Quote from: Xanther;933354You need to read the Silmarilion.  The Dwarves and elves "ignoring" each other also meant ignoring the others requests for aid against the forces of evil.  The elves and dwarves did also fight extended blood-feuds/wars with each other.  It's amazing the dwarves and elves ever fought, the elves far outnumbered the dwarves, the dwarves were never many, and the dwarves loved to live in places the elves contested.  Between elves and dwarves there were few if any of the pressures that led to conflict yet they found it none the less.  Lastly the elves fought wars with each other.  By the time you get to the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings both dwarves and elves are dying and dwindling peoples; yet you still see reference to wrongs that were done a thousand years ago.

Pendantic, and hinges on the word "ignoring." Elves and Dwarfs never lived with each other. This is a far cry from the D&D tavern scenario. Everyone's read the Silmarilion. This thread isn't supposed to be a trivia contest.

Quote from: Opaopajr;933350It's really hard to express alienness. I mean, Star Trek had a hell of a time, quickly suffering into "forehead of the week!" repetition -- and that was when they were being professionally paid trying to explore the differences between possible alien cultural attitudes. We really don't get paid for that level of forethought of quality writing in world building prep, so failing shouldn't be a crushing thing for us GMs here.

It's straight up hard to make the alien not some sort of Earth-analog cultural pastiche.

The big thing to remember about Cosmopolitanism is: it favors greater density, opportunity to borders (either proximity, ports, or lax enforcement), and isolation from dominance.

One reason the Gold Rush left such an imprint in San Francisco is because it was rapidly all three. It exploded in population, it was essentially on a frontier hard to access and control, and thus a population isolated in general (let alone from a singular dominant culture, beyond "Western Civ.") had to rapidly put aside differences to survive against Nature and Hunger.

It is quite easy to have large cities feel very ostracizing to outsiders (pre-Adm. Perry Edo). Easy to also have borders where little exchange happens (usually natural boundaries, e.g. mountains). And it is easy to have rather homogenous populations rather distinct and/or isolated from a dominant culture's power (bedouins, Touareg, Kurds, etc.).

But if you get the right mix, and have a greater enemy (again, Nature works very well here,) Cosmopolitanism is an acceptable societal shift for survival.

Now with genuine aliens? It's basically running a cultural stereotype to its logical conclusion. Hard to see how Cosmopolitan life easily germinates everywhere -- friction is far more likely. So keeping Metro behaviors the exception, not the norm, should be an easy sell for setting coherence.

Yeah, provide enough external pressure and internal divisions will soften. It would work. The external pressure has to be even more alien and threatening than the internal. You can't have PC races be too alien in their mindsets simply because they will be played by humans.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;933362Suggestion: the Babylon 5 model--the races do hate each other, are at each others throats, routinely war... and the PCs are all part of a diplomatic microcosm of their world where everyone has to make nice. Make up some relatively coherent excuse why people from this diplomatic mission are now adventuring together (PCs are the true diplomats kids just hanging around and bored and decide to adventure, Cataclysm happens and diplomacy is irrelevant, but everyone was there together and now is working together to survive far from home, etc.). Enmities intact, racism intact, motivation to work together achieved. Can't do this every campaign, but it's good for a single campaign.

That would work. I personally lack the story skills to create that kind of a pressure cooker scenario, but it would work.

Quote from: Ashakyre;933369Pendantic, and hinges on the word "ignoring." Elves and Dwarfs never lived with each other. This is a far cry from the D&D tavern scenario. Everyone's read the Silmarilion. This thread isn't supposed to be a trivia contest.

No it doesn't, nor does it fit the definition if pedantic.  Not meant to address the D&D tavern scenario, brought up to counter the suggestion that dwarves and elves hold-hands in a kumbaya fashion in Tolkien.  Reading and remembering are two different things it seems.  Clearly you forgot all about the tension in the Silmarillion and the movies.  If you do remember the books, then your take on Tolkien and the relations between elves and dwarves is bullshit.  Tolkien had this racial tension all throughout it, it is this mythical "standard" D&D tavern you mention that took it away.  Neither is it a trivia contest, it was very basic in Tolkien the tension between dwarves and elves, and hence that may serve as a model for the kinds of tension you are looking for.

