[Rq-rules] *** JUNK MAIL ***Re: Nomads & Barbarians

[Simon Phipp]

Styopa:
> Me too, but then I wondered where AmerInds fit into that.  I'd always felt
> that the tribes of Prax had been fairly closely based on Native American
> Plains tribes - ala the Lakota, Kiowa, and Apache who (in general terms)
> herded nothing in the agricultural sense of 'domestication' except perhaps
> horses.

But, they were nomads because they moved around. That's what nomads do. You don't have to herd things to be nomads, although the RQ3 "nomad" background has a default herder profession.

William Molendyk:
> In RQ terms most amerinds were Barbarians for the vast majority of their
> existance.  Those horse didn't exist in the Americas until it was brought over
> by Europeans and some escaped into the wild.  the natives were quick to exploit
> to this wonderful new resource.  Even thier legends changed so that theh horse
> was 'always' there.

Amreinds had so many varied cultures that it's impossible to group them into one category. Some were nomads, some were primitive hunter-gatherers, some were advanced agriculturalists, some worshipped spirits, some had advanced cults as religions. 

All the more reason to get rid of the "barbarian", "nomad", "civilised" and "primitive" backgrounds and instead use individually-tailored backgrounds for individual cultures.

Paul Cardwell:
> The lines are quite blurred and all-encompassing
> categories just don't work.  Where would you put
> Scythians?  They wandered three seasons a year, but
> lived the winter in log houses; smithed metal (exquite
> gold work); had wheeled wagons much like 19th century
> Roma [Gypsy] caravans; had no written language; had
> total sexual equality in rights and occupations; were
> a military culture who for payment in food would
> guarantee than treaty agricultural cultures wouldn't
> be bothered by anyone; and formed the police force for
> Periclean Athens.  They were also the original
> "barbarians", so called by the Greeks who thought
> their language sounded like sheep bleating, "baaar,
> baaar".

Have you seen the Scythian goldwork? I went to a museum in Ufa and it was breathtaking.

According to RQ3, Scythians would probably be Barbarians, but that's an argument against the RQ3-style broad classification, as you point out.

> Get out of your Eurocentric mind-set and learn from others.

Eurocentric? I thought the RQ authors were American.

Wayne Shaw:
> As I said, if you actually look at both the summary and the 
> professions available, RQ3 barbarians _do_ seem to include most 
> medieval European cultures until quite late.  The only thing that 
> confuses the issue is the spirit magic option, but if you assume that 
> shaman include "witches", even that isn't particularly off.

Which is more fuel to the flames and makes me want to scrap the idea of general backgrounds entirely.

In future, I'll be using tailored backgrounds, for sure.

See Ya

Simon
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