D&D 5E Motivation for a tribal group

[trentonjoe]

I am starting up an exploration game that will have a large area of land populated by rival tribes. These tribes will be roughly 100 people, which each tribe controlling an area of roughly 100 square miles (200ish kilometers, forgive my ignorance of the metric system). The tribes will have different relationships with each other but nothing approaching "friendly".

Here's where I am stuck, I can't think of long range goals for the tribes. Other than survive and expand what would a tribe of humanoids want to accomplish?

I am working on an idea that involves them finding an artifact of their ancestors but that's all I have!

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[Gardens & Goblins]

I think survive, secure and attempting to ensure peaceful life relations with as many other tribes would be a perfectly humane goal, with skirmish style conflicts occurring over age old grudges and disputes.

I was reading an interesting text about tribal societies and from what I understood, most of the conflict was a result of either labelling one group as rivals, due to either their proximity (territorial disputes, as much as for pride as for resources). Meeting a stranger outside of your territory would result in a challenge, an attempt to find common ground (simply having a relation with the same name could suffice). If no common ground could be found, it was assumed that either party was up to no good (raiding/theft/spying) and attacked.

For the main, life was lived on a day to day basis. Long term, settling grudges (often the result of misunderstandings, accidents and genuine crimes that could have happened a generation ago) were one driving goal, be it though brutal raids, skirmishes or inviting folks over for a friendly feast and gift exchange. The idea being that often its more cost efficient to settle a dispute amicably, especially if wives and gifts could be gained.

Interestingly, the fatalities from conflict were of a much, much higher order than modern conflicts, simply due to the smaller population base, the higher proportion of fighters and the tendency to utterly massacre women and children should a village be caught without its defenders.

So, long term goals:

- Get revenge
- Build or rebuild relations
- Securing borders, resources through spying/raiding and what not, which would obviously lead to 'Get Revenge' and 'Rebuild relations.

Rinse and repeat and you have a relatively simple and perfectly workable loop for long term goals of a tribal society.

 

[iserith]

Find the land promised to them by their vengeful volcano and/or monkey god.

 

[Gardens & Goblins]

Find the land promised to them by their vengeful volcano and/or monkey god.

Defend the promised land from the volcano/monkey god and her twisted minions!

 

[KahlessNestor]

Counting coup

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[77IM]

What is the goal of giving them goals? Do you expect these goals to be leverage for the PCs ("Let us go and we'll help you do X!") or something to drive conflict ("The X tribe is on the war path because of goal Y!") or just a bit of role-playing flavor ("Oh, this is the tribe that's always going on and on about doing X").

You might download the free playbooks from Apocalypse World and read about fronts & scarcity. Basically, you pick a fundamental scarcity and then people in the region can conflict over it. The given examples of scarcities are Hunger, Thirst, Ignorance, Fear, Decay, Despair, Envy, and Ambition. (Obviously, some of these are phrased in the negative. Like there's never a "scarcity of fear," instead it's a scarcity of security; ignorance is a scarcity of knowledge, despair is a scarcity of hope, etc.)

 

[trentonjoe]

What is the goal of giving them goals? Do you expect these goals to be leverage for the PCs ("Let us go and we'll help you do X!") or something to drive conflict ("The X tribe is on the war path because of goal Y!") or just a bit of role-playing flavor ("Oh, this is the tribe that's always going on and on about doing X").

Um yes? I want the tribes to have different motivations so that they all aren't just like "we hate group X and want to take their land".

I guess ultimately I want the tribes to be culturally different. I am thinking about one tribe only being able to reproduce via some necromantic ritual. Something like a zombie, surrogate mother.

This tribe might be shunned (and even a little feared) by other groups but might also require some component to make the ritual work.

Another tribe will worship some sort of Lion totem which would cause them to frequently encroach on other tribes lands in search of prey.

A third one will constantly be searching for signs which are interpretted by their shamans.

Just looking to add to the flavor and develop some conflict in the world for the party to interact with.

 

[Eltab]

- Keep the nasty guys on the other side of the river, on the OTHER side of the river; this land is ours but that land is theirs.
- Legend tells of a Great Leader who will be made known by Signs. Somebody claims to be that Leader, and one of the Signs has manifested. Is he for real, or faking it?
- Tribes keep raiding the civilized lands around some prominent landmark (like a mountain). In ages gone by, the landmark was part of one tribe's lands. That particular tribe picked a fight with the civilized people and was destroyed; the civilized people moved in to the now-empty territory. If a treaty could be negotiated to allow the tribes 'safe passage' to the mountain, the raids could end.
- Tribe possesses a magical artifact of great power, but they know not what they own. Somebody would like to tell them (or steal it for himself). Complications ensue.
- Tribe keeps a very primitive form of worship of a common god. Religious scholars might be interested in studying this - however the tribe thinks everybody but them is an accursed heretic!
- Porcupine Totem tribe: leave me the heck alone. Visible boundary markers to warn all others.
- One tribe has a lot of teenagers and is clearing a forest to make room for new farms. Tribe next door worships untouched nature and is offended.
- Deer are food but Elk are sacred. Where can we find a band of Elk to bring to our lands? (enough to breed)
- Two tribes are at war; another tribe has offered its good services to mediate the dispute. The PCs show up for a peace conference, having been (mis)informed it is a trade meet.

 

[feartheminotaur]

When I'm looking to define a 'culture' for a group (tribe, kingdom, whatever), I use the Civilization leadership traits (particularly IV, since it's my fave). Of course you can create your own - Arcane, Monotheistic, Warlike, Xenophobic, etc.

I assign (often randomly) each group two attributes: Aggressive, Financial, Philosophical, etc. and run their societal motivations based on that. One trait lacks verisimilitude, two gives a better idea of the push and pull between different societal elements that makes a culture feel real. Once you know what kind of culture you have, you can set goals for them.

So, I have three tribes: A is Aggressive and Expansive, B is Financial and Charismatic, and C is Protective and Spiritual. A is going to be war-like with a tribal goal of conquering territory and/or acquiring resources; B is going to be the traders and diplomats of the area with a tribal goal of making money and being everyone's friend because conflict upsets the bottom line; C is going to be a tribe of isolationist religious fanatics with a well defended border and a tribal goal centered around whatever makes their God(s) happy.

 

[77IM]

Have you read Ringworld? The various humanoid tribes in that story fill different sort of "ecological niches." For example, one tribe is called the Ghouls and they eat dead corpses so nobody likes them but everybody gives them their dead. Other tribes might be boat-people who specialize in water transit, or savage cannibals, or gentle giants who everyone wants to befriend in order to rely on them for defense against savage cannibals, or a tribe that is really good at crafting certain things, etc.

It a way, it is sort of the opposite of scarcity. Each tribe finds a niche that they don't compete with others for. Because these humanoids are not genetically compatible, they don't intermarry and so the tribes remain separate; it's not genetically advantageous to go feeding and housing someone you'll never be able to mix your genes with. (This genetic incompatibility also allows for the practice of rishathra, but you might not want your D&D setting to go in that direction.)