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The "100-Person Rule" for Realistic City Building — Transcript

by The Fantasy Forge · 2,739 words · 400 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00Let's say you want your capital city to
0:02have about a million people in it
0:04because that sounds impressive and then
0:05your players walk through it and you
0:06somehow encounter two taverns and one
0:08blacksmith in the same five NPCs over
0:11and over again. So, in this video I want
0:13to talk about how do you decide how many
0:15people do you put in your city? How many
0:17buildings are there in your city? What
0:19is good? Is 100 buildings enough for
0:211,000 people? Is 100 buildings enough
0:24for 20,000 people? How many buildings
0:26does it take for your city to run
0:29appropriately? Let's talk about that.
0:31So, what we're going to do is instead of
0:33starting with the population, we're
0:34going to work backwards the same way
0:35that real cities did in that the
0:38population increased and buildings
0:40increased from there to support that
0:42population. So, the first thing that you
0:44should decide is how many buildings
0:45exist? How many buildings do you want to
0:47see in your skyline and what kinds of
0:49buildings are they? So, for example, in
0:51pre-industrial cities, I'm talking
0:52medieval ages and back before that,
0:55right? The vast majority of people lived
0:57where they worked. That means that homes
0:58weren't neatly separated from the shops.
1:01A blacksmith didn't live across the
1:03town. Their family lived above or behind
1:06the forge in a smaller building. The
1:07same was true for bakers, cobblers,
1:09weavers, tailors, and butchers. Pretty
1:12much any skilled trade. And
1:14historically, one skilled trade could
1:16support roughly 100 to 150 people, maybe
1:18200 people if you were quick. Again,
1:20this is just ballpark estimates, but
1:22that means that in a town of about 1,000
1:24people, you would expect six to 10
1:26blacksmiths or metal workers, 10 to 15
1:28bakers, several butchers or fishmongers,
1:31dozens of textile workers to keep up
1:33with the demand of repairing clothing
1:35and tailoring and that sort of thing.
1:36You would have at least 10 to 15 taverns
1:39because what you have to think is that
1:41there's no TV, there's no internet,
1:43there's no phone or newspapers, you
1:45didn't have Craigslist or Etsy or eBay
1:48or Amazon to go purchase your things.
1:50So, a tavern and lots of these places
1:52really were like the center points of
1:54the cities and taverns especially is
1:56where you would got your news, it's
1:57where you would catch up with friends,
1:58you would look for work, you would trade
2:01with people. It was a place for
2:03outsiders to come and and visit and stay
2:05and drink with the locals. And in a
2:07small village it could also be a general
2:09store, it could be the place where the
2:11stables are, it could be the post
2:13office. So, you can really up the amount
2:15of taverns because aside from a church
2:18or in this case in a fantasy world,
2:19temple or a shrine or something like
2:21that, this is the biggest part of
2:23community life in a pre-industrialized
2:25city. Now, obviously if you're in a
2:27fantasy setting where the cities are
2:29extremely advanced, you can start to
2:31kind of veer away from this and start to
2:32think in terms of more modern-day
2:33settings. But if we're looking at like
2:35pre-industrialized medieval setting,
2:37this is the the sort of go-to as a like
2:40reference what we have seen, reference
2:42the things that we know. So, I'm diving
2:43into the past. Now, in medieval Europe a
2:45rough estimate was that there was about
2:47one tavern or an alehouse per 1 to 200
2:49people, depending on the culture and
2:51depending on how much people drink in
2:53your town, that sort of thing, right?
2:55Weather would be a huge part of it. So,
2:56a town of a thousand people might have
2:59five to ten drinking establishments,
3:00maybe 15 or 20 if they were big
3:03drinkers, that's where my numbers are
3:04coming from. So, a city of 10,000 people
3:07means that you could have easily 50 or
3:08more taverns. Many of them would be
3:10tiny, dirty, and like indistinguishable
3:12except to locals, but they would be
3:14there. They would be places where people
3:16would congregate. And hearing that, you
3:17might start to think that like wow, like
3:19you I really didn't realize how many
3:21taverns my city should have, especially
3:23if you have like a metropolis where you
3:24have people living in a city of, you
3:26know, 50,000, 100,000, maybe a million
3:28or more, you would have hundreds of
3:30taverns. So, you might be thinking to
3:31yourself, I don't have enough taverns.
