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Thread: Community Demographics

  1. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by RPMiller
    Quote Originally Posted by annadobritt
    Wonder if there's a print-friendly function for the forum?
    Change your Board Style to subSilver in your profile, and it will drop all the graphics and give you a more printer friendly page.
    Thank you much for that tip.
    Anna M. Dobritt
    Cartography Unlimited for RPGs
    http://www.rpgcartography.com

  2. #12
    Administrator Facebook Connected Robbie's Avatar
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    I'll make a printer specific theme and see if i can add a print link to the board similar to postnuke. That way each page will have a printer friendly link.
    All Hail FlappyMap! Long Live MapFeed!

    Robbie Powell - Site Admin

  3. #13
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    It would make things easier, particularly for tutorials and other instructions anyone posts.
    Anna M. Dobritt
    Cartography Unlimited for RPGs
    http://www.rpgcartography.com

  4. #14
    Guild Apprentice esmale's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by annadobritt
    All input is welcome, Erin. Thanks for the numbers you've posted and how you went about it. Very much appreciated.
    No problem.

    To generate these values for my World of Ammonkis setting, I use a heavily modified version of Brandon Blackmoor's Domesday Book, but he's not (yet) given me his blessing to share it, so I'm afraid I can't post all the details here in good conscience.

    If that changes, however, I'll be sure to post a link to the resource. Cheers,
    -Erin

    UPDATE: 25 Apr 2006
    Brandon just emailed me and explalined that his Domesday Book is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license.

    As a result, I will post a link to this material when it's published on my site.

    Cheers again,

    -Erin
    Chimera RPG:
    Guidelines for Multi-genre Roleplaying
    http://www.welshpiper.com/

  5. #15
    Guild Apprentice esmale's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by esmale
    As a result, I will post a link to this material when it's published on my site.
    As promised, here is the link:
    http://www.welshpiper.com/node/66

    As noted, this is based on Ross' Medieval Demographics Made Easy and the code base is from Brandon Blackmoor's Domesday Book (links to both are included previously in this thread).

    If there's a desire from the end-user community, I will expand the material to include some information about how the numbers are generated, and perhaps some definitions of population segments.

    Note also that there's a link at the bottom to download a ZIP archive of the tool; this is specifically designed for offline use, so just unzip into its own directory and open the HTML file in your web browser.

    Feel free to email me with questions or suggestions for improvement.

    Cheers,
    -Erin
    Chimera RPG:
    Guidelines for Multi-genre Roleplaying
    http://www.welshpiper.com/

  6. #16
    Community Leader RPMiller's Avatar
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    Awesome! Thanks! I played around a little with it and I'm curious, does it take children into account? I didn't notice anywhere that figured them into or out of the equations.

  7. #17
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    Excellent! And thank you for getting rid of the hexes and kilometers.

    Having a doc available containing explanations of the various boxes and the results they give would be nice to have.
    Anna M. Dobritt
    Cartography Unlimited for RPGs
    http://www.rpgcartography.com

  8. #18
    Guild Apprentice esmale's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by RPMiller
    Awesome! Thanks! I played around a little with it and I'm curious, does it take children into account? I didn't notice anywhere that figured them into or out of the equations.
    Children are counted generically as citizens and not specifically broken out.

    Basically, each freeholder family numbers 4.5 members (rounded up) and each citizen family (officers and citizens) numbers 4.25 members (also rounded up). These figures were used more to determine the number of buildings (businesses and homes) than give a specific breakdown of ages and familial roles.

    It's up to the GM to figure out how this breaks out for a given family. For example, a family of 5 could be Mom, Dad, and 3 kids, or it could be just Mom and 4 kids, or (especially in the case of nobles) Mom, Dad, 1 servant, and 2 kids.

    Alternately, if you had two families of 4.5 each, it could be a pair of Moms, Dads, and a total of 5 kids, or it could be a Husband and Wife in one family and Mom, Dad, and 5 kids in the other.

    Mix-and-match, as suits your campaign.

    Cheers,
    -Erin
    Chimera RPG:
    Guidelines for Multi-genre Roleplaying
    http://www.welshpiper.com/

  9. #19
    Community Leader RPMiller's Avatar
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    I see, but those "extras" are not counted into the work force per se right? I mean they are dropped out when it comes to determining the "workers". Of course some are probably of working age... Yea, that would be a difficult figure to put in.

  10. #20
    Guild Apprentice esmale's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by annadobritt
    Excellent! And thank you for getting rid of the hexes and kilometers.
    Well, I'm the Champion of Imperial Measurement!

    I waffled over the hex calculations, but figured that the only really important figure was square mileage. The hex calculations were convenient if you needed to figure out hex area, but I've (lazily) left that for GMs to figure on their own (though there are lots of good resources for hexagon geometry).

    Quote Originally Posted by annadobritt
    Having a doc available containing explanations of the various boxes and the results they give would be nice to have.
    I agree, though I'll need some time to get that together, and I can't commit to a date just now. For now, here's a the best I can do:

    Sections 1 and 2 ("Regional Area & Population" and "Fortifications") are based on Ross' figures, so check the Medieval Demographics Made Easy article for details.

    Section 3, "Settlements," is founded on the population figures I gave earlier in this thread. Basically, population defines settlement type and dictates how many (and what type of) business exist.

    The javascript that runs the tool is fully commented with the method behind my madness. If you download the offline version (linked at the bottom of the page) and open the file "pop_functions.js" in a text editor, you can read the rationale behind the rest.

    What I would like to do is define the freeholder types, since each has some specific details that are important. Note also that my freeholder list doesn't exactly match Ross' --I tried to tailor these for RPG use more than historic accuracy (because, really, how many games do players seek out the town's buckle-makers?). On the other hand, I included some that Ross doesn't mention (like Woodward, Teamsters, Ostlers, et al.).

    In a related vein, if you download the offline version, you can tweak the frequency of the freeholders (e.g., maybe your logging community has more metalsmiths than normal, or your alpine town is unlikely to have (m)any shipwrights).

    Finally, where Adventurers are indicated, the GM has to determine class and level. Keep in mind that this is patterned for low-fantasy, so I suggest something like:

    Code:
    (d%): 
    01-70 - Fighter type
    71-90 - Rogue type
    91-99 - Wizard type
    00 - Other (e.g., monk, druid, hybrid class, prestige drunken lizardfolk arcane myrmidon, etc.)
    * Priest types would be drawn from clergy
    Hope this helps until I can expand the article. Thanks for checking it out.

    Cheers,
    -Erin
    Chimera RPG:
    Guidelines for Multi-genre Roleplaying
    http://www.welshpiper.com/

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