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I was thinking about the differences between brazilian fantasy settings and north hemisphere fantasy settings and what i heard from other cultures. I became curious about what changes do you make to better accomodate the cultural assumptions of the setting and the expectations of your players. Maybe US americans don't need any changes but there is a plenty of people from other cultures on these boards.
This is what i do in my own campaing to better accomodate brazilian (from Bahia) players:
1- The sun rises 06:00 AM and goes down 18:00 PM, even in winter. Nothing changes too much between our seasons (we are too close to equador) so we failed a long time to notice that happen different elsewhere.
2- People go to the beach for fun in the summer, anywhere. Being too cold to take a bath at the sea is strange to us, so people thought was strange that Sandpoint dump was at the beach.
3- People drink cachaça, and eat beans with rice. I don't know what a ale is, or what people eated in medieval times beside meat. So people eat more like brazilians in my campaings.
4- Guards and city folk are a lot more weirded by strangers walking around with weapons. So people expect to have to hide weapons a lot more.
5- Cheliax sound more like Spain, Andoren more Portugal, Taldor more Italy, Nirmathas more Netherlands, etc... because we are closer to that cultures.
6- There are fewer religious conflicts and people are more accepting of any religions and temples of multiple interpretations of the same god are more commmon. Like Sandpoint Cathedral.
7- Not oriental Martial Arts are common among peasants (the mwangi brought capoeira to Avistan) .
8- People are expected to bath everyday.
9- There is a lot of mwangi immigrants everywhere and they broght their gods to be worshiped in Avistan.
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This is great odea for thread and I wonder why nobody hasn't answered it.
I'm from Finland, so
1 - Ulfens naturally like to sauna.
2 - Languages have dialects. You can recognize dialect with Linguistics or proper Knowledge. You can hide or mask your dialect with succesful Linguistics or Perform. With 2 ranks to same language you can speak it with any dialect.
3 - I think this more personal than cultural, but in my setting even most chaotic and evil monsters have their view of honor, respect and hospitability.
4 - Importance of the web of social contacts. Adventurer, who knows nobody, is only hobo with sword.
It is hard to say what other changes are made in our games, as it is easy to be blind of own odd habit.
I was thinking about the differences between brazilian fantasy settings and north hemisphere fantasy settings and what i heard from other cultures. I became curious about what changes do you make to better accomodate the cultural assumptions of the setting and the expectations of your players. Maybe US americans don't need any changes but there is a plenty of people from other cultures on these boards.
This is what i do in my own campaing to better accomodate brazilian (from Bahia) players:
1- The sun rises 06:00 AM and goes down 18:00 PM, even in winter. Nothing changes too much between our seasons (we are too close to equador) so we failed a long time to notice that happen different elsewhere.
2- People go to the beach for fun in the summer, anywhere. Being too cold to take a bath at the sea is strange to us, so people thought was strange that Sandpoint dump was at the beach.
3- People drink cachaça, and eat beans with rice. I don't know what a ale is, or what people eated in medieval times beside meat. So people eat more like brazilians in my campaings.
4- Guards and city folk are a lot more weirded by strangers walking around with weapons. So people expect to have to hide weapons a lot more.
5- Cheliax sound more like Spain, Andoren more Portugal, Taldor more Italy, Nirmathas more Netherlands, etc... because we are closer to that cultures.
6- There are fewer religious conflicts and people are more accepting of any religions and temples of multiple interpretations of the same god are more commmon. Like Sandpoint Cathedral.
7- Not oriental Martial Arts are common among peasants (the mwangi brought capoeira to Avistan) .
8- People are expected to bath everyday.
9- There is a lot of mwangi immigrants everywhere and they broght their gods to be worshiped in Avistan.
Interesting. A lot of what I try to do in games I run is to emphasize the differences as much as possible between where the characters are and where the players are. So, for example, I'd play up the seasonality or not depending upon where in Golarion the adventure is happening -- I assume that in Irrisen it stays light all day in the summer, because Russia.) [@Bunnyboy, I actually played a Finn from Irrisen in a recent game, or at least as close to a Finn as I could manage. Basically a Karelian refugee.]
Similarly, I try to make the food everywhere rather strange, because there's no reason to assume that the people in Varisia eat anything your mother would have served you.
Dot. This is very interesting Draco Bahamut. Millions of Brazilians can't be wrong! ;)
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Good thread. Here are mine:
Since elves come from a psionically active environment on Castrovel, they are the main psionic race. In fact, most of them distrust arcane magic because they don't know the source ("We can't have all that magic just lying around. It's unhygenic!"). In their eyes, all that's gone wrong on Golarion is due to creatures using arcane magic. (Divine magic isn't a problem, because divine casters know what deal they make with the gods.)