3:32Now, when you start placing buildings
3:34like that, population isn't so abstract
3:37anymore because then you can start to
3:38kind of see how many people are going to
3:41be in these buildings, how many homes,
3:43how many workshops, warehouses, that
3:44sort of thing. So, kind of lay
3:45[clears throat] that out in your head as
3:47far as like what the city skyline looks
3:48like, that's what helps me. Again, if
3:50this isn't how you do it, you know,
3:52maybe this will help jog your creative
3:53juices a little bit. But why did I say
3:55it like that?
4:01So then the next thing that you want to
4:02do is just start to decide how many
4:04people live in each building because
4:06this is where fantasy cities are usually
4:09a little generous, at least in my
4:11experience. So a small single-story home
4:13might have four to six people, right?
4:15You're looking at parents, children,
4:17maybe a grandparent. That's already
4:19really crowded by modern standards.
4:20That's three generations in a single
4:22household. Now you add on top of that,
4:25if you're living in like a blacksmith
4:26shop, for example, you would have
4:28apprentices sleeping in the workshop.
4:29You would have servants living with
4:30employers, extended families that are
4:33sharing space. And in poorer districts,
4:35that density would skyrocket.
4:37Historically, tenement-style housing
4:39could pack 10 to 20 people in a single
4:41structure, sometimes more. Multiple
4:43families, shared beds, absolutely zero
4:46privacy. This is how medieval cities
4:48like Paris or even early London reached
4:50tens of thousands of residents without
4:53actually growing. I mean, you can see a
4:54map of medieval London here and you'd be
4:56surprised to know that the population of
4:58medieval London, I'm talking about like
5:00the 14 to 1500s, was approximately
5:0250,000. Some sources will say even more.
5:04Now you also want to think about
5:06nobility and class status because a
5:09noble estate would often house a lot
5:11fewer people than say a slum block. A
5:14mansion would look enormous, but it
5:16would probably only contain one family
5:17and a handful of servants and their
5:18guards. So maybe 20 to 30 people.
5:21Whereas a single crowded street of
5:23laborers could completely exceed that.
5:25You would have hundreds of people in one
5:26single street. And that leads us to the
5:28next thing that you want to account for
5:30or the third thing, I guess, in this
5:31list, which is life expectancy. And
5:33that's something that I want you to
5:34think about. There is no right answer to
5:36this, right? If medicine is prevalent in
5:38your world, if magic is common, life
5:39expectancy is probably much, much
5:41higher. So in most pre-modern societies,
5:43average life expectancy hovered between
5:4530 and 40 years of age. And that number
5:47was really dragged down heavily by
5:49infant mortality. And then that's just a
5:50really sad truth. I know that's really
5:52dark. I'm sorry. That doesn't mean that
5:53everyone dropped dead at 35. It just
5:55means that cities were constantly losing
5:56people and constantly replacing them for
5:58a lot of reasons. There was There was
6:00constant disease being spread because of
6:02the lack of sanitary conditions. And
6:05then when you add in war and accidents a
6:08city's population is never really
6:09stable, at least not historically. And
6:11in many historical cities about 5 to 10%
6:14of the population might be absent at any
6:15given time due to military service or
6:18seasonal labor like going off out
6:19fishing or you know, that sort of thing,
6:21trading. Some people would be on a
6:23pilgrimage. There would be displacement
6:25from conflicts.
6:26So, if your city is frequently being
6:28attacked by, you know, insert orcs or
6:30goblins or dragons, whatever. If it's
6:33constantly under siege or it's being
6:34plagued by monsters, that number is
6:36going to go up. Population loss is going
6:38to become visible. So, there's going to
6:39be abandoned homes. There's going to be
6:41empty shops. You're going to have orphan
6:42children, refugees moving in to replace
6:44the dead people. So, when you look at
6:46the city skyline, you really want to
6:48take into account just how many people
6:49live there, but also how many people
6:51should live there versus how many are
6:53actually living there. Because that's
6:54part of the storytelling. Is the city
6:56bustling and busy because it's
6:57prosperous and it's relatively safe or
6:59is it a ghost town because it's
7:00constantly under attack. So, when you
7:02know how many buildings you want in your
7:04skyline approximately, if just imagine
7:07you're in a bird's eye view looking down
7:08at the city, right? Use the map of
7:10London as reference. Use any map of a
7:12medieval city as reference. When you're
7:13looking down at the city, is it crowded?
7:16Is it Is there thousands of buildings?
