The Campaign Builder's Guild

How does one create a Nationality?

My setting, The Saga of the Seven Swords is a Human only and in order to make that more interesting I have decide to give the players the ability to select and nationality. In doing so I have come across a problem, all humans being equal how would one give stat changes, or special racial-esq abilities? So I figured that I would pose the question to all of you and see what you thought.

Well, I've seen different methods of doing this. First off, giving them certain skills as class skills that relate to their culture, for instance, a port-city might have Profession (Sailor). Also, exotic weapon proficiencies work to an extent, though those alone are not good. You could possibly make subtypes of humans, but those would make the species too varied. IMO, your best bet is to change the physical features, such as make northerners lighter skinned and shorter (assuming laws of physics apply to this world). You should also make different languages, and from my history classes, have about 50/50 of strong religious influences and a more scientific influence. Another thing to think about, making histories of the nations with dividing wars that either separate the country or build a strong sense of nationality.

I tend to dislike national class skills because in most cases they apply only to a minority of the culture.  Even if a nation is known for metalworking, how many people in the society are actually metalworkers?  What use would the peasants have for +2 Craft (metalworking), and how would they even have acquired that skill?

It might work in a case like the Mongols getting +2 to Ride; virtually every Mongol spent their life in the saddle and knew how to ride.  It's reasonable that they, as a culture, might have some special and universal advantage.

A better way, in my opinion, is through regional feats - feats that can only be taken for certain cultures, but don't have to be taken.  Generally, these are available only at first level, and are possibly a little bit better than regular feats, though not game-breakers or clearly superior.  Give the Venetians a "Seafaring" feat that gives them +2 bonuses to Swim and Rope Use, or something (that's a balanced feat).  They don't get it as a bonus, but it's only available to them - so Venetians can get it but Venetian peasants aren't forced to have useless skill or feat bonuses.

Besides that, I agree with Sir Vorpal.  Remember, however, that not every nation has its own religion, language, and so on - think of all the different Christian nations, or all the various peoples who spoke Latin (or some deriative thereof) back in the day.  Nationality in some cases may have more to do with cultural standards and things like food or dress than distinct religious or linguistic differences.

I'm siding with Holy Carp! on this one. Regional feats are your best bet, though the initial idea of racial class skills or skill bonuses wouldn't be too bad.

I'm going to ask a few questions that should help you in the long run. First, is your world designed following scientific creation? Did humans evolve, were they created in one place, or were they created all over the world. When they began to spread, had culture already been developed?

Do you have a general idea of the world map yet? How large of an area are we dealing with? If it is large, you can easily get away with grouping multiple nations together under one cultural umbrella (in the grand scheme of things, for instance, one could lump all of europe, all of north asia, and all of south asia as one of three different cultures, and it could be done vague enough to work). If you're working with a small area, you'll want to make separate cultures for each nation, or possibly region.

I suggest you start with religion first. Most of the things we identify as cultural are religious practices, holidays, and superstitions/beliefs. Food also separates people. Getting further out, you can separate one culture from another through the weapons they make/use.

For instance, in my setting, I've started working on the Holylands region first. It is a republic, grown out of an empire that fell long ago. It is in a renaissance of sorts, and everyone receives public education until they're 15. It is also a theocracy (which has been interesting, designing a theocratic republic). Thus, characters from this culture gain a +2 bonus on Knowledge (History) and Knowledge (Religion) checks, and they can make those skill checks untrained.

If you'd like help on designing individual cultures, let me know. I recommend against any ability score adjustments, but you could get away with them (one book I read suggested that you could take the stats for elves, dwarves, half-elves, and half-orcs and just call them human, making them people from different nations and what-not).

I always saw feats as the easiest method of adding Mechanical Nationalities in D&D. These bonus feats should be broad in range, representing the total gamut of the typical person of the Nationality. So a few skill bonuses and maybe an additional Class Skill. I have also seen some companies make Human Feats that grant Ability Changes (like +2 DEX, -2 CON). I have further seen systems that allow a Human to take a feat (as his Racial Bonus Feat) that opens up entirely new feat trees, unavailable in any other way. I like all of these ideas, perhaps a good method for creating Mechanical Nationalities would be to combine all of these ideas into one cool feat worth taking.

I like the idea of racial class skills*... after all, no one *has* to invest in them, but the knowledge is assumed to be easily available to anyone, given the region. Also, a little easier than writing new feats.

