# Got culture?



## Psion (Dec 2, 2002)

It seems to me that the prevailing model in D&D is simple western/eurocentric model with perhaps a few chivalric values thrown in. Though I do throw a few extra tidbits in (frex, the two major cultures have differing ideals on social proprietry and gender identity, and there is a hidden code duello I have instituted), it occurs to me that I could certainly do better in this department, perhaps giving each major nation a few cultural values and customs that stand out.

What do you all do in your games to help make the cultures of differing nations stand out? Any dining customs, cultural viewpoints, etc., that help make different nations and subcultures stand out?


----------



## BiggusGeekus@Work (Dec 2, 2002)

It's been my experience that the "flavor" doesn't translate very well into the player's minds as a cultrual consideration.  I do have those things, but I find that re-enforcing them with the old standbys (feats, skills, spells, PrCs) that are only available to certain cultures wieghs a lot more in their minds.

One way I managed to acheive this was by putting in feats that are only available at 1st level that are mildly overpowered but had penalties associated with them and then made sure to describe the reason behind those penalties.  For example, a PC from country A meets an NPC from country B.  I remind the player that country B is a bunch of rustics and that he has a -2 penalty to deal with them becuase they aren't worth his time.  Bang!  Role-play ensues.  I don't get as much of a player reaction when I tell them things that have no effect on the numbers.  

Of course, this could just be my group or my DMing style.


----------



## Gez (Dec 2, 2002)

Although overall rather western-flavored, I think none of my homebrew's culture are really like anything on Earth. Or, that would seems like a blend of so many things at once you don't know what it actually is.


----------



## Drawmack (Dec 2, 2002)

I give every character an extra feet at first level. They must take a bloodline feet with that feet. My blood line feets all have a +2 and  a -2 to one skill. On top of this I institute locality abilities. These are things that the players get for free because of where they are from. For example someone from Freeport gets 1 rank of swim for free.

But yes I agree, put numbers on it.


----------



## Wulf Ratbane (Dec 2, 2002)

Drawmack said:
			
		

> *
> I give every character an extra feet at first level. They must take a bloodline feet with that feet. My blood line feets all have a +2 and  a -2 to one skill. On top of this I institute locality abilities. These are things that the players get for free because of where they are from. For example someone from Freeport gets 1 rank of swim for free.
> 
> But yes I agree, put numbers on it.
> *




You could kick a lot of ass with that many feets.


Wulf


----------



## Psion (Dec 2, 2002)

Hmmm... I'm really not into this put numbers on it sort of thing. Not that I am against regional feats or the like -- it only makes sense to me.

More, I am looking for customs that would stand out to visitors, or would make for potential stotyline material. For example, see the Chinese Take-out story hour. In the Heian empire, elves and humans are both regarded equally, but hybrids are considered something of an abomination and the half-elves in the party are forced to travel hooded, much to their chagrin. No numbers, but definite impact on the game.


----------



## mythago (Dec 2, 2002)

I think with different cultures, you need to avoid the 31 Flavors problem, where one kingdom is like 12th century Europe but its next-door neighbor is like Tokugawa Japan, etc.

As for cultural aspects, it helps to look at the history and religion. Perhaps the country was once governed by a terrible, evil half-elf tyrant, and people came to believe that it was the mixing of human and elf that made him a madman--thus 'hybrids' are shunned. 

Now, this is not to say that the people of your mythic nation will know why their culture is the way it is, and have good, articulatable reasons for it. (Maybe only a few scholars know about Emperor Kharg the Mad Half-elf; the average joe doesn't know WHY he shudders with disgust at the notion of a hybrid, it's just the way things are.)


----------



## Benben (Dec 2, 2002)

*All over the place.*

Mine campaign is generally Western flavoured with a few twists.

*Enforcement of Culture by crunchy bits:*
I enforce cultural changes, through feats like Forgotten Realms does, in fact I steal liberally from their feat least.  

I also have regional variants of rangers: horse nomads, bow masters, and defensive hoplites.  I accomplis this by swapping out the virtual feats of ambidexterity & two-weapon fighting for one of these three sets: mounted combat & mounted archery, point blank shot and precise shot; and finally dodge and expertise.  

