In cyberpunk and a lot of other games, I see slang terms and odd phrases to describe when something happens or that's the nature. There are indeed games that ask a certain class of character about another class of character. So, then, we have lots of biases developed in the game.

Every game that wants colour should have biases. But I haven't seen any real complex ones. Ones that seem to entangle both what category a person falls under, and the superstitions or cues that relate to them specifically.

So I'd say that the best way to address it is not in a section for each certain class of character's opinions, but a list of biases by itself.

Example . . .---------------------

1) Greymare as hocus-pocus . . .

Anyone of the Seelie court referring to Greymare as hocus-pocus has become somewhat of a swear, especially to the Sidhe.

Pooka have been known to ramble on and on about Greymare they've encountered, while Eshu stories seem to leave others asking if the mystery was really embedded in Greymare. Redcaps generally downplay the idea as best as they possibly can, and Sluagh tend to hear the word, and say . . . "What about it?"

The common argument is that disbelief in Greymare is just Banality talking. But such disbelief doesn't discount one's belief in the magnifiscent. So the argument doesn't always hold sway.

--Now you could make a system about social penalties or gains that would ensue to your character if Greymare is mentioned to be involved . . .

-------------------------------

Changeling is just one example. But for those whom are willing to make their games fairly complicated, this could certainly add realism.

In our reality, there are biases for just about anything under the sun. So it wouldn't be ideal to make a bias list for a game "as realistic as possible," before wasting too much time.

I would like to see how a game feels with a category that lists biases that way. Have you seen one?

I think such things are best presented in an 'in-character' kind of way. RQ (and now HeroQuest) has a the "What my father (or priest/shaman/etc) told me" introductions to the different cultures that explain each cultural or religious world view. This includes biases, such as "Who are our enemies", Who are our friends", and attitudes towards various kinds of foreigners and religious rivals or allies.

Issaries are working on an updated and expanded collection of these as a downloadable pdf. Should be available on their site (www.glorantha.com) soon.


Simon Hibbs

Actually I'm not that keen on the in-character method; when in narrative format, it always leaves in some doubt as to to whether I am meant to take it as True or rather 'a perspective'. HW/HQ's format is much stronger, making it quite clear what sort of informnation is being conveyed in what context.

Hm. I like the in-character narration because of those same reasons - you aren't sure whether or not to take it as True. :)

The game I'm working on has relationships between the various groups as one of its major themes, so I currently have these written up a bit like the way it's done in Changeling: each group has a few lines of opinion, mostly IC, about their attitude towards each other group. However, I also discuss species relationships--and issues like why various groups mistakenly believe certain things about other groups--in another section of the game, to try to give both IC and more objective explanations for these things. I found it wasn't useful enough to present group X hating group Y, and the favor being returned, without also taking the time to explain why they take each other in that way, especially if members of each group might not be aware of these reasons.

I'm not sure what the first poster meant about listing biases, still; in the sense that you put all the biases in one area, rather than dividing them by group? It seems simplest from a player's point of view to arrange most biases by whichever people are expected to have them, for quick reference, as players in many games only really need to keep track of the appropriate prejudices and opinions of their own group.

simon_hibbs wrote: I think such things are best presented in an 'in-character' kind of way. RQ (and now HeroQuest) has a the "What my father (or priest/shaman/etc) told me" introductions to the different cultures that explain each cultural or religious world view. This includes biases, such as "Who are our enemies", Who are our friends", and attitudes towards various kinds of foreigners and religious rivals or allies.

John Kim wrote:
I'm not a big fan of this approach, though I'm not sure why. I think in part that it tends to treat attitudes as a sort of dogma -- i.e. you are told what a character of that group believes ("X are our friends") but not why you believe it.

I'd also say that it isn't really in-character, but rather pseudo-in-character. That is, a character is not expected to encounter word-for-word a document or speech as given.

simon_hibbs wrote: I don't agree, the naratives often contain justifications. These are summaries however. For more detail you would need articles on history, mythology, etc, but summaries are precisely what was asked for.

simon_hibbs wrote:

I'd also say that it isn't really in-character, but rather pseudo-in-character. That is, a character is not expected to encounter word-for-word a document or speech as given.

They're explicitly presented as the actual words of the person they are purport to be from. Of cousre not every Orlanth boy gets exactly the same speech from their uncle, or whoever, but is that really such a big deal? Why?

Thanks. So if I might summarize the discussion:

First, if I am to have a rulebook with an "opinion" category, the rulebook should be completely narrativist.

I suppose that's merely a differentiation between "we're not telling" and "it's unknown." Not everyone can be right, but every player wants to be, so the narrator leaves specific answers to the GM.

