Species/Race/Culture (split)

[John Kim]

I am specifically looking for games that hit two main points:

1) Different mechanics for different Species/Races/Cultures. Specific examples that show how choosing one of these affects actual gameplay. For example, if I choose to be an Elf, I get infravision, but as a human, I do not. I would love to see an example of a game, or a theory for one that the mechanics would be almost entirely different if you choose to be a different species/race/culture.  

I think there are two approaches to this.  One is to try to insert flavorful race-specific mechanics.  For example, Vincent Baker's http://www.septemberquestion.org/lumpley/other.html">OtherKind makes the four races differ in fundamental ways -- each having different ways of taking damage, for example.  

Another way is in race design itself.  For example, http://www.auroragames.com/">Aurora has some extremely alien races such as the silicon-based Uhrmina which perceive through radar and crawl on asymetrical bodies.  I tend to think that Aurora goes a little too far with some of its races, in that they are simply impossible to reasonably play.  

A less extreme example of an alien race would be Traveller's Zhodani.  They are human but have integrated psionic powers into their society.  In particular, they have actual Thought Police -- but these are not viewed as a totalitarian control, but rather as a helpful health service.  

This is the sort of alien approach which I have felt works the best, in that there is a distinct difference which colors nearly all aspects of life.  Infravision can easily be forgotten, but a change which is more extreme and integral can't be.  

2) Detailed Setting that makes clear the differences between these, and their interrelation between each other. Not so much as a "you must play your character this way" as a "this is what they are like, try to shoot for this." An example of this would be a game that set out very distinct cultures for the same race, so that the suspension of disbelief is not so easily torn apart.

This would be interesting as well -- but I don't think I've ever seen it.  As far as I can recall, every game has a particular culture for a given non-human race, and the only exceptions are when they don't include any culture at all.  

A side note:  One of my favorite past PCs was from a fantasy version of Europe with dwarves, elves, and magic mixing it up with the Roman Empire, feudalism, etc.  He was a Romanized elf -- an elf whose village had been brought under Roman rule, and being young at the time he adopted the Roman ways.  He was extremely disparaging of the barbaric, tree-hugging ways of his past compared to the great civilization of the Empire.  It was very interesting to play.

[M. J. Young]

I'm not sure I'm understanding.  By saying it is not socio-political, you seem to be saying that Caucasians are genetically programmed to use skin color for identifying individuals.  I don't dismiss that out of hand, but I also haven't heard any evidence for that.  Presumably this could be tested for by studies of Caucasians raised in non-Caucasian communities.  They would have measurable perceptual difficulty distinguishing individuals compared to others in their community.

I apologize for a lack of clarity on this.

Studies in law have demonstrated difficulty in cross-racial identifications--that is, caucasiod witnesses have trouble distinguishing negroid suspects from each other, or mongoloid suspects from each other; negroid witnesses have similar difficulties with both caucasoid and mongoloid suspects, and the same for mongoloids attempting to identify caucasoids and negroids. However, this is heavily caveated.

One point is that it has less to do with skin color and more to do with bone structure. The nuances of facial distinction which are most easily distinguished in caucasoids are significantly attenuated in others, and it works the other way as well. These are not universal to any group, but they are common.

Another point that must be made is that the recognition factors have more to do with culture than with race--that is, it's a matter of upbringing, not genetics, in its essence. If I have trouble distinguishing blacks from each other, it is because I grew up in a part of the world in which there were very few, particularly when I was very young. The first faces any child sees (for any prolonged exposure) are the members of his family, and he uses these as a baseline for identifying other faces. The more different in structure a face is from those of his family, the more difficult it is for the child to distinguish one face from another which share similar characteristics.

Years ago when I was in high school, a black friend at camp ran an afro pick through his hair. I watched. When he was done, I said that surprisingly I could not tell the difference made by the effort. He responded that he often found he could not tell what difference combing hair made for white people. We had each had far more exposure to people like us than unlike us, and so had learned to recognize nuances that distinguished people who were extremely alike better than rather gross distinctions between people who were more different from us.

