What Makes a Fantasy Culture?

From the FRCS thread, I ask this: What makes a fantasy culture? Is it our western culture with a few flairs like Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time, China Mieville's Perdido Street Station, Brian Sanderson's Elantris or in gaming terms like Skyrealms of Jorune or do we go as far as M.A.R. Barker's Empire of the Petal Throne with its group marriages, multitude of artificial languages, customs down to hand signals, door signs, and how people talk about friendship and going to the restroom, and recipes for various kinds of food with regional variations? And if it is the first one, what is wrong with doing to same things with another culture? Why is it lazy to use another culture than taking our own and adding cultural elements from others, than to use another and take cultural elements from our own (really, which one requires more work and research)? What makes Waterdeep with its obvious Modern day cosmopolitianism with magic so rich and vibrant, but Skuld the City of Shadows with its Egyptian base just a crass rip off?

Achan hiArusa said:

What makes a fantasy culture?

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I doesn’t have to be “either/or” situation. Those are not exclusive options but rather different points on a spectrum of choices. Which point is selected depends on the tastes of the people building the setting and how much time and energy they invest in the creation of the artificial culture.

That said, I’ve often felt the cultures portrayed in D&D, regardless of edition, were at best bare bones. For most of these settings, there is little to no real sense of cultural, legal, artistic, etiquette or moral traditions or uniqueness. Only the names change, while almost everything else is a kind of pseudo-northern European and vaguely late middle ages setting. The settings seem to be little more than the painted canvas backdrops used in stage plays.

The Grumpy Celt said:

I doesn’t have to be “either/or” situation. Those are not exclusive options but rather different points on a spectrum of choices. Which point is selected depends on the tastes of the people building the setting and how much time and energy they invest in the creation of the artificial culture.

That said, I’ve often felt the cultures portrayed in D&D, regardless of edition, were at best bare bones. For most of these settings, there is little to no real sense of cultural, legal, artistic, etiquette or moral traditions or uniqueness. Only the names change, while almost everything else is a kind of pseudo-northern European and vaguely late middle ages setting. The settings seem to be little more than the painted canvas backdrops used in stage plays.

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Both work, but the former works "better". This makes stories easier to understand and games easier to RP.

I would say that starting with a familiar culture makes it harder to RP and get out of your everyday normal lives. The lack of disconnect keeps you from immersing yourself in the world.

What makes a fantasy culture, is what makes it evocative and memorable.

It could be based on a real culture, much like many standard fantasy cultures, or Rokugan or Zakhara. Or it could be further from one, like Sigil's vaguely industrial London multicultural city as a starting point. Or it could be something else that's very disconnected from any real culture, where everyone lives in a tribal society using symbionts from cracks out of the ground for learning ancient forbidden lore and resources.

A lot of it depends on how much people involved in the game too.

You might as well ask 'what makes one novel better than another'? It depends on the time and trouble taken with it, which is why Waterdeep probably seems more 'alive' than some other random city in the Realms. The more time you spend thinking about it, the more 'real' it's going to become.

A culture is as good as the stories it tells itself. Norse legend does not feel at all like Greek myth, but they are both compelling. English culture and myth took a huge leap forward with le Morte d' Arthur and The Lord of the Rings. You can do an interesting comparison of English and German culture by reading TLotR and Nibelungen side by side.

All real world cultures are "good cultures" from this thread's point of view because they have an established myth and story that explain the mysteries of life (How to face death; How to honor sacrifice; etc.). A good fantasy culture needs the same thing.

However, most fantasy authors (whether in a novel or campaign setting) don't want to present an exact replica of a real Earth culture. So, you have to change some stuff; maybe some new stuff, maybe some mix and match. But what's important is for the myth and legend of this new culture to match up with its new appearance. That's why Robort Jordan's world is so nice - the Myth of the Aiel (by which I mean, the stories the Aiel tell themselves to explain "What it means to be Aiel") well matches the wasteland warriors you meet in the story. Same for each of the cultures in those books. Even if The Two Rivers seemed a Shire-Without-Hobbits at first, the reawakening of the memories of what it meant to be "of Manatheran" and the rise of Perrin Goldeneyes put lie to that.

Further, cultures are not one-dimensional. You can have a factor or three which dominates a culture (as Water, Spice and Shai-Halud dominate Fremen culture), but within that there are many reasonable variations. Is the culture polygamous, monotheistic and vegetarian? Without going all Petal-Throne it's important to show that you've given some thought to the less important choices the culture has made, and not just the one or two "big ideas" that shape the culture. It's window dressing, but that doesn't make it unimportant.

So:
1. Some "big ideas" that shape a culture - whether geographical, historical or religious.
2. Twice as many "small but distinct ideas" that don't conflict with the big ideas.
3. Some good stories/themes/meanings that tie the culture together. You should be able to answer questions like "What does it mean to 'be Akrasian'?" How to they live, fight, die, work, love, marry, eat and laugh?

After that you can fill in small details like tech level and magic use. Frankly, they just don't matter that much. Because from a cultural point of view, a Samurai with a katana is 99% the same as a Samurai with a light saber or a +2 Flametongue. If you don't know what I mean by that, rent and watch Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai.