Cultural Motivations

[Eric R.]

This could have concievably have been put in the narrator's section but I decided to put it here since it involves a specific CODA concept.

I like the pairing idea of cultural motivation as was expressed in the narrators guide on page 184-185 but felt the table (11.4) was way too specific to be of any value so after about 2 hours of brain power I came up with this. it works the same except that 1.) you roll 2d6 and 2.) You have to come up with the specific motive for example a militant culture has to be militant about what? Is it militant about preserving its soceity or about little pink bunny robbits?

die roll.) Motive pair - Description
2.) Militant (Pacifist) – belief in force versus peace
3.) Pluralism (Individualism) – belief in the many versus the one
4.) Bold (Safe) – belief in taking a risk versus staying the course
5.) Religious (Secular) – belief in the divine versus belief in nature
6.) Engagement (Isolation) – belief in engaging the world around you versus ignoring it
7.) Law (Hedonism) – belief in rules and laws versus doing what feels good
8.) Survive (Death) – To live versus dieing
9.) Control (Open) – To dominate something versus allowing it to be free
10.) Learn (Ignorance) – To seek versus remaining oblivious
11.) Expand (Contain) – To allow too grow versus hold in place
12.) Construct (Preserve) – To build anew versus keeping what is

[Lancer]

Eric, I am curious about the way you arranged the table entries, or rather why you did it the way you did. A 2d6 roll leads to a "bell-curve distribution" of the results, so entries 6,7, and 8 will be far more common results than the rest.

IMHO it might be better to split the list into two tables: Roll 1d6 to determine on which table you roll and then another d6 for a result on a table with 6 possible results.
With two tables you could even group motivations by a certain theme, e.g. table 1 has more "introspective" motivations (religion, learning, etc.) and table 2 things like militaristic, expansionist, etc. That way Narrators could easily tweak the probability of certain cultural motivations to suit their game, by changing the chances to get to each of the two tables with the first d6 roll.

[Eric R.]

Good points Lancer, but if I am to split the table, an idea which I would like to do, then I am at a lost as to anoher motivation pairing, anybody have any ideas?

[Lancer]

How about "Technology" vs. "Nature" (i.e. can or can't technology solve everything)?

[Phoenix]

Originally posted by Eric R.
anybody have any ideas?

Go down to your gaming store and buy a d12 or a d20 if you have that many options...

You d6 people need to diversify.

:Phoenix runs to hide:

[Eric R.]

As to Technology a soceity can seek to preserve it, be militant about it, uses it for death etc. . .

And I had thought about recommending a d10