[Low-Tech][Social Engineering] Social gaming in nomadic societies

[Michael Thayne]

Lately I've been looking a bit at how to handle various "primitive" societies in GURPS. (The scare-quotes on "primitive" are quite deliberate, and seems better than using disputed academic terminology.) In many ways, GURPS seems to support that thing pretty well—use low CRs, limit the range of social traits available, and (at a less game-mechanical level) realize that many "tribal councils" and such will be more forums for diplomacy than actual governing bodies.

But I'm stuck a bit on modeling nomads—both of the hunter-gatherer and pastoralist variety. The issue is that being mobile violates a lot of core assumptions us sedentary folk have about how societies work. It makes splitting or combining groups a lot easier. And while a nomadic group may in theory claim hunting grounds or pastures that they will in theory fight to defend (which is logical given that such lands don't have infinite carrying capacity), the cost/benefit analysis for "stay and fight" vs. "go somewhere else" will look a lot different. Such groups may even decide to migrate en masse even if nobody is trying to force them off their lands. Finally, long distance communication might be tricky if you don't know where to find the group at any given time. (In historical societies, this may have been mitigated by known seasonal migration patterns, I honestly don't know to what extent).

These considerations may even apply to folks who grow some crops and/or who are merely semi-nomadic, having a village with permanent structures near their winter pastures. The key consideration, I suspect, is that your society either needs to have little wealth or have wealth that is essentially mobile—livestock plus only such quantities of other stuff as can be carried in packs or wagons. For example, in Caesar's account of the Gallic Wars, he describes the Helvetii burning all their villages and towns in preparation for a mass migration. While I wouldn't write this off as a merely symbolic gesture, I suspect the physical structures of those settlements were fairly replaceable, and they weren't in the habit of stockpiling more food than they can load into their wagons anyway.

But I'm very unsure how to model this in games where PCs are regularly doing social interaction involving, and perhaps even leading, such groups. Thoughts?

[robertsconley]

According to Dawn of History, recent archelogy paints a more nuanced picture of how things worked.

https://www.amazon.com/Dawn-Everythi.../dp/0374157359

Namely societal organization varied a lot. That one problem with the few concrete examples we have are from folks living on marginal lands except in the case of New Guinea. While in the Americas up to the Columbian exchange, and in the Neolithic prior to 3,000 BC or so. We had nomadic, hunter-gatherers, and pastoralist living on prime territory and thus had a lot more leeway to experiment with different kinds of socieities.

Examples from the books.
The northwest pacific tribes in North America had a more martial, autocratic society to the almost anarchist tribes in California. With Oregon being the area the two overlapped.

Next there are several example of cultures with a seasonal organization like the Mound builders, and early Egypt. Basically in the off season, everybody would get together, hang out, do stuff like pay homage to a ruler, or work on monumental projects. Then afterward, scatter for the rest of the year whether it is farming or herding, or hunting.

And a final example, these guys were not agriculturalists but instead built their society on top of the ludicrously rich sea and wildlife of Florida's west coast.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calusa

A good book and I highly recommend reading it for ideas even if you don't wind up agreeing with it's conclusions.

[Michael Thayne]

Originally Posted by robertsconley

According to Dawn of History, recent archelogy paints a more nuanced picture of how things worked.

More nuanced than what? FWIW I read a bit of the book and found some real howlers, and later learned that it's been poorly-reviewed by historians, so I'm not terribly inclined to give it another go.

[Pursuivant]

If you want really primitive, read some of Robert Sapolski's books. He's a primatologist who worked with baboons, and he describes the complex social nuances of baboon society in hilarious detail. Jane Goodall's books on chimpanzees are also fascinating, especially once she learned that chimpanzees actual go to war against other groups.

Much of early human society was probably similar to social primate society - dominant males and females, subordinates forming coalitions to seize power, attempts by the formerly dominant group to regain power or split the group. Ritualized or actual combat between competing groups.

The huge underlying principle is that primitive groups live as close to a Libertarian existence as humans ever have. Few formal laws, very little sense of personal property, no restraints on personal behavior except those imposed by social taboos.