I would rather opinions by themselves than under each class, because it can be a whole complex world in itself. "A says that x wants b, but c was told that d likes f. That could be only because f is a's y" Lol. etc etc.

Then I try to generally divide opinions regarding different subjects, maybe some under specific classes. Although it's not really split accurately, because the opinion "ball" is really a knot that stands on its own.

PS, I'm kind of shocked at a forum with such intelligent responces.

John Kim wrote: Well, because who the speaker is matters. That is, if I was told that speech by my crazy uncle who I hate, that colors how my character regards what was said. If it was the tribal chief, then it will be important what my character thinks of him and authority in general.

simon_hibbs wrote:

John Kim wrote: Well, because who the speaker is matters. That is, if I was told that speech by my crazy uncle who I hate, that colors how my character regards what was said. If it was the tribal chief, then it will be important what my character thinks of him and authority in general.

But that applies to any in-world source of information. Depending on your character's personal situation and attitudes, your response to the information will differ. Surely that's a good thing?

John Kim wrote:
I feel that if there is going to be a summary which gives an overview of the culture, it should be external. Even better would be having the issues of the culture (i.e. "biases") intertwined with all the rest of the information. i.e. If you're writing a Victorian game, all of the information should be done in a somewhat Victorian style and from a Victorian point-of-view.

simon_hibbs wrote: So summaries should be external (third person?), but it's better not to have summaries at all and instead scatter it throughout the main source material.

Can't say I agree personaly, but tastes differ.

I agree with you, John. But naturally the elf player should know what his friends are telling him about dwarves so that he knows his own group best. Not only that . . . but about trees, dogs, etc. And now the elf section would include whatever relations people give about the trees / dogs in relation to elves. This can get out of hand real quickly. So I guess that my theory was about putting biases when describing objects in the game as well as creatures. It's more dispersed this way.

Naturally, each bias leads to another. Elves think this about rocks, dwarves disagree, and that affects elf and dwarf opinions about each other.

To me: It seems now, that the most organized way to make biases would be to repeat biases in all sorts of ways all throughout the book. Simply because of viewpoint: Not to mention the roguish estranged wanderer who doesn't have real particular allegiances. How do we predict everything she learns.

I think it would be a good idea on an internet-based game that you rewrite the information allover the place (the reader knows where to skip if they want to). You would be rewriting a great deal of things again and again in different areas, slightly different each time. Because it's not being printed, you're not worried about supplies, and the data for text is not to worry about. It's not as time consuming as trying to conceptualize. In some ways, such a strategy may seem like an excuse to create a huge game with not actually that many concepts. But I'd feel it wouldn't be sufficient otherwise.

Because I'm focusing on a word based system, biases would be like: "Elf General Opinion: Dwarf as Miner. Dwarf Distaste Opinion as Dwarf Miner. Dwarf Recognize Elf Bias to Dwarf" etc etc. That's not the whole parlance, just in the mechanic.

I guess I'm also saying an internet-based rulebook can benefit from a lot of what would seem like jargon.

Also, we get written opinions. What about illustrations? Surely we have narrative illustrations. Why not, like known culture, we depict biases through pictures: An elf child draws a mean 'ol dwarf picking on her friend. A dwarf father draws gold as beautiful as it can appear; rather than just showing an actual dwarf and elf, and an actual dwarf mining.

On a side note: Thinking about Tolkien and his original conception of his species. I think that our modern role playing games tend to pick up Tolkien's trends, but they're not so often picking up his strategies (I'm not rushing it of course. There's lots to be explored in one trend).

Example: I imagine Tolkien thought to himself, before conceiving dwarves, that a creature lives in mountains. Naturally, has stocky build; therefore making its way by mining; therefore producing its culture in responce to the resources of mining; therefore being used to pickaxes which makes them so prone to wield normal axes. And same thing so forth with other species.

We use Tolkien's themes but we don't often ask the same questions that he did. Making a millieu is just impossible when combining different elements. You actually have to start it like any planet, and fast-forward-evolve it with every detail you can put.

Anyone wanting to further that topic, I suggest putting a link to a new thread. I brought it up, anyhow. I hope I'm helping progress on the issue.

John Kim wrote:
You say scattered, but I would say rather organized by subject. i.e. What different cultures think about the elves should be in the "Elves" section, together with the rest of the information about them. Doing so affirms the potential truth to this -- that is, what the dwarves think of elves is relevant information for someone trying to form an unbiased opinion about elves, rather than being clearly useless information relegated to a "biases" chapter. This as opposed to putting a "truth" about elves in the elves section and having a separate section for biases.

simon_hibbs wrote: I would have thought that what elves think about dwarves would be much more appropriate to a document about elves.

simon_hibbs wrote: If I ask the question "What do I ned to know to play an Elf", I realy want just a few documents, not a whole bunch of references to other documents that are mainly about other things. Reading 'For information on Elven attitudes to Dwarves, see the Dwarf supplement, etc, etc, etc' would not endear me to the author.

