Homebrew cultures -- what do you want to know?

[Desdichado]

So, yesterday I was sitting in a very bland afternoon meeting at work with my notepad, and while listening with one ear, I started jotting down some ideas on what information I would want to identify for a fantasy homebrew culture. Let me list what I put down, and let me know if I missed anything obvious that a good GM should know about the various cultures with which his players may spend some time:

• Geography and it's impact on society; i.e., a society of fisherfolk who live in a reed-choked river delta are clearly dependent on the geography; namely the reed-choked river delta.
• Government and leadership
• Cultural personality and "quirks," i.e., is a particular culture obsessed with honor, etc.?
• The economic basis of the society, i.e., what do most of the common folk do? Raise sheep? Trade? Grow wheat? Mine gold?
• Gender roles
• Class roles and social stratification
• Dress
• Religion(s)
• Language and linguistics
• Holidays and celebrations, i.e., rites of passage, etc.
• Relationships with other cultures

Any other ideas? Or is that more than enough to go on?

 

[diaglo]

Military?

 

[Desdichado]

Yep, that's a good one.

 

[Mystery Man]

So, yesterday I was sitting in a very bland afternoon meeting at work with my notepad, and while listening with one ear, I started jotting down some ideas on what information I would want to identify for a fantasy homebrew culture.

I have nothing left to offer, but I am thankful for DnD getting me thru many a torturously dull meeting.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

How about a broad brush history? Sort of like "these people first settled the area at when", "First orc invasion at when", "Became rivals with neighbor nation at when".

 

[Old One]

How about...

• Marraige/Divorce/Remarriage
• Child-rearing...does it take a village or is it off to Spartan war-camp (age of adulthood included in this one)
• Burial customs - cremation, above ground, below ground, caskets, cairns, etc
• Common law, inheritance rules, property ownership rules (ie, do things pass down the woman's side or the man's side? Are weapons/armor/goodies buried with a hero, given to his/her closest kin or gifted to the general populace?)

~ OO

 

[Gez]

So, yesterday I was sitting in a very bland afternoon meeting at work with my notepad, and while listening with one ear, I started jotting down some ideas on what information I would want to identify for a fantasy homebrew culture. Let me list what I put down, and let me know if I missed anything obvious that a good GM should know about the various cultures with which his players may spend some time:

• Geography and it's impact on society; i.e., a society of fisherfolk who live in a reed-choked river delta are clearly dependent on the geography; namely the reed-choked river delta.
• Government and leadership
• Cultural personality and "quirks," i.e., is a particular culture obsessed with honor, etc.?
• The economic basis of the society, i.e., what do most of the common folk do? Raise sheep? Trade? Grow wheat? Mine gold?
• Gender roles
• Class roles and social stratification
• Dress
• Religion(s)
• Language and linguistics
• Holidays and celebrations, i.e., rites of passage, etc.
• Relationships with other cultures

Any other ideas? Or is that more than enough to go on?

Unless you filed that under "class role and social stratification", average public education, freedom, and so on. D&D, by default, features an alphabetization rate of 100% in non-barbarian lands...

Are people free to do about whatever they want, or not? Serfs were tied to their land and weren't allowed to settle elsewhere or to do something else than working in their fields. (Which weren't theirs, BTW.)

D&D rules' impact on society. By that I mean, how common are PC-classes? Magic items? Are NPCs soldiers and spellcasters rather Fighter and Wizard, like in the Realms, or Warrior and Adept, like in Eberron? How rare are magic items? Are they nearly common-place at all levels, like in Faerûn where relics and artifacts from the Forgotten Realms of the past abound, or are they common only for the cheapest, low-level items, like in Eberron, or are they all rare, no matter how weak?

Exotic races and weird monsters. Is it some sort of Star Wars universe where nobody is surprised seeing goblins and minotaurs, and where you can expect a farmer to have tamed ankhegs to till his field; or is it closer to what Earth would be, were monsters are rare and feared because they're nearly unknown, even for weak creatures like kobolds?

 

[Hand of Evil]

My soapbox good and evil within the culture.

Taboos
Afterlife (more than likely in religon)

 

[Wombat]

• Geography and it's impact on society; i.e., a society of fisherfolk who live in a reed-choked river delta are clearly dependent on the geography; namely the reed-choked river delta.
• Government and leadership
• Cultural personality and "quirks," i.e., is a particular culture obsessed with honor, etc.?
• The economic basis of the society, i.e., what do most of the common folk do? Raise sheep? Trade? Grow wheat? Mine gold?
• Gender roles
• Class roles and social stratification
• Dress
• Religion(s)
• Language and linguistics
• Holidays and celebrations, i.e., rites of passage, etc.
• Relationships with other cultures

Any other ideas? Or is that more than enough to go on?

This looks like a pretty good list, but with a couple of provisos.

First up, I'd like to know something about the history of the society, not necessarily what
actually happened to them, but what they believe happened to them, which is far more important -- peoples and cultures work off what they "know" to be true.

Linking at least some of the holidays, religious observences, government style, folktales, "quirks" and social structure back to this history is also important.

Did any of these basic structures change in the society? If so, are there sub-cultures within the society that still practice these older forms and how are they treated by society in general?

Who are the Great Heroes of the society? Not merely in terms of military matters, but poets, lawgivers, exemplars of What It Is Like To Be (Roman, Gaulish, Whathaveyou).

Are there any important folktales? turns of phrase? colours?

But, like I said, this is a good list to work from, very much like I set up in my own games.

 

[arwink]

as a GM, I want all of the above. It makes for good reading, and it lets me think about the world in big details.

As a player I just want a short list of 10 or 12 info-bites that gives me a broad outline of the culture and what the GM expects of me while I'm playing a member of it.