When times are good, being a hunter gatherer or pastoralist is easy except for potential social conflicts such as sexual infidelities, squabbles over prized resources, and dominance struggles. When times are hard, conflict over resources can split groups or result in murder or even cannibalism. When there are conflicts they can easily spiral out of control into persistent clan or tribal blood feuds.

This is particularly true in human societies where male status is based on ownership of livestock or access to females. You get lots of cattle raiding and "bride stealing" by young men looking to make a reputation for themselves, which can create all sorts of trouble (e.g., The Illiad).

Baboon troops and some human tribal societies resemble biker or criminal gangs. A big, aggressive ambitious male forms a coalition with others of his kind. They seize power, drive out or kill any rivals and monopolize resources and breeding rights, keeping the rest of the group in line with threats of violence, actual violence and psychological ploys. In other societies, it's a matriarchy with dominant females forming coalitions to gain and retain power. Slightly less violent, but the politics can be just as nasty, with male offspring and relatives being used as enforcers.

[Michael Thayne]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

If you want really primitive, read some of Robert Sapolski's books. He's a primatologist who worked with baboons, and he describes the complex social nuances of baboon society in hilarious detail. Jane Goodall's books on chimpanzees are also fascinating, especially once she learned that chimpanzees actual go to war against other groups.

Much of early human society was probably similar to social primate society - dominant males and females, subordinates forming coalitions to seize power, attempts by the formerly dominant group to regain power or split the group. Ritualized or actual combat between competing groups.

The huge underlying principle is that primitive groups live as close to a Libertarian existence as humans ever have. Few formal laws, very little sense of personal property, no restraints on personal behavior except those imposed by social taboos.

When times are good, being a hunter gatherer or pastoralist is easy except for potential social conflicts such as sexual infidelities, squabbles over prized resources, and dominance struggles. When times are hard, conflict over resources can split groups or result in murder or even cannibalism. When there are conflicts they can easily spiral out of control into persistent clan or tribal blood feuds.

This is particularly true in human societies where male status is based on ownership of livestock or access to females. You get lots of cattle raiding and "bride stealing" by young men looking to make a reputation for themselves, which can create all sorts of trouble (e.g., The Illiad).

Baboon troops and some human tribal societies resemble biker or criminal gangs. A big, aggressive ambitious male forms a coalition with others of his kind. They seize power, drive out or kill any rivals and monopolize resources and breeding rights, keeping the rest of the group in line with threats of violence, actual violence and psychological ploys. In other societies, it's a matriarchy with dominant females forming coalitions to gain and retain power. Slightly less violent, but the politics can be just as nasty, with male offspring and relatives being used as enforcers.

I think you may have missed the point of "primitive" being in scare-quotes. Perhaps a useful operational definition of the thing I'm interested in is "the sort of non-literate societies that have played major roles in the history of literate societies, and thus been subjects of fascination for the literate societies". I'm not so interested in people literally living like apes. Any in any case, my motivations for starting this thread were about nomads specifically—I think Low-Tech, Social Engineering, City Stats, and even the base game have pretty good support for sedentary societies that happen to have low levels of centralized authority.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

Lately I've been looking a bit at how to handle various "primitive" societies in GURPS. (The scare-quotes on "primitive" are quite deliberate, and seems better than using disputed academic terminology.) In many ways, GURPS seems to support that thing pretty well—use low CRs, limit the range of social traits available, and (at a less game-mechanical level) realize that many "tribal councils" and such will be more forums for diplomacy than actual governing bodies.

But I'm stuck a bit on modeling nomads—both of the hunter-gatherer and pastoralist variety. The issue is that being mobile violates a lot of core assumptions us sedentary folk have about how societies work. It makes splitting or combining groups a lot easier. And while a nomadic group may in theory claim hunting grounds or pastures that they will in theory fight to defend (which is logical given that such lands don't have infinite carrying capacity), the cost/benefit analysis for "stay and fight" vs. "go somewhere else" will look a lot different. Such groups may even decide to migrate en masse even if nobody is trying to force them off their lands. Finally, long distance communication might be tricky if you don't know where to find the group at any given time. (In historical societies, this may have been mitigated by known seasonal migration patterns, I honestly don't know to what extent).