There's a popular story about the Five Chinese Brothers; it's been rendered to a cartoon somewhere. The essence of the story is that each of the brothers has an incredible power. One of them offends the emperor, and is sentenced to death. He asks if he can return home and say good bye to his family first. He is replaced by a brother whose power enables him to survive the intended method of execution. Another method is ordered, and the process repeats with another brother, and on through all five, until the emperor decides he can't be killed and lets him go.

I thought about this once, and realized that not only was this a rather racist story, it was a strictly European story. It was founded on the core concept that all Chinese people look alike, and therefore five brothers would be so completely indistinguishable from each other that no one could tell one from another. Had it been a genuine Chinese fable, it would have been something like The Five Swedish Brothers--five young men who had golden hair and bright eyes, who were all so very tall, and so couldn't be distinguished from each other because they were all exactly the same. The Chinese Emperor would not be fooled by five brothers, because he would be able to see the differences between them--he is culturally attuned to note those distinctions, where Europeans in the main would not be.

As to whether there are genuine distinctions between caucasoid, mongoloid, and negroid races, this is not my field; I'm working from some educational televion instruction in anthropology (I did have some of that in college, but not much). It was connecting early American skeletal remains with caucasoid structures common to Europeans, but more significantly to aboriginal Japanese, and modern Native Americans to mongoloid structures. The inference drawn was that the ancient burial grounds of unidentified prehistoric Americans were of those who had migrated from Asia connected to the Japanese and a few other caucasoid peoples, and not related to current Native Americans, who were descended from a later migration of the mongoloid Asians currently dominating the continent. There is nothing in this regarding skin color; caucasoid aboriginal Japanese have yellow-hued skin.

The core concept is that at some point these three basic skeletal structures either emerged or diverged, and genetic relationships can be traced in part through this. The fact that the names originated from someone who (incorrectly and inappropriately) presumed one was "original" or "best" does not invalidate the distinctions nor the relationships they imply.

Which brings up another aspect to the game relationship: how do races really see each other?

I don't think I've ever been in a game in which race or culture made much difference. Stop and think about this; even between members of the same race, wouldn't cultural differences blur the ability to distinguish individuals?

I'm thinking that when I go to a big party, like a wedding reception, the women are all dressed in fancy dresses, and to some degree I can identify them from across the room by the dresses they wear. I can also tell that they are not the men, whom I identify by the suits. That's also interesting, because the difference between one suit and another is relatively minor, but because I'm accustomed to these as a form of dress, I can often parse the nuances at a glance, and so recognize someone from across the room with his back to me strictly by the fact that I know what suit he's wearing.

How would it be were I to attend a reception in which everyone was wearing brightly colored kimonos? To those who are familiar with such garb, they would immediately spot the differences in cut and pattern of one and another. To me, it might be all night before I could reliably identify male dress from female from any distance, and I might not be able to pick out my hostess even standing near her without being able to see her face.

Yet we regularly have elves meeting dwarfs, Romulans meeting Klingons, and finding the ability to recognize individuals simple enough. I would think it would take time before Bilbo could tell Gloin from Balin, not having known dwarfs at all during his life. Why don't Legalos and Gimli confuse Pippin and Frodo, at least once in a while? It is an axiom in drama that you need to have actors and actresses in key rolls who look very different from each other, so that the audience can quickly attach identity to the right face (although having famous faces can overcome this, which is one reason why name actors are in demand). Do we adequately address the difficulties people of different races and cultural backgrounds would have in recognizing each other, even after they've met? I think perhaps this could be better addressed.

Well, that's more than enough from me.

--M. J. Young

[contracycle]

It is definitley the case that the more familiar you are with a set of behaviours or devices of public display, the easier it is to see subtle distinctions.  And conversely, ghetto-isation and deliberate segmentation of society can be exploited to reinforce the sense of otherness and the inability to go from a generalised to a specific recognition.  I also agree that when you want easily accessible, and rather superficial, recognition to happen than the broader the brush the better.

As MJ says, even people of very similar phenotypes may not recognise each other based on expectations of dress - the Prince and the Pauper is an exercise on this theme.  "Clothes maketh the man" as we used to say, and they are often used to establish social ranks and public prestige, but this very seldom appears in RPG.