John, I think you're wrong.

I think even in cosmopolitan America, the majority of people in any racial/ethnic/social subgroup knows very little about the facts and attitudes of those outside their own group. White might, for example, know that blacks (overgeneralizing) don't like whites, and that blacks blame whites for poverty and other problems stemming from slavery. They don't, in the main, understand that in any detail. Thus what whites generally say about blacks would be properly listed in the section about whites, while the facts about what blacks think and feel about whites are descriptive not of white culture but of black culture.

That doesn't mean that nothing whites believe about blacks is true; it means that the truth is filtered by cultural lenses that limit what is generally known and believed.

To go to elves and dwarfs, we would expect these facts to be found in the description of dwarfs:
--They are mostly miners and mine dwellers.
--They cherish precious metals and gems.
--They value wood only as a tool for supporting stone structures.
--Elves, who don't understand mines, don't understand the value of these things.

In the description of elves, among the facts that describe elves, we would find:
--They love living things, particularly trees.
--They see little value in dead things, such as metals and rocks, except as tools.
--They eat the fruit of plants and trees primarily.
--They think dwarfs are cruel to trees, killing them for no good purpose.
--They think that the love dwarfs have for dead things is an abominable misunderstanding of the nature of things.
--They think there is something inherently wrong with any creature who hides from the sun and fresh air in holes in the ground.

Some of these are facts specifically about the race to whom they apply; some of these are filtered through the values of the race observing.

The attitudes of your people, as a player character, are very much relevant to who you are, and not terribly relevant to the identities of those people.

I would even suggest that in most fantasy settings, given the Tolkienesque separation of races, players should not read the facts about other races, only their own race's perceptions thereof. This would better enable each player to get into the mindset of who his character actually is, how he thinks, how he is likely to react to his companions.

I've seen too many D&D games in which player character surface elves, gnomes, humans, and dwarfs not only embrace each other but then eagerly accept the player character drow without worrying that he might be an assassin, or the hengeyokai who seems so like a werecreature. Too many players are just putting on a costume that looks like another race, and greeting the other characters as if they were just the other players in costumes at a costume party, and not as if they actually understood the cultural biases and filters with which their characters have been raised and indoctrinated for at least a score of years.

Public schools just didn't exist in Grayhawk, as far as I know.

--M. J. Young

M. J. Young wrote: I would even suggest that in most fantasy settings, given the Tolkienesque separation of races, players should not read the facts about other races, only their own race's perceptions thereof. This would better enable each player to get into the mindset of who his character actually is, how he thinks, how he is likely to react to his companions.

M. J. Young wrote: I've seen too many D&D games in which player character surface elves, gnomes, humans, and dwarfs not only embrace each other but then eagerly accept the player character drow without worrying that he might be an assassin, or the hengeyokai who seems so like a werecreature. Too many players are just putting on a costume that looks like another race, and greeting the other characters as if they were just the other players in costumes at a costume party, and not as if they actually understood the cultural biases and filters with which their characters have been raised and indoctrinated for at least a score of years.

Outside of subject for a moment.

John wrote:
"A culture rarely views itself as flawed or evil."

This is interesting, because in my first-person (or second-person as well?) account of vampires, the narrator is somewhat giving up the information on the vampire world to us mortals because he feels guilty for the vampire race. He describes much as a rechid abomination, then puts down mortals as well. Maybe it's just a human notion to not be self derogatory. Of course, how could a species survive unless it had some "self esteem"? Well, survival might not depend on the will to gain for the race's benefit. Thirst might be so strong, it really doesn't matter. Or a society may see self-infliction toward betterment the way we might see competition toward evolution.

I guess my point is to consider a derogatory cultural bias towards itself.

Back to the subject.

I like the term "filter" for a bias. Now instead of getting something under "elves," this means you can play an elf in the game, and go completely without biases. The mechanic will simply either force you or persuade you to get a bias "filter" for a certain kind of elf.

What I mean is: Say you have seven races. That doesn't mean you need seven filters. Some races could have 3. Some could have 5, but a few are pretty closely interchangeable. Some could have a very simple one which does not change much. So a bias filter is something to put on a character sheet. You interchange biases to construct your filter, then use the filter for your character.

Hypothetical example.

