Ethnic groups

[Azure Trance]

Re: Re

Another factor that would cause trouble if different types of humans have ability bonuses is ethnic mixing. What happens if say a German woman marries a Briton man? How then would you arbitrate an ability bonus?

Off the top of my head I'd use baseline human from the PHB. You mix a little here, a little there, and you turn up normal I mean, if someone wanted to they could make templates, but egad that would be digusting (number wise, and I think silly).

 

[Thresher]

I think your best bet to keep it from getting out of hand real quick is just to simply give them a free language and a nice description of the culture that they come from.
Greyhawk campain setting hit it all right on the nose when it came to humans from different places on the continent, detailed descriptions and history of the culture through the ages, read up on the Suel, think 'Melnibonians' great culture for a classic anti-hero to come from or the Flan which where sort of an origional aborigional race similar to Nth american indians, Bakluni where the equivalent to mongols and a whole heap of others that had colourful histories.

And you know what?
NONE of them needed extra points or anything like that to differentiate each other.
You really dont need to give the humans any extra 'kewl skillz', if its a home brew campain just detail them and make them interesting.

 

[Harold Mayo]

Well...I, of course, must disagree.

With what? Not with a lot of the suggestions for differentiation...those are all great. Differentiation should be done, IMO, mostly by the skill sets of the PC/NPC. You can call them skills, feats, traits, disadvantages, or whatever you like, but the biggest differences in terms of game "feel" can be accomplished in that manner. Personally, I don't feel that ability scores modifiers should be used because there is not that much of a difference between human ethnic groups in the real world. If there IS a difference, it is generally because of an emphasis placed on that score over others in that culture or sub-culture, which can be represented by putting the character's best or second best ability score in that particular statistic rather than a modifier. I look on modifiers as something that is inherently BETTER (or worse) in the race than as a particular emphasis that is placed.

My disagreement is with the whole political-correctness idea. OK, it's great and all to be thought of as inoffensive but, in YOUR game, do as YOU please. If it offends your players, then maybe you shouldn't do it, but they're YOUR players, so you should know the limits.

MY own world is not at all politically correct. Not at all. The real world is not and neither is my campaign world. DIFFERENCES are what makes the world go. If everyone was politically correct and didn't offend anyone else, then there would be no war, no strife, no reason for adventuring...perhaps someone should publish such a setting, d20 Utopia, where everyone is a pacifist and everyone is a socialist. The monsters share their treasure with you and the PCs play a bunch of farmers who gain experience points by bartering their own individual crops for goods and services, being careful not to cheat anyone...

It's fairly easy to use ethnic groups in a gaming world. It is done, anyway, though normally with monsters rather than with other humans. As an example:

Orcs? They're ugly, smelly, violent creatures who take what they want. They have to be destroyed, right? Well, from the point of view of the orc, he's not doing anything wrong. Ugly? Born that way...and that's subjective, anyway. He might be the Brad Pitt of the orcish race. Smelly? Well, a particularly vile odor to one nose might be the sweetest perfume to another. Violent? How else can he get what he needs for him and his tribe to survive? Everyone hates him because he's ugly and he smells and won't deal with him, so he is forced to banditry. Of course the orcs are out to get everyone...everyone is out to get them. If orcs were in the modern world, people might be leaving their own country and going to the country of the orcs to act as "human shields" in strategic orc lairs so that the archmages wouldn't (maybe) blast them to pieces.

I use ethnic groups and religious differences extensively to fuel the wars of my world. It happens in our real world, too. Anyone hear of Jews and Moslems (and Christians, too) fighting in the Middle East? How about the ancient hatreds in Bosnia (which are religious AND ethnic in nature)? How about the Crusades? Political differences fuel hatreds, too. Tiananmen Square was about the suppression of dangerous capitalist ideas by the socialist powers-that-be in China. Look at our own two-party system. It doesn't happen nowadays, but duels were once fought in this country over political differences.

