Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Crazy Jerome" data-source="post: 5855774" data-attributes="member: 54877">Nature mechanics in the races, nurture mechanics never in the races. Theme is one obvious place to put them, and depending upon how implemented might supersede my initial preference, which is to make &quot;culture&quot; a separate mechanical widget. Runequest has used a crude culture axis well for almost 40 years. So it isn't like it can't be readily done. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />&nbsp;For one thing, this will make actual racial mechanical differences more acceptable, being limited to the core biology of the race instead of the presumed archetype. Instead of some wishy washy note about dwarves not liking to get their heads wet or a hard-line &quot;don't swim, won't learn&quot;--you can give them a significant penalty to swim checks (-4 or so in 3E/4E terms) based on their density that makes up so much of their toughness (and not incidently makes it easier to hold their breath underwater in a pinch). Then you make the default dwarven cultures reinforce this with little opportunity to pick up swimming.&nbsp;Now, a dwarf raised in a &quot;coastal&quot; culture can probably swim about as well as an untrained person from that same culture--the exposure having compensated somewhat for the biology.&nbsp;On the flipside, if you have a &quot;race&quot; that has nothing left to distinguish it from another &quot;race&quot; but such &quot;cultural&quot; items, that is a very strong sign that it has no business being a race in the first place. Make it matter, or leave it out.&nbsp;Heck, you could do 80% of culture simply with terrain and a few societal descriptors (like the RQ ones), and be done with it: &quot;Mountain Barbarian&quot;, &quot;Civilized Forest,&quot; &quot;Primitive Desert,&quot; &quot;Ocean Nomads,&quot; &quot;Plains Civilization&quot;. Describe 8-10 terrains and 4-5 society baselines. In a simple game, the players can pick. Instead of &quot;dwarf fighter&quot; you are &quot;mountain civilized dwarf fighter&quot; or &quot;hills barbarian dwarf fighter&quot; or something more off-beat. How does that get terribly complicated? Yet it tells you more about the character than assumptions embedded into &quot;dwarf.&quot;&nbsp;Then in games where you want more details, the DM or campaign supplement can name each relevant &quot;culture&quot;, start with the mechanics of terrain and society for a base, and tweak it slightly to make it stand out. The &quot;Misty Mountain&quot; culture is predominatly mountain, civilized, and dwarven, with a few tweaks.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Crazy Jerome, post: 5855774, member: 54877"] Nature mechanics in the races, nurture mechanics never in the races. Theme is one obvious place to put them, and depending upon how implemented might supersede my initial preference, which is to make "culture" a separate mechanical widget. Runequest has used a crude culture axis well for almost 40 years. So it isn't like it can't be readily done. :) For one thing, this will make actual racial mechanical differences more acceptable, being limited to the core biology of the race instead of the presumed archetype. Instead of some wishy washy note about dwarves not liking to get their heads wet or a hard-line "don't swim, won't learn"--you can give them a significant penalty to swim checks (-4 or so in 3E/4E terms) based on their density that makes up so much of their toughness (and not incidently makes it easier to hold their breath underwater in a pinch). Then you make the default dwarven cultures reinforce this with little opportunity to pick up swimming. Now, a dwarf raised in a "coastal" culture can probably swim about as well as an untrained person from that same culture--the exposure having compensated somewhat for the biology. On the flipside, if you have a "race" that has nothing left to distinguish it from another "race" but such "cultural" items, that is a very strong sign that it has no business being a race in the first place. Make it matter, or leave it out. Heck, you could do 80% of culture simply with terrain and a few societal descriptors (like the RQ ones), and be done with it: "Mountain Barbarian", "Civilized Forest," "Primitive Desert," "Ocean Nomads," "Plains Civilization". Describe 8-10 terrains and 4-5 society baselines. In a simple game, the players can pick. Instead of "dwarf fighter" you are "mountain civilized dwarf fighter" or "hills barbarian dwarf fighter" or something more off-beat. How does that get terribly complicated? Yet it tells you more about the character than assumptions embedded into "dwarf." Then in games where you want more details, the DM or campaign supplement can name each relevant "culture", start with the mechanics of terrain and society for a base, and tweak it slightly to make it stand out. The "Misty Mountain" culture is predominatly mountain, civilized, and dwarven, with a few tweaks. [/QUOTE]

Verification