Quote Originally Posted by Aetis View Post
I don't know about that. I've never met a player with that assumption.

Most players ask me about the setting and what kind of races/monsters live there.
I agree, and I run a heavily custom world.

Although...a world is a very large place as long as you're not looking at modern population densities.

One secondary objective for me was to fit as much as possible from the printed books into the setting. I get around the over-stuffed feeling by strongly limiting numbers.

The main play area is a portion of a continent the size of the USA (roughly). On that continent there are maybe 4-5 million people of playable races. The largest of the main nations is ~200k, of multiple races (I don't do single-race nations). There are maybe another 4-5 million non-playable humanoids out there. Most other monsters are, if not one-offs, present in small numbers. Beholders? Each one is a separate creation of a particular demon prince. Etc. So the total intelligent population of that continent is probably in the 20 million range. To compare to modern populations, that's smaller than Tokyo (37 million).

Since there aren't single-race nations, races are more resilient. Yes, a single nation is weak, but humanity is spread over a bunch of them. Same with (most) of the other races. Some are more concentrated and vulnerable (high elves, dragonborn), and they know it. It's actually a cultural point for them--trying to find/create more of their race.

There are other continents, but I haven't developed them yet.