Topic: Race vs Culture

[Sorloc]

The only thing I didn't like about Races & Cultures was that you couldn't remove the "&".  Race is not the same as culture, and when describing a race, you must never use sentences like, "They hate Orcs," or "They have a patriarchal system and eat their siblings," or "They worship fire deities," or "They love looking at the stars." These are Cultural traits, not Racial traits, and should not be mixed up. 
The race should be described in terms of physiology only. Sociology can be touched upon in a separate section describing one possible culture for the race.

Please.

[vroomfogle]

The only thing I didn't like about Races & Cultures was that you couldn't remove the "&".  Race is not the same as culture, and when describing a race, you must never use sentences like, "They hate Orcs," or "They have a patriarchal system and eat their siblings," or "They worship fire deities," or "They love looking at the stars." These are Cultural traits, not Racial traits, and should not be mixed up. 
The race should be described in terms of physiology only. Sociology can be touched upon in a separate section describing one possible culture for the race.
Please.

Absolutely Sorloc.  This has always bugged me too.   RMSS did the same thing, wrapping up Races and Cultures into one idea, for many of the races.   It was on the right track with the different human cultures...but it presented them as another race.   The rulebook should only contain cultures in very general terms, and in a different section of the book then races.  Leave it to setting sourcebooks to detail cultures.

[Sorloc]

I've always hated the notion that 'all RaceX are evil' or 'all RaceY worship the spider god of bloody death'
Really?  Wow, even if they live on different contineints and haven't has cultural contact like, ever?  They're still all exactly the same?

On one continent, I had 3 races of elves, in 4 different regions, all with different cultures.  It was fun coming up with the different social aspects, and a real trip for the players as they encountered 2 dwarves that were totally hostile to each other, each accusing the other of heresy (although supposedly they both worshipped the same deity).  They were from different tribes, and different sects, and there was no way for the PCs to tell the difference.  Oh, and they had no problem with Elves, either, as their lands did not border any Elven nations, so they didn't care.  Humans, however, they considered lazy and deceitful.

I take my cue from our own world in this.  We've got something like 4 or 5 distinct subspecies of Homo Sapiens on our planet, and what, 50-odd languages, hundreds of religions, thousands of differing cultures?  I cannot conceive of a world that has more races than it has cultures given that data.


(Oh, and I'm about to try to use your profession generator to create a battlemage.)

[pemerton]

I take my cue from our own world in this.  We've got something like 4 or 5 distinct subspecies of Homo Sapiens on our planet, and what, 50-odd languages, hundreds of religions, thousands of differing cultures?  I cannot conceive of a world that has more races than it has cultures given that data.

A tangent - but our world has one subspecies of Homo Sapiens, namely, Homo Sapiens Sapiens, and has thousands of human languages (about 5000 spoken in the late 1990s). There are over 750 languages spoken just on the island of Papua (in the South-West Pacific) - many of these language communities are very small (fewer than 2000 speakers), being divided from one another by mountains and other difficult terrain.

In a fantasy world with active deities, I think one way of justifying a degree of uniformity in culture and language is the influence of deities imposing their own languages and cultures. This could be seen as similar to the role of Catholicism or Islam in spreading the use of Latin (among scholars and clergy) or Arabic (among whole populations), but on an even greater scale.

[vroomfogle]

6,912 known living languages:
http://www.ethnologue.com/

[Rasyr-Mjolnir]

The book Races & Cultures (#5816) is actually one of the first step in being able to separate out Races from Cultures that has ever really been done for Rolemaster (I count the SWMA 4th Ed as the first real step). It was a huge step from the way RMSS/FRP handles races and cultures normally, though not exactly what you were looking for.

In HARP, they are separated even more, to the point that while races give a recommend culture, the player is actually free to select any culture to use. And no, HARP is not perfect in separating out every cultural detail from racial descriptions either (i.e. Dwarf's racial description includes paragraph on their beards), but even that is easily dealt with.

When the next version of Rolemaster gets done, races will most likely be kept separate from cultures, as that is a popular feature of Rolemaster.

[Sorloc]

I take my cue from our own world in this.  We've got something like 4 or 5 distinct subspecies of Homo Sapiens on our planet, and what, 50-odd languages, hundreds of religions, thousands of differing cultures?  I cannot conceive of a world that has more races than it has cultures given that data.

A tangent - but our world has one subspecies of Homo Sapiens, namely, Homo Sapiens Sapiens, and has thousands of human languages (about 5000 spoken in the late 1990s). There are over 750 languages spoken just on the island of Papua (in the South-West Pacific) - many of these language communities are very small (fewer than 2000 speakers), being divided from one another by mountains and other difficult terrain.

In a fantasy world with active deities, I think one way of justifying a degree of uniformity in culture and language is the influence of deities imposing their own languages and cultures. This could be seen as similar to the role of Catholicism or Islam in spreading the use of Latin (among scholars and clergy) or Arabic (among whole populations), but on an even greater scale.

It only lends more strength to my statement... although I would dispute that many of those languages are dialects, but that's a pointless conversation.

What I will say is that your statement about the role of deities is absolutely true, but allow me to point out that RM has many deities, and therefore will have many strong influences.

