The Making of a Society

In the role-playing enviroment some of the more subtle points about the world can be left unexplained (i.e. you don't really need to catalogue _every_ species of flaura and fauna into geographic sub-regions), however the characters are human beings in a human society and that has a real effect of human to human interaction.

Aspects of the society that are important are:

• The ruling bodies, and the method by which they rule. Is the position inherited or gained by vote of the populace or sub-group of the people?
• Are all people equal? Are there nobles? Is each gender equal? Are there slaves? Do all people have rights?
• What are the laws and the penalties for crimes? How common are crimes?
• Is the populous taxed? By money or by service? Does money even exist?
• Sometimes the society may be in a state of transition from one method to the other.

In a fantasy RPG game world there are potentially three conflicting groups who will influence the populous: theocracy vs. technocracy vs. thaumocracy (religion vs. science vs. magic).

Each of these groups may have views on how the world and the universe exists, e.g. the world flat and the sun revolves around it. They will all have a differing amount of control over the people, whether it is by force (i.e. the inquisition) or by psychology. They will all have areas of learning and practice for the various beliefs. Do the groups occasionally agree, or even gang up on one of the others? It is often one of these groups who _really_ run the country via heavy influence that a king or emperor cannot have, however sometimes a particularly strong ruler can use this the other way.