Mana, Shamans, and the Cultural Misappropriation behind Fantasy Terms

[Hussar]

Oh, hey, that's me! I mean, kind of. I cannot claim to be an ancient roman, but I certainly am a modern roman, and as such I absolutely claim all of roman culture, including ancient roman culture, as part of my cultural heritage.

See, the problem with that is, pretty much all of Europe and most North Americans, Australians and quite a few other people, have just as much of a claim to ancient Roman culture as you do.

Other than geography, what distinguishes you from any other Italian? I realize that there are a few different ethnic groups recognized in Italy, but, by and large, Italian people are Italian, not Roman. I'm not trying to be snotty here, I'm genuinely curious. My study background is in ethnic conflict, so, I understand the importantance of ethnicity, but, honestly, you're the first person I've ever seen who is claiming that Rome is a separate ethnicity and culture from Italian.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Druids being referred as shamans in some cultures in the setting is not a problem, it makes perfect sense. What is a problem though that this shaman moniker seems to almost exclusively happen in connection to nasty monsters. If it said that mountain dwarfs refer call their druids shamans I don't think many people would have a problem with it.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

See, the problem with that is, pretty much all of Europe and most North Americans, Australians and quite a few other people, have just as much of a claim to ancient Roman culture as you do.

Other than geography, what distinguishes you from any other Italian? I realize that there are a few different ethnic groups recognized in Italy, but, by and large, Italian people are Italian, not Roman. I'm not trying to be snotty here, I'm genuinely curious. My study background is in ethnic conflict, so, I understand the importantance of ethnicity, but, honestly, you're the first person I've ever seen who is claiming that Rome is a separate ethnicity and culture from Italian.

I'm not sure they meant that. Certainly Italy is obviously the successor of the Roman state and has clear cultural and genetic connection. That the country is now called 'Italy' instead of 'Rome' wouldn't really change that any more than 'Persia' now being called 'Iran' would imply any fundamental cultural discontinuity.

 

[Bedrockgames]

@Bedrockgames - I mean this with all respect, but, since you flat out admit you don't know what you're talking about, that your ideas are only based on what you've read from other people's posts, I'm going to say that it would be far, far more useful to actually read the 5e material before venturing an opinion?

I am basing it on the portion of material people quoted and discussed. If there is something inaccurate in that, fair enough. But I think I can still venture an opinion.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

followed that up by saying an actual Japanese developer was unable to work on a product similar to OA

I mean "actual Japanese" as in theoretical person of that actual ethnicity, not "actual" as in specific person was trying to do it. I guess that's the misunderstanding? But it's a bit weird that's the only thing you've engaged with, which makes me consider your motivation here.

Culture ain’t like IP. Ain’t in the same ballpark. Ain’t in the same league. Ain’t even the same <censored> sport.

(apologies to Jules Winnfield)

Is it just me, or has neoliberal capitalism eaten every other mode of thinking?

Sure, but I'm trying to explain something to people who I feel actively don't WANT to understand it, and neoliberalism has yes eaten most modes of thinking, sadly and commodified everything, but that's a whole other discussion!

 

[Olrox17]

See, the problem with that is, pretty much all of Europe and most North Americans, Australians and quite a few other people, have just as much of a claim to ancient Roman culture as you do.

Other than geography, what distinguishes you from any other Italian? I realize that there are a few different ethnic groups recognized in Italy, but, by and large, Italian people are Italian, not Roman. I'm not trying to be snotty here, I'm genuinely curious. My study background is in ethnic conflict, so, I understand the importantance of ethnicity, but, honestly, you're the first person I've ever seen who is claiming that Rome is a separate ethnicity and culture from Italian.

No it's not really about ethnicity. There are plenty of dark skinned people, for instance, that are just as roman as I am. The ancient roman themselves were very ethnically mixed. Italy's geographical position in the middle of the mediterranean sea is very important to consider. We had people coming in from the north (north europe) and from the south (north africa) for millennia.

All those people brought part of their culture, but they were all eventually assimilated, either in the ancient roman culture or, after the fall of the western empire, in the many italian regional cultures.
And regional cultures are the crux of the matter: a lombard is not a tuscan, a tuscan is not a roman, a sicilian is not a naepolitan, a genoese is not a venetian, etc etc.

My regional culture is roman. My native dialect is the roman dialect. If a venetian dude (especially an older fellow) speaks to me in pure venetian dialect, I'm not going to understand a word he's saying. I'd probably understand a spanish guy better, and I never even studied spanish!

