What are some truly original cultures from gaming that have impressed you?
Truly original in this context means you can't immediately tell it was mostly inspired by a specific real world culture.
The Dwarves from Glorantha are rather an interesting take on the conventions of the race. Believe in reality as a great mechanical construction by their god, work to help the great machine along. Have gunpowder in a world where bronze axes are the norm, with which they smack down any people stupid enough to annoy them. In fact Glorantha is generally very original.
Then there are the Red Wizards of Thay from Forgotten Realms. Cool as hell, always liked them much better than their hippie-celtic enemies. Always figured them as a kind of looming Soviet-esque threat (RED wizards), other than that I've never figured out if they were really meant to be based on a specific culture.
Quote from: Battle Mad Ronin;872587Then there are the Red Wizards of Thay from Forgotten Realms. Cool as hell, always liked them much better than their hippie-celtic enemies. Always figured them as a kind of looming Soviet-esque threat (RED wizards), other than that I've never figured out if they were really meant to be based on a specific culture.
They seem vaguely Turkic or Iranian to me, but yes there's no close real world parallel.
Perhaps the lack of responses to this indicates that there are very few truly original fictional cultures in gaming.
And I thought this was supposed to be escapist fantasy. :p
Well in video gaming I was thinking about Paladin's Quest. It was rather alien. Even the art design was startling, in all its pastel mutant glory. There's really no easy way to describe it without looking at it yourself.
Magic required tapping your own HP to fuel certain combinations of the 8 spirits of magic. Yes, you could cast yourself to death. Its cosmology of the 8 spirits ended up making each culture rather fixed on certain attitudes. And each region or city had its almost isolated version of tech.
It's one that really stood out to me over the years. Rather grind-tastic, but intriguing. I guess I should mention it in the video game setting topic, but I'd need to collate my thoughts on it before I could pitch it in full.
Quote from: Battle Mad Ronin;872587Then there are the Red Wizards of Thay from Forgotten Realms. Cool as hell, always liked them much better than their hippie-celtic enemies. Always figured them as a kind of looming Soviet-esque threat (RED wizards), other than that I've never figured out if they were really meant to be based on a specific culture.
They're not, the general organisation can be traced to Tibet, or rather to Tibet suffering forced D&D-isation, similar to what was done to the pseudo-European-looking parts of the setting:).
Quote from: Shipyard Locked;872704Perhaps the lack of responses to this indicates that there are very few truly original fictional cultures in gaming.
And I thought this was supposed to be escapist fantasy. :p
I don't play for escapism, for one example;).
Also the originality of escapist materials is a lie I'd consider to be well-known among gamers.
Personally, I've read 1234567890 settings. Less than 5 of all those I've read have struck me as original.
Glorantha was mentioned already. Apart from that, some parts of Talislanta and Traveller, and Eclipse Phase. There's probably a few more that are mentioned in SF games, though the fashionable space feodalism reduces that number.
I should clarify that I'm not including the games made with a license in that, only settings created for games.
Not gaming, but I thought the Na'vi culture was very well done.
Quote from: Opaopajr;872708Well in video gaming I was thinking about Paladin's Quest. It was rather alien. Even the art design was startling, in all its pastel mutant glory. There's really no easy way to describe it without looking at it yourself.
Magic required tapping your own HP to fuel certain combinations of the 8 spirits of magic. Yes, you could cast yourself to death. Its cosmology of the 8 spirits ended up making each culture rather fixed on certain attitudes. And each region or city had its almost isolated version of tech.
It's one that really stood out to me over the years. Rather grind-tastic, but intriguing. I guess I should mention it in the video game setting topic, but I'd need to collate my thoughts on it before I could pitch it in full.
Wow, I've never heard of this game before! I must check it out. Thank you so much, the google image search alone is inspiring.
Quote from: Opaopajr;872708Magic required tapping your own HP to fuel certain combinations of the 8 spirits of magic. Yes, you could cast yourself to death.
I did that in Book of Jalan, Blood Games, OHMAS, and Outremer.
Quote from: flyingmice;872783I did that in Book of Jalan, Blood Games, OHMAS, and Outremer.
Fighting Fantasy had it as well.
Quote from: Shipyard Locked;872787Fighting Fantasy had it as well.
And Shadowrun. Blood magic, used mostly by the Aztlaners
Anyway, I think the trouble is that original cultures are rare, but also because people can't relate to them and thus largely ignore them. Tekumel for instance despite all the fanboyism is about as niche as you can get. (Though even that seems Middle Eastern/Indian inspired)
Quote from: JeremyR;872796And Shadowrun. Blood magic, used mostly by the Aztlaners
Anyway, I think the trouble is that non-pseudo-Western-European cultures are rare, but also because people can't relate to them and thus largely ignore them. Tekumel for instance despite all the fanboyism is about as niche as you can get. (Though even that seems Middle Eastern/Indian inspired)
Fixed your typo.
Tekumel is very easy to recognize with amateur level knowledge of certain culturesituations and that's its strongest point. Things in the setting make sense from said point of view.
