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

[Dogbrain]

And as an aside to others. Polyamory might, in theory, be a viable system.

IN THEORY??????

Have you EVER had ANY contact, WHATSOEVER, with any culture other than your own????????????

Polygyny works and works quite well, in many cultures. Far more rare is polyandry (one wife, many husbands) but it does exist among human cultures, in Tibet, in Kashmir, in India (among the Toda, Koorg, and Nair peoples in India), and elsewhere.

It's not even unique to humans:
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~phyl/anthro/polyandry.html

So much for the knee-jerk Victorian "male jealousy" model as some sort of unbreakable and universal law. Dawkins is an okay start, if you are utterly uneducated in the field, but the field has gone WAY beyond his Selfish Gene ideas.

 

[Tsyr]

I guess I have to stop and ask why.

Your going to great pains to make a world so alien that the players will be unable to identify with it, and at the same time trying to create this utopian existance that is removing or minimalizing almost every basic human concept. I'm not even getting into the polygamy or anything, thats one thing, but the rest of it...

A DM I used to play under long ago had something halfway similar, to a point. He had made a world that was very alien and kinda utopian-esq. After a session or two in it, when my character died and I had to roll up a new one, I said "Ok, I'm making a one-armed bard who plays a ukilayly (How do you spell that? ) with his feet and tosses golden-gilded turtles as a weapon, and has the battlecry of "Chipmonk Fever!"" When the inevitable question of "why" came from the DM, I said, "Because it makes about as much sense as your campaign setting. "

About a year ago as a favor to a friend I tried to flesh out (with the help of people on these boards) how a race of true hermaphrodites would work in reality. And they were just one race among many, and were otherwise 'normal', in comparison to other races. Even still the differences that had to be accounted for made the task insanely difficult, and I never felt it turned out very good.

What you're asking for is something vastly more difficult.

As an aside, I dispute the notion that making all physical charactaristics (and as others have said, where does this end? Is height random? Strength?) random is going to end racism.

It wont.

It will just make anything with a fairly human mindset redefine "race". "blueskins" will want nothing to do with greenskins... Purpleskins are inevitably considered to be untrustworthy, and whitehairs will be looked upon as typicly being wise.

Or something along those lines.

Most people WANT to feel they are better than some people, and part of a group of similarly better people. Its not a concious thing, its just part of how most humans think. Even if you have a race of almost exactly homogenous people, people find SOMETHING to set themselves apart.

 

[Torm]

As far as the lack of genetics goes: Diseases should be almost entirely magical or parasitic, as you've pretty much done away with virii. Children would probably still favor their parents due to magical affinity, but might end up looking some like the midwife if she's a particularly strong Cleric, or having features that favor a magical creature (mother's familiar, for example), or.... well, you get the idea. In poly situations, the child might end up with traits from ALL of its "parents" if they're all have a magical affinity with the mother. This might actually inspire some spells to add to the Cleric's list - such as Marriage or Handfasting or somesuch, to actually "create" these affinities. Or not.

As far as GLBT and/or poly societies, you could pretty much do anything you want, but I would urge that you bear in mind natural gender urges and positive and negative population checks.

First - natural gender urges: Females, deep down in their lower brains, are more concerned with having the BEST possible mate so their offspring are healthy and viable than with that mate being exclusive to them. Males, on the other hand, are more concerned with spreading their seed to as many females as possible. This means that your group relationships would probably have more females than males, and, if there's more than one male, there would be ONE male who would be DECIDEDLY "alpha" amongst the males - the other males taking on a certain feminine quality to their relations with him (not talking about cross-dressing or anything that extreme, just maybe a tendency to defer to him and a bit of tenderness in their feelings where he is concerned.) Similarly, in viable groups of ALL females, there would be one who takes on to a degree the attitudes of the aforementioned dominant male.