Quote from: Opaopajr;933350...It's straight up hard to make the alien not some sort of Earth-analog cultural pastiche.....

So true, especially in Star Trek and Star Wars.   David Brin did a pretty good job of it in his books the Uplift Wars; likewise C J Cherryh in her Chanur novels when describing the Knnn.

Quote from: Xanther;933378No it doesn't, nor does it fit the definition if pedantic.  Not meant to address the D&D tavern scenario, brought up to counter the suggestion that dwarves and elves hold-hands in a kumbaya fashion in Tolkien.  Reading and remembering are two different things it seems.  Clearly you forgot all about the tension in the Silmarillion and the movies.  If you do remember the books, then your take on Tolkien and the relations between elves and dwarves is bullshit.  Tolkien had this racial tension all throughout it, it is this mythical "standard" D&D tavern you mention that took it away.  Neither is it a trivia contest, it was very basic in Tolkien the tension between dwarves and elves, and hence that may serve as a model for the kinds of tension you are looking for.

And now ignore means kumbaya. This is the kind of tedious pendantry that ruins RPG discussions. Tell you what... start another thread about the exact, precise relationship between elves and dwarves in Tolkien's universe and everyone else who understood the basic idea of what I was getting at can continue here.

Quote from: Ashakyre;933351You can't have racism without races.

And you don't need to, because you can have classism, arristocratism, religious oppression, caste oppression, ethnic hate, and a host of other stuff that plays the same role;).

Quote from: AsenRG;933389And you don't need to, because you can have classism, arristocratism, religious oppression, caste oppression, ethnic hate, and a host of other stuff that plays the same role;).

Hate brings people together.

¡Viva hate!

Quote from: Black Vulmea;933390Hate brings people together.

¡Viva hate!

Jared Diamond mentions this... can't remember if its Guns, Germs, and Steel or Collapse... but the two patterns he sees for forming coalitions are one grouping completely dominating the other group, or a larger group forcing two smaller groups to find common ground. (Also why ideologies need an enemy to hold together.)

Simply having a serious outside threat forcing incompatible PC's to get along works just fine. This problem is that once the threat goes away, logically the alliance dissolves as well, and PC infighting gets pretty old.

Quote from: AsenRG;933389And you don't need to, because you can have classism, arristocratism, religious oppression, caste oppression, ethnic hate, and a host of other stuff that plays the same role;).

Wish I could upvote this, lol.

If I made a game of all human PC's I'd have to have various kinds of humans that had their own little abilities, and slight appearance differences - and then I could do some of this stuff.
Religious conflict fascinates me.

Using Opaopajr's San Francisco model seems pretty easy, boom town bringing lots of people to a frontier in search of loot with the threat of scary monsters looming over everyone. People might not have gotten along well back home but right here they can't afford to infight toooooo much.

Does anybody have the old AD&D UA chart that showed how the races were supposed to get along? I seem to recall that many of them couldn't stand one another.

Oh, and if you have a version of that chart you can post here, I'd love to see it.

People might want to take a look at Glen Cook's Garrett PI series, especially the main city of TunFaire.  The race relations shown there are very interesting.

Quote from: Ashakyre;933351You can't have racism without races.

Really? News to me in the 60s and 70s even. If humans arent discriminating against eachother over the colour of their skin, then its their religion, and failing that then its over where they were born. And failing those then it is wether they are deemed "fit" or even still human.

Say what you will, but I grew up playing various Palladium games and those still influence my game today.

What that means, is that in Palladium Fantasy, for example, there are dozens of races you can play. From standard dwarves and elves and gnomes, to kobolds, goblins, orcs, ogres, and trolls (Palladium Trolls are very different from DnD Trolls) and giant wolf people, coyote people, fox people, true giants, centaurs, and on and on.

Racism figures prominently in the fluff. I think it is the Ogre description that says something like, you will find it difficult to find places that cater to your size, and many people fear ogres because of their reputation or because they lost a loved one to ogre attacks on the borderlands. At the very best, you might find someone who will let you sleep in their barn. Usually, you won't be allowed within sight of a town. At the same time, an ogre can be a fearsome and valued defender of a community if they make nice and prove they aren't going to pillage the place.