I don't use real-world ethnic groups in my game because the world is entirely made up and I hate copying things from the real world or even other fictional worlds, but I would not hesitate to do so if I were running some sort of campaign set in the real world or a reasonable facsimile. Of course, my players are all mature (well, ok, that's sometimes open for debate) and accept certain realities of life that many people do not. Most other gamers DO NOT have my situation.

It's all up to the gamemaster to decide, though. It's YOUR world. If your players will enjoy it, then do it. If not, then there is no real point.

 

[Kichwas]

This is an incredibly sensitive subject. Tread lightly, folks, and show good judgment.

I think using regional feats is a great way to delineate cultural differences.

I consider these two statements to be in direct opposition to each other.

One is telling us to be sensitive and 'show good judgement'.

The other is telling us that the best way to reflect ethnic differences is to create racial stereotypes and abilities only available to certain ehtnic groups.

This is why I really didn't like regional feats. If I see something that -if I were to try and apply it to reality- would cause accusations of racism or worse, then I tend to find that something flawed and insensitive.

In other words, if you tried to build a regional feats and equipment bonus list for say, a d20 modern game, there is no way you could do it without seriously offending large numbers of people.

I could give specific examples of potential abilities we might assign certain ethnic groups in the real world, but the moment I posted such a list, we would probably devolve into some nasty commentary. Any such list I built would have to be constructed out of stereotypes, and would likely cause offense.

That's what regional feat systems are, they are stereotype options matched to the ethnic groups present in a campaign world. They fail my -map to reality equivalent and check for offensiveness test-, so I find them a misguided mechanic.

 

[Kichwas]

My previous post said, I find the best way to do ethnic groups in a fantasy world is to set up three elements:

Describe them physically as well as how they commonly dress or otherwise adorn themselves.

Describe a basic history that brought about that group into it's current state.

Describe the dominant cultural trend among that group. Break this down with family, religion, and general social mores.

One good way is to find three unique features or angles in each of these three categories.

I don't see any need to involve any game mechanics in any of it.

For those lists, I could easily do a real world example of nearly any real world group without stepping into offense or even stereotypes.

An example:

Han Chinese:
Han Chinese makes up 93 percent of the total population. According to the 1995 sample survey of 1 percent of China's population, there were 1.09932 billion Han people

epicanthic eye fold, black or brown usually straight hair. tan or milky complexions. broad noses are common. The 'Mongolian Spot' commonly believed to be a feature of all Asians and most Native Americans, is actually -not- common among Han Chinese.

Through tracing DNA bio-anthropology claims they migrated to asia from central asia in the early parts of human existance (part of a second wave if you will, the first wave having put people in Central Asia and Australia). Central asia being the branching off point for the people now in europe and asia. There is a shared history dating back some 5000 years of written record, possibly longer before writing. Several major scientific developments came out of this ethnic group: gunpowder, printing (a counter claim places printing as a Korean development), silk, pasta to name a few. Han Chinese have been the dominant group in China for quite some time, and are what most people think of when they think of Chinese.

Strong family ties, with the extended family playing a major role, often more important than the direct nuclear family. Traditional religion blends a mix of ancestor worship with buddhism. Larger traditional society is highly structured with social order being more valued than individual freedom.

 

[Olive]

regional feats are ok, becaus they tend towards emphasising cultural rather than biological difference INMO... but basically i use them to back up character concept, not regional origin.

but cultural differences are played up hugely in my campaign... well, i'd like to play them up more.

 

[Kichwas]

regional feats are ok, becaus they tend towards emphasising cultural rather than biological difference INMO.

But that is still placing sterotypes.

For example. I could say that 'culture X drinks a lot, so they have a regional feat that can give a character poison / alcohol tolerance'. Or 'culture y is spendthirft money-focused, so they get a regional feat that helps with diplomacy and bluff'.

