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<blockquote data-quote="Professor Murder" data-source="post: 8372894" data-attributes="member: 6991813"><p>For me, the issue is that typically we get humans having a multitude of cultures, while other PC races are monocultures, or a handful of cultures differentiated by subraces. Some settings take the step of outlining human cultures as giving set bonuses or clear cultural cues but its not the norm. Further complicating issues is how to enable players to select a fantasy people they wish to play and embody their own cultural identity to their liking. I think having input from your player audience can be a big part of making the races of a setting come alive. My best suggestion is that racial monocultures should be the norm only in those species that are not going to be player characters, and that said species should originate from a fixed geography or have some other logical justification for why there is only one normative culture for them. A good example of this can be Mind Flayers. No one is playing one, and their alien biology can help explain their not being all sorts of different Mind Flayer cultures. Do you have to do this? No. But do spare a moment to think about how much work coming up with multiple cultural narratives for ever sentient species in your setting will be. It's my experience that as a GM, I try to only deep develop those aspects of a setting that I will expect or encourage the players to explore.</p></blockquote><p></p>

[QUOTE="Professor Murder, post: 8372894, member: 6991813"] For me, the issue is that typically we get humans having a multitude of cultures, while other PC races are monocultures, or a handful of cultures differentiated by subraces. Some settings take the step of outlining human cultures as giving set bonuses or clear cultural cues but its not the norm. Further complicating issues is how to enable players to select a fantasy people they wish to play and embody their own cultural identity to their liking. I think having input from your player audience can be a big part of making the races of a setting come alive. My best suggestion is that racial monocultures should be the norm only in those species that are not going to be player characters, and that said species should originate from a fixed geography or have some other logical justification for why there is only one normative culture for them. A good example of this can be Mind Flayers. No one is playing one, and their alien biology can help explain their not being all sorts of different Mind Flayer cultures. Do you have to do this? No. But do spare a moment to think about how much work coming up with multiple cultural narratives for ever sentient species in your setting will be. It's my experience that as a GM, I try to only deep develop those aspects of a setting that I will expect or encourage the players to explore. [/QUOTE]

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