First off, if this is an overdone topic here at theRPGSite, I apologize for the redundancy but the "role of flavor" thread got me thinking about this. How do you go about developing culture for your settings? It seems tempting to go with real cultures as an example. The main points (economy, religion, language, aesthetics, technological base, militarism) are provided and can be grafted onto an RPG with relative ease. Players also tend to be more familiar with settings based on what's real so that can ease immersion.
Now I'm not knocking those that do this, as doing so accurately and respectfully takes significant amounts of research and work, but from a world building perspective, it just isn't how I'd set up a game I'd run. And before someone goes ahead and says "this would have no effect on play" and that "most people just want to get with gaming and have a good time," I'd like to say that's more than a bit of a hand wave.
So, if you do like to create new cultures and societies for your games, how do you go about it? Do you consciously take bits here and there from different regions throughout history or do you do it from scratch? Do you have a particularly linear method like starting with an economic base (agricultural? nomadic? industrial?) and move all the way to aesthetic values or do you just get a fairly vivid idea (all people born with a cleft palette are made a part of the priesthood) and move out from there? Does the region where the society exists have an impact on its formation?
Most importantly, how would cultural expectations and norms coincide with party play? Would people look down on dungeon delvers as mere grave robbers who get what's coming to them? Would magic be an accepted part of society or would it only be allowed for a specific caste of people? How would this group interact with a group slightly different or totally alien to them? How does this group treat socially constructed values like property, gender roles, or morality and those that deviate from their standards?
Now I'm not knocking those that do this, as doing so accurately and respectfully takes significant amounts of research and work, but from a world building perspective, it just isn't how I'd set up a game I'd run. And before someone goes ahead and says "this would have no effect on play" and that "most people just want to get with gaming and have a good time," I'd like to say that's more than a bit of a hand wave.
So, if you do like to create new cultures and societies for your games, how do you go about it? Do you consciously take bits here and there from different regions throughout history or do you do it from scratch? Do you have a particularly linear method like starting with an economic base (agricultural? nomadic? industrial?) and move all the way to aesthetic values or do you just get a fairly vivid idea (all people born with a cleft palette are made a part of the priesthood) and move out from there? Does the region where the society exists have an impact on its formation?
Most importantly, how would cultural expectations and norms coincide with party play? Would people look down on dungeon delvers as mere grave robbers who get what's coming to them? Would magic be an accepted part of society or would it only be allowed for a specific caste of people? How would this group interact with a group slightly different or totally alien to them? How does this group treat socially constructed values like property, gender roles, or morality and those that deviate from their standards?
Developing In-game Cultures and Societies
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