Second - positive and negative population checks: In small populations, complete homosexuality and even bisexuality to a lesser extent have a tendency to be condemned - and usually the population comes up with some excuse (G-d says its BAD, for example) that has nothing to do with the real, lower-brain reason: In a society that NEEDS to grow to survive, it is a negative population check, because people of those tendencies are usually less prone to mate, and, with the bisexuals, they have more distractions from their offspring if they do mate. In larger populations, this situation reverses somewhat, and they become a positive population check - they are less likely to mate, and therefore they aren't producing an increase to an already large population that may bring that population into conflict over resources with other nearby populations. (That's right, I'm saying gay people help prevent wars! ) This, IMHO, is part of the reason the "Gay Towns", such as Greenwich Village in NYC, exist - aside from gays moving there to meet more people like them, they are also more welcome to the rest of a large city's population, who see them subconsciously as a positive population check.

One last thought that occurred to me as I was typing this: Elves are frequently considered somewhat androgenous - heck, even I thought Legolas was prettier than a lot of women I've seen (and not necessarily ugly women, either), and I'm 99.44% straight. Why not go with that - since they're magic anyway, make them androgenous in such a way as they sort of "become" the appropriate sex to match with whomever they're in love with. And maybe they give brith in some wholly magical way that makes the "equipment" not matter, anyway....

 

[Torm]

Now that is just about the most idiotic thing I've seen here, which is really saying something. There is a vast difference between not being interested in homosexual activity and being a homophobe. If you can't see that difference, I suggest several decades of remedial education.

I'm sorry Dogbrain, but I have to agree with Humanophile, since while you are correct that not being gay and being homophobic are not the same thing, that had little to do with what he is talking about.

I think what he's getting at is that it is HOMOPHOBIA that keeps people who would otherwise be gay from participating in that lifestyle and thus, not having kids. Ever heard of "Gay Rage"? It is the extreme and sometimes even murderous anger a latent homosexual feels when threatened with the possibility that he is gay. "Regular" straight people don't have Gay Rage and usually don't have homophobia, they simply have little to no desire to be gay.

Google for "Matthew Sheppard", the gay man who was tortured and killed out west a few years back by a bunch of homophobic "straight" guys. One of the guys who killed him plead temporary insanity for reasons of Gay Rage, and said that he had since come to terms with his OWN homosexuality.

 

[Particle_Man]

Why? Because its there! (Paraphrasing whoever said that about climbing Mt. Everest). I think I could still keep it narratively realistic (there would still be chances to roleplay (some elements would be changed, but many could remain surprisingly similar), as well as good old fashioned killing bad guys and taking their stuff). It would be different. It doesn't have to be a utopia (far from it -- I want demons, undead, evil cults, barbarian raiders, assassins, etc.), I mean, there would still be conflicts between cultures (similar to the English vs. the French in historical Europe, or the Chinese, Japanese and Koreans in historical Asia, before they all became enlightened and saw each other as equals in every way) , and even forms of racism (of the elf vs. orc variety, rather than within a fantasy race). I think that accents and styles of dress might become markers of an "outsider", rather than appearance (within a race).

Diseases (much hand-waving ensues) uh....magical side-effects of gods interfering in the creation of sentient beings by the other gods. There we go.

Hmmm...I think that if 80% of the population is bisexual, and if genetics do not determine child characteristics, then the "gendered" reasons for a man to "spread one's seed" would be nullified somewhat, as well as the need in a woman to find the "perfect parent", since in a group setting, different people could take up different roles, and thus between them do whatever a single "perfect parent" could have done. The connection would be to the children raised, regardless of who biologically fathered (or, after the first two years, mothered) them. Thus I am not sure that such societies in the campaign world would have to go the "one alpha male" route. The CE wolf-pack stuff of Takyris might be on who gets to have sex, and other priviledges.

As for population control...hmmm...some societies would voluntarily reduce pop, while others would try to grab more resources and thus be more warlike. Well, that gives lots of room for military campaign style games, I suppose. As for the "child to adult" ratio, as well as the "child who lives long enough to have kids to adult" ratio, I haven't worked that out. I would probably set the latter at a close to even rate, but slightly positive, to add to the conflict a bit (the usual "humans want to build cities/farms, elves want to preserve their sacred woods, orcs want EVERYTHING", kind of stuff, no real surprises there).

