Here's my take on how to design a population, for race, class and level mix. It builds on and sort of replaces the random settlement generator in the DMG, but it may not be quick enough for generating instant answers to obvious PC questions like "Is there a Cleric in this town who can cast Cure Disease?" on the fly like the DMG suggests. However, it is to my mind a lot more suitable for preparing a campaign setting by roughing out the population of a village, town or city you intend to be using a few times in your play.
First, decide the size of your population. You can use the same system for a single town or city, or for population that is spread over several settlements. In fact, for villages and smaller I recommend you mainly do this, generating a whole swathe of countryside at a time and distributing the individuals between places either randomly or according to your taste. As well as being a bit quicker, this bulk generation avoids the problem that small fractions will always round down to zero, and you rare character types tend to end up being scarcer still as an artefact of the generation process. In particular you would get the silly result that Rangers were found almost exclusively in towns. The settlement basic facts in the next section apply to each separate settlement, though, and should not be determined on an aggregate basis.
I use a revised version of table 4-40 from the DMG. I would not use a random roll for the size of a settlement, I would decide by looking at the map and thinking about how many people would live where.
| Settlement type | Population | Item limit | Range of transaction limit | Power centre/s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thorp | 5-20 | 10gp | 2½-10gp | 5% -1 |
| Hamlet | 20-80 | 40gp | 40-160gp | 25% -1 |
| Village | 80-400 | 100gp | 400-2000gp | 75% -1 |
| Small Town | 400-900 | 200gp | 4000-9000gp | 0 |
| Medium Town | 900-2000 | 800gp | 36,000-80,000gp | +1 |
| Large Town | 2000-5000 | 3000gp | 300,000-750,000gp | +2 |
| Small City | 5000-10,000 | 12,000gp | 3m-6mgp | +3 |
| Medium City | 10,000-20,000 | 30,000gp | 15m-30mgp | +4 (x2) |
| Large City | 20,000-50,000 | 50,000gp | 50m-125mgp | +5 (x3) |
| Great City | 50,000-100,000 | 120,000gp | 300m-600mgp | +6 (x4) |
| Metropolis | 100,000+ | 250,000gp+ | 1,250m+gp | +7 (x5) |
Clearly, compared to the DMG table, the size categories are different; everything from Thorp up to Small Town is smaller, which better reflects what I understand to have been mediaeval standards of common urban centres. Medium Town is a new category to fill the gap created by shrinking Small Town. Large Town and Small City are not much changed. Medium city covers most of what the DMG calls "large", because only by very provincial standards (eg pre-Tudor Britain) is 25,000 big enough to stop thinking of new categories. I have three more categories above this to allow for greater political, mercantile and cultural centres of international significance. However, if you wish to place a city whose population is in the realms of several hundred thousand to a million, sizes reached by maybe only a dozen places in global real-world history before the modern age, then you will need to design that city or cities by hand.
Population should be self-explanatory. You could consider making the categories overlap in terms of population. Item limit has the same function as in the DMG. The transaction limit (ie the limit on value for multiple orders of a single item or cash available to purchase things from PCs) is calculated as per the DMG, at population x item limit divided by 20. I have included a range for each size category for illustrative purposes. Note that this limit gets so big that it becomes irrelevant for Large Towns and cities. For reference, the standard gear value of a party of 4 20th level characters totals well under a million gold pieces - they could be bought out several times over by a provincial city like mediaeval Norwich. If you don't mind changing the rules, you might want to reduce the transaction limits and perhaps the item limits. It would probably be more realistic to use a system based on types of goods or scarcity categories, or even just use your judgement on a case by case basis. By contrast, I note that for Thorps under my table the transaction limit now tends to be lower than the item limit. I guess in this case you could allow one of any item within the item limit to be available (perhaps only if it could plausibly be gotten second-hand from a peasant), but use the transaction limit for multiple items or for cash sales to locals.
The power centre generation rules in the DMG are fine, though I like to use the expanded table above. For very small settlements, there is only the listed chance for there to be any kind of power centre at all. Settlements for which you don't roll the listed percentage will come under the control of the power centre of a nearby larger settlement. Settlements for which there is a multiplier listed have more than one power centre, roll separately for the type and alignment of each centre.
| d20 roll | power centre |
|---|---|
| under 13 | Conventional, eg council, mayor, noble |
| 14-18 | Nonstandard, eg a guild, wealthy individuals, adventurers, elders |
| 19 or more | Magical, eg temple, college or individual spellcaster |
For each conventional power centre, check once at a 5% (20 on d20) chance to see if there is a monstrous power centre in addition. A monstrous power centre means interference in decisions by one or more monsters not native to the community - classics are dragons, giants, ogres, etc as in fairy tale, or creatures with mind control or deception powers. A monstrous power centre doesn't necessarily have to be villainous or particularly unwelcome to the community, but most are. Monstrous power centres are exempt from the usual roll for power centre alignment.
