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Old 02-05-2017, 06:33 AM   #11
ericthered
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#31): Cultural Familiarity, Cultural/Xeno-Adaptabi

I don't see cultural familiarity much, mostly because learning an appropriate language is almost necessary to use usefully and costs much more
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Old 02-05-2017, 06:36 AM   #12
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#31): Cultural Familiarity, Cultural/Xeno-Adaptabi

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Originally Posted by ericthered View Post
I don't see cultural familiarity much, mostly because learning an appropriate language is almost necessary to use usefully and costs much more
A Lingua Franca seems like a common thing that tends to solve half of that problem, leaving the CF part. (Not always, but often enough to matter.)
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Old 02-05-2017, 06:46 AM   #13
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#31): Cultural Familiarity, Cultural/Xeno-Adaptabi

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A Lingua Franca seems like a common thing that tends to solve half of that problem, leaving the CF part. (Not always, but often enough to matter.)
That's one way to solve it. I'm looking for times when that is true historically. I'm seeing things you can do with arabic (spans two CF's, with significant numbers of speakers in two other CF's) and Spainish (Latin america and a small part of europe).

English is a weird case. Lots of people speak it, worldwide. Does CF apply when working with a chineese businessman who speaks english?

But in general CF's don't share languages.
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Old 02-05-2017, 07:06 AM   #14
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#31): Cultural Familiarity, Cultural/Xeno-Adaptabi

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Does CF apply when working with a chineese businessman who speaks english?
Of course. You're trying to influence a person with a mindset that is somewhat foreign, and you have little idea what exactly in what way it differs from yours and what it actually is. As a result, you'll make more mistakes than usual. It gets worse if said person understands your mindset in Quick Contests.
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Old 02-05-2017, 08:54 AM   #15
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#31): Cultural Familiarity, Cultural/Xeno-Adaptabi

I feel obliged to offer one of my own CF listings which is distinct from Kromm's in several areas:

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Aboriginal: The native hunter-gatherer cultures of Africa, Yucatan peninsula, South America, and Australia, among others.
Bantu African: The culture of the village-dwelling people in the bulk of Sub-Saharan Africa. (The Zulu are the most notable of these people, I believe.)
Berber African: The nomadic peoples of the Sahara, distinct from the Arabian/Muslim-influenced Middle Eastern culture.
Central Asian: Covers much of the peoples of central Asia, including the Mongols, Turcomans, Turks, Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Uighurs, and Afghans.
East African: The culture of the Indian Ocean coastline of Africa, including Madagascar, south of the Horn of Africa.
East Asian: Most of Eastern Asia, including eastern China, Japan, Korea, and the Indochinese peninsula.
Eastern European: Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Czech Republic, Slovakia, and most of the former Soviet Bloc.
Ethiopian: The dominant culture of the Horn of Africa.
Indian Subcontinent: As the name says, the Indian sub-continent, including the island of Sri Lanka.
Latin American: Mexico, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean.
Malaysian: The dominant culture of the islands located between the Indochinese peninsula and Australia.
Middle Eastern: Turkey, Israel/Palestine, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Syria, Libya, and other parts of Saharan Africa with heavy Arab influences.
Polynesian: Samoa, Easter Island, and any of the native peoples of the South Pacific.
Siberian: The culture of those living east of the Urals in what is commonly known as Siberia, removed from the cultural influence of Russia and Eastern Europe.
West African: The people of western Africa, including the Guinean, Mande, and Bantoid (who are distinct from the Bantu) peoples, mainly inhabiting Gambia, Ghana, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Senegal, Guinea, Togo, Benin, Burkina, and Sierra Leone.
Western: Western Europe, and most of North America. Also includes Australia, New Zealand, and other places (such as coastal Western Africa) where European Colonialism displaced the native peoples.

[snip]

I'm not quite sure yet whether Tibet would be Indian Subcontinent or Central Asian; it's certainly distinct enough from East Asian to not fall there.