These considerations may even apply to folks who grow some crops and/or who are merely semi-nomadic, having a village with permanent structures near their winter pastures. The key consideration, I suspect, is that your society either needs to have little wealth or have wealth that is essentially mobile—livestock plus only such quantities of other stuff as can be carried in packs or wagons. For example, in Caesar's account of the Gallic Wars, he describes the Helvetii burning all their villages and towns in preparation for a mass migration. While I wouldn't write this off as a merely symbolic gesture, I suspect the physical structures of those settlements were fairly replaceable, and they weren't in the habit of stockpiling more food than they can load into their wagons anyway.

But I'm very unsure how to model this in games where PCs are regularly doing social interaction involving, and perhaps even leading, such groups. Thoughts?

You left out trade and craft nomads. Some travelling peoples live on the road carrying dependents with them.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

The huge underlying principle is that primitive groups live as close to a Libertarian existence as humans ever have. Few formal laws, very little sense of personal property, no restraints on personal behavior except those imposed by social taboos.

I don't think any of that has much to do with what "Libertarian" means in American usage, though it's perhaps closer to left-wing European anarchism. There may be some distant relationship—Emmanuel Tod suggests that the Anglosphere's kinship system retains many features of dispersed human tribes and as a result is predisposed toward individualism—but I think that equating tribal existence to libertarianism is more likely to cause confusion about both.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

If you want really primitive, read some of Robert Sapolski's books. He's a primatologist who worked with baboons, and he describes the complex social nuances of baboon society in hilarious detail. Jane Goodall's books on chimpanzees are also fascinating, especially once she learned that chimpanzees actual go to war against other groups.

Much of early human society was probably similar to social primate society - dominant males and females, subordinates forming coalitions to seize power, attempts by the formerly dominant group to regain power or split the group. Ritualized or actual combat between competing groups.

The huge underlying principle is that primitive groups live as close to a Libertarian existence as humans ever have. Few formal laws, very little sense of personal property, no restraints on personal behavior except those imposed by social taboos.

When times are good, being a hunter gatherer or pastoralist is easy except for potential social conflicts such as sexual infidelities, squabbles over prized resources, and dominance struggles. When times are hard, conflict over resources can split groups or result in murder or even cannibalism. When there are conflicts they can easily spiral out of control into persistent clan or tribal blood feuds.

This is particularly true in human societies where male status is based on ownership of livestock or access to females. You get lots of cattle raiding and "bride stealing" by young men looking to make a reputation for themselves, which can create all sorts of trouble (e.g., The Illiad).

Baboon troops and some human tribal societies resemble biker or criminal gangs. A big, aggressive ambitious male forms a coalition with others of his kind. They seize power, drive out or kill any rivals and monopolize resources and breeding rights, keeping the rest of the group in line with threats of violence, actual violence and psychological ploys. In other societies, it's a matriarchy with dominant females forming coalitions to gain and retain power. Slightly less violent, but the politics can be just as nasty, with male offspring and relatives being used as enforcers.

You underestimate social taboos.Those can be all dominating, requiring for instance that all members of a tribe take responsibility for the deeds of a few.

One American on military duty witnessed a forced marriage being carried out to a bereaved brother as wergild. In a law-dominated society, it would be the perpetrator who paid, and wergild would be limited to civil suits and come in a monetary form.

Likewise ritual restrictions can take the form of law among nomads. Not taking a Crysknife off planet is as important as not murdering.

[Michael Thayne]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

You left out trade and craft nomads. Some travelling peoples live on the road carrying dependents with them.

If you're thinking of the groups I think you're thinking of, don't they tend to be pretty marginal? Pastoralists with a sideline in trade being a major exception.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

If you're thinking of the groups I think you're thinking of, don't they tend to be pretty marginal? Pastoralists with a sideline in trade being a major exception.

I am thinking of Roma, Travellers, etc. Not necessarily Tanka as those seem mostly fishers (though they have a considerable service industry). What Wikipedia calls peripatetic nomads.