If the process above does not generate any conventional power centre, the DM should decide whether there needs to be a dummy conventional power centre. Villages etc. with a chance for there to be no power centre don't need, but could have, a dummy. Similarly it would not look too incongruous in a frontier or uncivilised land for there to be no official government. However, in towns and larger settlements in civilised lands, there will need to be some apparent rule of law and the state. If there is no conventional power centre, then the official government will either be dominated (openly or covertly) by the one or more real power centres, or will simply be ineffective while the real power centre/s actually runs things their own way.
| d% | alignment | d% | alignment | d% | alignment | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01-35 | Lawful Good | 36-39 | Neutral Good | 40-41 | Chaotic Good | ||
| 42-61 | Lawful Neutral | 62-63 | Neutral | 64 | Chaotic Neutral | ||
| 65-90 | Lawful Evil | 91-98 | Neutral Evil | 99-100 | Chaotic Evil |
Feel free to use the notes from the DMG on how power centre alignment will affect communities, if you like that sort of thing. Multiple power centres will usually conflict to some degree, regardless of alignment. They have other sources of goals, interests and values, one of which is usually keeping and extending their own power, so there will inevitably be conflict.
Assign military strength to the community as you desire, guided by the classes generated in the steps below. A good rule of thumb for full-time soldiers is to have one per 100 of the population. These will probably be Fighters, Warriors or other martial classes. If there is more than one soldier, there will usually be some kind of hierarchy, which will probably bear some relation to the experience level of the soldiers.
The culture, laws and customs of the community will influence how many of the people will have weapons and be willing (or forced) to muster them in time of war or attack. A good base will be that most of those with the Warrior class and many PC-class-types would turn out, but in some societies even Commoners could be armed and called up.
The DMG starts at the top with the highest-level characters in each class, and works down. This sometimes produces some strange results, particularly in smaller settlements. What I suggest is that you start with the whole population, and then decide how it is divided, first by race, then by class, and finally by level. This will prevent one freak roll for a high-level character from filling your thorp or hamlet with their entourage.
I recommend as a first step that you separate out a small reserve of "exotics" from the main population. For large settlements, this could be up to 1% of the popuation, for smaller ones, you might just take a number like 2, 5 or 10. After you have gone through the process described below for the bulk of the people, use the exotics to add in any extra unusual characters you feel are necessary. If you don't feel any such are required, just say that these individuals are low-level characters of common classes and races and mix them back into the common herd.
Next, divide the main population by race, in whatever proportions seems appropriate - there are some suggestions below.
Determine the class mix for each racial group. I suggest you divide by race before class because of all the notes in the PHB saying how much race affects class. Therefore it seems sensible to have different class proportions for each racial group.
The next step will be to determine the level mix within each race-class group. After this stage you will have a number of individuals identified, generally ones who are noteworthy due to being of high level or rare class. And you will have several groups, such as say "14 Elf level 2 Commoners". To complete the adult population listing, I suggest you determine the gender of the individuals, and the gender mix of each group. I tend to leave ages undetermined at this stage, but it may be worth bearing in mind that lower-level characters are usually younger, with a smaller proportion of older under-achievers, while higher-level characters are usually older, with perhaps a few who are not so old but are on their way to even higher levels.
If you wish, you can go on to detail specific NPCs more fully. I usually do this mainly with the individuals and small groups who are most noteworthy - ie higher levels, rare classes and minority races. However, you can also pick people out of the general mass of low-level members of common classes, and make them noteworthy for their personality, appearance or role in the PCs' lives. Unless the population is a very small one that the PCs will be interacting with in great depth, you can leave most of the people you have generated in anonymous goups. When you need to generate an NPC of a certain race, class, level and/or gender, just find an appropriate goup, reduce the number of anonymous people in it by one, and flesh out your NPC.
To complete the community demographics, you should probably determine the number of children of each race in your base population. Children don't have a character level, so haven't come up in the above process. They are also relatively inactive in economics, politics and warfare, so they are not counted in the population when determining settlement basic facts.
