Culture in DND

[BiggusGeekus]

I'd argue that elven culture would be far slower to change and evolve than human culture, though, becuase of their long lives.

I guess that explains why all the elves seem to have 70's hair.

 

[MerakSpielman]

I guess that explains why all the elves seem to have 70's hair.

"Behold, brethren, this amazing hairstyle the Humans have accomplished!"

"Truly, this is a marvel. Our best hairdressers must master this technique. Then we can show the humans how much we honor and respect their cultural traditions, and bring lasting peace between our two races."

(100 years later)

"Hail Humans! To show our respect for your culture, we have all adopted your traditional hairstyle! We have worked long and hard to perfect the nuances of this art and finally we.... hey, how come none of you are wearing your hair like this? What was this, some kind of joke?"

"Hey, look at those dorky elves. They look like that ugly guy on those really old silver pieces. HAHAHAHA!"

(War ensues)

 

[jgbrowning]

[plug]Me and Suzi are working on A Magical Society: Ecology and Culture. Hopefully it will help people think about the physical environment and how what's available shapes culture. It's going to be an other "systhesis" work that will give GMs a bunch of information to fiddle with to help make memorable cultures and pseudo-realistic worlds. It should be out in April of this year.[/plug]

joe b.

 

[Hjorimir]

I take it you mean Ksatriya, the hindu warrior-caste?

Okay, I admit, if I hadn't studied Eastern Civ and Comparitive Religions in college I would know a lot less about them than I do, so you probably have a point there.

Accordingly the High caste Brahmins are supposed to go nearer to the God statue and can be a priest. If a Shatria (slightly lower caste than Brahmins) goes nearer to the statue of any God, it is a bad omen to the status and the remedies are...

That is from a report written by Dr. Chatterjee MA., Ph.D. on the Hindu culture.

I googled both words (Ksatriya/Shatria) I think they both seem to be accepted.

 

[I'm A Banana]

As a cultural anthro major, I'd say you need to be careful.

D&D isn't Europe, and OA isn't Asia, and Nyambe isn't Africa. The most you can say is that they were "inspired" by the legends and myths of that cultural melieu.

And in this vien, I think that you REALLY need to do your homework. Deities and Demigods gives a good starting point -- an assortment of deities inspired by real-world myth (though quite different), with creatures, PrC's, cosmologies, and a list of common monsters for a campaign set there.

From there, you determine what races you can have. D&D allows humans, and some of the more prevalent nonhumans...are all areas like that? Are the PHB races as prevalant as humans, or are they limited? OA assumes that they're limited, Nyambe has perhaps what can best be called 'subraces'....this implies that elves/dwarves/gnomes/halflings are much more biologically exclusive than humans. They each also usually have one or two local races that aren't subraces, inspired by the legends of the area.

Next step is classes. Do the PHB ones (with some tweaking) present a good selection? Maybe you'd design another one or two? Prestige Classes is definately a consideration for selection....

It's a process, and it requires a lot of tact (for instance, no fitting the PHB races into the Hindu caste system so that the Brahmins are Elves, for instance), and a LOT of research.

Which is why there haven't been that many expansions for it. Doing pseudo-Europe is easy, and doing pseudo-Asia is just a job for a handful of Anime-watching History majors. I'm still surprised Africa was done, but I find it pretty awesome.....other areas, you're less likely to find a specialist, or hit a market, and finding divisions can be odd. Do you do a sourcebook on the Inuit, and then one on the Plains Native Americans, or are they all in the same book (despite their multitudinous differences)?

 

[NewJeffCT]

I am separating this argument from the discussion on race, as it really is different. Also, I am not really complaining about the PHB, as I am fully aware that it uses GH as a base. However, it would be nice to see WOTC worlds add more cultures to the campaign world mix.

The question: Do you all feel that the core books could benefit from allowing different cultures? Or that WOTC would benefit from producing a book for GMs and players about different cultures being added to the core?

Now, Gin, if you want to debate the culture of DnD, then I will be right on your side. Personally, I have a real problem with the mono-cultural themes presented in the core books and that of most WOTC worlds.

Most DnD culture is western in nature. Humans, elves etc all seem to behave in a western style and I would love to see differences.

