I'm working on a game (ok, I said I was working on different stuff, but this one I'm set on, I promise) set in an ER Burroughs-influenced prehistoric setting, with nods to stuff like King Kong, Land of the Lost, One Million Years BC, etc. PCs are members of a Tribe, fighting out conflicts in this world.

Anyway, I want the players to create the Tribe first, then their PCs. I think this will go a long way to making the game much more cohesive. Question is, how to define a tribe?

I've decided Tribe's have 2 traits, Tradition and Mortality, a set of signs that describe the Tribe, a character map of its members, and then a list of potential conflicts. The game in a nutshell is for the PCs to resolve those conflicts to increase the value of their Tribe.

Tradition is the rigidity of its cultural mores. The higher the value of Tradition the more difficult it is for individuals to go against it, or change it. Mortality is basically how often people die. Character death is dependent on this trait.

So far, I've decided to make various categories for my Signs, members' roles, and conflicts. Here's what I got:

Signs:
--Agrarian: tribes uses agriculture
--Hunter: tribe hunts for food
--Servants: tribe uses either an enslaved tribe, an uber-beast beast like a dinosaur, or domesticated animals
--Cannibal: tribe eats people
--Warrior: tribe has a warlike ethic, and plunders neighboring tribes
--Tools: type of tools (or technology of them) the tribe uses
--Site: a place important to the tribe, like a holy site, or homeland
--Tribe: a neighboring tribe
--Nomad: tribe has no set location, follows a food source
--Machine: either a category of technology, or specific machines used by the tribe. A machine has working parts while a tool doesn't. The wheel is tool until added to something, making it a machine.
--Kong: a giant god-beast worshipped by the tribe

Members roles would include chief, warrior, foodsource (no this isn't some specialize job for the cannibals, instead a catch-all category for farmer, hunter, berry gatherer), shaman, herder (or shepherd).

Conflicts I haven't delved in too much, but should include both internal and external conflicts. I'd say that conflicts maybe potential tension points identified between members and the tribe's various signs. Things like the scarcity of resources, antagonistic Tribes, and hostile prehistoric monsters would fit here.

Eventually, I'd like the whole system to be able to construct everything from 'lost' wandering tribes consisting of just the PCs, cavemen, and even Aztec-style communities of bronze-age metal.

Anyway, any thoughts?

Steve

Steve,

I might be interested in something like this.

Have you read Orkworld? Its Household creation rules are similiar, at least in concept, to what you're talking about. In a game full of good stuff, I think the Household rules are some of the best (right behind the idea of Trouble).

And since I'm referencing Wick...

John once said the best way to get to know a group of people is to talk about what they believe in. Really focus on the religious/philosophical/spiritual reasons your tribespeople do the things they do, or give the players the means and incentive to figure that stuff out for themselves. Could be pretty cool.

- Scott

While I have little respect for Napolean Chagnon as an anthropologist, I'd suggest finding a used copy of "Yanomami:The Fierce People" because the fiction he created in the name of scientific discovery would probably be full of good gems for your endeavor. *wink*

I haven't seen Orkworld, because frankly, I have no interests in Orks. So I missed those concepts in there. If I get a chance I'll check it out.

Beliefs? I'd like Signs to handle certain kinds of beliefs. Should it be a separate category? Or slyly stuck into Signs (which is what I think is what I'm doing)?

This is a hypothetical way of addressing your comment.

Let's look at it as using Beliefs as traits (that is characteristics with number scores). Let's say you have something like this:

Death: opinion on death, good or bad. Low score means low regard for life, high score means high regard for life.

Spirituality: opinion on the invisible world, afterlife. High is highly spiritual, low is completely atheistic

Gender: equality of the sexes. High is equal, low is not.

...And so forth. Now I'm considering a dice mechanic where players roll a trait + an emote -- basically an emotion or passion that is in play for that scene. Characters will have some basic emotes (my five so far are Bravery, Desire, Empathy, Fear, and Hate), but they can use a relational trait (like Love (Dian the Beautiful) for instance) as emote also. These Tribe traits could also be used as emotes.

The question though is, where do you put all these numbers on the character sheet? I liked just plain Tradition because it could go up into the corner without taking too much space. I'm likely to go with just Tradition as the Tribe's emote. And then sneak belief system into the definitions of the Signs like so:

Warrior: the tribe values war and war-like ethics. It values combatants over non-combatants, plundering other tribes for resources, Darwinian ruthlessness, and has a low opinion of life.

or

Cannibal: the tribes eats people. Why has to be decided by the group. Is it religous, a scare tactic for other tribes, or just good eating? Finally, who gets eaten and who doesn't?

I think the Signs plus Tradition will work great. I was wondering if anyone had any obvious Signs that I might be missing, or a different way I should be ordering them.

I think its a great idea.

First thing I would do, however, is decide how mechanistic you want the system to be. Do you want these things to be basically idea generators to loosely depict some tribal features. Or do you want to seriously define them in a way that I could pick up a Tribe you've created and based on the numbers have a pretty good idea of what that Tribe is like.

