Determinants

Description of determinants

Primary determinants

Primary determinants are those which are of utmost importance to the society. They affect almost everything the society does, directly or indirectly. The determinants are scope and philosophical orientation. In addition to the actual determinants there are several qualifiers which have a primary nature regarding the society: society name, location, subsistence and the major languages spoken in the society.

Subsistence describes how the people get their living. Are they farmers, herders, fishers, hunter/gatherers or something else. For an organization subsistence would describe its primary nature, e.g. religion, trade, meditation, research, crime.

Scope

Quantifies the size / span of actions of the society. It is very slow to change the scope of the society, and the larger the scope, the more difficult it gets. The population figures are really for reference only. For pure organizations the “required” population figures can be decimated (assuming only true members of the organization are counted). For nations also the land area should be taken into account.

Based on available land area, the population of the nation (or the other way around) can be calculated using the populand.pl Perl script.

Philosophical orientation

The basic philosophical attitude of the people. The society may exhibit several philosophical orientations at the same time. The six basic orientations in order of society age are: survival, war, conquest, equilibrium, peace and knowledge/thought. These reflect the primary goals of the people.

The way the society strives for the goal is reflected in the aspects of the orientation. Different kinds of aspects include tradition, conviction, prevention, acquisition, revolution and stagnation.

For example a primitive society could have survival orientation with aspects of acquisition of better hunting lands and conviction of their tribal superiority. An old decadent empire will probably have several orientations fighting over each other, but its primary orientation might be equilibrium with aspect of stagnation of morale and acquisition of pleasure.

Philosophical orientation is something that only changes gradually requiring decades. An enormous event may create a new orientation very quickly, but unless reinforced, it will quickly give way to the old habits.

Political determinants

Actors

The ruling agency is the governor, king, high council, archpriest, etc. of the society. For the purposes of game, the player typically is the ruling agency. It is also advantageous to describe the political organization: tribe, tribal nation, despotism, aristocracy, monarchy, oligarchy, republic, communism, anarchy, or something else.

Key elements are especially important / talented people or organizations which might (or will) have an effect on the reactions of the people and on the actions themselves.

The political determinants are divided into two categories: internal politics and external politics. Things within the society are resolved using the internal determinants. Interaction with other societies, where the ruling agency has no or very little power, are resolved using the external determinants.

Determinants

Political determinants describe the power and relations between different people and factions within the society. These determinants affect most actions made in the society. The determinants are always specific to a certain group or organization. Each key element may have its own set of power, authority and consent.

Using Key Elements

The Aria concept of societies is not intended to be based on a single personality (such as a great king or whatever). So instead of just running IH as “expanded” roleplaying with a 1:1 player-to-character relationship and an emphasis on “winning,” players can focus on any of the characters in their society. There is no distinction between PCs and NPCs. Key elements are just the set of people that are singled out and described, as opposed to the faceless masses. The current ruler is just another Key Element, who may fade to insignificance in another few years. Actions do not have to be made by a single ruler, or even by the same set of people year after year; two actions might be from a ruler, one action from the prince of some border province, and yet another action by the ruler’s arch-rival…

Key elements are there for the PLAYERS to use! If you get tired of the way things are going, or want to shake up your society, shift focus to a different key element; this “new” group might depose the current ruler, seize some power, make some deal, or whatever. Or, as in Aloria’s case, they are simply set up to take a fall. Every year you could play a different “character” within your society. One of the coolest things about ARIA is that the player can kill off his character in a great tragedy and then play his own enemy, then play the son of the hero getting vengeance on the enemy, the coalition of power hungry barons, the leader of the merchants guild, etc etc. A key element could even be a farm boy who’s had enough, goes to the capital and manages to assassinate some important official, and is caught and executed. He may appear and disappear in the course of a single year, but he had a Key role during his brief appearance.

Capability determinants

Military power

The details page explains how the basic military values are determined.

Economical power

Humanities

The humanities are typically divided into four different areas: religion (beliefs, gods, churches), arts (fine arts, crafts, performance arts), scholastics (philosophy, theology, philology, natural sciences, astronomy, mathematics, social sciences) and magic (theory, practice). Optionally the areas can be combined or divided further. For example magic could be either part of religion or a part of scholastics, or it could be divided to Authority and Essence magic.

Each humanity is described using four different determinants: tolerance, prevalence, diversity and sophistication. However, the raw values tell very little of the actual content of the humanity. It would be a good idea to shortly describe the humanity: list the major disciplines and characteristics.

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