How would societies be different if I threw genetics out the window?

[Particle_Man]

I am considering some cultural differences in a campaign world I have in my head.

a) How would things be different if skin colour, hair colour, etc., were not tied to genetics at all? If a causasian looking parent and an asian looking parent could be the biological parents of an african looking child, for instance? I assume that this would eliminate racism (except between fantasy races, like orc vs. elf).

b) How would things be different if 10% of the population were openly gay, 80% were openly bisexual, and 10% were openly straight, and no one was in the closet or latent about anything?

For the record, PC's could choose their own appearance and sexual orientation, as usual.

I am (perhaps in vain) not wishing to start up a conversation about what the real world is like or should be like, but rather am looking at how standard fantasy societies would be constructed and run, from a DM's point of view. Would I have to remember much? Or would this just be window-dressing?

 

[JonnyReb]

I think the biggest problem you'll face DMing is overcoming your own bias or pre-concieved notions - RW or in game. I ran a game where in elves were a not freindly or allied race, yet I contantly forgot to have NPCs react negatively to a PC elf. Years of conditioning that said elves are o.k. overrode my desire - to do something different.

As for the in game world you should remember that most humans (and by default our fantasy race "cousins") have an almost instinctual need to identify with a larger group dynamic. Even if parental contribution did not matter for distinctive likeness of the offspring, said offspring would most likely - upon reaching adolescence or adulthood - search out others like themselves. Instead of increasing tolerance and equality, such a world may see a rise in insulare societies, - "you cannot enter here, only blondes may enter freely" - groups, or religions where those with like abilities or distinctive traits can find others who "understand" them.

Anyway, my $.02 off the cuff.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

a) How would things be different if skin colour, hair colour, etc., were not tied to genetics at all? If a causasian looking parent and an asian looking parent could be the biological parents of an african looking child, for instance? I assume that this would eliminate racism (except between fantasy races, like orc vs. elf).

It wouldn't necessarily eliminate racism. If you assume that basic human qualities still carried over, there would simply be a different way to determine who was and who wasn't a part of the tribe. (Something like the Shibboleth test might work (in the book of Judges, one of the judges had a quarrel with one of Israel's tribes and, after defeating them, they held the river and asked everyone who attempted to cross to say "shibboleth" and, recognizing the accent of that tribe led them to pronounce it incorrectly, they killed anyone with the non-standard pronunciation). Remember that a lot of acts of genocide have and still occur between people who look relatively similar. The Hutus and Tutsis of southern Africa don't look different in anything near the dramatic way that africans and scandiavians look different. If any actual discernable qualities depended upon--or even appeared to be non-causally linked to--appearance, there could be something resembling racism there too. ("He has x-color skin, so he must be the smart one but shouldn't bother playing basketball" would be a conceivable reaction if x-colored people tended to do well in school but y-colored people did well in basketball regardless of whether or not they had the same parents).

However, there would possibly be other effects of removing genetics. If babies didn't look like their parents, it's quite possible that there would be less of a link between the child and the parent so abuse and infanticide might be more common. (It is certainly more common IRL when one parent is not related to the child than when both parents are). Come to think of it, in any fantasy culture, they should probably be more common than in modern America. I suspect that a lot of the modern western tendency to care for and protect babies at all costs comes from our Christian history. Certainly infanticide was quite common in pre-christian Greece and Rome, and if the sagas are taken to have historical content, it's quite significant that Sigurd's grandmother--who is presented as an admirable character--killed sent all her children except for one to her brother to be killed.

b) How would things be different if 10% of the population were openly gay, 80% were openly bisexual, and 10% were openly straight, and no one was in the closet or latent about anything?

To be blunt, this sounds to me like "let's imagine what the world would be like if it was all some giant music video/strip club." Gay, straight, and bisexual are quite recent social constructs that really only fit within the so-called sexually liberated culture of the post-sixties Western world. Various same sex attraction has been present in a lot of historical human cultures but never in the same form it is these days. For instance, it is generally argued (though Plato, Aristotle, and a lot of the ancient Greeks appear to have disapproved of this to some degree or other and the Spartans universally denied that there was any sexual contact between their Hoplites and boys as though such a thing would be shameful, so what is "generally argued" may contain a dash of modern propaganda) that it was common in ancient Greek culture for older men to have sex with younger men (who we would usually consider boys in modern culture). They were not, however gay or even necessarily bisexual in any kind of modern sense and the institution of marriage was considered a natural part of every man's expected life. (Women were, of course, as in most historically successful cultures, expected to remain faithful to their husbands so there was a decided double standard). So, you could certainly model a society with different sexual practices from ours but you'd do best to leave modern categories of sexual identity behind when you did so (note though, it might be more interesting and jarring to modern sensibilities to try making a game where everyone isn't a sex-crazed maniac out bonking everything that moves and a few things that don't. If you wanted a really sexually unusual culture, you might consider creating Plato's Republic in your campaign world. A society where sex is clearly for procreation rather than for pleasure would be a lot more unusual in D&D-land).