For Africa, I've mainly been digging through Wikipedia articles, trying to make sense of it. The differences between Bantu and West Africa came from this demographics image of the continent (almost 20 years old, though). It seems as though the areas I designated as West Africa are distinct enough from the Bantu who originated in Cameroon (roughly where the Atlantic coastline of Africa shifts from east-west to north-south) and migrated southwards; the "West Africa" CF covers much of the east-west Atlantic coastline.
I believe Ashtagon made a map of this one, too. Can't find the link, though.

Where it differs significantly from Kromm's is in breaking up Africa into several cultures instead of one homogenous "Sub-Saharan Africa", and merging his "Anglo" and "Western European" into a single "Western". If anything, I'd make the split continental - with the US and Canada being distinct from Great Britain and Ireland; the isles have more in common with the rest of Western Europe than with those of us on the western side of the Atlantic at times.

Also, I feel obliged to offer the CF listings I'm using in my Marvel Reboot project.
Common to any Modern-Day Game:
  1. Aboriginal: The native hunter-gatherer cultures of Africa, Yucatan peninsula, South America, and Australia, among others. (Not exactly realistic to put such disparate cultures together under one familiarity, but for cinematic games such as those in a comic book world it works.)
  2. Central Asian: Covers much of the peoples of central Asia, including the Mongols, Turcomans, Turks, Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Uighurs, and Afghans.
  3. East Asian: Most of Eastern Asia, including eastern China, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Philippenes, and the Indochinese peninsula.
  4. Eastern European: Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Czech Republic, Slovakia, and most of the former Soviet Bloc.
  5. Indian: The Indian sub-continent, including the island of Sri Lanka.
  6. Latin American: Mexico, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean.
  7. Middle Eastern: Turkey, Israel/Palestine, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Syria, Libya, and other parts of Saharan Africa with heavy Arab influences.
  8. Polynesian: Samoa, Easter Island, and any of the native peoples of the South Pacific.
  9. Siberian: The culture of those living east of the Urals in what is commonly known as Siberia, removed from the cultural influence of Russia and Eastern Europe.
  10. Sub-Saharan African: Includes the native cultures south of the Sahara Desert of Africa. In more detailed games can possibly be split into West African, Central African, Southern African, and Ethiopian. Wakanda is a member of this group.
  11. Western: Western Europe, and most of North America. Also includes Australia, New Zealand, and other places (such as coastal Western Africa) where European Colonialism displaced the native peoples.

    Unique to the Marvel Universe:

  12. Asgardian: Asgard, Vanaheim, Muspelheim, Jotunheim, and other realms of the Asgardian Nine Worlds (not including Midgard/Earth). Greatly resembles ancient Norse/Viking culture.
  13. Atlantis: The sub-oceanic culture of the water-breathing Atlanteans. Includes Lemuria as well.
  14. Attilan: The culture of the Inhumans in their abode on the moon.
  15. Dark Dimension: The culture of the magic-dominated extradimensional realm of the same name. 2 points.
  16. Hell: The culture of any number of demon dimensions going by that name. 2 points.
  17. K'ai: The culture of the sword-and-sorcery world of the same name in the Microverse.
  18. Kree Empire: The interstellar empire dominated by the Kree race. Controls the majority of the Greater Magellanic Cloud and parts of the Milky Way rimward of Earth.
  19. Microverse: The most advanced culture of the dimension known as the Microverse.
  20. Mount Olympus: The realm of Mount Olympus, as well as the realm of Hades. Highly resembles classical Greece in architecture and dress.
  21. Negative Zone: The antimatter universe called the Negative Zone, home of Annihilus and Blastaar. 2 points.
  22. Rigellian Annex: The interstellar empire colonized and dominated by the Rigellians. Controls a portion of the Milky Way coreward from Earth.
  23. Savage Land: The Stone Age culture, both hunter-gatherer and agrarian, of the Savage Land, a hidden land nestled in the mountains of Antarctica.
  24. Shi'ar Empire: The interstellar empire dominated by the Shi'ar race. Controls a sizable portion of the Milky Way spinward of Earth.
  25. Skrull Empire: The interstellar empire dominated by the shapechanging Skrull race. Controls a sizable portion of the Milky Way trailing behind Earth (antispinward).