The final step in detailing the community, is to go back to the number that you set aside as exotics. You can use these to provide some immigrants of races not generally found in the area, or you can use them for features that you may wish to place which will be staffed or populated by clusters of characters of certain classes and levels. For example special temples, monasteries, castles, colleges of wizardry or dens of thieves, etc. If you want to use this system to promote the realism of your campaign, don't overdo the special characters, and feel quite free to simply add spare people back into the groups of ordinary people already generated. Determine race, class, level and gender for exotics using any means that seems appropriate. You can use the normal generation process to guide you. You may wish to add children to exotics, but remember that the idea about them is that they are not part of the native population, eg migrants or attached to a special institution, so they should be less likely to have families
To determine the racial mix of an area, you can use the percentages from the DMG (reproduced below for ease of reference) or any others that suit your campaign. These people will be the native common folk, so feel free not to use all the races in this process. You can have small minorities sprinkled in by using exotics. If a racial group is too small (less than a few dozen people for an isolated minority pocket, though you can go smaller than this if there are groups of the same race in very nearby settlements too) I suggest you leave it to the exotics and re-calculate your percentages without that group. This is because a population that is too small will not be able to continue itself due to a lack of suitable marriage partners. You can still use the class and level proportions discussed below to guide you in determining exotics, but you should take them out of the basic population to remind yourself that such small groupings need to be recent migrants or otherwise exceptional.
In my own campaign, I tend to have most areas being dominated by a single race. There may be one or more minority groups spread throughout another race's domain (often halflings are such a minority group). Other minorities will show up on trade routes or especially in major settlements that are on several trade routes. Cosmopolitan cities and settlements at the borders of two races' territories may be more thoroughly mixed, but generally I stick to something resembling the proportions for an "isolated community" from the DMG. I certainly don't usually have the full suite of PHB races represented at over the 1% level, and I do tend to have some representation of savage humanoids, usually in the exotics.
| Race | Isolated | Mixed | Integrated |
|---|---|---|---|
| Main race (eg human) | 97% | 79% | 37% |
| Main minority (eg halfling) | 2% | 9% | 20% |
| Second minority (eg elf) | 1% | 5% | 18% |
| Third minority (eg dwarf) | 3% | 10% | |
| Fourth minority (eg gnome) | 2% | 7% | |
| Fifth minority (eg half-elf) | 1% | 5% | |
| Sixth minority (eg half-orc) | 1% | 3% |
NB, because of my step of separating out exotics, who can be other races, I have deleted the other races entry from the Isolated column and put them back into the main race.
For each native racial group, determine the class mix in percentage terms, and simply divide the population in the requisite proportions. If you do not wish to stick rigidly to the proportions, you can convert them to a d100 table and roll. Alternatively, if you want to use the proportions for the bulk of the populaiton but add a little randomness, you can calculate all the numbers to 2 decimal places, and instead of rounding off these "fractional people" you can use them as the percentage chance to have a member (or an additional member) of that class.
I will suggest a base class mix for average human villages, which can then be adjusted for other sizes of settlement, other races and unusual circumstances. The table below shows the base mix in the first column, with illustrative adjustments for towns. Note that only the common classes are a simple percentage. The rarer classes have one aggregate percentage which can be calculated alongside the common classes, but then within that rare classes aggregate, there are specific percentages for each of the rarer classes. Multiplying the rare classes percentage by the specific class percentage gives the actual percentage of that rare class in the population, and this is shown after an equals sign in the table.
| Class | Up to village | Small town | Medium town | Large town |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Commoner | 87% | 86% | 85% | 84% |
| Expert | 5% | 6% | 7% | 8% |
| Warrrior | 5% | 4.5% | 4% | 3.5% |
| Rare classes | 3% | 3.5% | 4% | 4.5% |
| Of which: | ||||
| Adept | 15% =0.45% | 14% =0.49% | 14% =0.56% | 14% =0.63% |
| Aristocrat | 15% =0.45% | 12% =0.42% | 9% =0.36% | 7% =0.32% |
| Bard | 5% =0.15% | 6% =0.21% | 6% =0.24% | 7% =0.32% |
| Cleric | 25% =0.75% | 25% =0.88% | 25% =1.00% | 25% =1.13% |
| Druid | 7% =0.21% | 3% =0.11% | 2% =0.08% | 1% =0.05% |
| Fighter | 15% =0.45% | 17% =0.60% | 18% =0.72% | 19% =0.86% |
| Paladin | 1% =0.03% | 1% =0.04% | 1% =0.04% | 1% =0.05% |
| Ranger | 5% =0.15% | 4% =0.14% | 3% =0.12% | 2% =0.09% |
| Rogue | 5% =0.15% | 10% =0.35% | 13% =0.52% | 15% =0.68% |
| Sorcerer | 2% =0.06% | 2% =0.07% | 2% =0.08% | 2% =0.09% |
| Wizard | 5% =0.15% | 6% =0.21% | 7% =0.28% | 7% =0.32% |
Note that Barbarians and Monks are absent; in my campaign I'm using these tables to create an England-like area and there are no natives to whom these classes would be appropriate. I might place a rare few under Exotics in certain places. If you want to use these classes more frequently, you could put them in - I would suggest at percentages comparable to Paladins or Sorcerers.