My kobolds, one of the most important races in the Southern lands (Think Arabic) have a variant druid who deals with vermin instead of animals.

Monks, which I also call Mythic Heroes, are like rangers in that they have variants.  Northern monks are master wrestlers, Isle Elf (think Classical Greek) monks favor holds and joint locks, Orkaan monks favor throws, et cetera.  I do this by swapping out the stunning attacks, deflect arrows, and improved trip abilites for different feats detailed in Oriental Adventures.

Religion plays a critical part in my campaign world too.  Every region has a very different religion, and I let that shape the politics and the moores of the region.  This means strict control of domains and clerical prestige classes.  I also have a couple of regions of anti-theists.  In these regions I dumped a lot more healing spells into the bard spell lists and let them become the spiritual center for these lands.  My Arabic-esque lands rotate around the wisdom of the sufi poets, and my Greek-esque elves follow the wisdom of the philosopher-kings.

*Noncruncy enforcement of flavour:*
Naming conventions.   I use real-world languages to name the various characters and places in the game.  Each region gets a language or a set of languages, depending on the vastness of said region.  People from my Heartlands are given French, German, Italian, Dutch, English, or German names.   My Kobolds all have Farsi names.  My Dwarves are given Finnish names.  And my Orks get to pick from Russion or Mongolian names.  

I've found that doing so helps give and immidiate flavour to a region, and lets me crib on some cultural tidbits when I have to.


----------



## Sammael99 (Dec 2, 2002)

I try to make PCs feel cultural shifts through interaction with NPCs and description of their environment. For example, there have been two baronies in my campaign where the characters have spent time. In one of them the people tend to mistrust smooth talk, magic, politics and are generally grumpy. It's a harsh mountain land and their personality reflects this. In another barony, more a crossroad of many commercial routes, the people are very affable, will barter for most anything and are fairly greedy. 

Overall, this works well, as long as the environment is adjusted accordingly. However, cultural personalities have to be caricatured to come accross since we're not spending real-time with the people...

So IMC, no crunch, just fluff !


----------



## I'm A Banana (Dec 2, 2002)

Everything Benben said?

Do that.


----------



## Psion (Dec 2, 2002)

*Re: All over the place.*



			
				Benben said:
			
		

> *I also have regional variants of rangers: horse nomads, bow masters, and defensive hoplites.  I accomplis this by swapping out the virtual feats of ambidexterity & two-weapon fighting for one of these three sets:*




Gee, I do exactly that, though my rangers have 4 sets of feats to choose from.


----------



## Desdichado (Dec 2, 2002)

In my experience, building cultures is often more of a DM excercise, and getting players to really buy into cultural details can be difficult unless you just pick a few things and point them out many times.  So I do the following:
A lot of cultural values such as gender roles, education, literacy, mobility, etc. are much more modern than they are medieval.  Players naturally think that way, so to ease the transition, their characters probably do to.
For humans I have mocked up some backgrounds that give a small mechanical bonus (like making a skill a class skill for that character regardless of actual class taken, for example) and access to background feats, much like _Forgotten Realms, Oriental Adventures_ and _The Wheel of Time Roleplaying Game_ do.  In fact, I borrowed a lot of those feats.
Included with those backgrounds is a very small description of the region, including what people there dress like, what a few of their standout customs are, and a prestige class that, in some way or another, typifies that region, or adds flavor.  I don't necessarily ever expect a PC to take one of those prestige classes, but they do help to show in a concrete way what the regional culture is all about.
I detail smaller customs now and then as needed, and inform my players ahead of time.  Really, though, the goal (I think) is not to burden the players with information overload on the cultural mores they'll have to deal with in-game -- it's better to just stick to a few practices that stand out and just let everything else be standard and expected.  Or, as desired, to add occasional flavor.
You can see what I did by clicking on the weirdo face in my sig-file.  The web-page is woefully incomplete, but I do have the races and backgrounds pages up, which gives just enough info to get started with making characters.


