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Old 02-05-2017, 02:24 PM   #24
Phantasm
 
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#31): Cultural Familiarity, Cultural/Xeno-Adaptabi

Quote:
Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
My one big objection to this is the Aboriginal category, which unites people from at least four different continents (and Inuit and Siberian probably ought to be included as well, making it six). That's not in any meaningful sense a culture; it's a heap of small cultures that have essentially nothing in common. It's kind of like the way Carolus Linnaeus, the inventor of modern taxonomy, put segmented worms, parasitic worms, shellfish, and soft-bodied marine animals together as "Vermes"—animals that now make up maybe a couple of dozen phyla, the majority of all animal phyla. Knowing Inuit customs would tell you nothing useful about Australian or Amazonian customs. I think each culture area should have its own CF.

What all these cultures have in common is that they're a major focus of Anthropology skill. I think that Anthropology ought to let you roll to avoid cultural penalties, at least under certain circumstances. With a big, well-known culture, you might learn its customs directly; but for tiny, obscure cultures, few people would do so, and learning Anthropology would be more efficient.
You're probably right; you'll note that in the second layout for the Reboot project I even say that it's likely not realistic. It depends mostly on a) how often said cultures come up in play, and b) just how granular you want to be with "broad, sweeping" CFs. In most of my games, the resident culture expert (ala Indiana Jones) would have Cultural Adaptability and Anthropology anyway, making the really granular CFs moot; others might have "Amazonian" or "Yucatan Mayan" as CFs, if the game happened to take place near those regions.
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