...In HARP, they are separated even more, to the point that while races give a recommend culture, the player is actually free to select any culture to use. And no, HARP is not perfect in separating out every cultural detail from racial descriptions either (i.e. Dwarf's racial description includes paragraph on their beards), but even that is easily dealt with.

When the next version of Rolemaster gets done, races will most likely be kept separate from cultures, as that is a popular feature of Rolemaster.

1) That was one thing I did like about HARP.
2) You could say that they are very hairy, and leave it to the GM to decide if they make that trait into a fashion statement.
3)Separating races and cultures is a popular feature of Rolemaster?  They have never been separate.

[Rasyr-Mjolnir]

3)Separating races and cultures is a popular feature of Rolemaster?  They have never been separate.

They have never been FULLY separate. However, SWMA 4th Ed and Races & Cultures (#5816), both of which are relatively recent (compared to the core rules) have started on the separation of the two. It is a difficult thing to accomplish because of how the rules sit, but the initial steps have been taken in that direction.

[Marc R]

I suspect since people like it, much like you Sorloc, the trend will continue in that direction.

[Guillaume]

Hmm, IIRC that particular point has been discussed a lot, somewhere in the forums.

Especially the Adolescence part of character development.

Maybe we should start digging into the forum(s) archives, I know there's thread about it somewhere in there.

[Langthorne]

3)Separating races and cultures is a popular feature of Rolemaster?  They have never been separate.

They have never been FULLY separate. However, SWMA 4th Ed and Races & Cultures (#5816), both of which are relatively recent (compared to the core rules) have started on the separation of the two. It is a difficult thing to accomplish because of how the rules sit, but the initial steps have been taken in that direction.

Very true. The job will be a very big one.

Especially if you consider the level of detail in Underground Races and that there are cultural things that seem to come from race.

eg a race that is intollerant to sunlight are highly unlikely to be known for their sunbathing (except maybe for ritual punishment), races that are cold intollerant are unlikely to revel in building snow men.

Then there is the question of whether that same level of detail will be available in the 'seperated' version.

I absolutely agree that race and culture need not be related, but would still like to see the cultural depth we have gotten used to in previous RM incarnations.

On the Dwarf beard topic there are a few options...as hairlessness is considered desirable by members of this hirsute race, barber is a particularly esteemed profession...dealing with their fast growing hair is a major preoccupation of these people, most try to outdo one another in volume and style - where ever it may grow.

[markc]

  Is the bee-hive a populer Dwarf hair style? Or maybe the inverted bee-hive beard is in fashion. Sorry I just read the Oscar dress reviews and they have some wacky views of fashion.

MDC

[Langthorne]

plaits and braids are very 'in' at the moment darling.

[mocking bird]

However if you separate cultures & race out too much you then need to adjust the racial abilities & stats.  For example if dwarves are arboreal why would they be able to see in the dark?  If elves lived underground or in the mountains would they stil have the same stat mods?

[Sorloc]

However if you separate cultures & race out too much you then need to adjust the racial abilities & stats.  For example if dwarves are arboreal why would they be able to see in the dark?  If elves lived underground or in the mountains would they stil have the same stat mods?

Well, 'cause Tolkien said so, of course!

duh...

[Cory Magel]

However if you separate cultures & race out too much you then need to adjust the racial abilities & stats.  For example if dwarves are arboreal why would they be able to see in the dark?  If elves lived underground or in the mountains would they stil have the same stat mods?

The way I look at the separation: We aren't changing the genetic and physical make-up of a race when we use what would have been another adolescense ranks... we are saying that for some reason a member of a certain race he been raise in another environment. Therefore the racial bonuses and resistances and that kind of thing are intact, but the skills they learned growing up are another matter.

[Rasyr-Mjolnir]

However if you separate cultures & race out too much you then need to adjust the racial abilities & stats.  For example if dwarves are arboreal why would they be able to see in the dark?  If elves lived underground or in the mountains would they stil have the same stat mods?

That all depends upon how far back in their history they moved from one type of local to another. Genetic changes take extremely long amounts of time to percolate through an entire race in such a fashion that it becomes standard.

More likely, if the race evolved in a different environment, then it quite likely would have its own name.

[Langthorne]

It is often more interesting looking at how a 'fish out of water' so to speak, adapts to the new environment in a cultural sense (such as a nocturnal forest dwelling race - averse to sunlight, but unable to live underground anymore, for example)

[mocking bird]

More likely, if the race evolved in a different environment, then it quite likely would have its own name.

A dwarf is a dwarf is a dwarf.  But by any other name would it still have a beard?

But basically we are dealing with racial arch/stereotypes.  You say dwarf and you have Gimli/Flint/Thorin pop in your head.  I was just pondering that if you had undergound elves for example (not radioactive ones like drow who were originally surface elves) if they would still be all dodgy.  But again these are setting issues and I think would be kind of fun to tinker with just to mess with players.

[Cory Magel]

The campaign I am about to start has "Night Elves" which are a darker skinned variety that live underground. They are not 'evil' like the Drow, but do have a more cranky attitude to them (I described it as the inhabitants of the world attributing it to their proximity to the Dwarves )