Humans Only

[Julian Grimm]

The new campaign I am running is going to be a human only campaign. Part of the reason I did this were some problems with the age of demi-humans and that there was no way I could conceive the setting with them. I tried to fit them in but it felt like I was shoehorning them in rather than them being a natural part of the setting.

The one thing I am having an issue with is how to differentiate human tribes or ethnic groups from one another. I would rather stay away from using game mechanics but don't know if the players would be able to use general descriptions of the different groups. I also have had problems defining the different groups as, to me, the write ups seem like they could be seen as possibly racist.

I was wondering if you guys have done this before and how you worked it out?

[kreider204]

I tend to do it mostly with fluff rather than mechanics, other than languages, so I won't be of much help directly ... Having said that, I know that James Mishler was up to something like that when he was writing his Wilderlands stuff. I think he only ever published the Tharbrian horse-lords. Ya, here we go:

http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/6 ... orse-Lords

I don't have this myself, but I took a look at a dead-tree version of it at my FLGS (at which James used to work), and IIRC, he treated them similarly to demi-humans: two primes, but then some special bonuses to reflect background skills and such.

[kreider204]

Ah, you might also check out the Conan C&C conversion - it looks as though the author handled it with some bonuses and some class restrictions.

[Ancalagon]

The new campaign I am running is going to be a human only campaign. <snip>

I'm working on a setting that will be exclusively human for PCs.

The one thing I am having an issue with is how to differentiate human tribes or ethnic groups from one another. I would rather stay away from using game mechanics but don't know if the players would be able to use general descriptions of the different groups. I also have had problems defining the different groups as, to me, the write ups seem like they could be seen as possibly racist.

I was wondering if you guys have done this before and how you worked it out?

Whether humans are tall, short, fair-skinned, dark-skinned, or anywhere in between won't matter when it comes to rolling stats, right? People are still people. Focus on cultural differences (mannerisms, etc) since those can vary much more so than physiological differences that are basically cosmetic. E.g. average Roman citizen behavior v invading barbarians or maybe marauding Vikings v coastal English villagers.

[Rigon]

As Ancalagon said, use cultural differences. Have different weapons and armors favored by different cultures. That's a good way to differentiate them.

R-

[Lurker]

Well I haven’t gone for a completely demi-human free game setting, but I have kicked around ideas for different groups of humans (along with the other races). Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to do it without using “game mechanics” at least to a small point.

I have the normal humans (as is in the PHB) and an open fate.

“high humans” – based of the Dunedain from Tolkien, with various attribute bonuses when they are rolled up, but a very tied fate (I have to have a good family back story, possibly with key ties back 10-15 generations)

A Celtic/Alan group that everyone has the riding skill (like a knight, but without the x3 use of a lance) and to a point can use their skills from horseback where others cant (a ranger can track from horse back and even move silently on horseback, but a thief can’t open licks from horse back)

A Spartan group that has a high attributes requirement (and has harsh laws etc) but everyone is +1 in combat. Oh yeah but everyone is at -1 to cha with a none Spartan.

Vikings, also high attributes requirement and all get the sailing/boat/swim skills.

There may be others I’ve forgotten

As Ancalagon said, use cultural differences. Have different weapons and armors favored by different cultures. That's a good way to differentiate them.

R-

Rgr that. Each race/culture has specific arms and armor that the player can start with.

[finarvyn]

Lurker has the right idea. Look for stereotypes from Earth's history and use them as a basis for your groups. The MYSTARA Gazateers did something like this.

Gaz 1 = King Arthur; knights in platemail
Gaz 2 = Lawrence of Arabia; desert people
Gaz 4 = plains barbarians
Gaz 7 = Vikings or Norse folk
Gaz 9 = Pirates; sea captains
Gaz 11 = Three Musketeers; swashbucklers with little armor
Gaz 12 = Samurai; old china
Gaz 14 = American Natives
Boxed Set = Ancient Greeks or Romans

Culturally diverse.

[Relaxo]

If you want to keep it from being mechanics, just fluff it. Stress the heights and bulks of the people and their hair color. There's a difference between racism and physical description in the intent. Also, this is fantasy, so you could have people with copper colored skin or even teal, and they'd still be human, if that's human in your world. making the colors less normal might take away some of that taboo (or be distracting and too weird...).

In 3rd ed terms, the Thieves World books from Green Ronin did this beautifully with both fluff and differing feats for the different human populations. it really was a good use of feats.