Elven attitudes towards the arcane arts differ, of course. Those of the Mordant Spire will not interact with arcanists in any way (except for killing them when necessary), but the elves of the Mwangi Expanse can't afford not to use any resource they have access to. Having been exposed to Jatembe helps.
Dwarves thrive on arcane (elemental) magic, though, which has been taught to them by the elemental lords in ancient times. You need all 4 elements beneath the earth (metal is a subschool of earth, wood is mostly unknown and void elementalists are killed on sight). They have reached a high level of cultural sophistication: few dwarves are not interested in the arts (warfare, music, painting, sculpting, etc.), food (they have very sensitive palate) or fashion. Despite of their violent past and due to tight living space, dwarves are exceedingly polite. They usually are very well groomed, too.
Vudra has nothing to do with psionics. They use magic there, even the followers of Irori.
The Lands of the Linnorm Kings are not mainly populated by humans. It's a nation of goliaths, who are descendants of a Thassilonian slave race that was a hybrid of giants and humans. Goliaths are highly competitive and rarely play fair to win. They are still raiders and slavers on land and on sea, because the country can't support its population.
Osirion doesn't exist. There has been an ancient civilization there, but they were a third group of Azlanti expatriates. Like the people of Lirgen, they were astronomers and erected tall towers to better read the stars. They also practiced fleshgrafting, which is where all the gnolls come from.
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Wow, this makes me want to join up with a multi-national gaming group online, time zones permitting. A capoeira monk with ranks in dance would be welcome on any team of mine.
...from what I've seen, if you're in a travelling group trying to warn the world about undead/fiends/aliens/evil ancient crazy wizards invading, "hobo with sword" is going to pop up often in descriptions of you. Even if every part of the world is familiar with those things happening.
From PFS in Canada, there aren't many cultural changes. People tend to accuse the Pathfinder Society of moral corruption, and GMs exaggerate it in scenarios; everyone always comes prepared with some sort of shareable healing or cold-weather outfits; and I have met several people who want to play as standoffish Andoren gunslingers who don't see any problem with shooting thundering firearms while adjacent to their allies. My PFS characters all have earplugs now.
Oh, and ale is a kind of beer. I think it's the kind made from barley, but I'm not sure.
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Draco Bahamut,
I'm doing a similar thing with my current setting, as it takes place in a fantasy Caribbean-inspired world. So you have things from Age of Exploration, Golden Age of Piracy, Colonial Eras, and even some modern day stuff in there. That's why I've emphasized differences in culture, even if they are minor. Like, Caribbean cuisine, from rice and beans to yucca beverages. Or the wildlife and flora, from the maga to the caracara. And even folklore inspired by the native Taino and Carib tribes as well modern-day tales, like the hupia, ciguapa, and douen. It takes some work, especially with explaining it to players that aren't familiar with the era. But I think it'll be awesome.
One of these days I should publish it.
Oh, and ale is a kind of beer. I think it's the kind made from barley, but I'm not sure.
<derail> Almost all beer is made from barley. Even wheat beer is made mostly from barley. Ale is made with a special kind of yeast ("top-fermenting") as opposed to lager ("bottom-fermenting") and the production methods are very slightly different. Both ale and lager are kinds of "beer."
For 95%+of the beer-drinking world, if I poured a glass of ale and a glass of lager, they'd be unable to tell me which was which.
Sorry about my post. I didn't read the whole cultural adaption thing earlier, so it doesn't fit. I marked it for deletion.
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Oh, and ale is a kind of beer. I think it's the kind made from barley, but I'm not sure.<derail> Almost all beer is made from barley. Even wheat beer is made mostly from barley. Ale is made with a special kind of yeast ("top-fermenting") as opposed to lager ("bottom-fermenting") and the production methods are very slightly different. Both ale and lager are kinds of "beer."
For 95%+of the beer-drinking world, if I poured a glass of ale and a glass of lager, they'd be unable to tell me which was which.
Ah. I'm no sommelier, and all I knew was, "Beer's from grains, wine is from fruit, rum is sugar and gin is from juniper berries". I'll need to learn more if I want to make up a snooty Caelian.
Back on topic, there's no official Galtic language. In home games, I house rule that there is; in PFS, my character who studied there has a Québécois accent and is ashamed at how human beings are so willing to fight each other (him being a Forlorn elf).|
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1 - Ulfens naturally like to sauna.
Really ? This is something i could implement in my campaings.
2 - Languages have dialects. You can recognize dialect with Linguistics or proper Knowledge. You can hide or mask your dialect with succesful Linguistics or Perform. With 2 ranks to same language you can speak it with any dialect.
Sometimes i use brazilian accents to represent regional accents of a language, or modern slangs to represent slangs of a language when people roll good or bad to represent more difficult or easier time understanding what and how people are saying.