Here are my notes on how the tables can be adjusted for circumstances other than the average:
Peaceful lands. The above assumes a background level of feudal ructions involving the chivalric class and sometimes peasant
levies. If even this intermittent sub-warfare is much reduced or absent, have fewer Warriors and Aristocrats. Replace Warriors
with Commoners and maybe a small increase in Experts.
War-torn or threatened lands. Increase Warrior at the expense of Commoner and maybe a bit Expert. Perhaps balance the rare
classes towards fighting skills instead of eg Bard, Adept, Druid, Wizard.
Pioneer lands. Increase Warrior, rare classes and probably also Expert at the expense of Commoner. Slant the rare classes towards
Bard, Fighter, Ranger, Rogue and Sorcerer and away from Adept, Aristocrat and Wizard.
Cosmopolitan/prosperous lands. Increase Expert, Bard and Wizard. Reduce maybe Adept, Druid, Commoner. Possibly edge up rare
classes in general though. Maybe include small proportion of Barbarians/Monks in the base??
Towns. Increase Expert and rare classes. Reduce Commoner and Warrior. Within rare classes increase Rogue
quite a lot, also increase Bard, Fighter and Wizard, and reduce Aristocrat, Druid and Ranger. NB this is what I've done in the
tables above.
Cities. As towns only more so. For towns and especially cities, be aware of predictable numbers of non-natives,
eg traders, mercenaries, etc. They will affect the current mix even if they are not permanent residents.
And here are my notes on how to adjust the class percentages for non-humans. You will probably want to adjust these to suit
the way you handle non-humans in your own campaign, so I haven't provided any specific tables. In general, nonhumans should
have fewer commoners - they just aren't as mundane, and have reputations for magic, fighting, artisanship and/or learning. Also
they will have smaller populations than humans so sort of need a boost to the proportions of non-commoners if they are to produce
interesting characters.
Dwarves. More Experts, Warriors, Fighters, perhaps Paladins. Fewer Commoners, Rogues, Sorcerers, perhaps Adepts, Aristocrats, Bards, Druids, Rangers, Wizards. Monks??! Dwarves tend to be more urbanised so you might also usually be adjusting tables for dwarven communities to reflect their town or city status.
Elves. More Experts, Wizards, Rangers, perhaps Druids, Bards, Warriors. More rare classes generally. Fewer Aristocrats, Barbarians, Commoners, Monks, Paladins, perhaps fewer Clerics. Elves tend to be less urbanised, so you might usually be using a village or small town table for Elven communities.
Halflings. Moderately more Experts instead of Commoners. Same or fewer rare classes generally. More Rogues, maybe Adepts. Fewer Aristocrats, Barbarians, Fighters, Monks, Paladins, Sorcerers, maybe fewer Wizards.
Gnomes. More Experts, Rogues, Wizards, rare classes generally. NB, most gnome wizards will in fact be illusionist specialists. Fewer Commoners, Aristocrats, Barbarians, Paladins, Monks, Sorcerers and Adepts.
(Savage humanoids individual races but plenty warriors)
You will get an acceptable-looking level distribution if you pick a percentage of the class that you want to be first-level, and calculate the other levels from that. To calculate the percentage at second level, take the percentage at first level, and multiply it by (100% - itself). The example with easy maths is if 50% of the class is first level. Then second level is 50 x (100-50)%. That is 50 x 50%, or 25%. You multiply down by the same percentage each time, so 3rd level is 12.5 call it 13%, 4th level is 6.25 call it 6% of the class, 5th level is 3% and so on. The sum of all levels is 100% of the number of individuals in the class. Tha maths may sound a bit advanced or time-consuming. It is very easy to set up on a spreadsheet (email me using request at the domain of this site for a copy), but I present a range of useful tables here. On each distribution, you can multiply the listed percentage by the total number in the class to give the number at each level, or you can convert the percentages into a d100 table and roll if there are only a few individuals to deal with.