Interesting thoughts. Keep em coming. I am an equal opportunity yoinker and will steal some ideas, and get ideas of my own from responding to other ideas.

I was thinking of children coming from a different source, but am not sure about that. I think I will stick with the pregnancy route for now. On the other hand, I guess there could be an adventure involving catching the bandits who are over-hunting the storks that leave babies on people's doorsteps.

Oh, as a side-note. This would be part of the campaign world-description, but the adventuring party would be more concerned with adventure stuff than with the sex stuff. I mean, while it may establish itself as a topic if a player pursues some roleplaying angle, it wouldn't be a major focus of my campaign. Didn't want to give the impression that I am trying to run a hedonistic-styled campaign. Nothing wrong with that, but not the style I am going for. (Mine is a bit more focused on good guys vs. bad guys -- quite traditional, really).

 

[Epametheus]

Actually, the anime series The 12 Kingdoms has a genetics-are-irrelevant system.

Babies literally grow on trees.

To be more specific, there are sacred trees throughout the 12 countries. When a legally married couple desires a child, they mark one of the branches with a scarf or something similar and pray to God for one. If God approves of the request, then a fruit on the tree starts ripening; when it is ready, it can be taken off the tree, and a healthy baby will be inside.

Occasionally, the parents will be "unlucky" and the child will actually be a half-beast -- a lycanthrope. The half-beasts are discriminated against in most of the countries, mainly because they're actually superior to normal humans (animal traits like strength or cunning or speed actually carry over to the half-beast's human form).

There are similar trees for monsters and animals, which apparently just have their populations replenished at an appropriate rate.

Interesting note: the prayer for children is the only time the people actually pray to God, since it's the only prayer they know He answers.

 

[Dirigible]

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.

I don't think so. Cuteness is universal - all babies have big eyes, big heads and cute lil faces that make us go 'awwwww'. Most mammals do too, and heck, even baby crocodiles look adorable. It's an instinct that makes us want to protect and care for them. Personally, I think sprogs of any ethnicity are cute.

I suspect that a lot of the modern western tendency to care for and protect babies at all costs comes from our Christian history.

Bring me the Hammer of Re-Education, stat!

Inhereted, aquired traits

I raised a topic like this a while ago - search for 'Lamarckian' or 'Linnaean'. It was an idea for a group of humans that transmit acquired characteristics to their offspring.

You mention some largely superficial things - hair, skin, eye color, facial structure, and so on. What about other traits- do strong parents tend to have strong babies? Do tall parents tend to have tall babies? Are you throwing out genetics for cosmetics, or for everything? Think about that carefully, because the answer makes a big difference.

Good point.

 

[Humanophile]

Particle_Man, interesting thought I had while I was out...

For a campaign where you say "genetics are irrelevant", you do seem to have certain traits that are highly heritable. Attitudes (read: alignments) seem far more set than they are in real-life. So considering both that heritability seems to be nigh-onto Natural Law (less about genetic machinery and more about Like Begets Like or somesuch) and that heritable, selectively advantageous traits would tend to predominate no matter what the setting, try imagining it as the gods playing some massive simulation game.

Think about it; if you had an evil dark-skinned race, and a good light-skinned one, and you dropped the both of them in a harsh desert, would the more successful one win out because of its alignment, or its melanin? Highly mutable surface traits would probably be there to prevent their being unduly weighted in the Great Chess Game to determine which alignment was best. That'd also give you plenty of leeway to plop in other highly heritable racial traits (for example, the unconditional love and need to care for all infants of their race) needed to pull off this setting.

But as Torm pointed out, you will need to keep population checks in mind. If the orks have lots more sex (read: lots more productive, heterosexual sex), they'll "win" if the elves aren't as horny, as fecund, or as straight. Your best answer here is probably to do away with sexual monogamy altogether and say that orgies are quite common, which at least lets your "primarily bisexual" people still have a good chance of impregnation, thus sidestepping the issue of too small a population growth rate. Diseases, at least, can be handwaved away. (Granted, this setting will likely tank after a couple of sessons for being too strange, but at least putting it down on paper should be an intellectual exercise.)

