Population by Level

[Almaz]

So you're saying the King's Wardens cannot possibly have ranger levels in spite of their entire profession being maintaining and observing the wilderness, like, you know, what rangers do, just because they happen to have a townhouse in a civilized location, and that every religion necessarily produces a high level cleric. Righto then.

And this is why people think "gut checks" aren't necessarily good ideas.

That's your gut check. If you were the DM, then the party would find a Ranger.

The problem isn't that we have differing opinions. The problem is when two opinions differ and they are two different participants in the same campaign. And you can pull "the MC is always right" but disagreements like that shit are why rules exist - they are indeed the only reason rules exist. If someone wants to write a rule to cover a disagreement, maybe instead of saying "In order to resolve this disagreement you must suck the MC's cock" you can just leave them alone.

[Novembermike]

The problem isn't that we have differing opinions. The problem is when two opinions differ and they are two different participants in the same campaign. And you can pull "the MC is always right" but disagreements like that shit are why rules exist - they are indeed the only reason rules exist. If someone wants to write a rule to cover a disagreement, maybe instead of saying "In order to resolve this disagreement you must suck the MC's cock" you can just leave them alone.

But there's no disagreement. We just imagined different worlds. The DM is the arbitrator of the world. He's responsible for populating the setting. You can disagree with him, but if he makes a call about something like this then he's right. This isn't something basic like how far a man on horseback can travel in a day where there needs to be consistency so the players can know what to expect. It's completely subjective stuff. All of those tables are just bullshit; they provide consistent setting details but those details aren't necessarily good.

[Hieronymous Rex]

I found the AD&D 2e demographics. From the Dungeon Master Option: High Level Campaigns.

General population...Character Level...Approx. No. in 1,000,000
10.............................1 1st...................133,120
20.............................1 2nd..................66,560
40.............................1 3rd...................33,280
80.............................1 4th...................16,640
160...........................1 5th...................8,320
320...........................1 6th...................4,160
640...........................1 7th...................2,080
1,380........................1 8th...................1,040
2,560........................1 9th...................512
5,120........................1 10th.................256
10,240......................1 11th.................128
20,480......................1 12th..................64
40,960......................1 13th..................32
81,920......................1 14th..................16
163,840....................1 15th..................8
326,680....................1 16th..................4
655,360....................1 17th..................2
1,310,720.................1 18th..................1

[Juton]

I found the AD&D 2e demographics. From the Dungeon Master Option: High Level Campaigns.

That had me puzzled for a second, but AD&D had level 0 characters, so adding them makes the numbers add up.