The reason most of the extrastellar and extradimensional cultures aren't priced as "alien" is because for the most part they're similar to cultures in our own popular culture, and not utterly incomprehensible.
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Last edited by Phantasm; 02-05-2017 at 09:04 AM.
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Old 02-05-2017, 10:52 AM   #16
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#31): Cultural Familiarity, Cultural/Xeno-Adaptabi

I've been thinking about combining Anthropology and Cultural Familiarity into one package. A character would have +10 for most rolls involving their own culture (and the GM should waive this most of the time), +0 for other cultures from the same species and no roll for cultures from other species. If a character has an effective skill of less than 10 for the culture in question, they suffer cultural familiarity penalties as if they didn't have Cultural Familiarity.

Cultural Adaptability becomes a 5-point Talent that gives a bonus to Anthropology and some other skills (I haven't decided which ones yet).

Another possibility is to make Cultural Adaptability into a talent-like ability (like Jack of Many Trades), which costs 5 points per level and gives +1 to rolls against culture-sensitive skills the character doesn't have Cultural Familiarity with (limited to three levels).

What do you think?
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Old 02-05-2017, 11:20 AM   #17
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#31): Cultural Familiarity, Cultural/Xeno-Adaptabi

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Originally Posted by Anders View Post
I've been thinking about combining Anthropology and Cultural Familiarity into one package. A character would have +10 for most rolls involving their own culture (and the GM should waive this most of the time), +0 for other cultures from the same species and no roll for cultures from other species. If a character has an effective skill of less than 10 for the culture in question, they suffer cultural familiarity penalties as if they didn't have Cultural Familiarity.
That's a rather 3e way of doing it. Notably, how about cultures of your own species which nobody from your home culture has ever encountered? That's quite unusual today, but far more possible in the past. If you have Anthropology-12, you never suffer cultural unfamiliarity penalties for such cultures.
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Old 02-05-2017, 11:43 AM   #18
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#31): Cultural Familiarity, Cultural/Xeno-Adaptabi

In Infinite Worlds, you get one culture per parallel it seems judging by the Iconic Characters in the Basic Set. In such a situation, I would feel justified in buying Xeno-Adaptability in a game featuring frequent world-hopping.
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Old 02-05-2017, 12:45 PM   #19
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#31): Cultural Familiarity, Cultural/Xeno-Adaptabi

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Originally Posted by johndallman View Post
That's a rather 3e way of doing it. Notably, how about cultures of your own species which nobody from your home culture has ever encountered? That's quite unusual today, but far more possible in the past. If you have Anthropology-12, you never suffer cultural unfamiliarity penalties for such cultures.
I would require specialization by culture. Maybe make cultures from other species Mental/Very Hard. Hmm...
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Old 02-05-2017, 12:51 PM   #20
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#31): Cultural Familiarity, Cultural/Xeno-Adaptabi

Quote:
Originally Posted by Anders View Post
I've been thinking about combining Anthropology and Cultural Familiarity into one package. A character would have +10 for most rolls involving their own culture (and the GM should waive this most of the time), +0 for other cultures from the same species and no roll for cultures from other species. If a character has an effective skill of less than 10 for the culture in question, they suffer cultural familiarity penalties as if they didn't have Cultural Familiarity.

Cultural Adaptability becomes a 5-point Talent that gives a bonus to Anthropology and some other skills (I haven't decided which ones yet).

Another possibility is to make Cultural Adaptability into a talent-like ability (like Jack of Many Trades), which costs 5 points per level and gives +1 to rolls against culture-sensitive skills the character doesn't have Cultural Familiarity with (limited to three levels).

What do you think?
The talent seems fine, though I would go with Sociology rather than Anthroplogy. I think Sociology could be used as a Complimentary skill to offset CF penalties when encountered.
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