Cultue, Traits, and Evolution

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TF - The Fortress
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Re: Cultue, Traits, and Evolution

Post by TF - The Fortress » Thu Apr 29, 2021 3:33 pm

It wouldn't be German difference from Italians. That would be like saying Anuireans of Avan are significantly different on a racial basis from Anuireans of Diem or Boeruine.

A better example would be the racial differences between Caucasians and Amerindians or Caucasians from Africans.

Bringing in Pathfinder and 5E is silly, this is 2E D&D. If we were playing Basic D&D or 1E, I'd be pointing out there are racial stat and level caps and gender strength caps as well. We aren't playing any of those other systems though, we're playing 2E D&D in the Birthright setting with a series of home-brew modifications to ensure better game balance and playability given the PBEM state.
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Re: Cultue, Traits, and Evolution

Post by DM Juan » Thu Apr 29, 2021 3:54 pm

They are cultural that become genetic, is how I have interpreted it. Brecht's have higher dex partially because they are training in dex, but also because high dexterity is viewed as a beneficial trait, and over the generations they have bred for the preferred trait. They have undervalued wisdom, which means they have selected for dexterity over wisdom in mates, etc reinforcing a cultural preference into a genetic variance.

But it is beside the point. No Rjurik came through the portal. There are no cultural, or genetic, Rjurik people.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-ne ... 180954930/
Something like this.

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Re: Cultue, Traits, and Evolution

Post by DM Juan » Thu Apr 29, 2021 3:56 pm

The Raven Queen's power is of this cycle
The Appolyon event called forth heroes and villains from prior cycles. How that occurred, is not currently known to players. Are these people actually the prior cycle summoned forth, or merely the collection of memories of those people given form... you don't know.

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TH - The Hunt
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Re: Cultue, Traits, and Evolution

Post by TH - The Hunt » Thu Apr 29, 2021 4:16 pm

RC - Riva wrote:
Thu Apr 29, 2021 3:33 pm
A better example would be the racial differences between Caucasians and Amerindians or Caucasians from Africans.
The only thing that's a better example of is of the kind of mistake you're making. I brought up Pathfinder and 5e because they have human variants with different modifiers based on culture, just like Birthright does, which is unlike other editions of D&D.

The size of Cerilia is more similar to the size of Europe than the size of an Earthlike planet, and most of the races on it arrived from Aduria. (The Basarji came from Djapar.) None of that matters much, though, because human history in Aebrinys is only a few thousand years. There wasn't enough time for them to diverge much, even to the limited degree humans on Earth have done in the last two hundred thousand years.

Humans in Aebrynis were probably brought in from multiple sources the first time, similarly to what we've been doing in play.
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Re: Cultue, Traits, and Evolution

Post by LK - Lady Katrijn » Thu Apr 29, 2021 9:41 pm

If a population value certain traits, it does not really take that many generations before they can strengthen those traits. Especially not when these populations don't have much interaction/crossbreeding.

Just look at average height, where at least Scandinavia seem to have a bias that taller is better. At least in my own country we have had studies that show that height directly influence job prospects and dating prospects. And as a result each generation seem to grow taller, simply because it is the taller people who have better opportunities to carry on their genes to the next generation.
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Re: Cultue, Traits, and Evolution

Post by TH - The Hunt » Thu Apr 29, 2021 10:22 pm

https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... ng-taller/

People who live in poverty are shorter than those who are well-off. People who live in poverty have more children than those who are well-off. If height was being selected for to this degree, people would be getting shorter as a result of evolution--the people with better job and dating prospects will have fewer children than those who are stuck marrying cousins and subsistence farming.

Better opportunities in life don't generally result in more opportunities to contribute to the gene pool. (With some exceptions for figures like Ghenghis Khan.) This is particularly true in the modern day, but it goes all the way back to the dawn of agriculture.

It's true that a culture can strengthen traits it values, but this kind of adaptation doesn't have much to do with gene selection.
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TF - The Fortress
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Re: Cultue, Traits, and Evolution

Post by TF - The Fortress » Thu Apr 29, 2021 10:45 pm

Idiocracy.
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Re: Cultue, Traits, and Evolution

Post by WM - The Waste Mage » Thu Apr 29, 2021 10:53 pm

Calcium and protein amounts. The meat eaters and milk drinkers of the plains grow tall while the mushroom and rock eating dwarves stay short.

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Re: Cultue, Traits, and Evolution

Post by TH - The Hunt » Thu Apr 29, 2021 11:07 pm

Hey, without people who work hard to survive and look out for each other while society's elites engage in endless wars and intrigues, there'd be nothing left for kings to conquer. Though... it's true, you probably shouldn't put a hard-drinking teamster on the throne, no matter how many wives and children he has. Maybe pick one of the kids who's good at learning.

That's where selection and cultural pressure really comes in handy, when it's time to pick who gets to do the most interesting stuff.
BM - Braun von Mauler wrote:
Thu Apr 29, 2021 10:53 pm
Calcium and protein amounts. The meat eaters and milk drinkers of the plains grow tall while the mushroom and rock eating dwarves stay short.
Marble and dolomite are rich in calcium. But, I don't think dwarves should be tall anyway. Their bodies are as dense as stone, so if they were human height, they'd probably shatter if they fell over.
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Re: Cultue, Traits, and Evolution

Post by WM - The Waste Mage » Thu Apr 29, 2021 11:18 pm

Dwarves are allergic to the magnesium in dolomite and they use marble for building so they never eat those.

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