Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Denizens: Barbarians
 

"Barbarous" and "civilized" in one sense of the wording mean respectively, "worse way of ordering society" and "better way of ordering society". To say not using the concepts "barbarous" and "civilized" is an improvement on society is to say that not using those concepts is more civilized.

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Denizens: Barbarians
 

[QUOTE=Tyneras;1935005 since the definitions of both barbarism and civilization are arbitrary and self-serving.[/QUOTE]

No, the archetypical representations attached to them tend to be arbitrary and self-serving as indeed is the concept that there is therefore no such thing as barbarism and civilization. The abstract understanding of the concepts is not.

Every time you praise any custom you are saying it is more civilized and every time you denounce any custom(including the custom of calling things barbarous or civilized) you say it is less so. Unless you intend to ascetically renounce your right to do either in any and all cases.

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Denizens: Barbarians
 

Because they have different flavors. Mobsters are sophisticated criminals using the normal skills of civilization to leach off of it. Barbarians are from Outside.

Barbarians also do not have to be criminals. Lothar of the Hill People, is driven out by the Huns. He leads his tribe into a province scorched by Romans trying to make up their minds who was Emperor. He makes a deal with the procurator, settles down, pays tribute and fights for the Emperor. His grandson dresses in a toga, discusses philosophy, and takes part in obtuse arguments between the Stoics, the Orthodox, and the Monophysites, and the Whatever-the-hecks and argues law in the Forum. Lothar is a barbarian in the sense of coming from a less advanced society. However he has throughout this story given no evidence of wanting more then a place for his tribe to plant in peace.

Michael Corleone on the other hand, is a mobster. He assassinates people, blackmails senators and runs crooked gambling dens. If he lived in the time of Lothar of the Hill People he would be a bookie for chariot races and have a dozen or so thugs following him.

Of course a chariot racing mob chief might have a barbarian as an enforcer.

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Denizens: Barbarians
 

In DF, "barbarians" definitely means one of the specific cultures of people who grow so big, strong, and pain-resistant that they don't need as much clothing or armor as wimpier folk, and who are sufficiently in tune with the wilderness that they feel no special need to band together in groups larger than "seasonal village" or "nomadic clan." Each profession in DF embodies some subset of human values and game characteristics, and barbarians represent grit and ST. The cultural ramifications of the word "barbarian" aren't terribly relevant to the game. By the book, you can actually be a cultured barbarian who isn't stigmatized in any way . . . but who is still a barbarian. It amounts to a job description.

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Denizens: Barbarians
 

So no -3 reaction roll, as in GURPS Lite?

"Barbaroi" is used in Aeschylus' _Persians_ to mean Xerxes' army, and his Queen uses the word to describe herself, a creature of Oriental luxury. I don't see how the word can be read to exclude civilized folk.

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Denizens: Barbarians
 

I think it may be impossible to make it parse logically.

No cultures are inferior or superior. Except that every other culture in the world wrongly believes some cultures are better than others - which makes them all objectively inferior to our culture that doesn't.

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Denizens: Barbarians
 

Did you hear the one about the library catalog that only listed catalogs that don't list themselves?

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Denizens: Barbarians
 

Bingo. You have claimed to have not engaged in an error which you say everyone else has in fact engaged in. Clearly you are criticizing someone else and by the act of criticism are claiming a superiority. What is there to parse? You cannot criticize without claiming inequality and you cannot clam equality without criticizing those who do not. Unless in fact you claim that equality comes before the Law of Non-contradiction.

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Denizens: Barbarians
 

That was funny.

Re: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Denizens: Barbarians
 

Sure it's possible. Barbarous means acting like a barbarian, and if barbarians are outsiders, barbarous means acting like an outsider, and therefore more barbarous means acting more like an outsider. For example, group A eats quiche (Barbarian!) but also eats hamburgers (One Of Us!), whereas group B eats quiche and doesn't eat hamburgers. Therefore, group B is more barbarous than group A.
Eh, they're only semi-arbitrary. You can at least measure a culture's success (both direct conquest and cultural conquest).