7:18If it's a thousand buildings, 2,000
7:19buildings, then you can start to kind of
7:21multiply. Well, how many people would
7:23there be in these buildings, you know? A
7:24thousand buildings times five, you would
7:27have maybe 5,000 people. Or if you have
7:30a thousand buildings and there's five to
7:32six people per building, then you can
7:33start to kind of think well, there's
7:35also the warehouses, so I can
7:37You can start to kind of subtract some
7:38of the buildings. Approximately 200 of
7:41them don't have people in them because
7:43they're storage. And then there's the
7:44barracks and you know, this sort of
7:45thing. You start to kind of see in your
7:48own brain where which buildings have
7:50more people, which ones have less and
7:51you can start to kind of see the
7:52population numbers come to your mind so
7:54that you can start to make sort of
7:55estimated guesses. Then you take into
7:58account life expectancy and you can sort
8:00of see the heartbeat of the city if that
8:02makes sense. I hope that makes sense.
8:04So, now that we have all of that in
8:06account, you can start to kind of get a
8:07general idea for what you believe the
8:09population might be for your town, but
8:11now let's talk about vertical growth.
8:13Because small towns will spread outward.
8:16Large cities will grow upward. So, once
8:19land becomes valuable and buildings
8:22start to stack, I'm talking like two
8:23stories, three stories, then you get
8:26into a different sort of realm because
8:27you'll have shops on the ground floor
8:29and then living spaces above. We see
8:30this today in New York and really any
8:33major city that has skyscrapers. Usually
8:35there's storage below in the basements,
8:37there's the shop in the center, the
8:38living spaces above. In medieval cities
8:40like Florence, three and four-story
8:42buildings were super common even without
8:44modern engineering. And that matters
8:46because the more height you get, then
8:49the more population you can get and
8:50you're not expanding outside the city
8:52walls, which was super important because
8:54the walls kept people safe. So, if your
8:56city mostly has single-story buildings,
8:58it physically cannot support larger
9:00numbers after a certain point. So, a
9:02city of 20,000 people might require
9:044,000 to 5,000 residential buildings,
9:06right? Because 4 to 5,000 * 5 is, you
9:10know, it times 4 * 5 is around 20,000 to
9:1325,000, right? If they're low density.
9:15But if those same buildings are three
9:17stories tall and densely packed, then
9:19you can house the same population in a
9:20fraction of that footprint. So, if your
9:22city feels big, but looks flat, then
9:25something's off.
9:27And finally, here's the step that I
9:28think makes all of this usable. Decide
9:31your desired population last. That's
9:33what I would do. And then you can adjust
9:34the city to match. So, ask yourself what
9:36you want the city to feel like. Is it a
9:38small town of 500 to 2,000 people?
9:40Because it's an intimate space.
9:41Everybody knows everybody. There's one
9:43or two taverns. There's a handful of
9:44trades. Gossip spreads. You know, is it
9:47is it that is or is it a city of 5,000
9:49to 10,000? That's busy. It's got
9:51multiple districts. There's dozens of
9:52taverns. There's specialized trades.
9:54There's a city watch. There's maybe
9:55slums starting to form. Or is it a
9:57metropolis? Is it a massive city of
9:5925,000 50,000 100,000 people that feels
10:02overwhelming with dense housing. And
10:04there's vertical growth. And there's
10:05whole neighborhoods that your players
10:07never see because there's crime. There's
10:08bureaucracy. There's shortages of food.
10:11There's constant movement. Anything
10:13beyond that starts behaving less like a
10:16city and more like this sort of ebbing
10:19and flowing like organism, I guess. Once
10:21you know what you want your city to feel
10:23like, you can adjust the population from
10:25there and then work backwards and start
10:27to adjust the number of buildings, the
10:29number of taverns, the height of the
10:31city skyline, all of that stuff. So, if
10:33your city feels too empty, increase the
10:35density. If you're if it feels too
10:37small, then add verticality and add
10:39trades. If it feels unreal, then check
10:42whether the number of buildings that you
10:43have in your head actually supports the
10:44number that you picked. Anyways, that's
10:46what I would do. What do you guys do
10:48when you're building your cities? When
10:49you're deciding how many people to put
10:51in it, what the population is, how many
10:52buildings to put into it? Let me know in
10:54the comments down below. Am I just a
10:55weirdo and I think way too much about
10:56this? Really quick, I just want to
10:57interject here. If you want to help
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11:52content regardless. Anyways, back to the
11:54video. Tabletop Tiger, awesome name,
11:55says DJ D Kitty is a regular tavern
11:57performer. Some say the music transports
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12:01that in our musical hearts or whether
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12:28Anyways, thank you so much for watching.
12:29As always, forge on my friends and
12:31remember, walk quietly, there's
12:32neighbors downstairs.

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