----------



## Jürgen Hubert (Dec 2, 2002)

Having distinctive cultures is important for a good fantasy setting, and I've tried to put some thought into it for Urbis. Some of the various societies are clearly based on real-world cultures, while others have no real equivalent in our world. Here is what I have come up with so far:

- Atalus is a cross between Venice, Constantinople, and Rome - just with more people.   

- Avareen could be called a "fairy kingdom" - lots of elves and fey creatures, and (as in the fairy tales I am aiming for) humans are hunted for sport rather than being accepted as equals.

- The Desert of Thunder has no real-world equivalent, though some parts of the Sahara desert come close. I primarily wanted to explore what a realm ruled by blue dragons would look like.

- The Eternal Storm has a nice Gold Rush atmosphere - and the "battle against the Elements" should be taken quite literally here...

- The Flannish Cities are mostly based on Northern Germany and the Dutch low-lands from the Renaissance to the Industrial Revolution, with a good deal of architectural megalomania thrown in.

- The Gawaris Desert is basically Arabian Nights territory.

- Gol Algor: Steampunk dwarves and gnomes. Need I say more?   

- Gol Grungor: The "traditional" dwarven kingdom.

- Gol Murak: The "Kingdom under Siege".

- The Great Southern Chaos: This one is dedicated to all people everywhere who dwell in swamps...

- Hamajan Mountains: Mythical Tibet and environs.

- The Hobgoblin Dominions: I tried to work out here how a militaristic nonhuman society would develop...

- The Lake of Dreams: A mixture of ancient Egypt, Babylon, Greece, and H. P. Lovecraft's Dreamlands.

- The Lands of the Dead: Mythical Transsilvania, with a few groups of necromancers thrown in.

- League of Armach: The Roman Empire probably comes closest, though any aggressively expansionist realm will do.

- Narevoreen : The mythical "Enchanted Islands to the West".

- The Norrfjell Wastes: Northern Scandinavia.

- Parginian Rim: Renaissance Italy.

- The Siebenbund: Switzerland - if it had been inhabited by halflings.   

- Snake Kingdoms: Tropical jungles full of savage-but-civilized monsters - complete with bizarre breeding practices... 

- Star Mountains: Terror Icognita crossed with the starport in French Guiana.

- The Worlds Beyond: The solar system, as written by H. P. Lovecraft.


To sum it up, I've tried to give each region a distinctive culture and character.

And there are still a few regions that I want to detail...


----------



## Galfridus (Dec 2, 2002)

I use vignettes -- for each culture I think of one or more daily RPG activities which would be markedly different (renting a room, buying a sword, passing through the city gates, etc.), and then play out that activity with enough detail to emphasize the difference. That tends to get the idea across quickly while also providing ample opportunities for roleplay and PC screwup--er, plot developments.


----------



## Corey (Dec 2, 2002)

My players have really only encountered one of my world's cultures so far.  It is a tribal system where revenge and hospitality are the two main pillars of society.

Revenge, eye for an eye style, is easy to integrate into play.  Kill (or even physically injure) someone from another tribe and all their relatives will come for you.  Its great because the players are forced to deal with several problems without resorting to violence.

The hospitality aspect is mostly flavor so far.  If you ask for hospitality it will in most cases be granted and you get to stay with your host, under his tribe's protection, for three days no questions asked.  Saves lots on taverns could be bad if you off someone who is protected. 

Please see my story hour for more details:
Aryana- Slayers of the Eldritch 

Corey


----------



## fusangite (Dec 3, 2002)

I find describing people's outfits makes a big difference, especially those of people with ceremonial positions. Banquet and inn food is another highly effective way of transmitting culture. Preferences for recreational drugs is another. In some of the above cases, one can even emulate these things to a small degree for the game (I had my pickled herring episode a few weeks ago). 

A society's central sources of starch and sugar is another big one as it often determines the type of alcohol, the shape of food and what the rural countryside looks like. 

