You're not supposed to make non-human civilizations analogous to human civilizations because reasons

Are you implying orcs act like west africans?

Orcs don't have to be roving, marauding rapists. You can write them as civilized too.

A nation of civilized orcs based on the culture of West Africa being present in a setting wouldn't be racist.

well, this comment chain is a disaster.

Maybe because one participant is political and the other truthful
Guess which is which

Because everybody on here that never actually plays games is a pretentious hipster type who has some burning need for originality, failing entirely to realize that the reason people continuously use the same trappings and themes over and over again is because it saves a lot of time and because people really actually enjoy it. The obsession with nobody being able to say about your special creation 'so it's basically like this thing' is entirely about the creator's pleasure and nobody else's.

Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but remember, those people don't actually play games, and you don't want them to.

At least he's not an Albanian

I'll never stop being entertained by this shit.

Here's a tip: pointing out the bad things that a race, nation or ethnicity has done in the past isn't racism. They actually did those things. Once you reach the point of statistical validation then negative assumptions based on race or national identity is no longer racist. If a race or nation stirs up shit for thousands of years then assuming people from that race or nation are going to stir up shit isn't racism. It's logical process.

Basing orcs on West African warlords isn't racist because that's actually how West Africa is. Reality doesn't change because it makes you uncomfortable. It's only racist when you portray them ignorantly or incorrectly based on negative stereotyping.

>this thread

It looks like we should've decided on what West African culture really is first.

>cultural interchange
You know, them being completely different races might just halt that.

I'm not precisely against this practice myself, as I've done it many times, but I think the problem comes with the fact that it's boring.

What defines a race? What are their strengths and weaknesses, both in a physical and in a mystical sense? Where do they live, and how does this shape their economy and cultural practices? Do they intermingle with the neighboring races' towns? If so, what is their commerce venues like?

It's a lot more fun to come up with this kinda shit if you're GMing, rather than just say "oh uh these jackal-people don't wear clothes because it's hot and also they write using hieroglyphs".

There is literally nothing wrong with making non-humans analogous to human civs. Well, there is, but it's whatever. However, if you're a GM (or just a player), who bitches at people for playing human PCs in the setting like that- fuck you, seriously.

...I kinda dig the idea of French kobolds

>Orcs don't have to be roving, marauding rapists.
>nation of civilized orcs based on the culture of West Africa
>civilized

They did have a few kingdoms and dynasties that weren't Egyptians or invaders from the east.

Nothing about crossing frigid stormy waters is something for a short boat ride.

>not posting the attack helicopter version

Well, good luck making a civilization in your games that isn't an extrapolation from a real one.

That is racism though. Because then you say, oh these guys, they interact with humans and other species ("races") just like RL human races do, intermingle and interact... And then you feed into the idea that human races are different, which is the root of racism itself.
Far better then to let, say, orcs and kobolds be utter bastards that you can't even talk to just on account of being another species.

>Orcs don't have to be roving, marauding rapists
then what's the point of having orcs? You're just using the name orc while describing something that is completely different from what orcs have always been.

I've never really met anyone who really pushed against it but it's just generally disrespectful unless you grew up with it or are very well educated about it.
Or even racist, as mentioned. That being said, basing a fantastical culture heavily on a real culture ISN'T inherently bad, but MOST of the time it turns out pretty bad.

All of that and, of course, the fact that quite often bog-standard Human is western european, as if that's the 'standard' civilization and everything else is exotic, barbaric, or inhumanely alien.

A good way to avoid the problem is to avoid making a 'standard' human and from stereotyping/simplifying actual cultures.

hey kid
wanna /ss/

It's simply that there's nothing lazier in worldbuilding than to say "my elves are not!Etruscans, while my dwarves are not!Minoans".
In general the "not!(civilization)" thing is very lazy and when mixed with classic fantasy races it doesn't result in more interesting races but in more stereotipical civilizations.
A better way would be to take inspiration from various civilizations for each of your world's people, putting in some geographical determinism for ease of use (even if Jared Diamond is a hack) and stirring.

Because it's lazy. Don't be lazy, be creative

>Don't be lazy, be creative
What if you are only creative/competent in one area?
Maybe you can create beautiful surroundings and have a great grasp on the biology of all those creatures, but have at best a hazy grasp on the processes involved and can only see the fantasy races in terms of stereotypes?

