Mana, Shamans, and the Cultural Misappropriation behind Fantasy Terms

[Dire Bare]

Given that monsters are not built in the same way that PCs are and these "shamans" do not function in the same way mechanically or often conceptually anyway is there a reason why they should have the same name? Why not come up with specific names that match the culture of the race?

This is pretty much what we see in Pathfinder Second Edition. They also tend to vary the cultural orientation and magical traditions utilized by antagonistic ancestries. Here are some examples:

• Deep gnomes who organize in underground settlements and cities. They have Rockwardens (Prepared Primal).
• Derro are sparsely detailed. They have Magisters (Spontaneous Occult).
• Duergar are also organized into settlements. They are known for their strict hierarchy. They have Taskmasters (Divine Prepared)
• Drow are organized into a loose collection of noble houses. Some are matriarchal and others are patriarchal. The listed spell caster is a Drow Priestess (Divine Prepared).
• Goblins are primarily organized into tribes. They have a Goblin Pyro (Spontaneous Arcane) and Warchanter (Spontaneous Occult) listed.
• Gnolls are organized into clans. They have cultists (Prepared Divine)
• Hobgoblin Society is organized into military units from birth. They have no listed spell casters. Their ancestry write up says they distrust arcane magic, preferring the science of alchemy.
• Kobolds are organized into Tribes. They have Dragon Mages (Arcane Spontaneous)
• Lizardfolk are organized into villages. They are indigenous, but they are described as having a society with literal hidden depths (under water settlements). They have Stargazers (Prepared Primal).
• Orcs are organized in more of feudal fashion (socially they remind me of Anglo Saxons). They belong to their hold. There are no listed spell casters, but the ancestry write up in the Advanced Player's Guide mentions they respect the Primal and Divine traditions.

I am not entirely sure this approach is something that Fifth Edition should copy. Paizo has a single setting so they get to add a level of depth and nuance that might be impractical for Fifth Edition. I do think some additional diversity in spell caster names and roles would be helpful - particularly given that goblin shaman are pretty much wizards that use Wisdom instead of Intelligence.

I like this approach by Paizo, it doesn't solve all of the issues, but it certainly lessens the impact of appropriated words and adds diversity to world-building. D&D has done this too in places, here and there, over the decades. But, just like coming up with a cool, unique name for your rock band . . . this approach will at some point reach diminishing returns.

One problem is that all of these cool magico-religious specialist names are all in English! Well, I mean, they kinda have to be without diving into fantasy language gibberish . . . . but I strongly suspect that the many cultural words for shaman/wizard/priest IRL roughly translate to "priest" or "divine intermediary". Which is why anthropologists use broad terms like priest and shaman, despite the risk of over-generalizing different cultural traditions.

I would love to see a future D&D Players Handbook have wording like this (or better than this really, but hopefully my point is made), "Wizards use rote formulas to manipulate arcane energies to create magical effects . . . but each cultural wizard tradition views their abilities differently and uses different lexicons, practices, and even mindsets in their approach to arcane magic." In other words, one cultural wizard tradition might be the classic eight "philosopher" schools of magic . . . and another might refer to themselves as wu jen and have a different approach to magic, but both would be "wizards" (or wizard subclasses) in the game rules . . . and even within the setting scholars might argue just how different wizards and wu jen truly are . . . Replace wizard with cleric, shaman, fighter, and every other class name.

 

[pemerton]

In the fiction are they speaking English? If not, everything is translated. So what exaactly is gained by translating further eg from Egnlish to the (pseudo-?)Chinese of wu jen? I'm not saying the answer is nothing is gained but I don't think the gains have been clearly articulated yet.

I take it as given that being "exotic" isn't what we're looking for.

 

[Doug McCrae]

I think one of the more striking illustrations of your point, which I haven't seen discussed in the recent threads except by me and one reply from you (caveat: I'm still catching up on this one), is the Tribesman entry in the AD&D MM. These are a sub-entry of Cavesman, which is not a good start. Then it just gets worse...

There could hardly be a claarer instance of the replication of 19th century ideas filtered through late 19th century and first half ot the 20th century pulp tropes.

Also the intelligence of "Caveman (Tribesman)" is listed as "Low (to average)". I think this means that tribesman intelligence is in a range from low to average. Low corresponds to an intelligence score of 5-7, average is 8-10. Almost all the other entries for men in the MM, such as the viking-coded berserkers and nomads who are "desert or steppes/plains dwellers", have intelligence listed as "average to very". Very corresponds to 11-12.

In World of Greyhawk (1980) it seems that Gary Gygax tries to push back against the racism in the MM tribesman entry when he makes some of the Amedio Jungle "tribes of cannibal savages... purportedly of Suloise extraction or admixture". The 1983 boxed set reveals that "[t]he Suel race is very fair-skinned, some being almost albino. They have light red, yellow, blond, or platinum blonde hair." However "[t]hose bands that migrated into the vast Amedio Jungle and Hepmonaland are so altered as to be no longer typical of the race; they are tan to brown with heavy freckling."

One could interpret World of Greyhawk as saying 'white people are cannibals too' but it could also be interpreted as 'interbreeding with black people has turned white people into cannibals', so the attempted push back (if that's what it is) is not very successful.

 

[Hussar]

Pemerton, how would you describe tribesmen in stat terms? We are talking about human history here.
And yet somehow some of us on these forums INSIST on only attributing this sense of tribesman idea to specific parts of the world. People need to get out of that mindset. The Sword Coast is filled with Uthgardt barbarian tribes (black hair, blue eyes). That is hardly 19th century pulp tropes.

My issue with the example that you quoted is the specificity of the location of where tribesmen exist. They should be found within any environment and perhaps to mix it up - create matriarchies as well as patriarchies.