Most importantly, the best way to build a culture is to determine 1-3 variables about the culture and then develop it based on what the implications of ideas in one sphere has for others. For instance, if there are no gods of food except a hunting god, chances are that the society is or has been until recently pastoral or hunter-gatherer. Given that they're living in cities, what does that say? Perhaps it suggests that they are the barbarians who invaded the city and threw out the ancient empire... And you're off.

Another way to really situate some in a culture is to force people to play out their 'gather information' rolls. What truth is valued and where it is found tell you a lot about a culture.


----------



## willpax (Dec 3, 2002)

As others have pointed out, you should always emphasize religious differences and NPC attitudes based on region and other factors. If you keep playing out various atittudes, your players will become more sensitive to it. 

You should also try to lavishly develop and describe whatever aspects you want the players to respond to. If the players see you putting effort into it, they can usually intuit that it is important. 

One simple change I implement that hasn't been mentioned: ditch the common tongue. I have a language system in which there are several language families. The first language in any family is either native or learned at doubel skill point cost; related languages are then learned at the regular cost. (For example: there are many parts of my world that are the fragments of an ancient Roman-style empire; all of those languages are related to each other, so learning one makes learning others easier. It doesn't help with the very different languages of the western coastal areas, however). It is especially nice to make to big villians speak a language unknown to the players; it makes the "asking for a password" scene so much fun!


----------



## Warmaster_Horus (Dec 3, 2002)

*Alternate Settings...*

I've got a couple that I have as a concept and other tried ones. 

A post apocalypse world. Not like the Mad Max movies or Fallout, though they are pretty good setting too. What I had in mind was like a nattural disaster happened and the gods, or god, did not stop it. Result is that the advanced culture has devolved into barbarism, and savagery. One or two bastions of civilisation reamin but they are too few. 

Another one is a land where there were terrible warws millenia ago. Where Men and Machines Contructed by men used forbidden technologies and weapons against each other until the mahcines were defeated. But the Price was too high, the world was nearly destroyed too, and what few people that remained decided to abolish those ancient technologies/magicks and start anew. In the millenia that followed, the different civilisations came to be like your generic D&D world. But deep underground or high in the sky, the technology/magick/machines from those terrible wars still remain, but forgotten. Anyone who wittingly or unwittingly activating one can gain great power or create another series of catastrophic Wars. 

I use this setting in one of my groups actually, and so far it worked great. My players are having real fun, and when they first saw the forbidden sign of the Nuclear Fire in one of the forgotten underground complexes, they really freaked out.

Another great setting is the galaxy of the Warhammer 40K game. As long as you don't go overboard with stuff like Space Marines, Super duper aliens, and keep the gothic feeling in the game, you'll have great fun with this one. This actually has been my favorite DMing experience yet.

Another idea is a setting untouched by human hands yet. All the players and such are members of the elder races in a very high druidic and clerical magic and fantasy land. There are no gods or such but the races revere nature as a whole, both its life giving and destroying sides. Magic essentially comes from nature but there are no practitioners of arcane magic(elves' favored class is druid) However the stars tell the coming of a great evil and a coming doom for the world. Weirdly enough in the remote corners of the world new creatures are emerging, the likes of which were not seen before. Creatures that are like the elves or dwarves but bigger built and not so fixated upon one central idea of life. Creatures that have pitifully short life spans, and worship strange beings. They call themselves men, and wield a kind of magic that was not seen before in the world. A magic that does not come from the land but from somewhere else. And with the arrival of the good and nutral newcomers, come those bearing the darkness as well....

Well these are some of the ideas I have right now, I'll post more when I come up with others.


----------



## Sanackranib (Dec 3, 2002)

*cultural diversity*

one small way that has been overlooked is the "local food"
I run my game in Darakeene (scarred lands) the food here is both simple and plain. (the dwarf thinks its fine. everyone else thinks that the dward thinks gruel has taste so they don't exactly count his opinion on food very high). they have heard of a place to the south that has exotic and spicy food (zathaski) food can play a big part of your local culture.


