Cultural Familiarity in Psi-Wars

So, I've been struggling a bit with Cultural Familiarity in the established world of Psi-Wars. I've touched on this topic before in Iteration 5, but that iteration was for general topics.  It was for you, dear reader, creating your own setting. Now that I have actual names and cultures (Maradonians, the Shinjurai, the Westerly, Lithian culture, the Keleni), we need to decide which of these have Cultural Familiarity penalties and which don't. Is the difference between the Shinjurai and the Westerly like the difference between an American and a Frenchman, or the difference between an American and the Chinese?

Humanity

The poll results were close.  With the Empire as a base, Maradonians were voted to not have a unique culture by 5 to 3.  I can go with this result.  I tend to see the Empire as largely a successor culture to the Maradonian federation, so while there are differences, most of those differences come down to the fact that Maradonian culture acknowledges status (they focus on Savoir-Faire) and the Empire doesn't (ostensibly, the acknowledge merit; in practice, they acknowledge the increasingly powerful bureaucracy that rules their lives).

The Shinjurai snuck through with standard culture by a 4 to 3 vote.  I can see why this one is tougher, because they're clearly a distinct culture.  They follow a different philosophy that's at odds with much of the galaxy, value very different things than Maradonian culture does, and have a very strong sense of identity.  On the other hand, they were one of the first on the scene, and set the stage for much of the rest of the galaxy, and the Empire "rejected Maradonian values in favor of Shinjurai values." Neo-Rationalism is all the rage in the Empire!  This suggests a commonality.  And given the vote, that seems to be the case.  I can accept this.

Westerly are trickier. They've been developing their own culture in the game (Shepherdism and a ton of details crafted for Tall Tales of the Orochi Belt). But  "No distinct culture" won by 4 to 3 to 1, but if you combine the other two into a single option, it's a tie.  So "No culture" is tied with "Some sort of culture."  But then should we go with Westerly culture as a whole, or split them up?  I think the safest thing to do here is to allow most Westerly to have the same galactic culture, but there are some isolated pockets that might have their own culture, the tribes of Richat and the people of the Rogue Stars. We could give each culture it's own familiarity, but it might be easier to give the isolated tribes one single cultural familiarity trait of "Westerly Tribal" and excuse it with a "shared origin" handwave.

Finally, as a general rule, planets may or may not have cultural penalties: this one tied.  So my take-away here is that isolated planets likely have their own cultures, but it's probably rare.

And Yet...

We still have a problem, the "Jethro" problem.  See, on the one hand, this makes sense.  The galaxy is highly interconnected, and a Shinjurai philospher and a Maradonian space knight value different things, but when they both stop at a Westerly gas station, they all probably speak the same language and understand the same basic things.  If the Maradonian intentionally insults the Shinjurai, she'll understand the insult.  The Westerly will recognize it too.  If the Westerly flirts with the Shinjurai, she'll get it.  You rather have to: everyone is sharing the same space bars, fighting in the same wars, and speaking the same language.  That makes a strong case for shared culture; sure, there are class differences and value differences, but that's no different from snooty French people who enjoy modern art and gourmet food looking down their noses at an American who loves guns and burgers; they're different, but they understand one another.

But Tall Tales of the Orochi Belt included an NPC named Jethro, who was from a backwater world, St. Borlaug's Star, that mostly farmed and hung out with fellow Westerly from the Belt. He'd never seen Maradonians or Shinjurai and didn't understand them.  He's very much the "Hill Billy" sort, and such a character makes sense and fits.   If you've never been out of the Undercity of Denjuku, would you understand any culture but Shinjurai? Or if you never left the ivory towers of Persephone, would you understand the first thing about the Westerly or the Shinjurai?  This argues for a cultural familiarity, but if we make one, in this case, we're arguing that everyone should have cultural familiarity (Maradonian, Shinjurai, Westerly, Imperial) all the time unless you're one of these isolated characters. Hmm.

And, as a general rule, I'd rather keep track of bonuses than penalties. 

