What really matters is how tightly packed those 30,000 people are.
For example, Jackson Michigan is a 10 square mile city with 33,000 inhabitants.
It might be 2 miles wide and 5 miles long (along a river valley). It might be 3.3 miles x 3.3 miles (a square on a flat plane), etc.
But you could pack all of those 33,000 people into just one square mile somewhere with taller buildings.
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I would simply refuse to stat it out in feet. It's complete nonsense to map that out, and it has only a vague relation to how long it takes to get anywhere. Are the alleys crowded? Are there boulevards running in straight spokes or do you sort of zigzag? Are you going to simply get lost? These matter far more than mere feet.
What matters is "dramatic distance". Can you go from A to B without your 10min/level buff run out? Can you get there in time to stop the enemy plot? How many places can you visit in a day? Those are useful questions.
I'd divide the city into themed neighborhoods. Draw 3-12 areas on the city map and give each of them a name, general theme and at least location worth visiting. Rule that it takes 10 minutes to a location in a neighborhood, and 10 minutes to move to an adjacent neighborhood. If you have something that improves your speed (urban barbarian, flight) go twice as fast, if you have a problem (short legs) take 5 minutes longer.
If your players are really this OCD, just tell them that you don't want to waste your time on meaningless quantification. Keep it qualitative. Don't go into people/square feet, just say if it's crowded or not.
I second Ascalaphus' idea.
The rich quarters might have fewer people in the streets and lots of space behind the garden walls.
The poor sections might be teeming with children growing up in the streets, inhibiting movement. The merchant section might have lots of carts and wagons blocking the way, keeping you from moving as a group through a street
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The Ultimate Campaign kingdom rules will generate a large city between 1 district + 4 lots and 2 districts + 28 lots. Rounding that to easier numbers you get 1-3 districts, which is 1-3 square miles.
And if you want to get really precise with it, use the rules in Ultimate Rulership from Legendary Games.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Medieval demographics is always of help.
City Size: Cities and towns of the Middle Ages cover about one square mile of land per 38,850 people, on average. This is a density of about 61 per acre or 150 per hectare, so the land within the walls of a typical city of 10,000 would be 165 acres - hardly a city by modern standards, in terms of population OR size. Some extraordinarily-dense supercities may have had densities up to 4x this high (but note that historians proposing those densities also propose higher populations for the cities themselves; it's an area where scholars disagree), and some sparse cities almost certainly had densities less than 100/ha. In general, the 150/ha average is a great place to focus, and let exceptions occur as needed.
Find your city population and calculate its area. Then calculate a diamater (for a fairly circular city) and you've got a ballpark.
I've got a metropolis of 60 000+ inhabitants. It's about 2km wide (that includes a 300m river through it).
Remember that travel times can be hard to be exact about. Nearly all streets will be small and winding, during peak they'll be cramped with people. Slums might be even more claustrophobic and harder to traverse, but in affluent districts shady looking adventures might be held up by suspicious city guards or forced to make away for a nobleman.
If you would like a good real world example take a look at Rothenberg in Germany. It is a perfect example of a typical walled city from medieval times. Just a google search of maps will give you a good idea of the size of the city
It is roughly a square shaped metropolis sized walled city, with a population of 30,000. It is a Golarion style city, typical for the general pathfinder universe. Just a quick ballpark, rough guess, how many feet across?
So, with the figures I linked earlier your city would be roughly 4650 ft across.
In brisk walking pace along a road that's, what, 15 minutes? But this is a pseudo-medieval city, so I'd double that. And then add or subtract up to 15 minutes each time the PCs make the journey.
They were once up in a tower and saw something in the distance and asked me how far away it was, I said. "It will take about half a day to get there." And you know what they did? They said, "Really I can see that far? That seems far..." Then started calculating how far their group could walk in half a day, and how far a person can see from an elevated position, to determine if a person could actually see an object half a day away, or if it would go over the horizon and be impossible to see.
So yeah, they really are that OCD about distances.
Some nights I can see the lights of Oklahoma City, about 100 miles away. Other nights I cannot: dust particles, mist, clouds etc.
