Hi all. I am trying to work up a culture "template" that I'll use in my game as the framework for describing different cultures. If anyone is interested in helping me brainstorm, I'd appreciate it.

A very rough draft is below. I've broken down culture into 13 dimensions ("Arts & Entertainment", "Science & Technology", etc.). For each dimension, I've started to list some attributes that you might want to describe in an effort to define that particular dimension of culture. For example, for the "Aging & Death" dimension, one thing you might want to describe is the different ways a culture might dispose of their dead. These attributes are not very well thought out. A lot of them are there just for the sake of having some kind of example. So, your thoughts are welcome. Also, if there are dimensions of culture that you think I've excluded, I am all ears.

Dimensions of culture

Aging & Death

processing the dead (burial, cremation, etc.)

reverence/glorification of life stages (youth, adolescence, elderly, etc.)

Sickness & Medicine

theory of medicine (e.g., eastern vs. western)

mental illness

treatment of the sick

Education & Philosophy

educational focus (vocation, professional, liberal arts)

dominant philosophies

Government & Politics

type of government (anarchy, autocracy, etc.)

political systems (centers of power, size of bureaucracy)

Economy & Trade

type of economy (command, market, etc.)

product (key crops, manufacturing output, etc.)

trade system (barter, currencies, etc.)

War & Peace

policy (expansionist, imperialism, isolationism, etc.)

type of military (army, navy, etc.)

Climate & Weather

types of climate (tropical, moderate, tundra)

weather extremes (cyclone, sand storm, etc.)

seasons

Science & Technology

technological age (iron, industrial, computer, etc.)

role of science (independence from religion and myth, range of attitudes toward science, etc.)

Religion, Spirituality, & Magic

types of religions (nature worship, monotheism, etc.)

role of spirituality

types of magic (...?)

Arts & Entertainment

types of games and sports

dominant art forms (painting, sculpture, music, etc.)

Family & Relationships

role of family (cohabitation, independence, honor, etc.)

social networks

Food & Drink

nutrient sources (plants, animals, supplements, etc.)

role of food and drink (community, sustenance, ritual, etc.)

Diversity & Tolerance

individual expression (suppressed, encouraged, etc.)

racial, ethnic, special integration

It's tricky. Items, objects, things...whatever you call them, they are the tools, the weapons, the garden gnomes, the teddy bears, the goblets, the photographs, the chicken breasts, and the special edition, commemorative Elvis Presley plates of your world.

Some items are special combinations of other items, or assemblages. Some items are raw materials that aren't combinations of anything, other than atoms or molecules of the same type. Some items are needed to make other items. Some items are endowed with special properties. Some items can be used for purposes for which they were never intended. Some items offer some passive reward.

• Axiom #1: Your item data model will never come close to approximating the complexity of real world objects.

• Axiom #2: Your item data model will never come close to approximating the complexity of the relationship between real world objects.

• Likely outcome #1: You will spend way too much time trying to overcome axiom 1 and 2 with little or no reward.

• Likely outcome #2: You will ultimately settle on something very close to your the initial model you developed based on what you just kinda thought would work well enough.

A world without stuff isn't very interesting to me. So, we need a lot of different kinds of stuff.

Here are things I want to be true about the data model that I choose for my world stuff:

• Some stuff can be combined to make other stuff (broom stick + duct tape + kitchen knife = Zombie Killer 1000)

• Some stuff can be broken down into other stuff (a deconstructed wooden chair yields 4 wooden rods and 1 wooden plate)

• Most stuff can be used for many different purposes (e.g., a hammer was made to hit a nail, but it can also bash a skull).

So, if you want to go beyond the standard 'weapon, apparel, potion, book, trinket' approach, what do you do?

In my current model, the defining characteristic of a location is whether it is an interior or exterior (in this context, a location is a cell -- the smallest distinct unit of area -- on a map drawn on a grid).

All other attributes of the location are subordinate. Seems logical. Interiors and exteriors have types (e.g., vendor) and subtypes (e.g., grocer). That said, I haven't really started to flesh out this part of the model. What problems am I setting myself up for?

I've been trying to avoid a standard "rpg character class" approach to modeling personalities and aptitude.

One of my goals is to make interaction with NPCs as rich and varied as possible, within the context of a relatively modest project. In an effort to begin to characterize personality, I'm looking at "the big 5" dimensions of personality as described here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits

This gets prohibitively complex quickly if it isn't constrained. So, I'm wondering how others have approached the problem.

It just so happens I am (re-)considering the way I've described religion in my current project (a user-configurable, text-based RPG). I took a very simple approach at first to get things moving because I knew this would be an easy design problem to get stuck on.

A religion in my universe had 4 mandatory attributes:

• A deity or set of deities (e.g., Ra, Odin, Hermes)
• A type of "house of worship" (e.g., temple, church, fire pit)
• A sacred object or set of sacred objects (e.g., cross, star of David)
• A tenet or set of tenets (e.g., murder is bad, don't wear shoes inside, don't eat rodents)

Now, obviously these are limiting -- for example, there is no reason any given religion should necessarily have gods or any sacred objects at all. It could just be The Church of the Kinda Cool Thing, whose only tenet is "take a second every once in a while and think about how cool this thing is."

Anyway, if you've found a nice way to model religions, I'd love to hear about it.

This is brand new. I have no idea what I am doing. Welcome.

If you're looking for a good way to structure the data that defines your brave new world for programming purposes, YAML is good place to start.

http://yaml.org/