The Campaign: Turning Culture Into Information That Matters At The Table

(Following from this post.)

Culture Creates Context

At both the individual and the collective levels, one's culture creates the context wherein one can answer questions such as "What must be done?", "Why must we do it?", "Where shall it be done?", and thereby informs the answers to questions regarding particulars of the details.

Why does this nation of Men have Paladins? Because their culture arises out of a religion that celebrates and cultivates the virtues associated with the Lawful Good Alignment; in real world terms, this comes down to "Because they are Christian and Chivalrous." Why does that nation of Men consort with goblinoids? Because their culture is one that takes joy in the suffering of others, and yet remains wise enough to know that such wickedness draws unwanted attention, so they use denable and expendable middlemen as cutouts to exact their will- and their mythology celebrates this Low-Trust exploitative nature.

When one deals with an Assassin, the question is not "Is he a villain?" because being one requires it; what matters is "Can we rely on him to honor his word?", a question that one can find in the Assassin's religion and culture- and pray that he comes from an Lawful one that values honoring contracts.

Breaking into a tomb means finding art and architecture from times long-gone. Can you recognize and identify the style? If so, you can read what it conveys, and thereby gain an edge in overcoming any other security measures that may be in place. (That you have a tomb at all to break into carries its own assumptions and consequences, which should have gotten a prospective raider seeking a Sage before forming a party; cultures that place no value in formal burial will have no tombs to raid.)

All of this means that what your man--or your faction--does, why they do it, and how they do it will be driven by their religion and culture first and foremost.

The Man

Individual adventurers may have a need for gold, and a desire for glory, but to what end?

A Fighter seeking to build himself up as a warlord because he seeks to conquer All Under Heaven in order to gain living space for his people will not do things that another Fighter seeking to build an impenetrable wall around his homeland would do.

The Fighter seeking to conquer the land in the name of some distant empire or king can, with effort, be negotiated with or dissussaded from doing so. The Fighter seeking to do so because he faces an existential threat at his back will not. To an observer, they can even look and sound alike at first glance; it is only by careful attention paid to what, where, when, and how they speak that the difference can be noticed- but in such subtle details all the difference is found. (Pray that the latter Fighter didn't burn his own ships.)

The Orc chieftain raids and pillages because his gods demand of him, all his heroes did it (and better, of course), and believes that he's entitled to do so- and to lord it over all other orc clans. Convicing him not to on humanitarian grounds does not work.

That Black Dragon only cares about the Green Dragon that's encroaching on his turf, and vice-versa, because common men (and demi-humans) merit no consideration; they are tools to be used, no more, and as they are far closer to being mythological beings in their own right than most monsters encountered. On the other hand, the savvy adventurers and leaders will recognize this as arrogance and play the two against each other with the aim of achieving mutual destruction ala /Red Harvest/Yojimbo/A Fistfull of Dollars.

The King

A Faction Leader is akin to a great monster, in that they are far closer to being mythological figures than the common people. Past heroes, who may now be demi-gods in their mythology, are looked upon as children look to their fathers and leaders find themselves thrust into that position sooner or later- like it or not.

The expectations set upon them by their supporters and the people generally will be informed by their religion and culture. A Dwarf king will face pressure to unify all of the clans behind him, to maintain a public face as implacable as the mountain, and be the next great patriarch of the race- all in emulation of their creator and the foundational myths of their kind. An Elf King will instead face pressure to keep the coalition of Elf families together and focused on a single course of action over the long term, to respect standing agreements on who does what, etc. for the same reasons.

The undead overlord became undead due to a cultural dread of death creating a yearning for immortality, and in finding his immortality fragile he seeks to dominate all he can reach- and to keep out what he cannot.

What Drives You- Or Them?

It is very easy to lose sight of things when you draw a dungeon map, or an overland map, and you're just drawing lines and icons with a numbered key to a catalog of terse descriptions. Just as it is important to tell a dungeon delver what they smell, taste, and touch in addition to seeing and hearing it is also necessary to tell them what is on the walls, the writing in any scrolls or books (not the substance; the style- calligraphy is not penmanship is not printing, and brushwork is not penwork).

What materials are used, and how, matters- they are expressions of culture, and thus religion, by way of the Arts. (Don't make me quote Thrawn again.)

Whether you're making up a dungeon to delve, generating NPCs to encounter, or you're rolling up a man to play it's easy to use religion and culture to communicate a lot of information in an efficieny manner- information that players find valuable when they're trying to figure out what to do to solve their problems and how to do it.

Tomorrow I'll give a detailed example.