>doesn't know about Mansa Musa, Emperor of Mali
>literally world's richest man for a thousand years
>fucking wrecked the economies of countries he travelled through on pilgrimage because he gave too much gold away

Economic rapine and pillaging is still rapine and pillaging.

He wrecked economies by giving obscenely high tips? That's hilarious. In principle at least.

That's not how statistics work.

I mean as long as I'm not expected to imagine in the case of a setting where travel and trade are commonplace that all members of that race belong to this one culture even when they live in other nations, and that there are no non-[race] members of that culture? Go for it.

Otherwise the suspension of disbelief gonna be hard as fuck.

>fucking wrecked the economies of countries he travelled through on pilgrimage because he gave too much gold away
What a fucking glorious bastard.

that fucking slut

Well, i guess that face was just too obvious

>Wooo! All the major european powers intervened and forced the Prussians to leave us alone while we beat our german minority into submission!
>Look at these glorious returning heroes!

now look slightly more to the left

...

Oh great, one man.

Do you think he mined the gold himself? Are you literally retarded?

It was mined by black slaves. Yeah, even in Africa, niggers were slaves.

>implying European serfdom isn't slavery

>implying modern capitalism isn't slavery

Because if the French had tentacles and psychic powers and couldn't stand sunlight, their culture would probably have grown in a different direction?

Nah lad, you have it all wrong.
If a species has tentacles and psychic powers and couldn't stand sunlight, it's culture would develop into something like French

>richest man
>did nothing memorable or worthwhile
>no feats of amazing feats of engineering, social structure, culture, art nor any means of documentation worth a damn

>"I'll just keep moving the goalposts so I can keep believing niggers are shit"
>"That'll be sure to convince everyone"

At least they would have called Louis XIV something different.

Bling is what matters

>You know, them being completely different races might just halt that.
Not really. Trade happens. Trade involves talking, and traders can talk about a lot when not mutually discussing business, which leads to an exchange of ideas, which are then disseminated via their social networks (of the physical kind, you dumbass), and passed on in the same manner. The fads are dropped after a while and the sensible ideas kept, and that wonderful game of telephone begins a new tradition that is related but different.

>stating obvious facts
>moving goalpost
Sub-saharans have been left behind by evolution.

>muh evolution
>muh environmental determinism
>muh scientific racism

Why do you need so much pseudoscience just to feel good about yourself, user? You're worthy of love without all that, you don't need to make other people feel bad to make yourself feel good.

It's pointless

FFS Tolkien's Dwarves weren't even 1 for 1 Jew knockoffs, and his elves were vaguely northern european based on Celtic & Norse mythology

>>no feats of amazing feats of engineering, social structure, culture, art nor any means of documentation worth a damn
"I have never read anything about Mali ever" the post.

You need to go back.

Wait does this mean fishman Napoleon isn't allowed?

How can you exile him to a remote island where he can just swim back?

>t.Marx

A remote lake?

I don't have a problem with it unless it's universal.

Like, your elves are Russian. That's cool, but why are the ones on a different continent who have never had contact with each other also Russian?

It also doesn't make sense that these races would live in close proximity and possess cultures completely alien to one another. That rarely happens unless one party is an invading force.

It's annoying when only humans have any sort of diversity in their race.

How do you build an original culture from scratch?

A desert oasis.

>not frogman

Because fantasy races aren't humans, and will probably have very different cultures and sensibilities to human cultures.

That's something worthy of a thread

Step by step. But usually you would ask how much detail you need and only fill out the relevant bits.

Done. Sorry for the pic, I'm not at my PC.

>reminder that Louisigon the All-Prober did nothing wrong

...

>Russian elves

Do you know how much I want this to happen?

You know what?

I want it too. I feel kinda ashamed I haven't thought of it before.

It could even work out really well. Keep the elvish arrogance, but back it up with the fact that they have to live in one of the worst places on the planet instead of having everything fucking handed to them by treegods.

But like a lot of malt liquor and chicken though. Like a lot a lot.

Came here to post this, but now I don't have to.

Also, ya'll niggas racist.

>"MY elves are photosynthesizing tree-people w/ 4 arms who reproduce asexually!" thing that lots of newbie worldbuilders seem to go through.
Kinda like this idea personally.
Like long limbed willowy tree-people. Maybe give them odd numbers of fingers on each hand so their basic structure is more tree-like.

