Cultural Differences

[Aaron]

Alright, one of the things MoM offered that we touched on in another post was cultural differences between members of the same race. For instance, High Men and Nomads were very different even though they were both human. Cultural differences allow you to start with the same foundation and go in very different directions. I think the idea is self explanatory so I'm not going to waste any more words on the concept. In stead we'll jump straight to the pros and cons.

The main pro is, of course, additional flavor. If you've been keeping up with the posts around here you probably took a look at our discussion on dark elves. They were pitched from two different directions. One was the classic sort of Forgotten Realms spider lovers who use driders and poison every chance they get. The other idea was to make them summoners focusing on demonology. In both cases they were meant to be deeply religious and magically powerful. Even though they are both dark elves these two factions would play very differently. That is a definitive pro.

Now, the con is the fact that factions will require as much artwork as any new race. (Maybe a tad less, but not much.) So, deciding to add a new culture eats up a race slot. Seeing as how we currently have six slots we're probably not going to want to eat one of those slots up with a new culture. The question is at what point (if at all) do we want to start looking at new cultures. Do we put all the “basic” races in before we start looking at new cultures or do Vikings make it in before Halflings?

What do you guys think? Jump in with your preferred starting lineups. If we were to get a slot seven or eight would some alternate culture appeal to you or is this something to consider for the twenty-first race? Tell, us what you think

[Aldaron]

Mmm I would like to have very different races first and then if there's still room we could have different cultures for the same race.

So my starting line up could be something like this:

Humans (Vikings could be the starting humans, just steal the ones in The Banner Saga, no one will know! ).
Elfs
Dwarfs
Orcs+Goblins (maybe also trolls)
Draconians
Undeads

Optional:
Warforged or "Golems"
Dark Elves

[Asmodai]

I'm not a big fan of different cultures within a race. I think in real life that happens because we humans tend to fight amongst ourselves if we lack a common foe. Being the top of the food chain this causes various schisms that drift apart and then evolve independently. In a fantasy setting we there are more than one "intelligent" races there is a common enemy of sort to keep a single race more homogenous. Also throwing in magic it's easier and faster to maintain communication over greater distances.

Another fact is that the non-human races don't really exist and so we create their cultures by picking and choosing different parts of historic ones. So really these cultures are already represented. For example dwarves often resemble norse culture except their dislike of water. Elves pick that up with the dragon an swan ships resembling viking long ships. High/Grey elf cities often have Greco/Roman style architecture, dress (togas), and art. Wood/Wild elf culture is often based on the celtic cultures. Even more exotic cultures have influence such as Elven longswords, shortswords, and daggers often more closely resemble katanas, wakazashis, and tontos. Dark elves with their spiders could introduce silk. Mounted elven archers with composite longbows borrow aspects from the hun or mongols. I'm not sure what the undead architecture is planned to look like but I'd like to see it take an Egyptian influence with obelisks, pyramids, anks, and such. Goblin/Orc culture I could see taking an influence from possibly the Rus or other pre-mongol invasion eastern European cultures. Instead of forking a race to create more cultures I'd rather see new races added that are influenced by whatever culture you feel would add flavor. For example say you don't think the mounted archers of the elves is enough to capture the mongol/hun culture then instead of making a nomad human faction or whatever you would call them then maybe you could introduce a new race, perhaps centaurs, that served that role.

Also the demonic and spider theme were supposed to be the same for the Dark Elves. Lloth (probably not in the D20 SRD???) is the DEMON queen of SPIDERS afterall so the idea of making them summoning heavy is the big thing but they focus on spiders at low levels and demons at higher. There was an alternate Dark Elf culture suggested though that had to do with them being some sort of naval race with hydras and such... apparently this was based off of Warhammer Dark Elves but I'm not personally familiar with them to be sure.

[Krakizbad]

DLC this way later. I'm all for supporting this idea as it is an awesome add-on to a full game, but definitely halflings before Vikings. Once you get to that point, there are a virtually infinite forks you could take.

Yes, it is a great idea for later.

[Aaron]

So then, the lean seems very much toward DLC

[Rybon]

I would love to see some cultural differences especially in humans. Lets face it the greater the distant between one set of people and the next is what causes you to get differences. Climate changes how you think about things, like food, shelter, clothing. I don't think it has anything to do with not having a common enemy. Heck even when we do have a common enemy we cannot even agree on how best to eliminate them.

But I tend to agree that a DLC would be bet on for these.

[Asmodai]

I'm fine with it being DLC later but I'm not sure how you can release it as DLC later if it changes the base (initial release) races. For example it was stated in the Elf Unit thread that the elves upon release would be a conglomerate race and if cultures were introduced they'd be split into more specific cultures. So if the game is released with the conglomerate race and then cultures are introduced in DLC will the release Elf list just go away and be replaced by the High Elf and Wood Elf factions? Will there 3 factions instead with one being the release Elf and then the two specific High and Wood with overlaps in units? Should the release Elf faction focus instead on just High or Wood with the other to be added later in DLC?

[Aaron]

The first Elves could simply be looked at as a collection of elves from different cultures. So, when we offer the DLC elves they could have a more culturally "pure" background. We could also try to keep the first release Elves a kind of "main stream" elf faction that includes all the generic stereotypical elf stuff. Or we could do with them what we are doing with men. We don't just have humans we have High Men. We did this to make room for more human cultures. We could do the same with the elves, dwarves, etc.

[Asmodai]

Lets face it the greater the distant between one set of people and the next is what causes you to get differences. Climate changes how you think about things, like food, shelter, clothing. I don't think it has anything to do with not having a common enemy. Heck even when we do have a common enemy we cannot even agree on how best to eliminate them.

A common foe certainly isn't the only factor and climate certainly is another one but I do believe that having a common foe tends to unite humanity (and maybe that's not the best term for what I'm trying to describe). I'm not talking about deciding some guy in a far away country is bad or we want his oil, most people don't care about that at all. I'm talking about when your country is invaded and it's clear the invader has no intention of allowing surrender then there doesn't tend to be much division. When Rome laid siege to Carthage and it became clear that they were going to kill every man, woman, and child and burn the city to the ground I don't think there was much division in Carthage. While not the best example it's really hard to find a real world parallel because we are alone at the top of the species list. In a fantasy setting this is not the case. Humanity couldn't just spread out with only wild animals to worry about instead there are things like undead and goblins and orcs that are stronger and smarter than wild animals and unlike wild animals who don't act out of malice many of these races may actually strive to wipe humanity off the face of the earth. Heck even the "animals" are worse in fantasy setting, look how hard it was to cross the oceans in real history... now make sea monsters real and the bar is raised even further. That would tend to unite people I think, maybe you disagree, either way it's not exactly something either of us can prove one way or the other. Distance is absolutely another factor that causes cultures to separate but in a world with magic this is greatly reduced. I find it hard to believe that mages can raise the dead or create fireballs out of thin air but can't figure out how to communicate with someone 100 miles away.

[Aaron]

A better example for all of us might be how the Borg or Goa'uld might give birth to the United Federation of Planets, lol.