----------



## kenjib (Dec 3, 2002)

One thing that is often overlooked is that territorial borders and cultural groups usually do not coincide perfectly.  In my homebrew I've been writing up cultures seperately from nations.  This device allows me more freedom in defining interesting cultures.  Two abbreviated examples:

The Prala:  A people forced on an exodus from their homeland long ago, they are now known as the river people.  Poor gypsies, thieves, and beggars, the Prala exist in the margins, mostly along the waterways of the great inland sea.  They endure great prejudice wherever they go.  They exist in travelling bands throughout the Central Kingdoms, but the two most well known permanent settlements are the city of tents, a shantytown outside the western wall of the largest city in the world, and the floating city, a constantly shifting city of boats tied together in a river as it runs through another major city in a different nation.  Both of these serve as very active black markets, allowed to thrive because they serve convenient purposes to their host cities.

The Malaccans/Malacalos:  Once a great cultural center of art and romantic ideals, Malacca has long been embroiled in a devastating civil war, and within Malacca proper only the oldest generation now alive still keeps alive the old romantic ideals of their heritage.  The younger generations are jaded and cynical.  Many bohemian immigrants have fled Malacca and travelled across the world, often achieving great status as celebrated musicians and artists in foreign lands.  The Malaccan cultural group, however, extends across the northern Malaccan border into a neighboring nation.  These people who live across the national border are called the Malacalos.  Living in a region that is still safe and prosperous, the Malacalos as a whole still live according to the older traditions and ideals.  While the homeland, once a great cultural center, withers, the Malacalos still flourish.  Thus the cultural center of this group is starting to shift from the traditional homeland due to the civil war.

Here also would be included food, dress, architecture, religion, language, lifestyle, etc.  Multiple cultural groups can exist in the same area.

By contrast, nations are described as the political and military bodies that govern a given territory.

In terms of fluff, both of these examples give characters strong archetypes to play off of if they choose -- the travelling vagabond gypsy and the bohemian artist (with a repressed chivalrous streak ala Don Quixote), but of course the player is free to deviate at will.

For reinforcing the cultural traits, I came up with something very similar to the d20 Modern profession mechanism.  I was actually surprised when d20 Modern came out and was so close to what I was doing.  Based on culture, every character gets a couple of skills that are considered class skills for all classes they take.  If the class they take at 1st level already has a given skill, they may choose a +1 competance bonus in that skill instead.

According to this system, someone who comes from the Prala culture might want to be a rogue because they would gain +1 bonuses to bluff and pick pockets.  Someone who decides to be a Prala, but chooses a different class, can still be good at bluff and pick pockets, which makes them more rogue-like, regardless of their class.  Thus, all Prala characters can choose their own path freely but have incentives toward a certain direction.  I like how this works out.


----------



## Sanackranib (Dec 3, 2002)

*prala*

Can you post further info on the Prala? I have always been fasinated by gypsies but don't know a whole lot about them and I would very much like to enclude them in my game/player backgrounds etc.


----------



## jdavis (Dec 3, 2002)

Fleshing out trade and geography helps, We have a Island in our campaign with one major city on it, it is famous for it's Ironwood forest and the giant swamp that takes up most of the rest of the island. The culture of the island is largely based on the fact that fresh red meat is hard to come by, as is metal, but Iron wood is plentiful here, but rare everywhere else. The City started to take on a sort of New Orleans type feel. Lots of trade and lots of odd people who live in the swamp.


----------



## Sanackranib (Dec 3, 2002)

*swamp dwellers*

sounds cool can you post more about the place ad folks who life there?


----------



## jdavis (Dec 3, 2002)

*Re: swamp dwellers*



			
				Sanackranib said:
			
		

> *sounds cool can you post more about the place ad folks who life there? *




I had a 4 page word document on the island but the computer ate it.

