Development Thread: Sacred Seed

[Carex]

@pyrephox

You could also create a secondary class of nobility by calling the newly seeded "Blessed" and make them part of a church structure. You go from commoner to priest to noble if you are lucky.

[Pyrephox]

@carex said in Development Thread: Sacred Seed:

@pyrephox

You could also create a secondary class of nobility by calling the newly seeded "Blessed" and make them part of a church structure. You go from commoner to priest to noble if you are lucky.

Yeah. Or a bureaucracy of some sort. Like, newly Seeded go into a civil service sort of arrangement, freeing up the blooded nobles for more interesting tasks, and if you do your work well and learn to play the game, your family might eventually rise out of civil service to 'real' nobility. Perhaps through a system of finding someone to patron your rise.

[Sunny]

This thread of stifling upward mobility does not sound at all fun to play through.

ETA: Like, why would you build a system on purpose to be as not fun as possible? That seems counter-intuitive to the point.

[Cobalt]

While I appreciate the input, this particular thought-thread doesn't really align with my particular design and/or goals. I'm not too worried about leaving exiled nobles alive-- @Coin and I have even discussed two different types of "attainder" one being willing and the other being unwilling. We'll write into theme what happens: re-succession issues with Seedless nobles who try to reclaim the throne, or their Seeded descendants (that was actually one of the things I remarked on about it being a thing that happens, and I like the idea of it happening and don't want to write it out as a possibility).

[Ominous]

@sunny Some people find fun in playing in what they view to be an internally consistent and logical world. Different strokes for different folks.

[Sunny]

@ominous I find the implication that I don't appreciate logic or internal consistency offensive; I do. However, things can be this and also fun. Of course different strokes for different folks, but the discussion is regarding the creation of a world for playing characters in, and considering that this a completely alien culture and history and people and world, logic in relation to real world earth scenarios and governments has very little relevance. Context and cultural history and all of these things can be different, ending up not creating a world that looks like this one. That can be consistent...and also fun.

[Ominous]

@sunny Notice the "what they view to be" that I intentionally put in my statement just for this very reason.

What has been laid out does not appear to be "realistic" to someone for reasons they articulated very well. This breaks their suspension of disbelief, which I imagine most people don't find fun. It's great that it doesn't bother you. It bothers them and they explained why. I was pointing out that you were badwrongfunning someone for having different standards than you.

[Carex]

It's cool. Perhaps I am too jaded but I have always followed the axiom "Getting power is easy. Keeping it is the hard part." so any roadblock between upstarts and the establishment seems logical.

It also depends on your definition of power. If magic is way more important to the nobles than control over the citizens and economy then they'll welcome newcomers that they can manipulate. Fuck the plebs. No magic no value.

Also, just so you are aware, you are building a total rape factory. Your society is going to devolve to the point that women are property and only useful for making babies unless they have magic then they are only useful for making noble babies.

[Cobalt]

@carex said in Development Thread: Sacred Seed:

Also, just so you are aware, you are building a total rape factory. Your society is going to devolve to the point that women are property and only useful for making babies unless they have magic then they are only useful for making noble babies.

Can you please explain where this conclusion comes from? That is not the theme that either @coin or I are intending. We have two court rulers who are female and powerful within their own rights, two that are male, and one that is non-binary. Sacred Seed, much like Arx, won't have enforced traditional gender roles or stereotypes, no rule of male only primogeniture or inheritance, etc.

We have, granted, not currently discussed the themes of illegitimate children, birth control, or same sex marriages. But I imagine much like arx there will probably be an IC theme of birth control being readily available. And same sex marriages -will- be a thing, we just haven't discussed how they work and affect inheritance.

[Cobalt]

@ominous said in Development Thread: Sacred Seed:

@sunny Notice the "what they view to be" that I intentionally put in my statement just for this very reason.

What has been laid out does not appear to be "realistic" to someone for reasons they articulated very well. This breaks their suspension of disbelief, which I imagine most people don't find fun. It's great that it doesn't bother you. It bothers them and they explained why. I was pointing out that you were badwrongfunning someone for having different standards than you.

I just want to be clear here, I'm not saying that @Pyrephox or @Carex are wrong for their suggestions, or that it's wrongfun for wanting that level of verisimilitude. It just isn't the type of fun that I want to enforce and run as the game designer. I hope that there's enough of interest in the setting for them to overlook the breaking of their suspension of disbelief and play when we're ready, but I'll understand if they chose not to play and won't hold it against them.

