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Dungeon Master

18 (34.6%)

Alchemist

4 (7.7%)

Philosopher

16 (30.8%)

Advisor

0 (0%)

Tax Collector

14 (26.9%)

Total Members Voted: 50

Voting closed: April 13, 2013, 04:38:14 am

[Owlbread]

I'm in favour of having familial "Houses" rather than Clans.

[assasin]

I'm in favour of having familial "Houses" rather than Clans.

I personally don't see much of a difference between the two. I'd just use "house" for humans and "clans" for dwarves. Is there any specific connotatative difference you have between the two words.

[weenog]

I don't think a House can be joined except by birth or marriage.

[Owlbread]

Clans may be better suited to kobolds, I think. Clans are a bit of residue from the whole "Scottish Dwarf" thing.

Houses I suppose could be anything. "The House of Ironhand" and so forth could accept even non-dwarfs if you wanted it to.

[Loud Whispers]

The game has a random name generator and you guys are thinking about whether to call it family, dynasty, clan or house?

Who's to say it can't be zustashnicot?

[assasin]

may be better suited to kobolds, I think. Clans are a bit of residue from the whole "Scottish Dwarf" thing.

Odd, while I really don't see dwarves as having any relation to real life culture at all, if I was forced to pick one I'd probably pick norse over Scottish. 

Why would it be better suited to kobolds? What sort of connotation or definition do you have or use for the word "clan."  To me clan fits dwarves because thats what I've always used when splitting up dwarves into separate groups. My specific connotation when refering to [dwarven] clans  would be "a loosely related group of extended dwarven families that consider themselves to share a group identity based on that relationship and share similar social and political ideologies and goals." Of course, if you werent talking about dwarves the context would be different and as such for me the connotation would be different.

Words such as "house", "tribe" etc  have different connotations which all change depending on the context. For example: in a mediaval feudal clone "house" would refer to a noble family, in real life it would refer to a royal family. In a vagually roman setting I could see house being used similarly to how I would define a dwarven clan.


For kobolds I'd use the term "band." Orcish tribes. For humans I'd probably settle with "house" if I couldnt thinnk of anything more fitting. I can't think up anything good for elves.

The game has a random name generator and you guys are thinking about whether to call it family, dynasty, clan or house?

Who's to say it can't be zustashnicot?

and what would [insert random gibberish here] translate to?  Unless you expect players to remember completely random gibberish terms it would need to have a translation in the UI. And while having a spear named "dogmurder the fat of digging" is humorous for some things, the types of societal groups would need to have realistic translations because it would get bloody annoying bloody fast. The specific names of groups could be random. But unless all the types were exactly the same [ie boring] they'd need some simple way to tell the difference between them and even if they were all the same, you can't just call them something random in the UI, can you imagine if all of the things you could build were renamed based on the random generator. 

What I think would work is that the various terms change [and they could be named based on a random language generator, as long as they have an english translation] depending on how the society develops durring world gen. But that would require a semirandom society generator [I say semirandom because I don't want to see a society that looks like the dwarven version of a lavish meal] which would probably be fairly complicated.

[Sigulbard]

Tax collector. I's like to impose virtual taxes on my virtual dwarfs. Also, it's the most useful of all the nobles mentioned.
What's the point of having something like a philosopher...?

[Owlbread]

may be better suited to kobolds, I think. Clans are a bit of residue from the whole "Scottish Dwarf" thing.

Odd, while I really don't see dwarves as having any relation to real life culture at all, if I was forced to pick one I'd probably pick norse over Scottish. 

I know, but Clans are associated most with Scotland and to a lesser extent Ireland. I know they're found all over the world (Serbia, Japan, Somalia etc), but those are the strongest associations. I suppose I'm trying to rail against the whole "Hollywoodisation" thing that's happened to a generally Germanic myth in their depiction in popular culture. The reason why I thought Clans were well suited to Kobolds is because they're probably quite tribal. "Clan" generally has primitive and tribal connotations, mostly through blood and loyalty. The general definition is "a group of people united by actual or perceived kinship and descent." If you disagree, think on this - what is more Dwarven? A Clan Chieftan, or a House Leader? If we were going down the Tolkein route you could use the word "Folk" e.g. "Geshud's Folk". Perhaps houses or clans could be found within a greater layer of "Folks", so within each Folk there would be Houses/Clans.

The most powerful and influential houses/clans within a folk would form a council. A folk could span across a civilisation, or perhaps two or three depending on the nature of history. This council would deal with any large disputes with other families/folks, and also act as an arbiter for decisions like whether or not an inter-house/clan marriage is deemed legal.

A House could fit your idea of "a loosely related group of extended dwarven families that consider themselves to share a group identity based on that relationship and share similar social and political ideologies and goals". They don't necessarily have to have blood relations either.

I would also just use the term "Family" for Humans.

So to keep it on topic, nobles that could pop up from this kind of thing would include:

Clan Chieftan/House Leader
Folk Arbiter (e.g. Arbiter of Geshud's Folk)

[Waparius]

Speaking of clans/folk/families etc, I think it's appropriate to bring up the most amusing element of such things: Clan Feuds. It's been mentioned before but there's something that just fits about the idea of a fort going under because Urist McCoy stole Rigoth Hatfield's sock in the first summer of the fort's existence.

[assasin]

Speaking of clans/folk/families etc, I think it's appropriate to bring up the most amusing element of such things: Clan Feuds. It's been mentioned before but there's something that just fits about the idea of a fort going under because Urist McCoy stole Rigoth Hatfield's sock in the first summer of the fort's existence.

How would it work. All dwarves of one clan immediately attacks all dwarves of the other clan would probably be the simplest to do.

But as a system it would probably be fairly mediocre compared to a more guirilla based feud where dwarves of one clan wait until a dwarf of another clan is alone and ambushes him or dwarves of one clan restricts dwarves of aothers clans access to certain areas of the fort [dining hall, food stockpile] by placing guards. Stuff like that would give players a whole lot more to do when it comes to making decisions. Such as deciding whether or not to give dwarves separate bedroom complexes, making the military one clan or just having an elite clan in general, where to  station guards and assign work orders [once they're in] to limit ambusges, etc.

[Loud Whispers]

The game has a random name generator and you guys are thinking about whether to call it family, dynasty, clan or house?

Who's to say it can't be zustashnicot?

and what would [insert random gibberish here] translate to?  Unless you expect players to remember completely random gibberish terms it would need to have a translation in the UI. And while having a spear named "dogmurder the fat of digging" is humorous for some things, the types of societal groups would need to have realistic translations because it would get bloody annoying bloody fast.

There's already a system that allows for naming by spheres, it's why we don't see wars named after the fluffy adorableness of giving. You'd be seeing names that translate into things like "Ancientlines."

[Helari]

I'm in favour of having familial "Houses" rather than Clans.

The difference is only in name. You've watched too much game of thrones.

[Owlbread]

The difference is only in name. You've watched too much game of thrones.

I've never seen an episode of that programme in my life.

[assasin]

There's already a system that allows for naming by spheres, it's why we don't see wars named after the fluffy adorableness of giving. You'd be seeing names that translate into things like "Ancientlines."

I really could have worded that better. What I meant to say was that there needs to be an english word to describe what it is, not the actual name of the group. For example the english term for a squad is squad, but the name of each squad is randomised. We're all arguing about what term to use for the general concept of the groups. Not the names of the various groups.

[darknessofthenight]

Are you trying to say that while it would not matter if the name of a specific clan or houses name was random, we should have clear definitions of what clan or house mea?