Ever think about Star Trek? There are hundreds if not thousands of different cultures on Earth. However, the Klingons only have one culture. Same with the Vulcans, Romulans, and just about every other non-human Star Trek race. I thought that was really interesting, and perhaps could be useful in world design.
(Doing Therapy)
That's a fault of a great many sci-fi shows (and novels). Fantasy too, with each race being a mono-culture.
Not nearly as interesting as a world of many peoples.
One way to make excuses for that is to say that of course Klingons have many cultures - it's just that all of the Klingons we meet are military guys in space, and only one culture of Klingons has military guys in space.
For fantasy scenarios, I usually pretend that those are just the elves over here, and the other elves way over there whom we never meet are different. Sometimes that doesn't work, but that's the author's fault.
It's a good thing to keep in mind when you're designing scenarios.
Now that I think about it, there are other Klingon cultures. The smooth forehead Klingons that Kirk faced are a subset of the turtle shell Klingons. This was explained in an episode of Enterprise.
I just thought it was kind of interesting.
(Doing Therapy)
It is interesting, and greatly discussed among game and world designers.
I think that Tolkien managed to avoid it. In The Hobbit, the elves of Mirkwood were withdrawn, suspicious, and a bit warlike. The Elves of Lothlorien were different, more withdrawn perhaps but less suspicious and less warlike. Too, Aragorn and the rangers constituted a breed of half-elves, but I think that Celeborn and those of the Last Homely House were a completely different type of half-elf (the difference being whether they chose to favor the man or the elf). There were also some cultural variations between the hobbits of Hobbiton and those across the water, both of which were different from the hobbits of which Smeagol had been raised long ago. Less can be said of the dwarfs, since all the dwarfs we meet are related fairly closely; but the cultures of men, particularly the Riders of Rohan and the citizens of Gondor, also have distinct cultural differences.
The problem from a design perspective is fairly simple to explain. If I create a race, such as for example the Bah of Bah Keh'gen, it is necessary for this race to be inhuman in some definable way. If the Bah are just men in funny costumes, there's nothing interesting about them--and less so in a role playing game, where the funny costumes aren't even visible. Thus I have to begin by asking what it is that makes these people different from humans, nail down a few significant differences and then reason through from those to what their cultures would be like. What I want to create is a rainbow of distinct cultures as varied as human cultures, but which are all characteristically different from human culture in the same race-based way.
Thus with my Bah, I began with a couple very distinct biological facts. Bah are genderless and do not mate; new Bah spring up from the ground in what seem to be random events. They morph through phases in their lives, during which they have specific biological drives that push them toward specific tasks in life. The youngest of the Bah are the only ones that can metabolize the grass; in doing so, they excrete a fur-like covering which constitutes food for all older forms of the Bah. Finally, technology does not work and is feared in the way that magic is feared by humans, but everything is done by magic and some psionics.
From this base it is obvious that one feature of any Bah culture would be the importance it places on the protection of the very young. These are essential to the survival of the entire race, since without the young the rest will starve. There is also a unity created by the interdependence of all--because of their biology, no Bah can do everything that needs to be done for the survival of the species. There will be some rebels, some mutants, some who put themselves outside or become dangerous, but in the main the Bah need each other in clearly evident ways.
Two problems emerge.
One is that this is a great deal of work. You will find very few games or books or worlds in which there is even one species so carefully considered as to create a logical unique culture based on the concept of the species. Those in which those base biological concepts are extrapolated to multiple distinct but similar cultures are even more rare than those in which more than one species is treated in such a careful way.
The other is that it does not always communicate well. I can make you understand the mindset of a Bah such that in an hour or so you can probably play one reasonably well. I don't know that I can make you understand the mindset of a Dar Koni in less than several years, and I admit that I still do not understand the mindset of the Kreelak. It is easier to play caricatures of cultures than to play unique cultures themselves.
