriages, still-births, accidents...

This is why, even without birth control, less advanced societies usually have *lower* birth rates.

If your society views pregnancy without a stigma, this may be less true... for example, a group of survivors hoping to repopulate the earth, or whatever might *strive* for pregnancy... and every woman might pop out a kid every nine months.

As far as different races with long life spans and low populations: It works because they ARE different races. Their bodies, including reproductive systems, may be much different than our own. Maybe the females are only fertile once every 40 years, and hit menopause at 80. That gives them 2 chances to become pregnant, while humans have an opportunity every month. That would make each pregnancy a truly rare and blessed event.

The factors that tend to impact the birth/death rates of most *human* societies the most are poverty, education, war, famine, disease, medical advances and social policy.

But literally *everything* about your world will affect population growth - environment, resources, religion, history, the herbs and animals that exist solely in a fantasy world, magic.. everything.