D&D (2024) How to import "race" flavor into D&D 2024 inclusively

[Corinnguard]

A culture is made out of jobs.

It's a lot more than that.

 

[CreamCloud0]

A culture is made out of jobs. Farmer, teacher, religious leader, tech engineer, politician, banker, artist celebrity, professional athlete, shopkeeper, etcetera. Backgrounds are the institutions of a culture.

a culture is not made out of jobs, a culture is made out of values, teachings and traditions, you don't get a culture out of being a city guard or a doctor, a culture might value those things but they are not made of them

 

[Yaarel]

It's a lot more than that.

Like what?

 

[Yaarel]

a culture is not made out of jobs, a culture is made out of values and traditions, you don't get a culture out of being a city guard or a doctor, a culture might value those things but they are not made of them

Yes, a culture transmits values. But who transmits these values? Parents, sacred community leaders and facilitators, police officers, teachers, fellow students. These are jobs, roles, and institutions.

And normally, the values are conflictive!

Example, in the Halfling flavor, both bravely getting into trouble and quietly avoiding trouble are strong conflicting values.


One does get a culture out of being a city guard or a doctor. The police and the medical sector are fundamental aspects of modern cultures.

 

[Corinnguard]

Like what?

CreamCloud0 just pointed it out a minute ago. A culture is made out of values and traditions commonly held by a population of individuals. Backgrounds are what those individuals do for a living and do to help their culture as a whole. But Backgrounds are just one thing influencing that culture. It's also being shaped by institutions such as the Arts and Religion, to name just two.

 

[CreamCloud0]

Yes, a culture transmits values. But who transmits these values? Parents, sacred community leaders and facilitators, police officers, teachers, fellow students. These are jobs, roles, and institutions.

And normally, the values are conflictive!

Example, in the Halfling flavor, both bravely getting into trouble and quietly avoiding trouble are strong conflicting values.


One does get a culture out of being a city guard or a doctor. The police and the medical sector are fundamental aspects of modern cultures.

the culture is more than just the sum of the individual jobs it contains, and the values taught by the institutions were shaped by the culture that came before them rather than the other way around,

the teachings any individual teacher or priest or doctor learn aren't dependant on their culture, those jobs exist in many cultures over, but the cultures that those jobs exist in vary wildly from each other.

 

[Yaarel]

CreamCloud0 just pointed it out a minute ago. A culture is made out of values and traditions commonly held by a population of individuals. Backgrounds are what those individuals do for a living and do to help their culture as a whole. But Backgrounds are just one thing influencing that culture. It's also being shaped by institutions such as the Arts and Religion, to name just two.

It is exclusively institutions that transmit values.

The first value that an institution transmits is to perpetuation the institution.

An institution that fails to transmit self-perpetuation, soon ceases to exist, along with any other values that it might have transmitted.

If one has a value, one typically learned it from an institution, or possibly antithetically developed the value in a negative response to an institution.

In any case, if one seeks to perpetuate this value into the future generation, one must utilize or build an institution.


Obviously "arts" and "religions" are PURELY institutions, including universities, museums, churches, synagogues, temples, shrines, ancestral burial grounds, etcetera.

 

[Corinnguard]

It is exclusively institutions that transmit values.

And institutions are made up of individuals who have their own sets of beliefs, values and traditions.

 

[Yaarel]

And institutions are made up of individuals who have their own sets of beliefs, values and traditions.

Those "traditions" are formed by institutions.

 

[Yaarel]

Every single "belief" that exists was INVENTED during history, in a specific historical context, at a certain point in time. An earlier belief can only exist today if an institution has perpetuated it.