The Main city set at the northern end of the island surrounding a large bay, on one side of the bay was the lower class fishermen and a Halfling community, The other side was all docks and the merchant class. The southern end of the city was flooded in by the swamp, lots of people lived on small islands and got around with flat bottomed boats. The swamp was full of Lizard men so people tendednot to wander. There were several traders who knew the swamp and would trade with the Lizard men, which was a risky proposition. While it was illeagal it wasn't unheard of for people to disapear from town and be traded to the Lizard men (they had a taste for Halflings). The Lizard men worshipped the long dead corpse of a Black Dragon, so they had treasure to spare, of course most of the stuff wasn't considered valuable to them. The lizard men were constantly at war with other monsterous races that lived in the Volcanic mountain ranges that made up the Southern tip of the island, so they pretty much left the city in peace. People who lived in the swamp and talked about the lizard men not being that bad were considered a odd lot by those who lived in the more northern parts of the town. The Northern Part of town was full of wealthy merchants and trade guilds. Magic was regulated by a local guild and a unregestered spell caster was considered a criminal. There was also a local law that allowed temples to any god to be built as long as they were not openly hostile. This led to alot of odd worship habits of the wealthy. It was common knowledge that things happened behind closed doors that were better off not being talked about.  There was alot more to it that I cannot remember off the top of my head. I remember it was real hard for the Paladin in the group as he could sense evil around him but was forbidden to act to stop it unless it became actively hostile. The place had a sort of decadent charm to it


----------



## s/LaSH (Dec 3, 2002)

As far as cultures go, I'm kinda spoiled... I DM a medieval Earth setting. That makes things very easy... or does it?

The elves live in northern Europe; they were the ones that sacked Rome, and many of them still remember it. That's one quick culture point.

The orcs live in eastern Europe and northern Asia. They wear furs and have cossack-style dances, which is cool. (The PCs loved it.)

The gnolls come from beyond the Congo, and have converted to Islam. So you've got these hideous massive man-dog beasts that could tear you limb from limb, and instead they police the marketplace or work on mathematics. (Actually, I haven't got any gnollish mathematicians in there yet... I'll have to do that, because at the time Islam was more advanced than anyone else.)

The Mer (any aquatic race that doesn't eat people is a Mer race) show up from time to time when you're sailing, exchange conversation, maybe trade a little. Some of them come on land to trade, so you can see a blue man in a booth on the docks selling valuable shells, for example. (It's like trading glass beads to the natives, heheh.) They're the only non-historical realm in the piece, but they stay strictly neutral and are naturally separate from terrestrial realms.

Dragons... if they're known in a region, they're a power base and leadership rolled into one. It gives a culture stability, I'll say that. "Hi, I'm Razinus Peralin. I once ate a Roman legion. Do you still want to cause trouble in my town?"


----------



## hong (Dec 3, 2002)

s/LaSH said:
			
		

> *
> The elves live in northern Europe; they were the ones that sacked Rome, and many of them still remember it. That's one quick culture point.*




_*Goth Elves Must Die!*_


----------



## Psion (Dec 3, 2002)

willpax said:
			
		

> *One simple change I implement that hasn't been mentioned: ditch the common tongue.*




Oh, that's a given...

IMC, I have a trade tongue that is a mish-mash of the languages of the two major human cultural blocks in the region that is used in the east, but you can't expect anyone to know it in the west or on other continents.


----------



## Psion (Dec 3, 2002)

*Re: Alternate Settings...*



			
				Warmaster_Horus said:
			
		

> *I've got a couple that I have as a concept and other tried ones.
> 
> A post apocalypse world...
> 
> ...




Somehow I don't think you understood the fundamental question of the thread. All this stuff is good if we were looking for setting ideas. The thread is about ideas for cultural traits, which is a somewhat different question.


----------



## AngelTears (Dec 3, 2002)

I like using motifes

Like for Sturmsgård the human empire represents a very Nazi Germany's idolized mythology of its heritage, a Scandinavian-Germano-Romanic world. 

The Elvish Empire on the other hand is that of Art Deco with a lot of Celtic English/Welsh  mythology. Elvish culture is very staid, meaning that it changes very slowly, and consists of a lot of social underpinings.

Orkish civilization are basically the Gauls taken from Julius Ceasar's biography. Their are basically nomadic groups that are sudenly forced from the bronze age into the iron age.

So, where the human empire has mass produced equipment of low to middle quality. The Elves have very fine graceful high quality equipment, with a lot of intricate work put into it. Orks use bronze age equipment and captured human equipment.


----------