Besides, Star Trek has never attempted to create real unique alien cultures. The function of aliens in Star Trek is always allegorical. The Klingons originally were the Russians as perceived by Americans: war-like empire builders intent on bringing the entire galaxy under their dominion. They were made inhuman so that we could pretend that the American concepts embodied in the Federation were the true future and legacy of humanity, and the warlike empire building of the Soviet Union was alien and aberrant. The Vulcans represented the best in human rationality but also the rejection of emotion, and so were treated ambiguously at times, highly praised and embraced but also shown to be limited. The Borg are a symbol of The Machine, technology taking over our lives and making us part of a hive mentality, depriving us of individuality. The Ferengi are pure capitalism of a strongly nineteenth century variety. Pieces of humanity are parceled out to different alien races, allowing us to distance ourselves from them and criticize segments of and aspects of humanity without being directly offensive to any individual or racial/ethnic/political group. We create the caricatures, give them alien names, show how they are limited, and let the viewer take the lesson back to reality. That is the point of much of Star Trek, and complaining that its aliens are so much like segments of humanity is missing the point. They are supposed to be that.
Even when that's not the point, it is so much easier to make an "alien" or "fantasy" race simply by taking a fragment of human culture and extrapolating it to an entire people. Dwarfs are miners and engineers with a strong blue collar view of life. Elves have the inscrutability of the Far East, China or Japan. Orcs are brutish thugs akin to African cannibals. These stolen cultures make it quick and easy for a referee or a player to get into the role he needs to play. He does not have to come to understand the underlying nature of the creature, only the trappings of the culture, and he can play the caricature as if it were character.
Obviously, I've named the Bah, the Dar Koni, and the Kreelak. Those are off the top of my head as aliens whose biology and history have given them unique cultures distinct from most human cultures. It is not simple to get into the minds of any of them, because they are alien. There is at times even a temptation to create a race and say of them, "You cannot play these in a rational way because you cannot possibly understand how they think--they are too alien." This, though, results in an incomprehensibly chaotic race. A true culture will have its own logic, and will be rational if its foundations are comprehended. That's what makes it so difficult.
--M. J. Young
Just an aside, regarding Star Trek culture. The word "humanoid" gets tossed around a lot when describing other races. However, the Vulcans, Romulans, and Klingons ALSO say "humanoid". Shouldn't they say "Vulcanoid" "Romulanoid" and Klingonoid"?
Romulans wouldn't say "Romulanoid," John. The Romulans and Vulcans are the same race, divided by philosophical differences.
While it's a valid point, there are two reasonable responses:
- Are the Vulcans, Romulans, Klingons, Ferengi, Bajorans, Cardassians, and whoever else actually speaking English, or are they each speaking their own languages? In later episodes we find that everyone is wearing a "universal translator" tucked in an ear such that they would hear everything in his own language. If that is the case, then when the Klingon says "klinkataschshelan" or whatever he says, the translator brings that across as "humanoid".
- If we are not using the universal translator, then when we hear the aliens speaking English, that means that they are speaking English, and not Vulcan, Romulan, Klingon, Ferengi, Bajoran, Cardassian, or whatever. The English word that describes that body type is "humanoid", and it would be rather rude for aliens using our language to invent their own words to describe something for which we already have a word.
--M. J. Young
Romulans wouldn't say "Romulanoid," John. The Romulans and Vulcans are the same race, divided by philosophical differences.
Yeah, but if you recall in Star Trek TOS episode Balance of Terror (The first time the Romulans are seen) neither the Vulcans nor the Romulans knew that. It had happened so long ago that the information had been lost to history. (And the sad thing is that I know that.....)
Just a bit of useless trivia (as if that wasn't enough) Mark Lenard was the only actor to play a Romulan (the Romulan commander in the before mentioned Balance of Terror) a Klingon and a Vulcan. The last is his most famous, as Sarek, Spock's father.
I knew that. What Klingon did he play?
--M. J. Young
What Klingon did he play?
If I knew that, I would have posted it. It was probably just some nobody Klingon.
Two Posts
From IMDb.com
In addition to having played all three (at the time) major aliens in the Star Trek universe (the Romulan commander in the original series "Balance of Terror", the Vulcan Sarek, and the Klingon captain in Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)), he also almost played a human - Gene Roddenberry wanted him to portray Abraham Lincoln in "The Savage Curtain" (the episode where Kirk, Spock, Lincoln, and Vulcan legend Surak represent "good" in a staged battle with Genghis Khan and three others representing "evil"), but Lenard was unavailable at the time.