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{{trope}}
[[File:
{{quote|''There may be only five of us, but this is STILL a thriving kingdom!''|'''The King of the Dwarves''', ''[[
Due to [[The Law of Conservation of Detail]], towns and cities in RPGs rarely have an observable population measuring more than a single digit (or, at most, the 'teens); this is far smaller than any [http://www222.pair.com/sjohn/blueroom/demog.htm realistic level of basic economic sustainability].
The average small country town may have a population of a dozen or so people
A typical town the heroes find themselves in usually consists of the following; a [[Trauma Inn]], a weapons/armor shop (the true metropolis may have a separate shop for each), an "item" shop, a specialty shop relating to the game's [[Functional Magic|magic system]], and no more than three houses. With the exception of those [[NPC
In the earliest computer and console [[RPG
Some games [[Hand Wave]] this by implying the town is much larger via expansive background images; our heroes, for whatever reason, are [[Gateless Ghetto|only visiting a small portion of it.]] Modern games tend to slightly avert this by adding numbers of non-interactable pedestrians into city scenes, giving the ''illusion'' of a larger populace.
Related to [[Space Compression]]. See [[Ghost Town]] for towns that are actually abandoned.
----▼
=== Exceptions ===▼
▲----
== Action Adventure ==▼
{{examples}}
▲=== [[Action Adventure]] ===
* ''[[Zelda II:
* ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
* To be fair though, in Twilight Princess, places such as Kakariko village had most of its residents turn into monsters or flee, so it's probably very narrowly averted in this case.
** Also, while Clock Town in ''[[The Legend of Zelda:
* Continued in ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
* Mimiga Village in ''[[
=== [[Adventure Game]] ===
* The old freeware adventure game ''Omega'' had a starting town that was pretty huge by the standards of the time, but the only people you saw on the streets were guards; everyone else was apparently on permanent house arrest.
* Though most of the ''[[Quest for Glory]]'' games are victims of this trope, the second game manages to avoid it by constantly having townspeople stream in and out of the plazas. You can't talk to them, however; you don't speak their language.
=== [[First
* [[Fallout 3]] justifies this in that all of the towns you find are, in fact, ghost towns. They're just abandoned ruins of old decaying buildings that a handful of people manage to scrape by in. Usually only being about one or two houses, as with only a few limited guards and resources, there can only be so many capable of living in the area.
=== [[Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game|MMORPG]] ===
* ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' both plays this straight and cleverly hides it. Towns are nearly always too small, but cities have plenty of buildings. It's just that the developers didn't model the insides of a great many of those buildings and locked the doors shut. This has the added bonus of creating walls where the players aren't supposed to go, ''and'' giving Blizzard a place to add
** Those empty buildings make cities look bigger than they actually are, but they're still quite a bit smaller than the lore or storyline would suggest. A census by counting [[NPC
** Blizzard have also improved on this in the later expansions. Vanilla towns tend to only contain quest givers and merchants whereas towns in BC and WOTLK contain tons of flavor characters, sometimes named, just to give the appearance of a populated town. Heading back from Northrend to the old world can make players very aware of this trope. Until, however, ''Cataclysm'' came out and upgraded the towns.
** It also becomes obvious when looking at towns used as quest hubs and towns used as killing fields. Southshore, for example, is nearly empty compared to the nearby Hillsbrad Fields and Dun Garok, both of which contain quest mobs for horde players.
** Highlighted by a particular quest late in ''Cataclysm''. By this point, you're pretty used to the idea that the population you see is only representative of those who are working in the background and who aren't present due to the [[Law of Conservation of Detail]]. Then you get a quest to kill 1000 gnomes, probably more than all of the gnomes who exist anywhere else in the world combined.
* ''[[Guild Wars]]'' Zig-zags this. A couple places that are implied to be capitals or important towns actually look really ''really'' small. (Lion's Arch in particular) However, many of them have backgrounds that the player can't really access. ''Factions'' is probably the biggest aversion ever - Kaineng City takes up ''half the continent''. While the Kurzick locations play this straight, it's actually a little more justified with the Luxon areas (Luxons are a bit more nomadic.)
=== [[Real
* Unusual for a real time strategy game, ''[[Star Wars]]: Empire at War'' features small to sizable civilian populations and are interactive in that they'll either side with you and be controllable by the player, or side with the enemy, depending on that planet's pre-determined allegiance. Not only that but, when used in a large enough group, ''they were actually pretty powerful units'' (capable of taking down enemy walkers and tanks even!) and if nothing else they were strong enough to make for very useful distractions or at minimum scouts (they respawn).
** Likewise, in ''[[Command
* ''[[Universe At War]]'' has a strange example. Most of the maps are fought in urban areas, but there are no civilians on the field. If you start to collect resources (buildings and stuff), people will start to run out. So they hide in houses, makes sense, but for some strange reason around 10-15 people live in one suburb house.