As a kind of attached tangent: This isn't going to be one of those projects that I set up over night. @Coin and I are writing a completely different world which comes with a bunch of different questions (are there other nations, what do our people know about the other nations, can people play those other nation-characters?, etc), a completely difficult culture (how did they culture evolve, why are they like x or y, what history do they have, etc), and I'm learning a whole new code language (aaaaauggh! How do I find where something 'is' via the code?! I just wanna build a +where! Q.Q).

There's going to be a lot of tinkering and fine tuning of theme before we're ready for even alpha, and then in alpha I imagine some theme will be shored up and fine tuned as people engage with the world we're creating.

[Carex]

@cobaltasaurus

In any society where the blood line a woman comes from is more important than the contributions she, as a person, can make it always ends up that way.

Arranged marriages, selling young women to old men for dowry. Look at biblical laws where a woman is property and if you rape her you have to buy her. Look at even modern times in America where child brides are legal and common in several modern states because poor people want to marry their kids into a better life. Nazis had pure breeding programs. Slave owners in America would buy slaves just for breeding with strong male slaves to make a better slave. The guy who started Kellog's cereal company tried to get government to implement a eugenics program to enhance white purity.

The very words we use to describe women are based on the historic ideals that they are only for breeding. Vagina is from the Latin for sheath because she only exists as a place to sheath your sword.

Every culture which has ever been focused on blood lines or "purity" has ended in women being breeding equipment. You don't have to go that way of course, but historically, that's what humans normally do as what each woman can contribute to society becomes less valuable than what their male offspring might bring to the table.

It really doesn't matter how smart, wise, or powerful a woman is because she can make more people. If she is powerful, people will demand she make more powerful people. It's just a matter of survival. If you have a good thing, make more of it.

[Pyrephox]

Please note that I am in no way on the "rape factory" train, nor do I think it's a logical or inevitable conclusion. And I certainly wouldn't want it to be part of the game!

All I was doing is riffing on some of the setting ideas - not saying it /should/ be this way, or it /must/ be this way. Having played on several @Cobaltasaurus games, I trust her to make a setting that is fun and enjoyable. I just like worldbuilding.

[Apos]

@carex I think there's a bit of correlation rather than causation there though, and that being a result of a power imbalance rather than the cause of it. In a world where someone can just straight up murder someone with magic, it might develop differently.

I don't think it's a big deal to say, 'nah not doing this', and just quietly nudge off anyone who wants to argue 40 different ways why it should be his fetish game.

[Lithium]

There are also civilizations where female bloodline was super important... and they ran things.

Sooo... yeah.

[Coin]

@Carex

I don't know how to say "alien, fantasy cultures do not have to operate under the same psychological logic and behavior that human beings have, because they are alien and fantastical" any other way, so if this is a problem of you not wanting to follow that train of thought, then that's on your and your inability to suspend your disbelief.

[The Sands]

@coin said in Development Thread: Sacred Seed:

@Carex

I don't know how to say "alien, fantasy cultures do not have to operate under the same psychological logic and behavior that human beings have, because they are alien and fantastical" any other way, so if this is a problem of you not wanting to follow that train of thought, then that's on your and your inability to suspend your disbelief.

Well, the caveat I would argue is that an alien or fantasy culture operates under the logic of its inhabitants and if those inhabitants operate under a logic that we recognize we can largely predict the outcome (e.g. if the inhabitants regard murder as being a bad thing it is a pretty good bet that there will be laws against murder). To make a culture operating under a completely alien system would require the population to operate under a fairly alien logic, which can make things very difficult to play.

With that said, I absolutely don't see things being set up as a 'rape factory'. Societies in which all inheritance is passed through the male line tends to do that because the 'men own everything'. That does not appear to be the case here, however. Everyone who is seeded gets an inheritance. Furthermore, while there is a general genetic advantage for males in archaic melee combat which results in a cultural belief that 'men are the fighters' the nature of the Seeded upends that and creates a system whereby, I assume, the 'strongest warriors' are pretty evenly split between male and female. It is even possible women might hold a slight edge for some reason which could then offset the fact that in the general (non-player) population of Unseeded men would have a slight advantage in force of arms (I am not proposing modifiers to CG to give advantages to one sex or another as PCs do not typify the general population).

As a result it is completely possible for the society to be based largely around a lot of medieval European concepts (in the same way that something like GoT is) while not being a male dominated patriarchy.