Maybe not fully immortal, but they just continue to grow for centuries, until they're so old and wizened they look more like trees then people.

>How do does their biology affect thier society
>what's the basic social structure
>how do those structures come together to form a coherent society.

So, Dunmer?

N'wah, please.

>muh environmental determinism
This one doesn't seem to fit in with the others. Environment must have a profound effect on the development of civilizations, or am I completely wrong?

Environmental determinism is the belief that environment is the sole factor in a civilisation's progress. African cultures are inferior because of their tropical and desert environments, whereas European culture is superior because of their temperate climates. There's no social, cultural or historical components, just temperate = good, desert = shit. The way you figure out it's bullshit is that, curiously, every proponent of environmental determinism comes to the conclusion that the climate in their homeland is the best one.

>Environmental determinism is the belief that environment is the sole factor in a civilisation's progress.
Then it's clearly not a nazi thought, don't these people believe genetics factor in civilisation's growth too?

Some people get butthurt when told that certain racial groups are simply better than others reagardless of their enviroments. So it is used as an insult.

Nevermind also how all the oldest civilizations popped up in the near east

It's not clear whether you're agreeing with or criticising me, so since this is Veeky Forums I'm going to assume you're being antagonistic. Once again;

>muh genetic determinism

If you believe genetics are a significant factor in the development of civilisations, you've clearly never learnt anything about genetics beyond "blue eyes are recessive, brown eyes are dominant". Genetic determinism is like claiming that someone became a mathematician because of his genetics, not because of the inspiring high school maths teacher he had.

One again, scientific racism. Cite some sources if you want me to do anything other than insult you.

Or aforementioned Mali or Ethiopia had quite comfy civilizations.
Also the fact that, on the other hand, American natives lived in temperate climate and didn't exactly build cities or develop strong civilizations.

Genetics account for .3 to .5 of personality, not to mention IQ.

Both are important beyond the personal level; even environmental changes such as church policies banning incest (see e.g. the Hajnal line) result in significant genetic and hence personality effects given half a millennium.

>Making the majority of civilizations racially homogeneous in a setting with multiple sapient races

Welp, we've found the problem.
Though in all seriousness, if you ARE going to make civilizations racially homogeneous, there's no good reason not to use inspiration from real world civilizations.

>Have you encountered this conviction in any of your players?

Nope.

I get that you're disagreeing with the idea that temperate climate = ubermensch, but it's entirely possible that native Americans in North America did have strong, urbanised societies. But we'll never know for sure, because they were decimated by diseases introduced to the continent by European explorers, and by the time Europeans got into the heartlands of North America, all that were left were post-apocalyptic tribal remnants of the original native civilizations.

Cities leave ruins.

They did build cities, look up Cahokia and the Mississippian culture. For some reason, they stopped doing it. Modern Native Americans claim it was a failed experiment in urbanisation that was abandoned when it went to shit. I'd normally discount their claims since they're based on oral histories, but several claims from Native American oral histories have turned out to be true, notably including the timeline of human settlement of the Americas and trade links of the east coast Powhatan tribes with the Mayans.

Yet another rebuttal is the Mesoamerican civilisations. They lived in a jungle but made a floating city and aqueducts that made the Romans look like amateurs, along with philosophy and poetry to rival the Greeks. Tenochtitlan was the fourth most populous city in the world in the 1500s, and was by far the cleanest. The Mayans also invented writing independently; everyone in Europe, including the Greeks and Romans, stole their letters from the Ancient Egyptians. The Mesoamericans get unfairly dismissed as uncivilised barbarians because of human sacrifice.

>significant genetic and hence personality effects given half a millennium

Do you know how long 500 years is?

Very interesting. Timeline looks a little off to be because of European disease, though, unless it was the Vikings.

I know about North American cities, but they were so scarce they don't exactly count. Also they were located in the southern USA which isn't temperate. People living around modern New York or New England almost certainly didn't have cities.
Which is so odd, considering subsaharan and equatorial Africa had a fair share of them.

Prevailing theory is flood. Evidence of two massive floods at the site have been found, though they're separated by a few centuries and the exact time of Cahokia's abandonment isn't known.

Part of the problem is equating cities to advanced civilisation. The Mongols are a good example of this - they were a nomadic people with no permanent settlements until they settled in cities they conquered. Yet they ruled over the largest empire in history..