* [[Total War]] plays this straight and averts it in some installments. During siege battles, there are no civilians to be seen, even in massive cities like Rome or London. It is later [[Averted Trope|averted]] when Rome allowed the player to view cities in the battle map. They were filled with thousands of peasants milling around.
** Played straight, however, in that while city sizes are at least above the threshold of sustainability (unlike most games), they're still ridiculously small for the cities in question, to provide better game balance and the possibility of a player actually upgrading a city within a reasonable amount of time. This is most notable in ''Rome'', where the practical upper limit on population is ~36000; whereas in [[Real Life]] one of Rome's many advantages was its effectively infinite manpower compared to its rivals (the city itself having a population in the ''millions''. In the ''ancient world''.).
=== [[Role
* Several of the later ''[[Ultima]]'' games, ''[[Ultima VII]]'' in particular, had towns larger than the norm, where every NPC had a home they returned to at night. Still, even the capital city of Britain has a population of fifty or so. ''The entire game'' clocks in at slightly over 100.
** In addition, Skara Brae was a literal Thriving Ghost Town in ''Ultima VII''.
* ''[[The Elder Scrolls II
** The first game, ''[[The Elder Scrolls
* In ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'', Traverse Town and Twilight Town (both [[First Town
** In Twilight Town, this makes sense, since {{spoiler|1=they're replicas of the people in the real Twilight Town; when the simulation is interrupted, the literal NPCs disappear.}}
** Although, by nature of them being large [[Dungeon Town
* ''[[
* While ''[[
** It's about a fiftieth the size of the pen-and-paper game's map of the city, but it's about the same shape and the landmarks are roughly in the right places.
** Also, there are many houses and doors around Athkatla that you can see, but not go in; those are [[Hand Wave|handwaved]] by saying there's nothing of interest within.
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* The ''Dragonriders of [[Pern]]'' game for the Dreamcast has an example that can only be attributable to ''actual'' ghosts: at one town, you enter a vast chamber with thick stone walls, and few entrances or exits. There are perhaps a half dozen people or so milling around a space the size of a convention center, and to judge by the soundtrack, those people are able to completely fill the space with the sound of hustle and bustle and conversation. If you revisit the chamber later on, you'll discover it's still filled with the sounds of countless people shuffling about and chatting together, even though the room is now ''completely empty''.
* ''[[Jays Journey]]'' mostly has houses with locked doors, but the only actual house (as opposed to shop) in one town belongs to the [[Ms. Fanservice]] playable character... the [[Unfortunate Implications]] of which are ''not'' [[Lampshade Hanging|left unremarked.]]
* ''[[
* Averted in ''[[Bully (
* Zig-zagged in ''[[Dragon Age]]''. Denerim and Amaranthine are implied to be ''much'' larger than you acutally show. It also helps that Denerim is so big that it requires its own map screen, and you don't explore every inch of the city, only the parts that are relevant. Likewise, Orzrammar does not have a map screen like Denerim, but it's implied that the action is just that close together, plus it looks a bit like they might have been tiered. Justified with the Dalish "towns" because it's a nomadic camp. However played entirely straight with Redcliffe and Lothering.
=== [[Simulation Games]] ===
* ''[[Traffic Giant]]'' gives you cities with many buildings and thousands of inhabitants, and individually keeps track of each one.
== Played Straight ==
===
* [[Deconstruction|Deconstructed]] in ''[[
* [[Ratatoing]] has one in the opening.▼
▲* [[Deconstruction|Deconstructed]] in ''[[Erfworld (Webcomic)|Erfworld]]''. All non plot important buildings in the city are completely empty, and seemingly serve merely to “be the city”; though they get occupied and used based on what they resemble. For example the slaughterhouse somehow feeds the troops through its mere existence, as there are no workers, and no slaughtering going on. Of course, the world they're in is based on [[Turn Based Strategy]] tropes, where abstractions of this sort are commonplace.
** Not to mention other odd things; Farms “pop” piglets/calves/chicks, which get progressively older and fatter over the course of a few turns, until eventually they disappear and are replaced by pork/beef/chicken food items teleported directly to the consumer. Seriously.
===
▲* [[Ratatoing]] has one in the opening.
* [[Niagara Falls]] on the ''American'' side of the border. The most you would see in that area are a few hotels and ''maybe'' some residents.▼
=== Real Life ===
▲* [[Niagara Falls]], on the ''American'' side of the border. The most you would see in that area are a few hotels and ''maybe'' some residents.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Settings]]
[[Category:Role Playing Game]]▼
[[Category:Acceptable Breaks From Reality]]
[[Category:
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