| Level | % of class | % | % | % | % | % | % | % | % | % | % | % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 75% | 70% | 65% | 60% | 55% | 50% | 45% | 40% | 35% | 30% | 25% | 20% |
| 2 | 19% | 21% | 23% | 24% | 25% | 25% | 25% | 24% | 23% | 21% | 19% | 16% |
| 3 | 5% | 6% | 8% | 10% | 11% | 12% | 14% | 14% | 15% | 15% | 14% | 13% |
| 4 | *1% | 2% | 3% | 4% | 5% | 6% | 7% | 9% | 9% | 10% | 11% | 10% |
| 5 | *1% | *1% | 1% | 2% | 3% | 4% | 5% | 6% | 7% | 8% | 8% | |
| 6 | *1% | 1% | 2% | 2% | 3% | 4% | 5% | 6% | 7% | |||
| 7 | *1% | 1% | 1% | 2% | 3% | 4% | 4% | 5% | ||||
| 8 | *1% | 1% | 1% | 2% | 2% | 3% | 4% | |||||
| 9 | *1% | 1% | 1% | 2% | 2% | 3% | ||||||
| 10 | *1% | 1% | 1% | 2% | 3% | |||||||
| 11 | *1% | 1% | 1% | 2% | ||||||||
| 12 | *2% | 1% | 2% | |||||||||
| 13 | 1% | 1% | ||||||||||
| 14 | *3% | 1% | ||||||||||
| 15 | 1% | |||||||||||
| 16 | 1% | |||||||||||
| 17 | *3% |
The last percentage in each column is starred. This indicates that from this level up, there is significantly less than 1% of the class population at each level, so the starred percentage is a total for that level and upwards. If there are enough in the class that you still have at least one member unallocated, you can choose the level/s, or you can roll dice. If you roll, use the same table, but add to the result the last level before the level with the starred percentage. For example, if the percentage at first level is 55%, then there will be 1% at level 7 and higher. If the class population is 312, then there will be three individuals at these levels. The d100 table derived from the percentages is: 01-55=1, 56-80=2, 81-91=3, 92-96=4, 97-98=5, 99=6 and 00=7+. Rolling for the three high level individuals, we get 24, 51 and 82, for levels 1, 1 and 3. Adding 6, the last level before the starred percentage, gives 7, 7 and 9 as the three highest-level individuals of the class.
Obviously, I have not included every possible distribution in the table above, but I consider that distributions outside the boundaries suggested will be unlikely to be much use. Ones with higher numbers of first-level characters would suggest that the vast majority of people in that class never progress even to second level, and would leave almost no members above that. Higher distributions would give significant proportions exceeding level 20!
In fact, I would suggest that normal populations use approximately the following distributions, indicated by their percentage at first level:
Commoners 65%. This gives many more in the 2-4 range than the DMG system and is unlikely to generate many much higher than 10th in villages and small towns. Which I think makes sense. It gives a larger group of senior peasants without such an outstanding single top character as the official system tends to generate. Plus larger numbers at levels a bit above first to allow members of pitchfork-wielding mobs to take a few normal hits, or for you to have people at 2nd to 4th level in the anonymous pool for later use. They still won't be very scary as individuals, being commoners.
Most other classes will be higher-level than that. Warriors and Aristocrats still quite low (maybe base 55%). Fighters, Clerics, Experts, Rogues and Adepts probably only moderate (base 50%?). Barbarians, Bards, Sorcerers and Druids a bit higher (45%?). Wizards, Monks, maybe Paladins and Rangers the highest level mix (40% - this would mean that for a rural population of a million, there would be about 1500 wizards and about one of them would have a level over 14. In a fertile kingdom of 5 million peasants there would be one non-urban wizard with a level over 17. The towns and cities would obviously be better-supplied).
Characters in larger settlements will tend to have a slightly higher level mix. Characters in challenging areas a definitely higher level mix. Scraping by in the face of random hazards might lower it though. Where Warriors and Aristocrats see quite regular action without heavy casualties, they will probably have the same level progression as Experts. Only the most militaristic of societies would be able to achieve this by peacetime training though.
Characters in very dull and peaceful areas will have a still lower level mix.
Characters in areas of much change, commerce, mobility, etc. will tend to have a higher level mix if they are of classes to be involved in this sort of thing - ie mainly Commoners and Experts.