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Most cultures in my worlds take inspiration from multiple cultures, and I try to avoid making places that are like "this is Japan but fantasy" or "this is France but with magic". Not that I dislike that sort of thing when done well, it's just not something I enjoy creating.
On the topic though, I wish Golarion had a portion of the world based on the American Wild West, mostly because I really enjoy cowboys in my fantasy.
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It is incredibly difficult to create cultures out of nothing. Even well respected and well paid authors tend to mix and match facets from existing cultures, together with bits that are from their own imagination (to the extent that ANY of us can actually think of things totally outside of our experience).
So that is what I do. Mix and match things from existing cultures, hopefully creating something that is simultaneously recognizable and therefore playable while being different enough to SEEM moderately alien.
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I think using some real life cultures as a baseline can certainly help expedite your worldbuilding.
Since we are talking about table top RPG's in general, there is a rule I typically try to follow, and that is to try to avoid having to give out lengthy dissertations at the table about the 'world' while running a game, so following some 'real world' cultural touchstones helps people need less explanation. I usually want to have a quick paragraph to explain a group or faction that may use real world cultures as a parallel.
This should be, at best, window dressings for your world. As your players dig deeper into your settings while gaming, it should be fun and interesting as you learn things that diverge from your "Not-Victorian England", as they are plagued by code bound warrior pirates with Katana's who take no prisoners.
I don't think there is anything wrong with completely scratch building a culture either, I just think you should remember the time you will need to dedicate to explaining these cultures.
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I don't think too much about the source of different things I put into my worlds. I just try to put things together that make sense. Once I've written something up, though, I'll go back and see that there are obvious influences from real world cultures, just based on my preconceptions and biases. That second pass is when I edit out things that could be problematic or insensitive.
So, on the surface I don't intentionally make places that correspond to different real-world places and cultures, but in practice there are always regions with enough similarities that the connection can be made.
For example, a walled, sea-side city with an academy of magic that has been secluded from the world for generations might end up looking and feeling pretty European, even though the system of government and culture might be unrecognizable.
As a result, player characters might not have one specific place to root their various real-world analogous archetypes like Samurai or Shaman, but it's rarely a problem because I can make up a location on the spot, sprinkle in some new lore to accommodate, or just say they're from a secluded area with specific customs.
It's especially easier because of how rare PCs are in-world.
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I utilize elements of real world cultures, typically whatever I'm reading about or experiencing the most, but I try to avoid making them proxies or representations of specific places, but I love fantasy, mythology and history from all over, for the most part I try to stick with things I feel confident about my level of experience with or my ability to research it, and if I ever draw elements from elsewhere the overall area is different enough I'd have to tell you where I took the inspiration from, more as a bit of trivia than a meaningfully connected representation.
Shoga is probably my most obvious, in that Jhakar is heavily based off my recent reading of the Murasaki's Tale of Genji and Sei Shonagon's Pillow Book (in other words, the courtly heian period Japan) while mainland Shoga is heavily based off the sengoku period as presented in Chambara fiction-- armored hobgoblin samurai, crafty and grotesque goblin ninja (I am so proud of this, it happened after I spent a while really frustrated with how to make Paizo Goblins my own while retaining their crazy ancestry feats) called Naarari, and my recent dive into Noriko Reider's Japanese Demon Lore: Oni from Ancient Times to the Present inspired my take on 'Orcs' as the Onika, an Oni based people who developed out of other Goblinoids when they fled to the mountains to make their stand against imperial law and took up reverence of the Oni as war deities.
Separately, Osilia is based heavily off of ancient biblical Israel, Torvellum is intended to have Roman vibes although probably by way of tevinter from Thedas, and Bayke Ve Se'Nu has some ancient Egyptian vibes, these all being prominent city states on the same continent. All of them have factors that very much mitigate these influences, its really more in terms of architecture and some broad ideas-- e.g. I based Osilia heavily off the concept of Talmudic Law, and they worship angels and archons heavily.