Orcs are sort of the same, being seen as stupid and lazy by the other races. Even though Orcs can be somewhat smart, they can use that racial bias to their advantage as spies; other people will talk openly around an orc because they don't think the orc is smart enough to remember or use it against them.

Regardless, communities in PF are heterogeneous, being dominated by a single species with other species showing up in specific roles, often not good. For example, the Timiro Kingdom is human dominated, but a third of the population is made up of orc and goblin slaves who are about to revolt. While Elves and dwarves are both allied with and reside within human communities, both are few in number and refuse to live in the same communities as the other.

Nowadays I play other games, but I still generally place communities as more or less a single species, with maybe some traders or mercenaries from other species hangin' out before they return to their own communities. I think it keeps things exotic, while still showing that other stuff exists and providing options for the players.

My first LotFP campaign started off with some dwarven slave traders who shanghai'd the PCs. Never involved dwarves in the campaign again after that first adventure, but the players knew and hated and feared them for the rest of the campaign.

Quote from: Ashakyre;933250Edit: It just seems that racial tolerance is too much of a luxury for a resource scarse society, where people will close ranks and take care of their own first. Bit I want people to be able to play different characters.

Historically cultures were dicks to each other flat out. It got a little better (holding up two fingers an inch apart) after the rise of the Great Religions provided a common background for many regions of the worlds. But even then there were many many issues. It took bloody religious wars, several revolutions in thought (like the Enlightenment), to get to where we are now and it still not finished by a long shot.

With that being said what about a setting with D&D style fantasy with a multitude of sentient races. Well first off, there is a difference between ethnicity, race, and culture. They overlap but there been societies in our history where being of the right culture was more important than being of the right ethnicity or race. One's ethic background was a factor but it wasn't the end all be all that is the norm throughout human history. The Persian Empire, Hellenistic culture, and Imperial Rome were example where the tide shifted in favor of culture over race.

In my Majestic Wilderlands, the default is the same as it ever was throughout our history. Not only race caused animosity but culture as well. However there are two major factors present in the Wilderlands that are not in our world as result of using D&D fantasy as the foundation.

First are the elves, in standard D&D they live for centuries, in my Wilderlands they are true immortals. In either case they provide a cultural continuity that is quite unlike anything we had in our world. The closest would be institutions like that Catholic/Orthodox Church, or the various Chinese ideals like the Mandate of Heaven. In the Majestic Wilderlands, this results in various regions having a Sylvan cultures that are dominated by elven ethos. This also emulate the stereotypical default of we happy band of races found in most D&D setting. Except in my Wilderlands it not universal but regional as a result of other cultures being near an Elven civilization.

For example the Elephand Lands have been setup to be very D&Dish in it culture because the Kingdom of Irminsul, a major Elven kingdom, is a dominate force. However the region around the City-State of Invincible Overlord is much more fractured with diverse cultures because of the legacy of it history. So there is no grand alliances of good aligned races. The closest is the Dwarves of Thunderhold being allies of the City-State.

The second is that deities and demons interact differently with the world than they do in our history. There are similarity to how religion plays out in the Wilderlands and in our history. But on the other hand Mantriv, the Lord of Sky is the same deity as Thor the Thunderer. The difference is that Mantriv is how the deity manifests to the Ionians in the southern regions of the Wilderlands and Thor is how he manifests to the Skandian Vikings in the northern regions. Both are similair in they teach that it is important to stand up and be honorable. Be willing to fight for one home, family, and people, and both surrounded themselves with tales of going out into the wilderness and hunting down monsters as central life lessons. But a lot of details are different especially in ceremonies and rites although if you boil it down the root symbolism are the same in both.

In any case it not that the standard default of D&D assumption of a happy band of races is bad or improbable. It just that it used too often in cases where it doesn't make sense in light of other information about the setting. A stereotype can be effective if you think it through and carefully place in the context of your larger setting.

One final comment, I opt for few races, many culture to achieve diversity. For example among the humanoids I have only goblins and orcs. But there are distinct cultures among those (as well as dwarves, elves, and humans). So the Orcs of Dearthwood are not the same as the Orcs of the Southern Jungles.