Conan would like to have a word... But, again, in 5e, why is a Tribal Warrior the LEAST INTELLIGENT of all the NPC's? Even the Beserker is more intelligent. Least intelligent and, only the Thug, Bandit and Commoner have less Wisdom (and none of them have an actual penalty). Umm, that's pretty much exactly from 19th century concepts and 20th century pulps.

I think part of the broader issue is that most people aren't genre scholars. They like this story or that story or this author or that author and that's about as far as the examination goes. People don't very often start delving down into the history of the genre (or any genre) unless they are already invested in literary traditions. So, it's entirely possible that someone reading, say, Stephen King loves King's horror but has no idea who H. P. Lovecraft or August Derlith are. And, frankly, they don't care. They like the books, and, because the books are pretty far removed from earlier sources, the inherent racism and bigotry of the earlier works becomes more, "Well, that's what genre fiction looks like".

You hear all these people talk about how they don't see color, or don't see this or that, yet, change Starbuck's gender in BSG and people lose their minds. Or Doctor Who? The one character in genre fiction where gender and race change makes the MOST sense, and people still freak out about it. Imagine how much people would have lost their minds if Gandalf was played by Idris Alba.

There's been so much layering on top of the original genre works that it becomes more and more difficult to clearly see the inherent bigotry and misogyny. We've been getting better in the past decade or so. More diversity in the art. Less cheesecake. Now, we're mostly just cleaning up the last bits and bobs that have been hanging on. And, just like losing the cheesecake and adding more diversity to the art, these changes are not going to signal some collapse of the hobby.

 

[Bedrockgames]

It's a bit like REH's somewhat Nietzschean treatment of "barbarism" as superior to "civilisation". He's doing this as self-consciously oppositional to the "civilised" culture from which he comes and in which he lives. But he's hardly giving us the viewpoint of, or an affirmation of, a person whose whole life is rural and non-literate rather than urban, literate and cosmopolitan.

Is this supported with anything? I always saw it as being more about the divide between rural and city life (especially when you consider REH was an American who grew up in rural Texas).

 

[Bedrockgames]

In the fiction are they speaking English? If not, everything is translated. So what exaactly is gained by translating further eg from Egnlish to the (pseudo-?)Chinese of wu jen? I'm not saying the answer is nothing is gained but I don't think the gains have been clearly articulated yet.

I take it as given that being "exotic" isn't what we're looking for.

I don't think it is necessarily about exoticism. We live in a world where the names of places are not all translated into other peoples language. Maps are different by language obviously. But at least in English, maps help reveal linguistic differences in the world, and a setting with different kinds of names can help emulate having different languages, different cultures. It isn't the only possibility. But do we really need to be reading nefarious intentions if someone has a place on their map called French or Arabic? (even if only vaguely so)

Again, my issue with this kind of handwringing over details like this, is it seems to me it is only going to lead people to stifle their creativity, and it really produces a humorless approach to gaming and game design, that I don't think is leading us anywhere better or even interesting.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I take it as given that being "exotic" isn't what we're looking for.

Exotic isn't always bad though. It is a real experience people have with cultures that are distant or they are not familiar with, and it is something you find present in literature all over the world (I think it is often the first step in people developing an interest in another culture, which can eventually lead to a much more complete, and far less exocitized, understanding of that culture). But a story like Journey to the West, which I recommend reading if people haven't, relies on the west (which in this case means India and the path to it from from China) being exotic. And it is that exotic, unknown space, that gets filled with all kinds of interesting creatures and people. I certainly can understand some of the concerns people are expressing. At the same time I think things are going so far in the direction of making this taboo, if you do take it seriously and heed it, it makes these kinds of stories nearly impossible to tell (and certainly seems to drain the fun from them). And Journey to the West is a great example because it is such gameable material. It could easily be a D&D campaign.

 

[Doug McCrae]

a humorless approach to gaming

That's part of D&D's problem - it doesn't realise how ridiculous its pulp tropes are.

Compare -
RuneQuest: Serious, scholarly.
D&D: Serious, pulpy.
World of Warcraft: Comedic, pulpy.

Another comedic approach, one I favour, is more satirical, a sort of anti-D&D. Here's an example -

The PCs are adventurers living in the Free City of Greyhawk. They, together with many other adventurers, are constantly raiding Monstertown, a relatively peaceful underground city inhabited by monsters, which adventurers call a dungeon. The Mayor of Greyhawk reaches an agreement with the Mayor of Monstertown to ban adventurers. In order to get the ban lifted the PCs disguise themselves as monsters and raid Greyhawk.​

 

[Campbell]

Pemerton, how would you describe tribesmen in stat terms? We are talking about human history here.
And yet somehow some of us on these forums INSIST on only attributing this sense of tribesman idea to specific parts of the world. People need to get out of that mindset. The Sword Coast is filled with Uthgardt barbarian tribes (black hair, blue eyes). That is hardly 19th century pulp tropes.

My issue with the example that you quoted is the specificity of the location of where tribesmen exist. They should be found within any environment and perhaps to mix it up - create matriarchies as well as patriarchies.

Not @pemerton

I do not think I would stat a generic tribesman. A tribe is a way of organizing politically. A tribe is just a collection of kinship groups (clans or lineages) that have loosely joined together. That a society is organized by tribes does not really tell us anything meaningful about how they subsist, what their culture values, skillsets, or belief systems.

I would need to know more before putting stats to paper. I do not consider that sort of overly generic stuff to be worth the paper it is written on.

 

[Bedrockgames]

That's part of D&D's problem - it doesn't realise how ridiculous its pulp tropes are.

Compare -
RuneQuest: Serious, scholarly.
D&D: Serious, pulpy.
World of Warcraft: Comedic, pulpy.

First edition seemed pretty at ease with the humor of the pulp material