The thing is, excepting maybe a tiny amount of truly weird places, there's almost no culture that isn't based on something or a mix of somethings.
Quote from: RPGPundit;873093The thing is, excepting maybe a tiny amount of truly weird places, there's almost no culture that isn't based on something or a mix of somethings.
Yep. I'm not sure doing a truly "original" culture is possible.
Quote from: Arkansan;873125Yep. I'm not sure doing a truly "original" culture is possible.
Certainly not Tekumel, which is a truly weird and creative setting but borrows massively from existing earth cultures. Likewise, almost all non-human cultures in both fantasy and sci-fi RPGs that I know of borrow (usually to considerable levels) from real-world earth cultures.
duo what pundit said the cloest i can come my self
is the abh from crest of the stars
Quote from: Shipyard Locked;872704Perhaps the lack of responses to this indicates that there are very few truly original fictional cultures in gaming.
The problem is with the subject line. Think about what you are asking. Not only that someone think of a culture that really jumped out at them as cool but also some means of verifying it's not based on any real world culture. Which would mean either knowledge of every real world culture that has ever existed, or the ability to read the author's mind. It's much easier to disqualify examples than to qualify them.
Well yeah, it's incredibly hard to come up with a truly alien culture. It is even harder still to come up with one that would be worth using.
Quote from: RPGPundit;874410Well yeah, it's incredibly hard to come up with a truly alien culture. It is even harder still to come up with one that would be worth using.
I'm legit curious, and not in a rhetorical gotcha way, what makes a culture not "worth using" in the context of this discussion? Is it just the unapproachable weirdness problem or other factors?
Tribe 8 was pretty original. OF course, like any fantasy culture, it was drawn on myriads of sources, but the combination was unique and combined with the aesthetics, offered this odd blend of Mad Max with The Dark Crystal, filtered through a distorted Catholic worldview.
The old World of Greyhawk box set had some notes on a few different human "races." A short list of deities noted which deities were common to all, and which were of a specific people. And beyond that, there were languages associated with these human races, some of the languages ancient and dead, others still in use. Now some would content that language and religion are the two most prominent defining characteristics of a culture. At least that was Gary's opinion, as I recall him mentioning that once.
But beyond that, appearance and manner of dress were also discussed. The thumbnail sketches of the different "nations" throughout the world of Greyhawk also sometimes included local lore or customs.
And yet, there has been endless speculation of what the real world analog is to the WoG. Some have suggested Oerik kind of likes like Canada upside down and in mirror image. Others believe it is Europe in mirror image, that the Lordship of the Isles is supposed to be like the British Isles and the region where the Frost, Ice, and Snow Barbarians reside is supposed to be like the Scandinavian peninsula.
I remember Gary saying more than once that his inspiration for the City of Greyhawk was Chicago. A trade city on a great lake. And so I started to imagine a Rhodinia-like super-continent where North America was attached to Asia. This upset a lot of people who liked to use pigeonhole terms like "Standard Fantasy" of which Greyhawk was like the granddaddy archetype and which was defined as "Western European Fantasy" and yet, under the vision I saw of Greyhawk, virtually every race and culture was represented EXCEPT western Europe.
Still, there are some similarities that are hard to ignore. The ancient site of the Suel Empire was off the southwestern edge of the map, across the sea from Nippon. But the Suel people themselves were not described similar to Asians, rather they varied greatly depending on where exactly they migrated to. And then there were the gods Heironeous the Invincible and Hextor, which immediately reminded me of Achilles and Hector. Were the old Oeridians just like the Mediterraneans of Earth?
The World of Greyhawk gives plenty of evidence if you want to prove its based on Earth cultures. It also gives you plenty to go on to disprove it.
Now aside from the Rhennee, none of the cultures readily jumped out at you. To me, that's kind of what made them cool. They weren't over-the-top. They were believable. But if that's not enough for you, then I'm sure the heraldry images inside the front and back covers at the very least should be appreciated. And if that's still not enough, then I guess I'll just nominate the Rhennee. Unless you say it was ripped off from the Romani. And then in that case, I renew my objection to the subject question.
Quote from: Lunamancer;874674I remember Gary saying more than once that his inspiration for the City of Greyhawk was Chicago.
Cool...
Does anyone know if there are any direct tributes to Chicago in Greyhawk?
Quote from: Shipyard Locked;874419I'm legit curious, and not in a rhetorical gotcha way, what makes a culture not "worth using" in the context of this discussion? Is it just the unapproachable weirdness problem or other factors?
Exactly. A culture that can be interacted with enough that its worth making them coherent in any way at all.
If a culture is so alien that you can't possibly understand any of it, you might as well just be flipping coins to see what they do. And the mental sludge your PCs will have to wade through to be able to interact with a culture the players have no context at all for is likely to be not worth all the effort.
Not gaming, but I thought that the Atevi of CJ Cherry's Foreigner series were hard to pin down on any culture. Some people have suggested the Japanese, but I don't really see it.