This idea and process originated from Quinn’s article here

This idea and process originated from Quinn’s article here

This idea and process originated from Quinn’s article here

http://www.thoughtcrimegames.net/gameable-cultur/

I loved this one in the comments from David Mayeux

“

-We are nomadic herders of the great Auroch.

-We trade auroch leather and meat to the Sirrayya for metal weapons (especially arrowheads) and flour, and we trade milk and secrets to the Lara’dor for artisan goods (such as locks) and honey.

-We exile all children with physical deformities, except those born blind; they are honored as seers.

-We carry the bones of our dead with us until we return to the Sacred Caves.

-We leave out honey cakes and auroch’s milk each night to the Awnwynn who guard our dreams and our herd.”

I’ve just attempted to turn it into some random tables. It’s not complete so feedback would be great at this point.

I was particularly unsure about the sub categories and where items should go. Where does gender really fit in?

Edit: I also mangled the formatting a bit. Sorry Jason!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/9sl8n5daij653cz/Generating%20Culture.pdf?dl=0

7 thoughts on “This idea and process originated from Quinn’s article here”

  5. I can open it fine in the Dropbox app.

    Timothy Stanbrough, you have begun to assemble the kinds of tables I hope to include in the Civilization & Savagery book. It occurs to me, though, reading those evocative sentences by David Mayeux, that a fill-in-the-blanks approach might be an easier and more direct way to structure this kind of thing.

    For instance, the first table could be titled “We are [adjective] [type]” and include a subtable for each of those. You could have maybe 6 or 7 different fill-in-the-blank sentence tables, but only use, say 3 per given culture. “We worship [adjective] [force],” “We trade [resource] and [product],” etc.

    It seems like this approach could also be used to integrate the Heritage tags that Chris Gardiner has been playing around with in his campaign.

    Hmm… thanks for the inspiration! I’m going to play around with that idea…

  6. I did consider using the spell name table method. But I was concerned it would feel constrained; of course that’s fantastic if you want to focus your game and cultures to be able to answer certain questions. In freebooters knowing what they trade and live off could be really important. Also slightly more predictable results.

    But I also enjoy just letting my eye wander between the We columns and the rest, thinking up unique cultural traits. Having seen some examples of the format already helps a great deal.

    I might find some adjectives to add into the mix and see what’s it’s like though.

    And yes! I’ve been enjoying Chris Gardiner’s work. Some form of integration would be cool. It’s kind of life path-esque.

  7. Some formats so far:

    We are [adjective] [type]

    We worship [adjective] [force/name]

    We trade [resource] and [product] for [resource or product]

    We celebrate [custom] by [verb]

    We don’t [verb] [noun]

    If anyone wants to chip in with suggestions for certain nouns, verbs, adjectives I’d appreciate it.

    The, We don’t [verb] [noun], pattern I was thinking could produce results such as.

    We don’t look too far for knowledge.

    Or we don’t walk alone at night.

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