 

[Torm]

But as Torm pointed out, you will need to keep population checks in mind. If the orks have lots more sex (read: lots more productive, heterosexual sex), they'll "win" if the elves aren't as horny, as fecund, or as straight.

Of course, those factors could still be outweighed by the two races' birth rates (Orcs have a shorter impregnation-to-term?), comparative "medical care" (Elves live more "civilized" and have more healers - more babies live to term and more children live through childhood), or comparative military "tech" (Elves have more abilities to blow the crud out of an Orc tribe from a distance?)....

Thinking on what I was saying earlier some more, it seems to me that you would have three main types of "civilized" communities in the world you're talking about. 1. Small, dominated by agricultural or fertility deities, probably have many festivals throughout the year during which omnisexual orgies occur, and in these, it "takes a village" to raise the kids. 2. Small, dominated by more warlike deities, and the village is more reliant on hunting than agriculture. In these, anything other than heterosexuality is shunned, if not illegal outright. If poly is allowed, it is of the one man, several wives variety, and its probably allowed because for some reason, that village has a high girl to boy ratio - ala "Surf City" by Jan and Dean 3. Larger, more urban, more metropolitan with many different types of gods and goddesses worshipped. Individual families that behave like they came from the two village types already mentioned (they did), and some families trying to keep their way things "should be done". Some families with members coming from both types gradually becoming "confused" (according to their older rural relatives), with open relationships, polyfidelitous relationships, and monogamous relationships in which one or both members still participate in orgies on holidays.

 

[Particle_Man]

Particle_Man, interesting thought I had while I was out...

For a campaign where you say "genetics are irrelevant", you do seem to have certain traits that are highly heritable. Attitudes (read: alignments) seem far more set than they are in real-life.

But as Torm pointed out, you will need to keep population checks in mind. If the orks have lots more sex (read: lots more productive, heterosexual sex), they'll "win" if the elves aren't as horny, as fecund, or as straight.

Well, my first thought was simply to have the gods "continually create" the souls of each new generation, and that is what sets the initial alignment, until a great crisis/shift (haven't yet planned out the why's and wherefores) which results in children from then on getting their alignments largely from the cultures that they grow up in, but even then individuals might vary from their cultural norm. (So before the shift, all orcs were CE without question; after the shift, most orcs are still CE, but some (like those raised by humans) could be of other alignments). Humans would have become a "wild card" with alignment at first, but would have settled down into various cultures that averaged out at N. Genetics would not play a role in determining alignment in either time period. Natural selection on the cultural level? Possible, but with so much magic and miracles running around, I am not sure if it would be relevant this early on (post shift) in the history of sentient life on this world.

I did have an idea close to the "simulation game", but it was more to influence the N god to "see things" the way that the relevant one of the other 8 gods did (Background: eventually, time-paradoxes aside, the N god would become one of the other 8, and the 7 others would disappear). So the gods are not trying to have their race "Win" so much as to prove a point, either through stereotypical members of their race, or through "Favored Souls", or perhaps through other means.

Also, my time period (10 000 years/2 700 years ago depending on whether one counts from creation of sentient life or from the "shift") seems too short for selection on that level to occur yet, especially as there are 9 gods, each with a favorite race, who will occasionally "cheat" when it serves their interests to do so, like when their race is theatened with extinction.

As for fecund orcs our producing elves, etc., I suppose one easy solution is to set the birthrates the same for all races by fiat. Thus they could all have a reproduction rate that is slightly above replacement rate (leading to wars, etc.) Or, I could have the orcs breed more, but also be more likely to kill each other. Maybe the relevant gods make people more fertile when needed to replace people after a famine, etc., although I would prefer a slightly more "hands off" approach (working through agents, like "Favored Souls" (which I would use rather than cleric/paladins) would be ok, though). The idea is that the Gods might interfere with each others' attempts to interfere, resulting in a usual stale-mate, but with interesting side-effects. But I am perhaps drifting off-thread.

Hey, this world-building is fun stuff!