thullgrim said:
I am busy making notes on various cultures for my homebrew world. My question is what kinds of things should I put into these documents. Do my players really need to know the wedding customs grey elves and their general food culture or is this material not really important? I am shooting for 10 pages or so on each culture.
Hmm. My first piece of advice is "set it in Times New Roman. That is a very compact typeface that remains readable in small sizes."
Getting a bit more serious, or at least responsive, I guess you need to discuss kinship structure: Matrilineal? Patrilineal? Bilateral? Matrilocal? Patrilocal? Whatever the term is when newlyweds found a new household? Patriarchal? Matriarchal? Avuncular? Do elves (who are very long-lived) even have long-term families? Is there an institution of marriage? Are marriages free or arranged?
How does society produce food, fibre, fuel, and oil? How does it make shelters, clothes, tools, medicine, and defences? How specialised are farmers, artisans, &c? Who owns the land? The improvements of the land? Tools? Plant & equipment? How (if at all) do the roles of men and women in social and economic life differ? What settlement structures result form all this? What architecture?
How stratified is society? How easy is social mobility (if at all), and how is it achieved? What forms of wealth are respected? What, apart from class, wealth, and power, brings social standing? In short, what do people characteristically
want. What are the typical daily routines of men and women of the upper, middle, working, and dependant classes?
How concentrated is political power? How is it obtained? Defended? Lost? How are the laws made and enforced? By whom?
What religions are there? How do they get along with each other? How does a yong person choose his or her cult? How often (and on what terms) do people change? Is there a professional priestly class, or is priesthood a social role of, say, the elderly or rulers? What is the substance and occasion of the important services.
Who has weapons? Who has permanent troops? How many, how recompensed, how recruited, how organised, how trained, how equipped?
What do people do in their spare time?
In my experience, it is very important for players to understand what their characters should
want as members of society, and what the conventional ways are of getting it (not that they usually get these things the conventional way). Even if you are playing a social rebel, you need to know what you are rebelling
from. It is also a very good idea to have a strong idea where a person of a given social class and economic or political role is likely to be at different times of the day, week (if any) and year.
Regards,
Agback