What I mean is this:

High regard / Low regard for life is a fine trait, but I'd include other traits that specifically interact with this trait to determine the Tribes actual views.

For instance: A tribe has a very high regard for life. Have another Trait that indicates its regard for Death. High Life and High Death might signify a tribe who believes in living life to the fullest but does but believes that death in defense of Life is a noble end. High Life and Low Death might be a tribe that is totally pasifistic and fearfull of death. Low Life and High Death might be a "life is cheap" attitude. etc.

Interfaceing a High Regard for Life with a High Xenophobic Trait might result in a Tribe that holds the life of its own members in high regard but those of others are inconsequential.

Interfacing a High Regard for Death with High Belief in Afterlife Trait and a High Warlike Trait might yield a tribe that would embrace the concept of "Jihad".


I personally would look for making an entire matrix of these sorts of interrelatable Traits

Steve,

I'll think on the Signs, but your list looks good so far.

As far as attaching beliefs to the various Signs, that's exactly what I was thinking (in my mind, I was concocting all sorts of beliefs around the practice of cannibalism); I'm no anthropologist, but I would suggest that most tribal people attach beliefs to damn near everything. I'm not sure how many in the real world practice cannibalism just because its good eating, and I can't think of any primitive peoples that are overtly atheistic. Even if there are, and there very well may be, I wouldn't focus on those as options for the players - its just as not as interesting in a purely emotional way. Cannibals who are cannibals just because they like the taste of raw liver are not nearly as interesting as those who practice the act in emulation of their great god Kong.

Just my take on it, of course.

- Scott

Couple of things --

I don't think I'm gonna go with lots and lots of numerical traits to describes Tribes. If the game was about Tribes vs Tribes, I probably would. But its not. Instead it's gonna be about PCs who are members of the same Tribe, caught in its conflicts, and trying to make it a better Tribe. It comes down to, how are you going to put that information down on each and every character sheet? Plus, would it be relevant to the game to be that detailed?

Likewise, I don't want this to become an extensive exercise in anthropology. I see the flavor of the game being that you are Tumak, warrior of the Shell Tribe, riding bareback on your horse, Ubok, to get fire for your Tribe, fighting mammoths, T-Rexs, and Sleestaks. It's got a certain cheese, sure, but it sure sounds like fun to me.

With that said, maybe Signs should have descriptive phrase or qualifiers (not I'm not so sure they should be called Signs). For example:

Cannibal:
-consumes people to gain their 'life-force'
-the brain, seat of the person's life-force
-must perform a 'ritual of cleansing' before a feast
-which part of the body you are given to eat, shows your
social status within the Tribe (watch out for those feet!)


Also, thanks for mentioning Xenophobia. That needs to be worked into a sign somehow. Another sign could be Status, as in the levels of social status within the Tribe.

Steve

Steve,

You may want to consider a "craft" sign which could encompass things like utilitarian pottery, trade stuffs, art, etc.

The cannibal as a sign doesn't work for me. In my mind it could easily be a descriptive of one of the others, that is, cannibalism representing food could be part of the hunter or servants sign, likewise, aggression (warrior or tribe), religion (kong).

For conflicts you could consider what elements/relationships the the tribe relies on, e.g., salmon population, flood seasons, etc.

Good luck with your project!

Julie

p.s. Sleestaks! That takes me back ...

Craft. Of course...that's keen.

I think those are really great, yet obvious points. Gak, why didn't I think of it before?

So I would look at things like:

Hunter:
--Mammoths
--People

Religion:
--Cannabilism
--Kong
--Spirits
--Ancient Astronauts
--The Earth Goddess

Craft:
--Cave Painting
--Goldplate figures

Shelter (buildings? architecture?):
--Mud huts
--Pyramids

I don't know about Aggression (War/Pacifist) though. I'd like a sign that can have multiple interpretations. Maybe I can assign how a tribes relates to other tribes when talking about Warlike tendencies? For example:

Diplomacy(?):
--War
--Barters in pig skins
--Pacifists

I guess I'll try to clean up my list. Thanks.

Steve

Steve:

Don't be so quick to dismiss Orkworld. It has plenty of good material to work with, even disregarding the Orkness of the protagonists.

There's a good bit on Cannibalism there (Orks eat their dead, and believe that whatever body part they eat, they gain that ability. So eat the feet or legs, you can run faster; eat the brain, you get smarter, etc).

Wick has gone a long way to make sure that the belief system makes sense from front to back, and vice versa, as well as other aspects of Ork society. And the Household building thing seems right up your alley. You get a certain total number of points to work with, not only to build your Household, but your characters as well, so the more powerful your individual characters, the less points you have to put toward the rest of your tribe (and sometimes it's nice to have a few extra warriors around to help out).

Now if he could just get around to updating the website, everything would be cool (I'd also pay money for a reprint of the rulebook that eliminated all the errors the original printer accidentally introduced).