So, what is modern roman culture? It's the regional culture of the people of Rome and surrounding areas, tracing its roots to our ancient roman ancestors (753 BC-476 AD), going through the primacy of the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church (edit: latin was and is their official language, I'm going to add) for more than a millennia, until the kingdom of Italy took Rome from the Papacy in 1870 to make it its capital.
Newsflash: this last development is relatively recent history. While modern romans certainly consider themselves italians, if you ask romans whether they feel more italian or more roman, the answer might surprise you.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I don't play 5E but based on the text people posted on shamans and druids here, it seems they are a subcategory of Druid (some Druids are Shamans but not all druids are Shamans), and it is just meant to be a thing where you reskin your druid as a shaman (perhaps explaining the flavor of how they get their powers slightly differently, and carefully selecting spells to best reflect a shaman character). If you just change all those instances into Druid, you do lose a potential distinction they were going for (and possibly a bit of flavor)

You have it reversed.

If we look at real-world usages of Shamanism, Shamanism covers such a very wide variety of practices, and certainly everything a 5E D&D Druid does, fit within the general purview of "Shamanism". Shamanic practices also have a bunch of other stuff going on which 5E Druids only kinda-sorta deal with.

But the point is D&D 5E Druid should essentially be a subset of a Shaman class, if one were to exist in 5E, and to actually attempt to encompass Shamanism. All the capabilities of 5E Druids fit well within those attributed to Shamans.

Some of your suggestions make absolutely no sense, presumably you aren't familiar with 5E. Carefully picking your spells to be a Shaman for example makes no sense. Shamans in world-culture have a huge breadth of magical abilities. Essentially limitless magical abilities. If anything, spells should be added to the Druid to allow for Shamans.

Really, right now, to do a "decent" Shaman class in 5E, you just rename Druids and replace all instances of the word Druid with Shaman. Boom done. It wouldn't be perfect - it could be improved, but you'd be getting into territory where you'd be making an already-strong class maybe even more powerful. Class feature variants make this even better, because then instead of shapeshifting, you can instead summon spirit familiars and stuff, which is on-brand for some kinds of Shaman.

It's worth noting that 5E's Druid has almost nothing to do with 1E/2E's Druid thematically. Indeed, one might argue 5E's Druid has more in common with World of Warcraft's Druid than 2E's Druid (which was a specific example of a Priest of a Specific Mythos).

 

[jasper]

Which is great an all.

But, shamans don't exist in 5e.

So, right now, there is no contrast because, in 5e, shaman ARE druids. Full stop. That's how they are defined.

You basically have three choices at that point:

A) add a shaman class to define shaman - a very long process that is not guaranteed to succeed as issues with class design run into the vetting process - see psionics for a perfect example of a class hung up in development hell.

B) replace the seven instances in the MM where the word shaman is used with the word druid, which is what they actually mean.

C) Add a Shaman to the Monster Manual in the NPC section, same as we have Noble and Druid. Since it's a "monster", it doesn't have to follow class construction rules, and can have a unique spell list and abilities.

I prefer simpler solutions. It's quick, easy, gets the job done and solves the problem.

Heck, you could do all three. Replace the words in subsequent printings of the Monster Manual and issue an errata AND begin development of a Shaman class. An NPC Shaman, divorced from class doesn't have to run the gauntlet of Unearthed Arcana revisions and can be added pretty easily.

D) Keep the word Shaman and allow DMS to make each shaman Unique be creating a custom spell list. So a shaman in tier 1 adventure may have cure wounds, fire bolt, and cause wounds. A tier 2 can have boot to the head, cure mass wounds, cure disease and thor's hammer.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Newsflash: this last development is relatively recent history. While modern romans certainly consider themselves italians, if you ask romans whether they feel more italian or more roman, the answer might surprise you.

Isn't that kind of like asking Londoners if they feel more British (or god help you, English), or more Londoners? Because I mean, as a Londoner, I can tell you an awful lot (maybe the majority) will have Londoner as an identity higher on the list than British (let alone English). I don't think it necessarily means people who live in Rome see themselves as "The Heirs of Caesar" or whatever (though as I think you pointed out, the whole Mussolini incident proved that was bubbling away - and whole Operation Gladio insanity probably didn't help, thanks CIA!).

I hope no members of the Choctaw nation come into this thread and as they’re reading start thinking to themselves “oh man, do I know the perfect example to post”......and then they find your post and are left exampleless.

But yeah you understand the issue in terms how it functions (luckily my posts are not advantaged over those of others particularly - also my wife is 1/4 Choctaw so I'm hoping this example is forgivable!).

 

[Ruin Explorer]

But this gets back to how the point is that we stop using the term, but that we consider how we use it. (Maybe less American Indian-inspired art with our fantasy shamans for starters.)

Missing a not there I think but yeah (ie. "is not that we stop using the term"). And yes good god re: Native American. It's like, I don't want less representation of one of the most marginalized groups that exists in the West, but could you stop just stealing their stuff and sticking it on non-humans for a bit? Huh?

A lot of anthropologists and sociologists basically viewed a lot of non-Western religious practices as the same, and threw them under the label of "shamanism" and placed them on a religious evolutionary model "lower" in a ladder that leads to polytheism and then monotheism. I believe that @pemerton also talked about this as well earlier in the thread.

There's no denying that a lot of anthropologists (especially pre-1980) need a damn good spanking, so yeah, that is problematic.