In other places, even on top of a tower, I can only see about 15 miles in clear weather. There's a reason that "visibility" is a meteorological term that pilots care about.
Whatever they saw, they have to take into account all kinds of things beyond a single distance calculation.
And remind them that traffic jams are a thing even without automobiles. A broken down wagon? A squad of marching city guards? A noble with bodyguards clearing the way?
You can vary the time with all kinds of impediments
|
Best to use the "winging it" method. What ever sounds best for the situation. If they are worried about buff/debuff duration, wing it. Worried about time of day, wing it. I'm telling a story here, not a math problem. But I also don't do much or any prep either. I'm usually as surprised as my group by what happens. I'm a horrible GM, but we have fun. I don't even award XP anymore. Just wing it, end of the night, hey you guys leveled.
If it helps, here is a map of the defenses of ancient rome
Even the capital of a grand empire of the premodern ages was only about 5 miles across in its main area. You might also include some of the outlying homes, farms, etc. ... but 5 miles actoss seems like the limit for the main area.
It is just a limit of older travel methods. How can you govern a city that would take several days just to hear what one end is doing? So the main defense/policing area would be about that much.
It is roughly a square shaped metropolis sized walled city, with a population of 30,000. It is a Golarion style city, typical for the general pathfinder universe. Just a quick ballpark, rough guess, how many feet across?So, with the figures I linked earlier your city would be roughly 4650 ft across.
In brisk walking pace along a road that's, what, 15 minutes? But this is a pseudo-medieval city, so I'd double that. And then add or subtract up to 15 minutes each time the PCs make the journey.
I would assume the above numbers are if the players are familiar with the city or have a local guide who is?
Cities of this nature are veritable mazes to those who are not locals so travel times could be even more if they are not familiar with how to get where they want to go (or where, where they want to go IS).
So yeah, they really are that OCD about distances.
While I love helping put with designing cities and the like, this also sound like an interpersonal issue.
Sure, sometimes it's great fun when players stop to consider how the game world works. How large kingdoms are, how many knights thdre are, what people know of monsters or how agriculture works. Sometimes the GM got it right and you're amazed by her world bulding skill, sometimes the GM or all players can improvise and use reason to make something that first looked impossibly illcontrived to suddenly feel rather plausible, and that can be even more rewarding.
While I often like these moments, not everyone does and sometimes even I see that this fixation in world details gets in the way of moving the plot along. It can take valuable game time and, even worse, completely derail a game when players "figure out" an inconsistency that wasn't supposed to be there.
Do you enjoy these moments? Do all your players like them, or are one or two often hogging spotlight?
If one or several players don't like these moments, talk to the trouble players. Ask if they can't do a better job keeping everyone happy and focused one the game.
If all of your players want this sort of verisimilitude and love thse moments but you don't, you are in a pickle. You could ask them to tone it down, perhaps reserve questions for between sessions. But there's often really rewarding to have keen players, so you could consider indulging them. If so, one of the things I recommend are point crawls and hex crawls. They are methods for playing exploration-style adventures where stuff like distances matter.
It is roughly a square shaped metropolis sized walled city, with a population of 30,000. It is a Golarion style city, typical for the general pathfinder universe. Just a quick ballpark, rough guess, how many feet across?So, with the figures I linked earlier your city would be roughly 4650 ft across.
In brisk walking pace along a road that's, what, 15 minutes? But this is a pseudo-medieval city, so I'd double that. And then add or subtract up to 15 minutes each time the PCs make the journey.
I would assume the above numbers are if the players are familiar with the city or have a local guide who is?
Cities of this nature are veritable mazes to those who are not locals so travel times could be even more if they are not familiar with how to get where they want to go (or where, where they want to go IS).
It should not be that difficult to cross a city from grand city gate one to grand city gate two, even for a newcommer. At least if we're talking about a city with someyhing resembling a thoroughfare. Some cities grow up along a road and preserve it decently even when the houses start to sprawl. Others have proper city planning.
