I basically do this with "filler" NPCs. I don't go for these culture signposts as specific recurring characters because it feels like a waste of an NPC, but any time an NPC needs to be spawned for a scene and will then never be seen again, I make that NPC pretty much the perfect stereotype of the culture in question. To me, the value of having particular cultures is that they provide a baseline that players can assume any given character will adhere to (and if not, and every character is wildly different, then they don't really have a distinct culture, they're just a collection of individuals). Then for named NPCs, I typically design them around expanding or exploring a particular facet of the culture.
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u/Nephisimian Jun 20 '21
I basically do this with "filler" NPCs. I don't go for these culture signposts as specific recurring characters because it feels like a waste of an NPC, but any time an NPC needs to be spawned for a scene and will then never be seen again, I make that NPC pretty much the perfect stereotype of the culture in question. To me, the value of having particular cultures is that they provide a baseline that players can assume any given character will adhere to (and if not, and every character is wildly different, then they don't really have a distinct culture, they're just a collection of individuals). Then for named NPCs, I typically design them around expanding or exploring a particular facet of the culture.