[Coin]

@the-sands said in Development Thread: Sacred Seed:

@coin said in Development Thread: Sacred Seed:

@Carex

I don't know how to say "alien, fantasy cultures do not have to operate under the same psychological logic and behavior that human beings have, because they are alien and fantastical" any other way, so if this is a problem of you not wanting to follow that train of thought, then that's on your and your inability to suspend your disbelief.

Well, the caveat I would argue is that an alien or fantasy culture operates under the logic of its inhabitants and if those inhabitants operate under a logic that we recognize we can largely predict the outcome (e.g. if the inhabitants regard murder as being a bad thing it is a pretty good bet that there will be laws against murder). To make a culture operating under a completely alien system would require the population to operate under a fairly alien logic, which can make things very difficult to play.

Absolutely, but since it's not "all of one or all of the other" but rather a spectrum we can play with, that can be regulated.

With that said, I absolutely don't see things being set up as a 'rape factory'. Societies in which all inheritance is passed through the male line tends to do that because the 'men own everything'. That does not appear to be the case here, however. Everyone who is seeded gets an inheritance. Furthermore, while there is a general genetic advantage for males in archaic melee combat which results in a cultural belief that 'men are the fighters' the nature of the Seeded upends that and creates a system whereby, I assume, the 'strongest warriors' are pretty evenly split between male and female. It is even possible women might hold a slight edge for some reason which could then offset the fact that in the general (non-player) population of Unseeded men would have a slight advantage in force of arms (I am not proposing modifiers to CG to give advantages to one sex or another as PCs do not typify the general population).

As a result it is completely possible for the society to be based largely around a lot of medieval European concepts (in the same way that something like GoT is) while not being a male dominated patriarchy.

Exactly.

And if Exalted has shown us nothing else, it's that just because something is passed down genetically in a fantasy world it doesn't mean the world has to be dominated by men.

[Ominous]

@cobaltasaurus said in Development Thread: Sacred Seed:

I just want to be clear here, I'm not saying that @Pyrephox or @Carex are wrong for their suggestions, or that it's wrongfun for wanting that level of verisimilitude. It just isn't the type of fun that I want to enforce and run as the game designer. I hope that there's enough of interest in the setting for them to overlook the breaking of their suspension of disbelief and play when we're ready, but I'll understand if they chose not to play and won't hold it against them.

Certainly and that's perfectly fine. I might even play there. Who knows? My issue was with someone poo-poo-ing on the idea that a game with limited social mobility is by default unfun and people liking such settings are somehow doing it wrong.

As for the rape factory discussion, I am going to side with the fact that we have actual examples of societies in Asia, Africa, Polynesia, and the Americas that upend the argument of women as property being a default state.

[Tehom]

@carex said in Development Thread: Sacred Seed:

It really doesn't matter how smart, wise, or powerful a woman is because she can make more people. If she is powerful, people will demand she make more powerful people. It's just a matter of survival. If you have a good thing, make more of it.

Things might have been a tad different in those societies if the people in question had the ability to turn someone into ashes with their mind. Fantasy worlds provide the opportunity for speculative historical fiction rather than just going 'medieval Europe, but with eye-lasers'.

One thing I didn't expect from our own game is that if you decide to break from a strict historical analogue to have a more progressive society how much pushback you get over it. Like saying 'oh, it's an egalitarian society, sexism isn't really thematic' seems simple, but HOO BOY, people will try to undermine that constantly. It requires you to be extremely explicit in help files and culturally have the playerbase on board with correcting misconceptions constantly. Some players are really, really married to the concept of calling other players whores in their pretendy freetimes.

[The Sands]

@tehom said in Development Thread: Sacred Seed:

Things might have been a tad different in those societies if the people in question had the ability to turn someone into ashes with their mind.

Even more than that; we did not have an real understanding of genetic inheritance during the medieval period. If, as seems proposed, the civilization in Sacred Seed does have at least a passing understanding of genetic inheritance it creates a very different situation for women.

The most desirable women would be those with strong gifts. These are, by their very nature, not the kind of women you are going to be able to push around. Given how human reproductive cycles work these women are not going to only be protected by their direct power but they are going to be protected by indirect power as well because in many cases they will have multiple males competing for reproductive access. If any one of them tries to get too pushy it offers an excellent opportunity for the other males to gang together and 'remove him from competition'.