This is a rant in two parts: nature vs. nurture and rarity. They are sort of related in my mind, since the moment a GM defines racial or cultural tendencies (whether inborn or inculcated), at least half of her players will want to play against type for their race/culture.

Nature vs. Nurture

It seems entirely likely that people's tendencies are partly influenced by genetics and partly by environment. I'm not even sure that it's important to distinguish, in a game, which is which. For instance, Saromatian dwarves are combatative. They like to fight. Are dwarves biologically driven to be more aggressive than humans? Or does their culture prize that trait and encourage it? Does it matter?

In this case, I'd say no. Dwarves act like dwarves, and there will be indivuals who vary. Whether they are biologically predisposed to be different or just cultural renegades isn't important. It would become important, though, if another society of dwarves were encountered. Are, on average, all dwarves very aggressive? If the aggression is the result of biology, you'd think this would be the case. If it's cultural conditioning, then a group of Utopian Peace Dwarves is possible.

I don't plan on having Utopian Peace Dwarves. After a little thought, I don't think Nature vs. Nurture is of all that much importance. However things got to be the way they are, they are. How the PCs react towards it, now that's another issue.

Drizzt Do'Urden Syndrome

It was an interesting idea. In a race that's supposed to be black-heartedly evil, a basicallly decent fellow rears his head. Where does he get these pangs of conscience? Who knows - it's not important. We humans have had moral revolutionaries during some of our more depraved eras on this earth. The drow can have theirs.

But he was too cool. He was a loner (always a draw to the alienated teen crowd). He kicked serious butt. Soon, Drizzt clones began stalking gaming tables all over the nation!

It never fails. Declare that something - mages, elves, descendants of the True Blood - are rare in your game world, and someone will want to play one. Possibly in disguise. This is fairly reasonable. Fantasy games are about heroes, and a suspicious number of heroes tend to come from the rare demographics of a given fantasy world. I guess that, since adventurers are rare, rare sorts of people often become adventurers. Makes the bookkeeping work out, anyway.

The trouble comes when the mystique of the "rare" and thereby "cool" drags in several players. If mages are misunderstood, driven underground and persecuted, and three people out of six want to be a mage, the GM has an issue. Either she lets all three be mages in utter disregard for the likelihood of this occurring, she tells two players they can't be what they want to be (but the other player can), or declares that PCs can't be mages. None of these solutions are particularly good.

In Saromatia, the question came up for gender roles. In retrospect, I guess it's sort of a given. If a culture thinks one gender should "stay at home" and a player wants to role-play that gender, then guess what? They'll be bucking the norm. And a PC's sex is a more personal thing for most people than race or class. I know men who will play clerics or mages, warriors or rogues, elves, dwarves, and orcs, but would never play a woman. (Visa versa for the women). The reasons are many, from a concern that he'll 'get it wrong' and offend a female player or GM, to just feeling squicky about it. In my most draconian moments as a GM, I have never felt comfortable dicating that a PC must be of a certain sex.

As a result, the Saromatian adventuring party I am running is comprised of two female PCs and four males. This is highly anomolous for Saromatia; it really ought to be the other way around. But everyone felt most comfortable playing their own gender, and I wasn't about to tell them that they couldn't.

And so fidelity to creative vision is sacrificed on the altar of 'fun for everyone.' I don't regret it - the point of the game is fun, after all. And, for this campaign, it doesn't grate so much that the majority of the party is male.

What worries me is that, if I continue to run campaigns in Saromatia and continue to have majority male parties, justifying the matriarchal concept that is central to the campaign might get more and more difficult. PC parties, in my world, tend to rise to posiitons of prominence by the end of a campaign. Putting that many men in positions of power could greatly change the face of the setting!

A problem for the future, perhaps. But I get to rant about it now, here.

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