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<blockquote data-quote="Dire Bare" data-source="post: 8064872" data-attributes="member: 18182">I'm joining the conversation late, so forgive me if I'm missing part of it or misunderstanding . . .I would not consider &quot;farmer&quot; as a culture, but rather as a background. There are certainly, IRL, cultural elements to being a farmer different from being raised in a more urban environment, but it's not usually what we are referring to when we speak of culture. It's not one-to-one, but culture rides along pretty well with language.For example, if I were raised on a farm IRL, I might describe myself culturally as American, or perhaps some sort of hyphenated-American if I strongly identified with a subculture or immigrant culture. My background would be farmer, and because of that I may have developed certain traits like increased strength compared to others. But that increased strength, while somewhat based in my real experience, is also exaggerated socially and certainly doesn't apply to everyone raised on a farm. And, of course, how much of a difference is there really? Especially compared to other backgrounds that emphasize physical training?I wouldn't object to ASIs in a D&amp;D-style game being assigned by background. All farmers get a +1 to strength. But I would prefer a more fluid system with a &quot;floating&quot; ASI bonus to assign. For example, you might get two &quot;+1&quot; bonuses to assign to any stat you want, but certain backgrounds, and perhaps certain cultures, have preferences for where those bonuses go. As a German-American farmer, I can put my &quot;+1&quot; bonuses to any stat I want to best embody how I see my character's background, but the game might tell me that farmers often put one of those bonuses to strength due to the physical demands of farming.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Dire Bare, post: 8064872, member: 18182"] I'm joining the conversation late, so forgive me if I'm missing part of it or misunderstanding . . . I would not consider "farmer" as a culture, but rather as a background. There are certainly, IRL, cultural elements to being a farmer different from being raised in a more urban environment, but it's not usually what we are referring to when we speak of culture. It's not one-to-one, but culture rides along pretty well with language. For example, if I were raised on a farm IRL, I might describe myself culturally as [I]American[/I], or perhaps some sort of [I]hyphenated-American[/I] if I strongly identified with a subculture or immigrant culture. My background would be [I]farmer[/I], and because of that I may have developed certain traits like increased strength compared to others. But that increased strength, while somewhat based in my real experience, is also exaggerated socially and certainly doesn't apply to everyone raised on a farm. And, of course, how much of a difference is there really? Especially compared to other backgrounds that emphasize physical training? I wouldn't object to ASIs in a D&D-style game being assigned by background. All farmers get a +1 to strength. But I would prefer a more fluid system with a "floating" ASI bonus to assign. For example, you might get two "+1" bonuses to assign to any stat you want, but certain backgrounds, and perhaps certain cultures, have preferences for where those bonuses go. As a German-American farmer, I can put my "+1" bonuses to any stat I want to best embody how I see my character's background, but the game might tell me that farmers often put one of those bonuses to strength due to the physical demands of farming. [/QUOTE]

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