In d20 modern, I might start saying things about good drivers, bad drivers, warlike, dances better / got groove, better at sports, cultivated (look at the educated regional feat in FR), noble savages (so they might get wilderness lore and KS: nature bonuses in a possible regional feat).

That above is a list of ethnic stereotypes that can all be seen as offensive when applied to the real world ethnic groups modern stereotyping tries to put them on and several of which are easy extractions out of some of the packages found in FR.

I don't like giving any game mechanic difference at all to any ethnic group. I prefer to keep that to realm of species differences.

 

[Olive]

In d20 modern, I might start saying things about good drivers, bad drivers, warlike, dances better / got groove, better at sports, cultivated (look at the educated regional feat in FR), noble savages (so they might get wilderness lore and KS: nature bonuses in a possible regional feat).

i see your point, but you've got to admit that some of these make sense. the educated feat, for example, or the cosmapolitan feat both represent situations far more likely to develop in a city. a feat that gives you bonuses to wilderness lore is more likely to come from a character who lives in the wilderness...

thats not a stereotype, thats sensible. a stereotype is saying all characters who grow up in the wilderness get wilderness lore as a class skill, or wis +2 to better deal with it. options aren't stereotypes.

 

[DDK]

Greyhawk as an example

...Bakluni where the equivalent to mongols and a whole heap of others that had colourful histories.

Dunno where you got that from... there are mongol-like cultures which are predominantly made up of Bakluni but even that's sortof like saying that the mongols were predominantly made up of chinese... it's not really true but that's what a lot of people seem to think.

However, Greyhawk is a good example of how several vastly different human cultures have been created and incorporated into a world.

And it is true that none of them have been given any stat differences or racial skills/feats, whatever.

And on reflection, I can't think of any reason to give any of them any changes as the culture and history of these people is so well documented that after reading through it you sortof see just how similar people are despite their differences and how things come down more to the individual differences rather than racial differences.

Even the cultural differences, though quite profound, I don't think would warrant different skill sets or bonus feats or ability changes.

There are even differences in similar races that have divergent cultures based on background, like the Suel who migrated in different groupings, some went to the far north, settling in icy seas and heavily forested mountain ranges with deep valleys, crags and glaciers whereas others settled in the south in a tropical and lush environment. The two are still vastly different because of how they approached their situations: one took to war and pillaging for survival, the other to slaving and the adherence to traditional values, skewed and warped by time, evil and greed.

They couldn't be more different. And yet, at best, I would allow one to take the barbarian class whereas the other I wouldn't and that would be about the biggest difference I could enforce in the rules without thinking, "Hang on, they're not THAT different."

So even though I'm anti-PC (not anti-Piratecat, and that does not mean I'm racist, sexist, etc., I just hate being forced to think or act in a certain way just because certain people tell me to), I'd have to go with the flow and say that there just aren't enough differences in real world human culture to warrant changes even in a fantasy setting.

Otherwise, make them an entirely different race if you're going to choose skill sets and bonus feats.

Regional feats, where the person still has to spend a slot, isn't so bad, as long as it's not a freebie.

 

[D-rock]

I don't know if anybody does this, but sometimes I will put in different ethnic groups for non pc species too. It gets boring to always fight the same kind of goblin or troll.

As far as stat modifiers, I don't think different races should have them. Not that I think that people all start with exactly the same potential, because they probably don't, but because the differences are just not enough to make a difference. One person from one race will always have the potential to be the strongest, fastest, smartest ect. The gaps between the best of each are pretty much nonexistent. People's experience seem to be a lot more influential on their abilities. Now with that said if a DM wants to create a whole new race with modifiers and all the players are ok with it I see nothing wrong with making them. Stereotypes are a dangerous thing though, and while some might come about because the majority of the time their true, there is yet more that are false and lead to convenient rationals and excuses for the person expressing them. In any case they are never all inclusive, and there is always exceptions. So my players know that not all red haired trolls with black spots that I through at them are evil.