But yeah, some cities are particularly maze-like. And it will always be much, much more timeconsuming to find partuclar locations, like a specifc inn or small temple.
It should not be that difficult to cross a city from grand city gate one to grand city gate two, even for a newcommer. At least if we're talking about a city with someyhing resembling a thoroughfare. Some cities grow up along a road and preserve it decently even when the houses start to sprawl. Others have proper city planning.
But not all cities have thoroughfares, or even grand city gates. London is an excellent example, but even Paris is pretty good. Or Avignon. The problem with most city gates is that they (and the walls) fix a snapshot in time and are often quickly overtaken by events. The grand boulevard becomes a maze of stalls which quickly turn into buildings, and shops and houses cluster around the city gates, and in less than a century of peacetime, all that is left of the city gates are the names of the district.
For example, Newgate is (as the name suggests) one of the most recently built gates in the city of London -- built by the Romans, when the City of London was all there is, but now it's in the burgeoning heart of London, specifically in (IIRC) Westminster. It's where the Old Bailey [Central Criminal Court] stands; the street is still called "Newgate." Similarly, St. Paul's Cathedral, which is generally considered to be the center of London, stands on the old site of Ludgate (which I think is a corruption of "London Gate").
Honestly, I don't even know what the "grand thoroughfare" that crosses London is. And the "grands boulevards" of Paris date in many cases to the 19th century and were the result of some tyrant or other tearing stuff down to build someplace to hold parades.
Avignon is another good example; here's a map for your perusal. The tourist center is only about a third of the town ("entre les murs," inside the walls) -- and there's only one real "thoroughfare" there, the Rue de la Republique, which (again) dates only to the 19th century. Step off Republic Street, though, and you are in a classic "maze of twisty little passages, all alike" that makes one think of Zork games.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Yes, one option is to pick an actual historical city as a model.
I'm lucky enough to have seen the old city in Edinburgh, and it surprised me that the buildings were high-rise buildings up to 14-stories tall. (And the most important people lived up top, with all those stairs to climb!) Also, fun fact: the bottom floor was for shops. A swelling population had to cram within the city walls built much earlier. Without the pressure to live within walls, I'm sure the buildings would have been much shorter, and the area consequently broader.
But how big an area was the Old Town of Edinburgh? After a session w/ google, it looks like Renaissance Scots crammed as many as 30,000 people into half a square mile. I find that incredible, and probably so will your players. So double it, to get your desired square shape, 1 mile across. Edinburgh, however, was shaped as a mile long and a half-mile wide. The most important residences were on the Royal Mile (although that actually has lots of different names as it progresses). Everything else was on winding, narrow alleys ("closes") extending off of that central spine.
Now the point is that if you want to actually cross town, you have to walk down a single street. Along with everybody else, and their sisters besides. Plus their brothers driving carts & carriages! If you think people should be able to walk a mile in 20 minutes, think again! You could just inflict the normal half-movement for squeezing, but I'd call it difficult terrain, too -- and go to a quarter-speed. In short, it probably would take an hour and 20 minutes for someone with a movement of 30 feet to walk this particular mile during the day -- longer if they get unlucky. (After all, maybe a cart spills in front of them, or there's a religious procession, or the army moving to that battle commandeers the street.)
Plus, everyone on that spine street is squeezing. If that one "High Street" is 30 feet wide, and the side streets 15 feet wide, it's only because this is Pathfinder, and carts are a lot wider than IRL. So I have to assume that pedestrians get to claim only half a square on each side of the street as a scrap of sidewalk (raised at most 2 inches off the street, btw). Plus, someone is occupying half of the half-square of sidewalk with them. OTOH, there's only maybe 1 person per 10 squares for the vehicular part of the street. Now when I double-check my math, I can see that I'm saying that a street 1,000 squares long or so and with 1 square wide for pedestrians, but with 4 people/square, would have 4,000 pedestrians on it, and another 500 drivers & passengers. That's 15% of the residents. Taking into account the normal influx of visitors, that seems reasonable to me, and conveys the crowdedness of a city.
I hope the wall of text helps!