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When world building it is natural to draw inspiration from what you know, whether by design or by mistake. Going out of your way to try to create a completely alien culture can actually be more harmful to your homebrew, as it will require your players to adjust their assumptions and expectations more drastically than if you had based a culture on a real world counterpart.
Two Towns for example:
Zϋlich: A peaceful agrarian town nestled in a valley at the base of the Umbar mountain range. Zϋlich is known far and wide for it's fine wood crafts as well as the townspeople's welcoming nature. Zϋlich is administrated by Bürgermeister Rolf Wiggins, a jovial fellow who spends much of his time amongst his people. Of late, rumors abound of a creature stalking the woods that Zϋlich depends on for the fine lumber used in their exports.
Vs.
Xyatl: A floating township that currently resides along the banks of the Carchzicle river that feeds into the Urlit swamp. Xyatl is made up of the seventeen home ships. The Xyatl-ese abide by a rigid caste system wherein each citizen personifies a part of the Xyatl Body. These castes range from the Feet, who perform base hard labor, to the Heads who rule from their river ship, the Harkon. Xyatl primarily trades in Hokutan, favors and trinkets crafted from the skins and bones of creatures found in the swamp. A call to arms has been raised by three of the thirteen Heads for the capture of a Hand who has forsaken his vows and made off with several Tales.
Zϋlich is fairly easy to figure out. It's heavily inspired by rustic German towns irl, so players have something to hang their hat on when approaching the town, and trying to figure out what they can and can't do there.
Xyatl on the other hand is far more alien and will require a LOT of explaining how things work for any amount of party interaction. This is useful if you WANT the party to be strangers in a strange land, but can detract from the fun when the party needs to ask 20 questions just to find out if there is an Inn somewhere in a floating town.
So TLDR: Both approaches can work, and both have their place in world building. For more casual games I recommend basing places on existing cultures. It handles a lot of the baseline assumptions that your players will make or use in their decision making. Creating a strange alien culture can work Very well in a more serious or "hardcore" game where your players are expecting to have to do some work to figure things out as they go.
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I think the important things to keep in mind are:
- every sort of player can see themselves represented somewhere in your fantasy world.
- don't use fantasy people as a pastiche for real world cultures (i.e. no "we don't need african cultures, we just use orcs for that.)
- Put an emphasis on "what caused these people to behave in the way they behave" and make sure every group of people has a reasonable justification and apply this standard uniformly (i.e. no "primitive superstition".)
- When you do flesh out your fantastic peoples, if you take inspiration from real world cultures, mix and match aggressively and always focus on the why and make all the pieces fit together (like my Orcs are a mixture of classical Athens, 21st century Germany, 11th Century Iraq, and 14th century Mongolia).
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It's really about shorthand and frame of reference for your players. Literally the "generic fantasy" is actually cultural reference. It uses the pop understanding of medieval Europe as shorthand to quickly allow players to have a clear frame of reference for the setting.
My first homebrew world definitely drew from real world, but mostly in the form of Language groups instead of direct cultural parallels. For instance, dwarves spoke Mandarin and Halflings Spanish. The culture I assigned them otherwise drew little from either, though some nods popped up (Halfling vaqueritos were a thing, as was a regimented bureaucracy for dwarves).
I’ve done less since, and even my later additions drew less from our own world, but I do still like using real languages for names at least.
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Stealing from Mark Rosewater, but one of his rules of game design concerns prior knowledge that players have and "piggybacking" that knowledge to help players connect or understand a setting (or design) easier. A culture that has shades of the real world tends to be a lot easier to understand and interact with than one that was created whole-cloth.
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I pretty much agree with what has already been said. Attempting to create unique cultures without incorporating aspects from real world ones is probably nearly impossible.
It's OK to use real world cultures as inspiration and/or add some trappings for flavor, but it's lazy and possibly even offensive (by incorporating harmful tropes, stereotypes, fetishism, tokenism, etc.*) to attempt to lift cultures "whole-cloth" as "shallow" descriptors; especially if "othering" real world heritages by using them as the basis for typical adversaries such as orcs, hobgoblins, etc. For example, it's more acceptable to use steppe nomads generally as inspiration for an in-setting society of hobgoblins than basing them on the Mongol hordes (however "dramatic" having them attempt to conquer and destroy everything may seem).