SO if you use Advantages, that might work. But also try keeping notes and using accents for NPCs, which is a really demonstrable fluff.
something like:
people = accents
Hill people - Scottish
Plains - Spanish
Mountain - Austrian

I mean, for me, I was always a ham when I DM'd and I have fun doing accents, but naturally, YMMV and your players might think it's stupid, so Their MMV, LOL.

Oh and Culture does not equal race, so your campaigns cultures are not necessarily racists. Also, you're playing wiht friends who know you, right? so if they know you're not racist, they won't take it that way.

[Julian Grimm]

Thanks for the replies, everyone. What I have so far is a list of cultures/races based on real world human cultures which would be present in the setting. I think my problem was that I was over thinking it based on physical characteristics found in our world. Needless to say, the research found me on some unsavory websites.

As far as the culture aspect goes the area was recently (within the last few hundred years) settled by a Celtic-Nordic people who came to the continent as explorers. There, they worked with the native tribes to build settlements and forge what is becoming a new society. So what you are essentially looking at is a society that is Celtic, Nordic and Native American in scope. So far, so good.

The other races/cultures would be an oriental people who had come to the area some time earlier but exists as a small remnant as they were cut off from their society, I am also looking at a Nubian type people who would have settled some of the islands off the continent and a somewhat Arabic type that would have had the same issues as the Orientals.

I'm short on time right now but I will expand on this later. Maybe with that you guys can help fill in some of the gaps.

[Julian Grimm]

Caught a few minutes so I thought I would post some of the ideas that I had on the cultures/races for the campaign. Keep in mind that I am basing the campaign on the idea that a continent similar to North America was 'discovered' by a Nordic type people who worked with the natives that were present on the continent. As well there was a prior civilization there that fell in a cataclysm around a thousand years before. I am also including the areas that I am basing the campaign areas off of.

Karstlander: Karstlanders are a Celtic/Nordic people descended from those that came to the continent a few hundred years ago. They left the original settlements and populated some of the inner mountain areas (Smokey's, Appalachia, etc) eventually settling in the Karstlands (Ozarks) to build what would become the Confederacy of the Karstlands.

Native Tribes: [Note: working on names for this one] These tribes are based on Native American peoples. They are the survivors of the original civilization that was here a millennium ago. They worked with the settlers in mutual defense from the monsters on the continent. They are varied in their cultures, some are nomadic, some are settled and others live in semi-nomadic tribes.

Bhataman: A Nubian type people who settled many of the islands along the southeast coast and some of the southern coastlines (Tropical areas). They rarely deal with the people of the continent.

Celestial: An oriental people who had colonies in the old civilization. When that civilization crumbled they formed a small nation along the southern west coast (Southern California). They trade some with the natives and few Nordic types but tend to keep to themselves. There are also Celestial settlements on the continent south of the main one (South America)

Jhadir: A Semitic people who have now traveled to the southwest area. Many of the Jhadir have bred with the natives there though there are still some 'pure' groups left.

Ephesian: A Mediterranean type people who have small enclaves in the southern areas (Texas and Gulf Islands) they came here only recently and are looking into setting up colonies.

Now, one last thing about the area; the overall area is still 'wild' in the sense of what nations there are being claimed territory but with groups of towns or cities close by. It's kind of the points of light idea. Also the continent is filled with monsters and degenerate human, sub-human and mutated human groups (Replacing orcs and such with these). The old civilization would account for the various ruins and dungeons to be explored.

[Rigon]

JG, that's some good stuff there. For more flavor, you could include types of weapons and armors that each group preferred, the different deities that they worship, and maybe some thing on their governments and architectures. That would go a long way to separating the cultures with just fluff.

R-

[Lurker]

Lurker has the right idea. Look for stereotypes from Earth's history and use them as a basis for your groups. The MYSTARA Gazateers did something like this.

Gaz 1 = King Arthur; knights in platemail
Gaz 2 = Lawrence of Arabia; desert people
Gaz 4 = plains barbarians
Gaz 7 = Vikings or Norse folk
Gaz 9 = Pirates; sea captains
Gaz 11 = Three Musketeers; swashbucklers with little armor
Gaz 12 = Samurai; old china
Gaz 14 = American Natives
Boxed Set = Ancient Greeks or Romans

Culturally diverse.

I always forget the gazetteers , great stuff there!

JG, that's some good stuff there. For more flavor, you could include types of weapons and armors that each group preferred, the different deities that they worship, and maybe some thing on their governments and architectures. That would go a long way to separating the cultures with just fluff.