A colony of elves is attacked by a dragon, and the adults must war against it. Many of them die, and suddenly a great deal of youth are orphaned with too few adults to care for them. So a local Dwarf village puts their grudges aside, and adopts many of these orphans. You play one of the orphans. There's not much point in making your character a whole different class. Your physical stats may remain the same, but now you interchange some proficiencies (axe wielding) and you get a whole new "bias filter."

Thoughts?

Tough call on where to place the bias section. I see both sides of this one. In certain specialized cases, I can see keeping the "factual" information from the players. But I'm going to side with John in general cases. That is, players can play without player knowledge interfering. Further, it's fine to put in biases sections with the information on the other races (in "Elves" there would be a "dwarves think this about Elves" section), and let the player determine just how much his character is cosmopolitan in outlook or provincial. In fact I think that this is a key consideration in terms of defining the character's personality.

In point of fact, the player will probably assume that information presented from their races viewpoint is slanted, and can adjust the attitude intelligently anyhow, assuming he has the desire to do so. So, given that it may happen anyhow, why not make it an informed decision?

It's interesting that saying that "All Americans hate the French because they Stereotype them" is itself a Stereotype. Characters are individuals, and some will fit the stereotype of having a certain bias. Others will not. Usually that's a player decision, and the text should follow that.

Mike

John Kim wrote:

simon_hibbs wrote: I would have thought that what elves think about dwarves would be much more appropriate to a document about elves.

Well, I don't. As I said, the implication from this is that whatever Elves think, it is wrong. Suppose my PC is an elf, and I want to know what my character thinks of dwarves. Under the organization you suggested, I should consult a section which has no informational content about dwarves.

I feel this is mildly insulting to my character. Under the organization I suggest, I should turn to the dwarf section. That is, my character's opinion should be formed based at least in part on the facts about dwarves.

Now, it could be that a PC is not a critical thinker -- and he just parrots whatever he has heard for his opinion about dwarves. However, he might also base his opinion on actual thought. My take would be that you should assume an informed view and provide all the information, some of which the player can ignore if she decides her PC is ignorant.

As a parallel -- I am an American. If you wanted to know what I think of French people, I don't think you should first look up "United States culture" as an encyclopedia category. I would say that the "France" entry is much more relevant to what I think about France.

Moreover, I would say to encyclopedia writers that the France entry should not be based solely on what the French think and say themselves -- but should also use outside views of them.

I guess this depends partly on game-world. The more ignorant the races are of each other (perhaps having no contact), the more the alternate approach works. Still, I would guess that the PCs are fairly cosmopolitan, though of course there will be exceptions.

John Kim wrote: While there is something to be said for this, it seems unworkable to me. First of all, players are going to want to read about the different races before deciding what race they want to be.

My experience is that trying to reduce the amount of information which players have rarely improves roleplaying.

Especially in a fantasy world, the player has so much less information than any reasonable character that I consider it quite a pain to cut down their information even more. While ideally, all of the information would be tailored to exactly their character's point-of-view -- in practice you need to just provide as much information as possible and let them filter it.

Well, I agree with the sentiment here -- which is exactly why I advocate my suggestion!! Too much of roleplaying lacks decent cultural filters. In my opinion, one reason for this is because cultural filters are handled poorly. Because the filters are often presented as paper-thin catch-phrases and factual mistakes, players are unable to incorporate them into decent role-playing.

My point is that cultural biases are complex and deep, and I don't think they are well-served by trying to remove information from the players.

In contrast, I would advocate that the role-playing needs to be on both sides. The dwarf should be aware of the flaws which others see in his culture, and may include some truth to that in his role-playing.

simon_hibbs wrote:

John Kim wrote: Especially in a fantasy world, the player has so much less information than any reasonable character that I consider it quite a pain to cut down their information even more. While ideally, all of the information would be tailored to exactly their character's point-of-view -- in practice you need to just provide as much information as possible and let them filter it.

Hang on, surely by saying that filtered information should not be presented, you're the one advocating reducing the ammount of avilable information.

simon_hibbs wrote:

Well, I agree with the sentiment here -- which is exactly why I advocate my suggestion!! Too much of roleplaying lacks decent cultural filters. In my opinion, one reason for this is because cultural filters are handled poorly. Because the filters are often presented as paper-thin catch-phrases and factual mistakes, players are unable to incorporate them into decent role-playing.

I don't see why. If many elves mistakenly think that all dwarf are men (because the women actualy have beards - unknown to most elves), surely it's useful to know that? The fact is that racial and cultural stereotypes often realy are based on paper-thin catch-phrases and factual mistakes. How could anyone claim to have any grasp whatsoever of typical american attitudes to the french without knowing the phrases 'surrender monkey' or 'freedom fries', those well-known encyclopedia terms (not)?