The most important thing is to do your research about the culture(s) you're using as inspiration so you can incorporate aspects into your campaign setting that make sense and combine with other details (or mix and match with other cultures) to seem interesting and coherent instead of using them as a "broad brush" that may be interpreted as insulting. Also, be very careful about implicit/unconscious bias; many people may not even be aware of their own baggage when it comes to real world cultures.
*- certain gaming products have poor records in this regard
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It's impossible to not use real world cultures as a baseline. I'm sorry, but everything you write is based on the human experience. We have a sample size of one planet for understanding what life is, and a sample size of one species for intelligent life.
The most alien and original fantasy cultures that where actually fleshed out I have read where in Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archive books - and even those are just mixing and matching tropes from different cultures.
The Alethi subvert some gender tropes (only the women may read and write) and subvert our concept of class (class is based on eye colour) but a subversion is still based on the thing it is subverting. The Alethi are loosely mediaeval European culturally but look like a mix between South American and Asian.
The Shin have a very Asian culture with some subversions (the warrior class is the lowest class, with farmers at the top, and they will only sell things at or under a fair price with selling things at a higher price being dishonourable) but they are described by the Alethi as being weird for having big round eyes (a very not Asian trait)
But at the end of the day, each of these are just amalgams of a real world culture with a contrasting ethnicity and some cultural traits inverted or subverted. They are still based on real world cultures in some way.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing (humans are only capable of writing based on what they know and what they can imagine, and what they can imagine is based on what they know).
To get much more alien than that, you often have to actually just leave things vague - the hexopods in Arrival don't actually have any cultural traits written for them (aside from "don't experience time in a linear manner) partly because they are supposed to be mysterious, but also because we can't possibly imagine what their culture would be like.
When we try to actually flesh out alien cultures, it usually just ends up looking like real world cultures. Hive Minds end up looking communist, elves end up weirdly british, dwarves either end up a mixture of Scottish and Nordic, or an uncomfortable Jewish stereotype. Klingons are just an amalgam of different real world warrior cultures, Ferengi are... a Jewish stereotype again, what is wrong with people?.
My point is, you can't write without your understanding of the real world influencing what you do. Even if you just base things on what you think is the default blank slate - that default blank slate will probably be based on your own culture (as most people see their own culture as the default). This is why most people aren't aware of having an accent - for me, an Australian accent just sounds like "normal" "unaccented" speech - but I have been told by Americans and Germans and so on to say all kinds of words because hearing me say those words is really novel and interesting to them.
Just avoid harmful stereotypes, and avoid having cultures that are purely villainous. Don't make an "evil" nation like Cheliax be the only nation that is based on Asian culture for example.
Also, avoid the "planet of the hats" trope - don't make every dwarf you ever meet be obsessed with gold. Not every orc needs to have an int score of 8 and solve every problem with violence. You can have cultural values and traits yes, but those are traits of the culture as a whole, not of every single individual in that culture.
I am an Australian, but I don't drink alcohol, I hate swimming (I am actually scared of the ocean) and I don't like sports. My experience of life has definitely been affected by those Australian cultural traits (being uninterested in sports and not drinking in a culture where most conventional social interactions are based around those two things has been very difficult at times) but I am still a valid Australian.
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Most cultures in my worlds take inspiration from multiple cultures, and I try to avoid making places that are like "this is Japan but fantasy" or "this is France but with magic". Not that I dislike that sort of thing when done well, it's just not something I enjoy creating.
On the topic though, I wish Golarion had a portion of the world based on the American Wild West, mostly because I really enjoy cowboys in my fantasy.
You could make an argument that Alkenstar and Numeria (and the Iron Gods campaign) is a "Weird West" setting.
