D&D General why did they transform the Barbarian into a Raging Monster ?

[Tonguez]

Conan is the prototypical D&D barbarian. Conan went into blood rages ALL THE TIME. He also hated wizards and civilization. Hence, all the original Barbarian traits and tropes.
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No, Conan didnt go into bloody rages much at all. If anything Conan in dnd is a Fighter/Rogue not a Barbarian

 

[Reynard]

No, Conan didnt go into bloody rages much at all. If anything Conan in dnd is a Fighter/Rogue not a Barbarian

You may need to reread some of the original fiction. His rage doesn't look much like 5E rage, but 5E doesn't resemble the source material for anything very well. Howard's prose is full of froth and red hazes.

 

[Lyxen]

Someone said it was bad form to use 'barbarian' for real world peoples. Your response was 'of course you can, the Romans did!'

Because Romans are not "real world people" ? And it's not a question of "bad form" or not, it is a simple historical fact.

The Roamns doing it wasn't doing it properly. IT was them being pejorative pricks. The current theory I'm aware of is that it was literally them making fun of their language.

It still does not change historical facts.

 

[Rogerd1]

I thought the thing with Conan, if we go by classes, was that he heavily multi-classed.

 

[Lyxen]

Your sentence seemed odd because I was talking about a modern company, and how they are moving away from using potentially contentious words.

In that context, I can understand a modern day company not calling any real current world group "barbarians", but isn't that extremely far from the post that you were responding to ? How could we infer that you were talking about a company ?

 

[Reynard]

I thought the thing with Conan, if we go by classes, was that he heavily multi-classed.

Nah. He was just a fighting man. As a primary influence on the original game, Conan's prowess was a function of high stats and canny play. Remember, when Gygax and Arneson invented the game, there wasn't even a thief class. Conan was a thief because he broke into tombs, palaces and treasures and stole things. He was a barbarian because he came from the hinterlands and disdained "soft" civilized folk. Only later did people try and formalize those traits with class abilities -- and things have been going down hill ever since.

 

[Seramus]

In that context, I can understand a modern day company not calling any real current world group "barbarians", but isn't that extremely far from the post that you were responding to ? How could we infer that you were talking about a company ?

Well, the title is "Why did they transform" so I assumed the THEY was WotC.

 

[Thunder Brother]

I think we also have to move forward with the realization that D&D class names are not necessarily reflective of their real world use.

And that class names don't necessarily have to be referred to outside of character creation. But that's only a tangentially related point (and a different discussion altogether).

 

[Lyxen]

Nah. He was just a fighting man. As a primary influence on the original game, Conan's prowess was a function of high stats and canny play. Remember, when Gygax and Arneson invented the game, there wasn't even a thief class. Conan was a thief because he broke into tombs, palaces and treasures and stole things.

I think that in at least the Tower of the Elephant, he fancies himself a thief, wanting to use stealth to avoid guards, etc.

 

[Rogerd1]

Nah. He was just a fighting man. As a primary influence on the original game, Conan's prowess was a function of high stats and canny play. Remember, when Gygax and Arneson invented the game, there wasn't even a thief class. Conan was a thief because he broke into tombs, palaces and treasures and stole things. He was a barbarian because he came from the hinterlands and disdained "soft" civilized folk. Only later did people try and formalize those traits with class abilities -- and things have been going down hill ever since.

Looking at some of the book titles, you could make the multi-class argument.
But I have not read all the books, so.....

Conan (books) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

YMMV I guess.