Another thing to note in that regard is that, a society where there is no particular bias towards procreation (since in your suggested society, there appears to be no particular preference towards heterosexual unions) or perhaps even a bias against procreation (since one can presume that a fair number of heterosexual unions are not meant to produce offspring), will not likely be a society that is reproducing itself in sufficient numbers to survive more than a few generations unchanged. (Modern western societies aren't anywhere near the percentages you describel, but quite a lot of them are reproducing at far below replacement rates). Unless this is a world-wide phenomenon encompassing all races, demographic pressure from the more fecund races (or other societies of the same whose practices and structures encourage reproduction at above replacement level).

On the whole, the things you're considering changing would--or ought to--have far-reaching implications for the history, social structure, institutions, practices, and cultures of your campaign world. If you tried to treat them as window dressing, it would make your campaign world a lot more shallow than someone who appears interested in creating a believable world (I notice you referenced Magical Medieval Society) would be satisfied with.

 

[Faerl'Elghinn]

Well, IMO, if genetics were completely eliminated, it might make for some interesting-looking people. You could end up with brown-skinned people with aisan-looking blue eyes and red hair, who were exceptionally tall or short when both parents were exactly the opposite... I mean, would individual characteristics have to make sense in relation to each other, or would babies just pop out looking like some kind of patchwork quilt?

 

[eris404]

a) How would things be different if skin colour, hair colour, etc., were not tied to genetics at all? If a causasian looking parent and an asian looking parent could be the biological parents of an african looking child, for instance? I assume that this would eliminate racism (except between fantasy races, like orc vs. elf).

errrr...you might want to take a look at the recent runs of the Inhumans in the Marvel Comics universe for ideas. If you aren't familiar, the premise is that their children undergo mutations when they reach puberty. They have no idea how their children will change and some change more drastically than others. On the surface, as a culture the Inhumans embrace diversity, but there is still subtle (and not so subtle) discrimination. For example, certain rare mutations, like wings, are valued more than others. Some mutations only change the person's appearance and if there is no supernatural ability to accompany it, that person might be snubbed or pitied. And there is always a chance that the mutation will make the person less capable or even mentally handicapped.

So, would it eliminate racism among humans? Sure. Would it eliminate discrimination? Probably not.

 

[Arbiter of Wyrms]

quick off-topic idea

reading this thread, I started thinking about my middle school biology lesson, where before we learned about Darwin's natural selection and the modern theory of evolution, we learned about some of the fascinatingly crackpot theories that were accepted before we developed an understanding of genetics (other than various creation myths, of course, which I think are so interesting as to be almost requisite when designing a fantasy culture).

Spontaneous generation of life: Geese (living things) come from trees (non-living things). Flies come from rotten meat. Frogs come from pond water. demonstrable as follows: Leave a pond or a tree or a cut of steak alone for a few days, come back and you can see that it has produced the corresponding creature. No foolin', people actually bought this kind of thinking. In fact, I think it was actually Louie Pastuer, maybe, or Madam Curie, who finally disproved this notion.

Here's another one that might make for an interesting twist in campaign design: Inhereted, aquired traits. Why do you think that giraffes have long necks? Well, it's because they are born of parents who stretched their necks up to reach the high-up leaves giraffes eat. All that stretching subtly lengthens giraffes' necks. They pass this stretched-neck trait on to their young, and the cycle continues, until after many generations, the lengthening is sufficiently dramatic to be noticed by us, but originally, God created giraffes as a sort of spotty dear.
Notice that the implication here is that if I get a big ugly scar on my face before I get my wife pregnant, that my kids will be born with big ugly scars, and if I lose an arm, they'll be born with just one, and if I have a permanent Arcane Sight spell cast on me, my kids will all be born with Arcane Sight.

Obviously, these theories don't hold water in the real world, but I think that for a fantasy campaign, they might provide a fun twist.

 

[Particle_Man]

Thanks for all your comments. I have incorporated some of them into my ideas for the world. Here is what I have so far (and it is subject to change). Note that kobolds, goblins, orcs are pc races, and fantasy races cannot interbreed.

