Re: theme for a fantasy campaign
 

Indeed it does.

I have given thought before to sapient, motile species with alternation of generations between haploid and diploid forms* (such as many plants exhibit), but haplodiploid sex determination is a different challenge. The species keep coming out with radically reduced need for social cognition, and I can't convince myself that they will be sapient.


* One time I ended up with a biosphere in which diploid plants alternated generations with haploid animals. That was fun.

Re: theme for a fantasy campaign
 

What you've said already has been a huge help.

There's a reason I'm getting started thinking about this more than a year before the campaign would start! I need lots of time to play with the ideas and look for possible patterns.

On the other hand, I also have to recognize that I'm working at this level primarily to make myself happy. I'm confident that few if any of my players will perceive the nuances that we're finding so challenging to get right, let alone analyzing the evolutionary strategies. (I have one player whose degree was in biology—but he's complained to me that Theoretical Population Biology, which I used to edit, was a math journal rather than a bio journal. And I think he's more likely to end up in the superheroic campaign anyway.)

But that doesn't mean I don't want to do it! If I have a world that holds together as a natural place, with the magic growing out of the naturalism, it will be more satisfying to me, and it will make it easier for me to think of challenges.

You seem a bit bothered by the assumption of differences in the relations of the sexes in different races. I grant that it makes it more challenging! But it's a dimension on which the extant Hominidae actually vary, so it's likely that different "human" races will vary on it. My particular assignments are purely speculative at this point; any of the various races could be moved to a different degree of dimorphism and pattern of sexual behavior if it makes better sense that way. I didn't originally intend the selkies to be at the high end of male dominance and harem sexuality, for example!

Bill Stoddard

Re: theme for a fantasy campaign
 

Well, I'm not planning to make the dwarves haplodiploid anyway.

Bill Stoddard

Re: theme for a fantasy campaign
 

I am, and not just because it presents challenges at a really fundamental level to building societies, economies, and government. I'm bothered because these dimorphisms and reproductive strategies evolve as consequences of environments and ways of life. Haplodiploidy disposes hymenopterans to eusociality, but there are merely social, and even solitary, wasps and bees. You seem to be assuming them on to your different races rather than deducing them out, and I'm afraid of getting contradictions.

Also, I'm afraid that you might be trying to ride two bicycles at once instead of having only one theme.

Re: theme for a fantasy campaign
 

If you get a contradiction, point it out. The assumption can be changed.

I seem not to have communicated to you what my approach is, perhaps because I tend to take it for granted. It seems as if you may be able to start from the assumption of a hominid race adapted biologically and magically to a particular environment, and work out its characteristics from the equations and theorems of population genetics. My mind doesn't work quite so abstractly. What I'm doing is taking that assumption, and looking for mammal species or human cultures that inhabit that kind of environment, and taking traits from them, to see how they fit, by telling stories about them. But none of those stories is permanently laid down yet. If the stories that result imply that they couldn't survive, or they couldn't stay that way, then I can look for different stories. And that remains true until I start the campaign and hand out descriptions of the species to the players.

I do assume that varying degrees of sexual dimorphism are likely; such variation can be seen among the extant Hominidae. And I'd be interested to have it occur, because it would be a source of misunderstandings and conflicts. But all my proposals of specific configurations are in the spirit of "What if?" or "Let's see how this one works."

So by all means point out things that won't work, or things that will only work if specific assumptions are made. I'd much rather have them found out in this discussion than get into the campaign if I run it! And if it looks as if it would work better if things were otherwise than I imagined them, by all means suggest it; discovering unexpected implications is one of the payoffs of this sort of thinking.

Bill Stoddard

Re: theme for a fantasy campaign
 

That's exactly what makes it valuable to me. If you thought the same way I do your contribution would not be so complementary to my efforts.

Things seem to have been fairly civil so far. I hope they remain so. Perhaps it will help that we're discussing a world of fantasy.

In any case I'm delighted that you find this kind of speculation worth pursuing.

Bill Stoddard

Re: theme for a fantasy campaign
 

Ironically, I'm portraying a fantasy world where, for all I know, the races might have been created rather than evolved—but created to fit their environments. And, on the other hand, it will be a TL1-2 world where social attitudes can only be, in our current terms, regressive—even if the diversity of races creates more interstitial spaces with some modest freedom of choice.

Bill Stoddard

Re: theme for a fantasy campaign
 

Betamax brains...

That's just awesome, dude.


:)

Re: theme for a fantasy campaign
 

Yes, sorry, I should have elaborated more. I meant raw, untreated nuts. The oil content will be the biggest issue. Once removed, the nuts should work well in the process.

You could replace the grains with a mashed tuber, like a sweet-potato. Sweet-potatoes contain Alpha and Beta-amylase, as well as the obvious starch.

Re: theme for a fantasy campaign
 

Potatoes can be very useful in making booze, but will it be beer?