Mana, Shamans, and the Cultural Misappropriation behind Fantasy Terms

[Bedrockgames]

Never read the Oriental Adventures huh?

I have. I didn't recall katanas being the reason for cultural arrogance in the game, but if it was, fair enough. It is more over-the-top ridiculous than morally bad if that is the case though.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I notice no one took up my challenge. Find 5 good, peaceful primitive races described in the monster manual. I mean, if it's a totally neutral term, it should be easy to find.

And, for some reason, no one has been able to tell me why elves don't have shaman.

I don't pay 5E and haven't been especially interested in D&D in recent years. But, like I said before, the issue on whether D&D books are consistently using terms, and whether these terms are useful for game books are two separate issues. If they are not including peaceful primitive races in their monster manual, then that is a problem to me, only in that it is a missed opportunity for interesting entries. Both civilized and primitive can come in shades of good and evil in a setting. Sometimes a given designer is just less interested in a particular shade, and so you won't see it. People don't usually sit down and map these things out in advance (i.e. "I need 2 evil civilized entries, 2 good civilized entries, 2 evil primitive entries, 2 good primitive entires, etc----the result would probably be a little dull if you did it that way). Again, content doesn't equal message.

 

[Maxperson]

Huh. I can find all sorts of good aligned humanoids in the Monster Manual. Elves, Dwarves, Dragonborn, half of the dragons, some giants, and that's just off the top of my head. And yet, none of them are described as primitive.

None of the dragons are humanoids. They're..............dragons. The ability to change shapes doesn't change the type of creature. Giants are also not humanoids. They are humanoid shaped, but not humanoids. If you were asking for anything with 2 arms, 2 legs and a head, you should have been more clear.

And, even in 4e, Wild Elves, while possibly being shaman (because 4e had a shaman class) they are still described as (rarely) having clerics an frequently having druids.

But, again, we have the most "primitive" elves being given shaman. IOW, even in elves, the notion of primitive and shaman are connected.

Okay, but that's not what you asked about. You asked why elves don't have them. They do. Moving the goal posts! 10 yard penalty!

But, we were talking about 5e.

Oh, well then the OA and Shamans aren't an issue. 5e doesn't have either one for players to use.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Racist depictions of "darkest Africa" don't refute my points about the perspective inherent in the word "primitive". They reinforce it!

I don't know enough about Chult and forgotten realms to really weigh in on this specific case. I'd be interested if those familiar could say whether this is meant as a racist depiction of Africa (or if it is just loosely drawing off real world cultures to get a particular flavor).

Personally I have always found it interesting in settings to see ethnicity as incidental to culture. I see settings as thought experiments more than anything else. And the spread of people and ethnicities in a setting is a fun thought experiment (just like the spread of language is a fun thought experiment). Obviously it is inherited so there will be a pattern (unless ethnicity functions totally different in your game world, which it could!). I was very into Ravenloft Growing up and there was a Domain there called Valachan where all the inhabitants were black (but the culture was clearly intended to be something like German). I believe the reasoning was because the Domain lords was a Panther-Vampire (a very longwinded backstory). When I put out my setting, I didn't have the ethnicities key to real world cultures. I think that works great. One thing I have encountered though is people like short hand to real world cultures and some players do find this a little confusing (I don't think out of racism, but just out of a sense of, they imagine vikings a certain way, and if your vikings in your setting aren't 6', light skinned and fair haired, it throws them off). Personally I prefer settings where the spread of peoples is imagined differently (there is no inherent reason why the white people of a setting ought to become your Europeans, for example; and there is no reason why you shouldn't be able to make new ethnicities and races). But I can see how some people basically want their fantasy world to be pretty analogous to the real world.

 

[jasper]

To me shamans meant a spell caster which was not in PHB so I could wing it as casting what cleric and wizard spells I wanted to. AKA what the party needed or the plot needed. Other than Mana from Heaven I thought Mana was just another way to avoid D&D Magic slots. But I was only an Army Cook and have BS in programming so I not educated in these matters.

 

[Bedrockgames]

To me shamans meant a spell caster which was not in PHB so I could wing it as casting what cleric and wizard spells I wanted to. AKA what the party needed or the plot needed. Other than Mana from Heaven I thought Mana was just another way to avoid D&D Magic slots. But I was only an Army Cook and have BS in programming so I not educated in these matters.

One of my issues with how these arguments play out, is the bar being set, is only people with certain kinds of advanced degrees, or people who have spent an inordinate amount of time boning up on complex specialties, can handle this kind of material creatively without transgressing.

 

[SkidAce]

I notice no one took up my challenge. Find 5 good, peaceful primitive races described in the monster manual. I mean, if it's a totally neutral term, it should be easy to find.

And, for some reason, no one has been able to tell me why elves don't have shaman.

The elves in my world have shaman as their divine casters. Treespeaker etc.

 

[Bedrockgames]

The elves in my world have shaman as their divine casters. Treespeaker etc.

My elves are the Mongolians of my setting (at least, one group is). They are also truly immortal, only dying from serious illness or physical violence, not from old age (which allowed me to have a bunch of ancient, maimed and grizzled elves in the setting).

 

[Bacon Bits]

I notice no one took up my challenge. Find 5 good, peaceful primitive races described in the monster manual. I mean, if it's a totally neutral term, it should be easy to find.

There are only 3 good humanoids described in the MM at all: Aarakocra, Sverfneblin, and Werebears. And the last of those is cheating.

It's called the Monster Manual for a reason. In D&D, the game about killing monsters and taking their stuff, the book called the Monster Manual is primarily a book of creatures to fight and kill. It's not supposed to be a comprehensive anthropological anthology of all cultures in a campaign setting. That's what the campaign setting book is for.

 

[Neonchameleon]

One thing worth bringing up here is the moral value of civilisation, whether it is positive or neutral. OD&D had a very much Morcock take with law and civilization inexorably clashing with chaos and the wild and it's up to the people caught in the middle to survive the clash. 4e had Erathis, the explicitly neutral Goddess of Civilisation, in its pantheon (and from memory explicitly worrying some of the other Gods with her experiments) making it clear that civilization was in and of itself neutral rather than good. But most other editions seem to have civilisation as being a positive force which makes uncivilised inherently negative.