Appearance: Dwarves have stone-coloured (gray) skin and Elves have wood-colored (brown to tan) skin. Elf hair can be any shade of green, brown or black. Other than that, eye, skin, and hair color can vary between individuals (within human limits (mix/matching allowed, although eyes (and in the case of kobolds, horns) tend to be the same color), except for kobold, goblin or orc, whose skin/eyes/hair (or horns, in the case of kobolds) can be any (solid) color you can imagine. This variance can occur even within the same biological family (modern genetics plays no role here). Racism might occur between members of differing fantasy races but not within the same fantasy race.

Sexual Orientation: While PC’s can have any sexual orientation, the NPC breakdown of all sentient races is 10% homosexual, 80% bisexual and 10% heterosexual. Polyamorous relationships are common, as are “open” monogamous ones. There are few if any “closed” monogamous relationships, and thus adultery is almost unheard of as a concept.

Since children often don’t resemble their parents, I have changed the hormonal drives of all the races, and a tie formed by raising the children replaces the biological tie of biological parents to children (and vice versa). Exception: Pregnant mothers retain a biological tie that lasts until the end of the child’s second year (assuming that the biological mother does not also raise the child). One reason for monogamy (verifying child ownership, since biological relation no longer determines strength of feelings) breaks down. The child would recognize as parents whoever raised that child, and would be recognized by the raisers as “their child”.

I think this could work, but I am not sure what other ramifications would spring from this.

 

[Faerl'Elghinn]

Since children often don’t resemble their parents...

In such cases, might they not bear a striking resemblance to the mailman?

 

[takyris]

I'd suspect that nations and towns and such would start developing stronger clothing standards in order to set themselves apart -- all people from one town wearing a particular hat, all people from one country ritually tattooing themselves, and so forth. As others have said, most people want to be part of something.

As to the sexual orientation bit, my guess is that some societies would let things go either way, and some societies would have acceptible appropriate behavior standards in order to keep the society running along (in their minds) -- for example, it may be fine for an uncommitted man to play with either sex, but inappropriate for the man to continue homosexual relations once married. In other cultures, it may be entirely appropriate for a man married to a woman to carry on with men, but a grave insult to his wife for him to have relations with another woman. I can imagine other rules systems for polyamorous or polygamous groups -- the woman is not allowed to sleep with another man with the same colored eyes as any of her husbands, or as the same colored skin as any husband with whom she's conceived a child (and in poly groups, with no "he looks like me" to guide things, often that's going to be impossible to determine, so there'd be some kind of standard, like, "when in doubt, the child is considered to be descended from the man to whom the woman has been committed for longer" or "it's always considered the son of the oldest husband").

Sounds like an interesting society, one with a number of its own hangups, but an interesting one nonetheless. Good luck!

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Well, one of the immediate ramifications is that, as written, all societies and races appear to have the same sexual practices (rather odd that) and none of them bear much of any relationship to what we know and implicitly understand about human motivation in the real world. Much of the conflicts in the great literature of the world stems from the exclusivity of sexual relationships. Without such a notion, there can be no star crossed lovers (two or three or four dozen people meet and screw, what's the big deal, so what if he's our enemy's child, it's not like screwing conveys any notion of loyalty or commitment?), no jealousy (so much for Othello), no murders in revenge for dalliances, etc. Without the notion of particular duties to and emotion toward biological parents and offspring, there won't be any particular horror in Medea killing her own children other than the horror that comes with killing children in general. Furthermore, supposing that the entire bond between parents (a somewhat outmoded concept; given the polymorphous perversity of your hypothetical society, it seems likely that no child would likely have more than a mother) and children is a response to who raised them, there is suddenly no special significance to Darth Vader's revelation that he is really Luke's father. (So what? Just because it was your pecker in my mom at that point in time doesn't mean anything, get over it.) Similarly, the Volsung (Siegried or something--Sigurd's father or uncle; I get my sagas mixed up at times) who was born to the sister and brother and kills the man who thought he was his father in order to avenge his grandfather's death no longer makes any sense at all.

By removing recognizable family structures from human society, you change its fundamental building blocks to a degree that most of the deep themes and motivations of literature are cut off and many of the great conflicts and motivations of the literature fantasy is drawn from cease to be understandable.

You seem to have the impression that the family structure and sexual practices of human civilization are simple repressive window dressing that are separate from the rest of the culture. They're not. They're amoung the most fundamental foundations of any given society and dramatic alteration in such areas would have to change everything. (And, if you ask me, the society you describe is good for one or two generations at most (assuming that its enemies are few and it enjoys dramatic economic and technological superiority over them) before it collapses under the weight of its own hedonism or is conquered by a different society).

I think this could work, but I am not sure what other ramifications would spring from this.