I am an Australian, but I don't drink alcohol, I hate swimming (I am actually scared of the ocean) and I don't like sports. My experience of life has definitely been affected by those Australian cultural traits (being uninterested in sports and not drinking in a culture where most conventional social interactions are based around those two things has been very difficult at times) but I am still a valid Australian.
To be honest I don't know Australian culture very well, but you could make similar accusations about America being obsessed with sports and drinking. But American culture can be (and is) much more than that. I imagine the same is true of Australia, as I think no culture is so one dimensional.
However I will have to trust you as I can only estimate from what I read about Australia.
Most cultures in my worlds take inspiration from multiple cultures, and I try to avoid making places that are like "this is Japan but fantasy" or "this is France but with magic". Not that I dislike that sort of thing when done well, it's just not something I enjoy creating.
On the topic though, I wish Golarion had a portion of the world based on the American Wild West, mostly because I really enjoy cowboys in my fantasy.
You could make an argument that Alkenstar and Numeria (and the Iron Gods campaign) is a "Weird West" setting.
I am an Australian, but I don't drink alcohol, I hate swimming (I am actually scared of the ocean) and I don't like sports. My experience of life has definitely been affected by those Australian cultural traits (being uninterested in sports and not drinking in a culture where most conventional social interactions are based around those two things has been very difficult at times) but I am still a valid Australian.To be honest I don't know Australian culture very well, but you could make similar accusations about America being obsessed with sports and drinking. But American culture can be (and is) much more than that. I imagine the same is true of Australia, as I think no culture is so one dimensional.
However I will have to trust you as I can only estimate from what I read about Australia.
Trust me, Australia is way more sports and alcohol obsessed than the US. I think the only countries in a league with us for sports are Brazil, and for alcohol Russia. Sports are super mandatory in schools, and we are one of those countries (like Brazil) where there is one super dominant sport(we are known for cricket and rugby, but AFL is so pervasive that people don't ask "what AFL team do you like" they just ask "Who do you barrack for?" because it is assumed that you follow AFL to the point where they don't have to specify which sport it is or ask the question of whether you even like sport. (AFL is like American Gridiron but without any protective equipment).
I wasn't saying our culture is one-dimensional - I was using myself as an example of how our cultural stereotypes don't apply to everyone in the culture by talking about some of the big stereotypes (that are largely true on a macro level) that happen to be the opposite of what is true for me as an individual. There are a bunch of other traits and stereotypes (some good, some bad, some true, some untrue).
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It is incredibly difficult to create cultures out of nothing. Even well respected and well paid authors tend to mix and match facets from existing cultures, together with bits that are from their own imagination (to the extent that ANY of us can actually think of things totally outside of our experience).
So that is what I do. Mix and match things from existing cultures, hopefully creating something that is simultaneously recognizable and therefore playable while being different enough to SEEM moderately alien.
Exactly this.
Our real life world is a fascinating place. Travel (or watch some travel shows) to broaden your own experience. I bought an Atlas Obscura book a while back on a whim from a bookstore and that has provided a ton of inspiration.
One thing that makes mixing and matching easier is that a lot of disparate cultures have engineered similar solutions to common problems. One of my favorite examples is pyramids: the pyramids of Egypt were made to keep buried bodies from being dug up by jackals; the above-ground tombs of New Orleans were made to keep buried bodies from being washed away by floods; Native Americans also used burial mounds. It's really easy to imagine swamp- or plains-themed pyramids without having to copy the desert-themed pyramids of Egypt 1:1. The jungle-themed pyramids of the Maya serve a different function but are structurally similar, those can be mixed in as well.
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Re: The North American Wild West.
The "Wild West," as mentioned in the Starfinder Galaxy Exploration Manual is one genre/period that you definitely need to be careful with. There are a lot of derogatory and harmful attitudes/tropes that can pop up.
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Even Forgotten realms in the end got cultures influenced by real world ones. Although E.G. was unhappy about it.
Pathfinder cultures largely ARE influenced by real world cultures.
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Most cultures in my worlds take inspiration from multiple cultures, and I try to avoid making places that are like "this is Japan but fantasy" or "this is France but with magic". Not that I dislike that sort of thing when done well, it's just not something I enjoy creating.