But all this reinforces my discomfort with race-based splats.  Sure - culture based, class-based, group-based: but when we see the specific combination of biology and culture conflated, then all the subtleties we have been discussing get lumped into stereotypes.  I would love to see games which did address some of the ways in which human groups distinguish between each other, construct symbols by which to distinguish each other, and the relationship between the general perception and the specific reality.  I just don't want to see a race-based splat ever again unless there is some absolutley startling in-game reason for it that adds value to the game itself. (so like, I will concede perhaps the Dralasite from Star Frontiers has such a unique morphology that it likely shares few properties/concerns with more familiar forms).

[damion]

M.J.
First off: I think that is an interesting, and generally correct point. However:

I would be surprised if the problem is as severe as you mentioned.  The things with witnesses is that they usually don't see someone under conditions that are conductive to recognizing them again. I think is someone actually talked to someone f2f for a while, the would probalby be able to recognize the person for a while afterward. Also, dress is a factor.  For humans, there are a number of common facial bone structures, even within a race.

     I guess my point is that humanoid races should be able to distinguish between members fairly well, although it is possible for two members to look alike, this would be an exception rather than the rule. (just more commone than in the case of a race the viewer was used to).

I can definaly see there being a problem for races that use vastly differnt visual cues(not to mention  cue's humans can't sense).  I definaly think this could be an interesting twist in some games.

[simon_hibbs]

In fact that is somewhat what I was touching on in my initial post, that as humans ourselves, everything we do, say, and most importantly, think, will be in essence, human. Even the wildest, morally questionable, horrific, etc., thoughts that we think are still human, because they are the only terms we can think in.

I think this can be pushed too far, and often is. Inteligent aliens
still live in the same universe (if not the same world) as us, with
the same physical laws and the same principles of nature.
Therefore it is not unresonably to assume that they are likely
to have some things in common with us. Given multiple alien
species from different worlds, some are likely to be more like us
than others.

Should we ever have the opportunity to experience life as a true alien, or even as another species, we would become "childlike" in our thinking. I use the term childlike because we couldn't just jump into the experience with our current knowledge, because then we would simply be humans with a different skin. This was iterated in Mike's initial post on this subject and this is something of a more philosophical nature than I was hoping to get into.

My favourite non-human species in roleplaying games are the trolls
(Uz), dwarves (Mostali) and elves (Aldryami) of Glorantha. In fact
the trolls of glorantha are probably one of the best developed
non-human spcies in roleplaying. None of these has much in common
with their Tolkien equivalents, and were developed completely
independently of them. Any similarities are superficial and derive from
their common ancestry from north european myth.

No game mechanics are given for roelpaying them differently
though. I'm reminded of a comment Lurence Olivier made to
Dustin Hoffman after Hoffman explained 'The Method' to him
"My dear fellow, why don't you just Act?" In RQ, and in HW,
you're expected to just roleplay.

I'll cut-n-paste froma  Glorantha Digest article of mine from 1998,
that explains how these races emphasize different psychological
traits. It might be useful to look up Id, Ego and Superego first,
if you're not familiar with those terms.

---------

Supposedly, trolls emphasise the id, mostali the ego and aldryami the
superego. ie :

Trolls are motivated by their instictual desires for food, offspring,
social power, etc. Their lack of an ego means that they have no real
sense of being a 'part of things', their lot in life is simply necessery
in order to get more food, beer, offspring, etc. The only way to prevent
them from satisfying their primitive needs is through force, or the
threat of it. They have no moral sense (superego), hence the brutal
nature of Troll society.

Mostali emphasize the Ego. Their whole purpose and raison d'etre is to
work on the world machine - their conception of reality. Their whole
lives are dedicated to fullfilling their need to feel usefull. Their
personal needs (id) are of minimal importance and they have no moral
sense (superego) whatsoever. They simply do their job, whatever the
consequences - forever.

Aldryami emphasize the superego. Their entire lives are dedicated to the
protection and service of their mother Aldrya (internalization of
parental conscience), and their home forest. Their whole lives are
dedicated to the service of their home and people. Their personal
desires and needs (id) and sense of individual achievement and possition
in the scheme of things (ego) are superfluous to them.


Simon Hibbs