R-

+1 on that. JG great start, especially if you don't want to mess with the game mechanics for the races. Add a weapons & armor list (easy to do with a bit of history and cultural research) and you will be good to go!

[Relaxo]

that is good!
Yeah, weapons, equipment etc. make different lists for each group! Great idea guys.

You might consider different spell lists, even. (same classes, or perhaps "regional" twists on the classes... like instead of Combat Dominance, the desert nomad fighters may have "whirling" (like a Dervish) and it really is Cleave or even the same as Combat Dominance, but flavored differently.
or that might be too much, I dunno, LOL.

Julian: this could turn into a great Domesday article.

[Julian Grimm]

Thanks for the comments! Where I got tripped up was with the physical characteristics of each group. To me, it sounded too much like stereotypes and caricatures than actual descriptions. However, after a reread with the real life peoples I based them off of it works fairly well. That may be something I clean up a bit and use later.

As far as weapon lists go, most of them would be fairly easy. However, there is a cross-pollination in the Karstlands proper between the Karstlanders and the Natives. With the two cultures working together I see no reason why you would not see Natives with weaponry used by the Karstlanders. Which leads me to wonder, what would a Native American sword or armor look like. For that matter 'Vikings' carrying Native American coup sticks, tomahawks or war clubs (my personal favorite being the gunstock war club) wouldn't be out of the question. With the above out of the way, the rest is pretty easy to get together.


Relaxo: I am thinking a series of Domesday articles on the Karstlands and the Campaign. However, I do have some possible bigger plans with this stuff depending on how it goes. My blog is also focused on all of this. I was going to use BFRPG for the setting but, C&C fits much better.

[Edit: Blog link messed up. Now fixed.]

[Lobo316]

These are the house rules for barbarians in my game. These could refelect cultural differences in your game insofar as how different barbarian cultures could have developed...

Barbarian
• All barbarians start with Combat Sense
• Select either Primal Force (3rd printing) OR Deerstalker (4th printing)
• Take ONE of the following two “packages”…
o 3rd Printing: Primal Fury at 3rd level and Primal Might at 5th level OR
o 4th Printing: Intimidate, Primeval Instincts and, at 4th level, Whirlwind Attack
• Take either Primal Will (3rd printing) at 8th level or Primeval Will (4th printing) at 6th level
• All barbarians gain Ancestral Calling (4th printing) at 10th level.

Horseman of the Plains! Barbarians may swap Intimidate or Primeval Instincts, for the knights Horsemanship. They begin play with a riding horse, but may not benefit from any of the abilities if wearing heavy armor. When using the Cover ability, they may take a +4 to AC (instead of +6) and make mounted ranged attacks at a -2 to hit. A barbarian never benefits from the knights charge ability.

[Dracyian]

If you wanted mechanical differences between races you could look into the mythos behind the race of people
eg. Vikings and nords are hardy people often stronger than most from living a rough life and put a startling high importance on physical prowess over intellectual prowess so they could start with a +1 to strength and a -1 to int.
Celtics could gain a +1 to wis due to the connection with nature and -1 to strength since they spend very little time training their physical body past what is needed in their day to day lives

Just two exapmles (also I apologize if this comes off being not politically correct or historically correct I was going for what is common in legends and lore that I grew up with )

[Julian Grimm]

@Lobo: Not bad. This may be something I look at.

@Draycian: This is a good way to do it and I don't see it as racist at all. However, I didn't want to go with mechanics so that everyone is on the same baseline.


As far as weapons go, I watched a Nova episode on Netflix yesterday that dealt with the Ulfberht sword of the vikings. I could see this being used as a masterwork or magic item of some sort for the Karstlanders and the culture they sprang from.

[Julian Grimm]

After having a conversation with my best friend (Who has been a major supporter for this) I hit on why I want to be so careful about the human cultures and descriptions. The biggest reason is that I am being very careful to be respectful of the cultures that I am basing this world's cultures off of. This is why I scrapped the physical descriptions when they began to look stereotypical.

The desire on this is to pattern these cultures off real-world analogs while being respectful to the source cultures while allowing for speculation on cross-pollination within these cultures. To me a very important balance exists here where anything cartoony, stereotypical and forced must not be allowed through. It has to look as natural as possible and as much like a believable world as it can.

[serleran]

If using backgrounds in any way, such as those presented in my conversion of The Arcanum, adding minor benefits depending on culture would be easy. For example, your semi-Celtic people might have Contacts: Barbarian, Shaman, Ranger, Druid, or Outcast (select 1). It is a minor mechanical adjustment to a certain extent but not one which requires adding new abilities, per se.