Consider looking up Iron Heroes for an awesome example of a humans-only setting. The traits thing is awesome, and includes various regional and other background traits to make humans different from one another.

*the idea here being "x is always a class skill" as opposed to "+2 bonus to x"

My advice, like all advice, is something you may be better off ignoring. With that in mind, here it is anyway.

The best way to handle stat based changes that reflect nationality is to do them last. Write the nations and their people first, in rich, detailed words, not stats. Write their politics, their history, their triumphs, their failures, their religions, their sciences... everything you can think of. The more detailed, the better.

Then, take about a month (or longer), and just wait. Stew on your peoples for a while. Get comfortable with who they are, and what they're about. If necessary (it will be necessary), revise what you have written.

Now, and no sooner, should you start to think about statistics and mechanics. Things should begin to suggest themselves to you easily, based on what you already have written. You'll get a sense about what needs to be represented by attribute bonuses, what needs to be represented by feats, and what doesn't need to be represented by any sort of number whatsoever.

It is my belief that fitting the numbers to a preexisting narrative is easier than doing it the other way around, and gets you a more natural-feeling result.

You may find (or not) that with sufficiently detailed cultures, the fluff will be sufficient to distinguish them from each other, and you won't need to bother with mechanics at all.

I'm of the opinion that you really shouldn't need to give them mechanical differences. The human (player race) is supposed to represent enough variety to encompass all possible humans. I'd definitely rule out ability mods on those grounds. Besides, that sort of thing can lead to some players picking a nationality based on the class they want to play (playing a fighter, choose a nationality with a Str benefit, yo).

As for skill benefits/penalties, I tend to feel the same as some above posters. It's hard to justify every person in an entire culture learning something regardless of his other background. If you want something, give each nationality an extra class skill regardless of current class to represent having the potential to have learned the skill, though not necessarily locking them into doing so.

I'd say let the PCs choose their nationality, give them information on what kinds of things go on there, and trust them to build appropriate characters.

As always the people on this board have been extremely helpful. I have decided that i am going to create a variant on regional feats that works with the system that I am creating, at some point the will be added to my system post. Agian thanks for the help.

I have these suggestions.

First of all for professions/classes you could have bonuses given to nations that specialize in things. For instance let's say we were doing a medieval nation, Venice. A Venetian sailor might have extra bonuses over a sailor from say Switzerland, simply because he has grown up in an environment that makes it easy to learn about.

Bear in mind that what is wanted is simplification; players may once they're really used to a system try to tweak the rules for the fun of it, but in the meantime what you want is to be able to say "Okay, I'm from nation X and I'm a rogue. What bonuses do I get for that?" If humanity has overwhelming influence versus the usually D&D hodgepodge of races then yes, you do want the races to have some distinction.

So I'd say that you should consider what the advantages of being born to certain social classes and certain regions gives you. If you are playing in the Renaissance for instance and you start off as an Inuit you're not going to have the same advantages as a horseman as say a Hungarian or a Spaniard.

I use a skill based system with specific schools providing the skill modifiers.  One of the reasons I went such a proximate (within-area) system is that our current view of nations is actually quite new, and that in medieval or Renaissance comparable times (or ming, cathaginian, etc), the rate of travel, both in terms of speed and frequency, makes the idea of national-level feat or ability adjustments far-fetched without help from 'above' (or below).  I would recomend making them area based, with emphasis on the city.

Tybalt's medieval Venice versus Switzerland is apt for this.  During much of Venice's pre-ren City-statehood, and later Rebublic, Switzerland was actually a confederation of states.  Both power bases were actually based on the city, as were most.  A Renaissance response to the question of allegiances would bring a city-specific answer first in most cases.  And in terms of ability and feat specific adjustments, I'd admit it a bit more difficult,  but I'd tie them, at least to some degree, to a city or province.  
I echo Tybalt here; 'A Venetian sailor might have extra bonuses over a sailor from say Switzerland, simply because he has grown up in an environment that makes it easy to learn about.'  But I put emphasis on most of our character's growing up in a city or town more than a nation.

Quote from: TybaltI have these suggestions.

First of all for professions/classes you could have bonuses given to nations that specialize in things. For instance let's say we were doing a medieval nation, Venice. A Venetian sailor might have extra bonuses over a sailor from say Switzerland, simply because he has grown up in an environment that makes it easy to learn about.

