The Campaign Builder's Guild

Quote from: XeviatThis thread has been a big help for me. I have long wanted to separate racial stats from cultural stats, and I started to write my descriptions with the two being separate. The only difficult part has been when describing a culture in such a way to include non-native races, as part of the mechanics was supposed to allow someone to play a dwarf who grew up in human lands, for instance.

Well ideally, there shouldn't be anywhere called 'human lands.' A culture, to me, is tied very strongly to the land, not to the people. They bring it with them, certainly, but the land dictates a lot of the culture. The kind of things that are hardwired into the race (to steal Scholar's example, a high metabolism) will show through underneath.

Then, it's simply a case of taking X racial features and bolting them in underneath Y regional culture to produce Z personality and tradition for whatever group you're making.

Quote from: XeviatI have been looking for ways to shave down my entries. Any thoughts on a restricted number of topic headings for culture entries in a Character chapter? I need to limit them to something small so new players can read over them quickly.

Perhaps instead of cutting headings, you abridge the information underneath it? For instance, I could probably turn every heading under my nations, and probably all of my races, into two sentences, making the entire brief for a given nation maybe half a page.

Quote from: XeviatI have been looking for ways to shave down my entries. Any thoughts on a restricted number of topic headings for culture entries in a Character chapter? I need to limit them to something small so new players can read over them quickly.

i guess you already know that, but focus on those aspects as will come up during regular play. reading a one page essay on the courtship traditions of the Gold Elves of Lireánderamal might be interesting, but it is totally pointless in a game that focuses on killing things and taking their stuff. Maybe have some bullet points of the three biggest do's and don'ts of a culture, here's an example from some of my notes:
- Always address superiors or strangers with their title, never with their name unless specifically asked to do so. If you do not know their title, choose an appropriate honorific.
- Always ask permission before entering a building for the first time to appease the spirits that dwell in the walls
- Always follow a verbal or written contract to the letter.
- Never unsheathe a weapon without the express purpose of shedding blood, its warspirit will be angry if it is woken, but not fed.
- Never eat in the presence of strangers and/or persons of the opposite gender unless they are related to you by blood or oath.
- Never seek combat on holy days.

Quote from: Stargate525Well ideally, there shouldn't be anywhere called 'human lands.' A culture, to me, is tied very strongly to the land, not to the people. They bring it with them, certainly, but the land dictates a lot of the culture.

Eh, but lets look at fantasy races as human ethnicities in the real world. We have French lands, Italian lands, German lands, Spanish lands, and English lands. Largely, these people have unifying physical characteristics, in addition to a unified culture. Sure, some people migrate, but they are easily recognizable as "Englishman living in France" for a couple of generations at least, until they interbreed enough.

If a human nation in a fantasy world is sufficiently prejudiced, or sufficiently unified at the very least, their country will be "human lands" on a small scale map. Heck, there could be a number of nations that are collectively "human lands", simply because humans are the dominant species and control the government.

Cultures will be tied to races until it is closer to the modern times and beyond as far as timelines go. It takes a long time for ethnic groups to blend into a new culture. America, for all our vaunted melting-pot-ness, is still dominated by European Christian culture, and we've had over 200 years to blend.

And if interbreeding between fantasy races is very minimal (like in D&D where there are half-elves and tieflings right now), you're really not going to see a whole lot in the way of cultural blending very fast.

basically, culture is social while race is physiological.

Quote from: Leetzbasically, culture is social while race is physiological.

Not always. As mentioned before, if a race was physiologically vegetarians, it would be in their culture to grow only crops and not raise livestock. If an outside race became integrated into their culture, they'd be vegetarians too more than likely.

Quote from: Xeviat

Quote from: Leetzbasically, culture is social while race is physiological.

Not always. As mentioned before, if a race was physiologically vegetarians, it would be in their culture to grow only crops and not raise livestock. If an outside race became integrated into their culture, they'd be vegetarians too more than likely.

I'm not seeing how your argument proves otherwise. Culture is social, and can be adapted and changed, as you mentioned with the outside race integrating with the crop culture. Culture is influenced by race, obviously, but culture is never dependent on race.

That being said, sometimes race and culture can have the same defining word, but mean different things. The French people and the French culture are related, but are still two separate things. Just because you're born physiologically French does not automatically make you an adherent of French culture, and just because you're NOT born physiologically French does not mean you will never and cannot aspire to adhere to French culture.

Good luck explaining what "physiologically French" actually even means, too. :P

Quote from: sparkletwistGood luck explaining what "physiologically French" actually even means, too. :P

You are physiologically french... you have been born with the taste for escargot (+2 to exotic cuisine) and a penchant for wearing berets (+1 charisma while wearing a beret).

Quote from: sparkletwistGood luck explaining what "physiologically French" actually even means, too. :P

haha, well that's really besides the point. It's hard to give real-world examples because we are all the same species. But it still enforces the fact that race is physiological and culture is a mix of social aspects.

Quote from: Nomadic

Quote from: sparkletwistGood luck explaining what "physiologically French" actually even means, too. :P

You are physiologically french... you have been born with the taste for escargot (+2 to exotic cuisine) and a penchant for wearing berets (+1 charisma while wearing a beret).

You forgot -2 on saves vs. fear ... *rimshot*

Quote from: XeviatYou forgot -2 on saves vs. fear ... *rimshot*

This may veer drastically off-topic, but, I was watching "The Second World War in Colour" a month or two back, and found out something that completely changed my opinion of the 20th century French military - effectively destroying any credence I had previously given to the surrender-monkey stereotype.
In the opening stages of the war, when the Germans were invading France, they broke through allied lines and look like encircling both the BEF and about half the French army (the other half being immobile in the Maginot line to the east).
Following the grand tradition of vaguely panicked decision-making in British military command, we decide "bugger this, let's get out of here while we still have all our limbs." The BEF then set off for Dunkirk, and an evacuation across the channel. Meanwhile, what did the French do? They put on their war-moustaches, and said words to the effect of "Just go! I'll only slow you down anyway! I'll hold them off!" And proceeded to fight like the proverbial demons and die in droves so that we could make good our escape. One British officer of the time wrote in his journal, comparing the French actions to the Spartans at Thermopylae.
After that, with half their force destroyed, and German armour at the gates of Paris, the French army, still manning the Maginot line, thought to itself "hang on, what exactly are we defending? They're already behind us" and promptly surrendered - in the circumstances, probably the best choice under the circumstances.

I was amazed that I had never heard of this before. I suppose it just goes to show how your society treats its history -  we in Britian are probably not taught about the French dying so we could get away, cause it makes us look slightly bad.

Anyway... You may now continue with your scheduled thread.

That still doesn't excuse them of the fact that they built an impregnable wall against Germany which a) didn't extend far enough along the French border, and b) didn't protect the PLACE THE GERMANS CAME IN DURING WWI.

Quote from: Stargate525That still doesn't excuse them of the fact that they built an impregnable wall against Germany which a) didn't extend far enough along the French border, and b) didn't protect the PLACE THE GERMANS CAME IN DURING WWI.

I feel strange defending the French here, but a.) they did not originally build the Line along the Belgian border because they did not want to send an aggressive message to Belgium. Also, after Belgium declared neutrality, the French did start building the Line to the Channel. and b.) the Nazis came through a country - Belgium - that had claimed neutrality but didn't do much to halt the advance of the Reich. The king of Belgium surrendered much sooner than France did - one could argue that Belgium had a much weaker military at the time, but they also had much less territory to defend.