On the topic though, I wish Golarion had a portion of the world based on the American Wild West, mostly because I really enjoy cowboys in my fantasy.
I think Wild West is less represented because of technological concerns rather than cultural ones, which actually brings up another dimension to consider when designing fantasy cultures. The technological level, and I suppose the magical one, will also impinge on a culture's development and setup. The "Wild West," for example, was very much a product of the Industrial Revolution, with advances in things like communication and transportation playing a role in determining why people lived how they lived.
At least, it does when I think of Wild West tropes. I guess technically it lasted way longer than things like trains arriving on the scene, but for whatever reason when I think Wild West, I instantly think "train robbery."
I think the Wild West is really interesting when talking about that in a sense that the Western Genre..... sometimes doesn't need to even be set in the Wild West or in that time period? And sometimes something set in the Wild West setting/time period actually isn't a Western?
Notable examples for the first are Logan (essentially a spiritual remake of Shane), Cowboy Bebop (literally set in space) and Sukiyaki Western Django (A Western set in Feudal Japan). An example of the latter is arguably A Million Ways to Die in the West (which doesn't feel at all like a Western despite being set in the Wild West - it's mostly just a lot of cheap jokes about the period mixed with some poop jokes)
I think Westerns are a mixture of tropes and themes and stories that formed a genre that grew organically from media set in the Wild West but that isn't necessarily married to that setting.
Which is useful in illustrating that you can do a Western in pretty much any time period, you just might not get some cosmetic elements to be the same.
Also, steam power and gunpowder do exist in fantasy, which when mixed with actual literal magic and different history can absolutely cause a wild west type setting to occur in a different context to what happened historically. The writer of the setting just has to want that in their world and they can make it happen and make sense if they put some work into it. If you want train robberies, you can have train robberies - it can just be powered by magic or be designed by gnomes or something, or I dunno, being able to talk to being that are literal incarnations of the earth might mean you figure out coal sooner.
Look at Legend of Korra for a good example of how access to magic and just being a different world can make a world develop differently.
The order in which things happened and when they happened in the real world isn't something we should expect a fantasy world to follow exactly - it would actually be very unrealistic to expect a world where the laws of physics can be ignored at will to do so.
Compare to say "Darkest Africa", where you really can't avoid the colonialist parallels. There's very little in that genre that isn't tied to the primitive locals.
It's difficult, but certainly possible.
You can base things off of the real-world parallel of the Songhai Empire and the opulence of Timbuktu in the 1400-1500's. Historical figures like Mansa Musa and his legendary hajj (where he is reputed to have given away so much gold that he crashed economies across northern Africa) can easily be fictionalized.
There's also Wakanda-like storylines where a non-primitive civilization has chosen to actively hide its true nature and present a primitive form.
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Compare to say "Darkest Africa", where you really can't avoid the colonialist parallels. There's very little in that genre that isn't tied to the primitive locals.It's difficult, but certainly possible.
You can base things off of the real-world parallel of the Songhai Empire and the opulence of Timbuktu in the 1400-1500's. Historical figures like Mansa Musa and his legendary hajj (where he is reputed to have given away so much gold that he crashed economies across northern Africa) can easily be fictionalized.
Well yes, obviously there are a lot of great sources of inspiration in the history of sub-Saharan Africa, but the "Darkest Africa" trope is a specific colonialist way of imagining Africa that is often very different from actual history (and still a reductive and offensive way of presenting things even when it's closer). I definitely wouldn't classify a respectfully written fantasy counterpart Mali or Songhai Empire as "darkest Africa" as it basically requires acknowledging that western (or central, eastern, or southern) Africa had successful civilizations that weren't cut off from the rest of the world--and that it wasn't just an exotic, dangerous wilderness for white people to explore.
On that note, I have created a fantasy setting based off of the empires of the late medieval Sahel and it does indeed work very well. There are even rather close analogues to bards and rangers in that region (griots and dozo, respectively).