TL;DR: A 1-mile-wide square is reasonable, with buildings 7 to 14 stories tall, but it will still take the party well over an hour to walk across the city. They'll be at a quarter their normal movement rate, and squeezing into a quarter square, the whole time.
|
These folks have already given some really good ideas, and I especially like Lily's in-depth analysis, but frankly... why should the characters have any idea how big it is? What are their Perception scores like? Can they accurately judge distances on a gross scale from that far away?
That might be a little too simulation-y for some, but I really don't see any reasons for them to actually be able to work this out without measuring it themselves. If it gives you a headache and impairs your ability to focus on the story, then it's a bad idea for you to allow them to make such a big deal about it.
In essence, what I'm saying is that they should be able to know the rough size as far as what can be found there, but not the exact acreage unless they have a darn fantastic reason.
|
|
Side detail: those wide thoroughfares built in 19th century cities weren't just for parades. Neighborhoods with lots of small alleys made it very hard for monarchs ("tyrants") to control cities. Any army sent into the maze could be ambushed from three dimensions and had no real way to use it's firearm technology or superior numbers. Kind of like adventurers fighting kobolds in their trap-filled lair :P
So by slicing Paris into quarters with boulevards, Haussman made it possible for Napoleon III to at least be able to separate Paris into zones and march troops through the city.
I'm sympathetic, you can tell, with the players. And if the GM knows about a desire for hard numbers and can prepare for it, it doesn't detract from the game.
Also, those side streets are only going to be able to afford a sidewalk on one side of the street.
Finally, I've realized that rooms are bigger in Pathfinder, too. So doubling the area from half of a square mile to one square mile makes excellent sense. {WITH 14-story high-rises. If you wanted buildings only 7 stories tall, you'd be looking at a square 1-1/2 miles on a side, and 2 hours to cross the city.}
Map of London, circa 1300 AD
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London#mediaviewer/File:Map_of_London ,_1300.svg
Potentially around 80,000 people at that time, according to wikipedia.
A lot of people were crammed into a small area.
Map of London, circa 1300 AD
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London#mediaviewer/File:Map_of_London ,_1300.svg
Potentially around 80,000 people at that time, according to wikipedia.
A lot of people were crammed into a small area.
With very little living space, in most cases. After embarking on my historical model, I suddenly realized the pitfalls. Pathfinder requires so much space!
|
|
I'm sympathetic, you can tell, with the players. And if the GM knows about a desire for hard numbers and can prepare for it, it doesn't detract from the game.
Also, those side streets are only going to be able to afford a sidewalk on one side of the street.
Finally, I've realized that rooms are bigger in Pathfinder, too. So doubling the area from half of a square mile to one square mile makes excellent sense. {WITH 14-story high-rises. If you wanted buildings only 7 stories tall, you'd be looking at a square 1-1/2 miles on a side, and 2 hours to cross the city.}
I understand where you're coming from, by the way. All this building stuff truly fascinates me but, from the point of view of a DM who just wants to make a story without being constantly interrupted about numbers, I'm sure it's not quite as fun.
I'd like to know the exact numbers as a world-builder, but there's no way for the characters to actually know in any case.
After embarking on my historical model, I suddenly realized the pitfalls. Pathfinder requires so much space!
Historian: "...and there were five people living in that little ten foot by ten foot room."
Pathfinder player: "What? That's physically impossible, even if they were all standing up!"
After embarking on my historical model, I suddenly realized the pitfalls. Pathfinder requires so much space!Historian: "...and there were five people living in that little ten foot by ten foot room."
Pathfinder player: "What? That's physically impossible, even if they were all standing up!"
#ratfolk
#ratfolkAfter embarking on my historical model, I suddenly realized the pitfalls. Pathfinder requires so much space!Historian: "...and there were five people living in that little ten foot by ten foot room."
Pathfinder player: "What? That's physically impossible, even if they were all standing up!"
I wonder if the creators considered that you'd need 10ft by 5ft beds in a world like Pathfinder's? Unless you can grapple in the same square.
...I'll see myself out.