Bear in mind that what is wanted is simplification; players may once they're really used to a system try to tweak the rules for the fun of it, but in the meantime what you want is to be able to say "Okay, I'm from nation X and I'm a rogue. What bonuses do I get for that?" If humanity has overwhelming influence versus the usually D&D hodgepodge of races then yes, you do want the races to have some distinction.

So I'd say that you should consider what the advantages of being born to certain social classes and certain regions gives you. If you are playing in the Renaissance for instance and you start off as an Inuit you're not going to have the same advantages as a horseman as say a Hungarian or a Spaniard.

Quote from: LordVreegI use a skill based system with specific schools providing the skill modifiers.  One of the reasons I went such a proximate (within-area) system is that our current view of nations is actually quite new, and that in medieval or Renaissance comparable times (or ming, cathaginian, etc), the rate of travel, both in terms of speed and frequency, makes the idea of national-level feat or ability adjustments far-fetched without help from 'above' (or below).  I would recomend making them area based, with emphasis on the city.

Tybalt's medieval Venice versus Switzerland is apt for this.  During much of Venice's pre-ren City-statehood, and later Rebublic, Switzerland was actually a confederation of states.  Both power bases were actually based on the city, as were most.  A Renaissance response to the question of allegiances would bring a city-specific answer first in most cases.  And in terms of ability and feat specific adjustments, I'd admit it a bit more difficult,  but I'd tie them, at least to some degree, to a city or province.  
I echo Tybalt here; 'A Venetian sailor might have extra bonuses over a sailor from say Switzerland, simply because he has grown up in an environment that makes it easy to learn about.'  But I put emphasis on most of our character's growing up in a city or town more than a nation.

Thank you for the suggestions, with both of your examples I think I am going to create a more city-state focused template. Right now the templates will not have ability score changes but grant extra abilities bases on the city. I think the 'city-state template' well resemble the combat techniques system I am working on, yes I know that sounds very weird but you can look at examples of what I am trying to do here:
Here

I personally do as Luminous suggests and then write each culture or ethnic group (that is decided to deserve mechanical uniqueness) as a separate race.

Most things I would've suggested have already been mentioned, but:

Why not try creating nationalities based on what their enemies/allies see them as? You could of course allow regional feats to do this. Your character from a nationality notorious for their big, strong warriors might have the option of taking a feat with a +2 Str and a -4 to Diplomacy, even if in reality most people from that region aren't big, scary warriors that are impossible to negotiate with.

The base +2 bonuses to this skill or that skill due to familiarity with something in a given region isn't all that bad, but you might want to make these more around what sort of terrain and civilization they're in rather than what race they are if you use this (unless all of these nations are conveniently confined to one primary terrain type, such as one in the desert and one at sea etc.).

You could also expand on things mentioned about allegiances and give bonuses based on these, though they might change occasionally(sometimes without the PCs knowing depending on circumstance), and might just be better if improvised as you DM.

Quote from: JaercI personally do as Luminous suggests and then write each culture or ethnic group (that is decided to deserve mechanical uniqueness) as a separate race.

I'm already doing that, but thanks for the suggestion and the post.

Quote from: SovietTrollMost things I would've suggested have already been mentioned, but:

Why not try creating nationalities based on what their enemies/allies see them as? You could of course allow regional feats to do this. Your character from a nationality notorious for their big, strong warriors might have the option of taking a feat with a +2 Str and a -4 to Diplomacy, even if in reality most people from that region aren't big, scary warriors that are impossible to negotiate with.

The base +2 bonuses to this skill or that skill due to familiarity with something in a given region isn't all that bad, but you might want to make these more around what sort of terrain and civilization they're in rather than what race they are if you use this (unless all of these nations are conveniently confined to one primary terrain type, such as one in the desert and one at sea etc.).

You could also expand on things mentioned about allegiances and give bonuses based on these, though they might change occasionally(sometimes without the PCs knowing depending on circumstance), and might just be better if improvised as you DM.

That is an interesting idea I'll have to give it some thought. As of right now I am thinking along the lines of this.

One of my city states, Issilmar, is a theocracy. Therefore Issilmar's nationality would be a theocrat. The template would have a mixture of some knowledge skills, leadership bonuses, and bonuses for fellow members of the character faith. The character would spend xp (the medium by which all abilities in my system are purchase) to gain the template and doesn't have to purchase it if he does not want to.