However, I agree that the world really needs to do this rather than the generic rules book. However, it would be nice to see a dicussion on fitting different cultures into a campaign world in the DMG.

Personally, in my campaign world every race adhere to the regional culture. All elves do not have the same culture, instead the elves of one region will be a part of the culture and they just follow built-in instincts. For instance, elves are gypsies in one region and bedouin in the next. They fit into the culture that they belong.

Skin color also depends on a region and that goes for ALL races. In the area where African culture exists, all races are people of color, although the different races do not look human.

I think it should be up to the Campaign World itself to show diverse cultures. Kalamar has 6 distinct human races, ranging from the physically small, chivalric-like olivy skinned culture of Brandobia in the West to the huge, fair skinned nomadic barbarian-like Fhokki of the North; to the dark skinned folk of Svminosh (sp).

Midnight is similar in that it has 3 human cultures - Dorns, who are similar to Kalamar's Fhokki, the caste-driven, smaller, dark skinned Sarcosans and the Erenlanders, who are a mix of Sarcosans & Dorns.
They also separate the elven cultures as well depending on the region they are from...

 

[barsoomcore]

I guess I think the DMG DOES handle this. Isn't there a section on "Worldbuilding" that goes into almost no detail at all on using "non-standard" cultures in your campaign?

I mean, I've always seen this as the DM's job in building the campaign. When I start a new campaign, it's one of the first things I think about -- what sorts of cultures do I want to run adventures in?

But then I run homebrews and usually don't use non-human races -- kinda sorta for this reason.

One of the imponderables is the effect of having different sentient races interacting. We don't have that here so we have no model for how race and culture would intersect.

It's possible that different races would be culturally similar in adjacent or overlapping areas, but it's equally possible (given that we have no evidence at all) that culture would divide along racial lines, so that while you may not have a single elven culture, elven culture might always be distinct from or unrelated to human culture. Or the presence of other races might bond each race more tightly within itself, so that you WOULD have mono-cultural racial groups (all elves are fairies, for example).

But regardless, I'm not sure I believe the core rules need any more attention to this issue than they already provide. Let DMs and producers of campaign settings go to town.

 

[Dogbrain]

Take the Greyhawk out of the PH and you have fairly archetypical classes that, for the most part, cross cultures. So what if your wizard calls himself a wu jen? Or your fighter calls himself a samurai? Or your cleric an imam?

If you say that they misrepresent other cultures equally as miserably, independent of the culture, you're probably not too wrong. However, I have concluded that you come from the very selfsame culture whose history is the basis of official D&D cultural choices (western, English-speaking, industrialized). Thus, like most people, you will assume that the presumptions and assumptions of your culture are somehow "innate" and "universal". They aren't.

 

[Dogbrain]

Take the Greyhawk out of the PH and you have fairly archetypical classes that, for the most part, cross cultures. So what if your wizard calls himself a wu jen? Or your fighter calls himself a samurai? Or your cleric an imam?

What if the culture in question makes no distinction, whatsoever, between "secular" and "divine" magic? That eliminates both Wizards and Clerics, since neither one fits properly in that case. Indeed, it eliminates both "arcane" and "divine" as distinct entities.

There are a lot of arbitrary assumptions in the D&D rules that are NOT universal to all cultures.

What are the fundamental mystical "physical elements" of ALL CULTURES? Give a list that is single, unified, and applies to all cultures.

You will fail, of course, because not even the Greeks could agree on the list among their own traditions.

 

[Dogbrain]

Take the Greyhawk out of the PH and you have fairly archetypical classes that, for the most part, cross cultures. So what if your wizard calls himself a wu jen? Or your fighter calls himself a samurai? Or your cleric an imam?

What if the culture in question makes no distinction, whatsoever, between "secular" and "divine" magic? That eliminates both Wizards and Clerics, since neither one fits properly in that case. Indeed, it eliminates both "arcane" and "divine" as distinct entities.

There are a lot of arbitrary assumptions in the D&D rules that are NOT universal to all cultures.

What are the fundamental mystical "physical elements" of ALL CULTURES? Give a list that is single, unified, and applies to all cultures.

You will fail, of course, because not even the Greeks could agree on the list among their own traditions.