--Nemoricus

 On the other hand, you can make the same case for people with the Western Culture in the real world.  I comment on how Jethro is "like a Hill-Billy."  How do we handle a Hill-Billy? Or a snooty French girl who has never stepped outside of her estates in Provence? Well, we don't handle it with Cultural Familiarity (American) vs Cultural Familiarity (French).  What if, instead, we minimized the penalties in such a way that only those sorts of characters had to worry about this? If your character is only familiar with a subculture, then you have a Quirk "Provincial" which applies a cultural familiarity penalty for you and you alone to everyone outside of your Subculture.  So Jethro would have "Provincial (Westerly)" and a Shinjurai girl who had never left the Undercity of Denjuku or the spires of Xen would have "Provincial (Shinjurai)" and so on.  This allows us to have our concept, without cluttering the game with unnecessary elements that everyone else in the world has to track.

Alien Culture

We have the broader "Lithian" culture for the Umbral Rim, which includes the Ranathim, the Slavers and the Gaunt (and I might do a poll at some point to create some minor other race, something no bigger or more involved than the Asrathi).  With a vote of 6 to 2, my backers decided the Keleni are their own culture, which makes a lot of sense to me. They're pretty influential and scattered across the galaxy, and have their own "insider culture" that they cling to no matter where they go.  The Keleni of the Empire likely have both Cultural Familiarity (Keleni) and (Galactic Federation) and those in the Umbral Rim likely have both Cultural Familiarity (Keleni) and (Lithian).  If you're a Templar, you'll just make sure you study Cultural Familiarity (Keleni), rather than (Lithian). Likewise, if you're a Tyrant, you'll likely just study (Lithian) rather than (Keleni).

The Eldoth were overwhelmingly given a 2-point cultural familiarity by a vote of 8 to 0.  It's unanimous.

And as a general rule, "Aliens should have one or more cultural familiarity specializations" won by 4 to 1.  This also makes sense; in a fantasy setting, we might expect each race to have its own culture; in the same way, we might expect all aliens to have at least one culture in Psi-Wars.  So the Sathrans and certainly the Mug will have their own Culture, and the Nehud will have one or more.

I had wanted to poll on the Asrathi too, but I forgot to include them on Patreon. On SubscribeStar, the Asrathi having their own culture won 1 to 0, and we have a general trend towards it with the "Aliens should have one or more cultural familiarity specializations." I'll need to think on it though (drop me a comment here or on the discord if you have strong feelings).  They've been written as a sort of an "integrated culture." They've been dissolved by the galactic polity and so have little in the way of their own culture anymore but are trying to recreate it.  "Asrathi Pride" might work better as a Provincial Subculture, as a quirk, than as a true Cultural Familiarity, at least for now.

On Cultural Familiarity Proliferation

One concern raised by backers was the fear that Cultural Familiarity penalties would diminish the role of the Diplomat.  I happen to disagree strongly with that: if there are 50 cultures in a Galaxy, a Diplomat takes Cultural Adaptability for 10 points and is golden from then on.  The problem isn't with Diplomats, it's with soldiers and spies and space knights.  If you have cultural familiarity penalties every other planet, then you need a diplomat to get anything done, or you're just going to run around force-swording everyone you meet, because that's easier.

The case described by my Backers is this: if you're in Human space: the Galactic Core, the Glorian Rim, etc,  and you're human, you're probably fine unless you're from some backwater (then you have the Provincial quirk). If your space knight goes to the Umbral Rim, then obviously people get weird and different; same with the Keleni, the Traders, the Nehud, the Mug, etc.  The point of these races is to provide the exotic, so that makes sense. You need a Diplomat to deal with those, or to deal with the cross-class divide (as classism is definitely a thing).  There is some value, then, in Cultural Familiarity, but not too much.

Given that the rule is largely "only aliens have cultural familiarities" I think this greatly reduces the value of Cultural Adaptability;  you're very rarely going to see anyone with more than 4, so that suggests to me the point cost of Cultural Adaptability in Psi-Wars should be 5.

Moving Forward

I've been trying to collect a last few pieces of art, though that will likely take awhile, but once I have them, I'll start to build a set of entries for the major cultures of Psi-Wars, including what tech, philosophies and other elements are associated with them.  It'll be a project for later, but I think it woudl be nice to say "I want to be a Shinjurai Commando" and click on a single page and reference everything associated with your particular culture.