D&D General Rethinking the class name "Druid".

[Snarf Zagyg]

Woah. This thread has gotten spicy!

Well, I provided two options earlier. I have two more!

3. Patchouli-scented hippy.

4. (The Class Formerly Known as Druid)

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

While everyone is spending such time and effort in "rethinking"...druids, shamanism, animism, what folds into what, and what makes more sense as the umbrella class, and [meaning], and [function], and, and, and...

I will simply throw in my two coppers that it behooves us all, from time to time, to remember that there is such a thing as "OVERthinking"...and that the former can become the latter in the blink of an eye.

I have the exact same reaction to many topics that get endlessly discussed of TTRPG sites.

But there's also such a thing as UNDERthinking, which the society I live in has become painfully aware we do way too much.

 

[gorice]

How about 'nature priest'?

Druids as a class were a mistake.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Woah. This thread has gotten spicy!

Yeah, I let myself get diverted into other topics other than the one point I was trying to make, that being, shapeshifting doesn't automatically mean shaman, in fact, it rarely does.

On a side note, because of this conversation and to double check what I was arguing, I reached out to a North American Indigenous group and got their feedback (since they are an impacted group for these discussions, and I try not to speak for others when they can speak for themselves).

The response I got back was "Go to each individual nation as most have their own terms they use (Indigenous nations are unique and not a hivemind), but if you have to, use Medicine Worker."

Not a single person said "shaman" was appropriate to use for describing a particular individual in North/South American Indigenous cultures.

 

[Zubatcarteira]

"Tree-Hugging Cleric"

 

[Paul Farquhar]

But there's also such a thing as UNDERthinking, which the society I live in has become painfully aware we do way too much.

You mean like, people who don't know what the role of a priest is?

 

[Greg K]

I seem to remember back at school in Religious Studies classes 40 years ago being taught that religion "advanced" from animism through polytheism, with monotheism being the "highest" form of religion.

I don't think that would wash these days!

I cringe when I hear that. Tylor's theories of societal and religious advancement were already long outdated among anthropologists when I was taking anthropology courses in the 1990s.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I cringe when I hear that. Tylor's theories of societal and religious advancement were already long outdated among anthropologists when I was taking anthropology courses in the 1990s.

Is that where it was from? It was the early 80s when I came across it, and it was taught by the Headmaster, who was not exactly up to speed with modern liberal values.

 

[Greg K]

Is that where it was from? It was the early 80s when I came across it, and it was taught by the Headmaster, who was not exactly up to speed with modern liberal values.

Possibly. He was writing about the "evolutionary development" of societies and religion and the stages of advancement circa 1870

 

[Undrave]

My introduction to druids was Asterix.

Same here! Did you see The Secret of the Magic Potion?

How about just "witch," then?

It fits with the theme of the subclasses: Circle of the Land, Circle of the Moon, etc., etc. You could even change "circle" to "coven."

Eeeeh...if you want the the folks translating D&D into other languages to hate you maybe...

 

[Greg K]

Same here! Did you see The Secret of the Magic Potion?

Eeeeh...if you want the the folks translating D&D into other languages to hate you maybe...

Lol. Arguments are inevitable. We have already seen disagreements about what a witch should be. Some want the witch of Wiccan traditions like Gardner or DIaniac. Others want the evil witch from fairy tales and/or Medieval Europe and later that makes pacts with the devil or even folklore beings such as Baba Yaga. Some want them as arcane casters, some nature casters and some as divine casters. Then you have "witches" whom are psychic (in part or full).

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

Same here! Did you see The Secret of the Magic Potion?

Eeeeh...if you want the the folks translating D&D into other languages to hate you maybe...

You seem to know the translation of coven in French, do you? If not look it up (I will not say it here because readers could have a heart attack).

 

[Mannahnin]

The response I got back was "Go to each individual nation as most have their own terms they use (Indigenous nations are unique and not a hivemind), but if you have to, use Medicine Worker."

Not a single person said "shaman" was appropriate to use for describing a particular individual in North/South American Indigenous cultures.

Some more general terms I see as alternatives to "shaman" in the anthropological/comparative religion sense are "spirit worker" or "ecstatic practitioner", but these are certainly not as evocative for game purposes.

How about 'nature priest'?

Druids as a class were a mistake.

I mean, for that matter you could argue that "priests" are a mistake as a character class, because they really don't have a basis in Swords & Sorcery fiction.

From the point of view of being general and descriptive, "Fighting-Man" (as the term was used by military scholars and historians, and by pulp writers like Edgar Rice Burroughs) and "Magic-User" are very practical terms.

But they aren't very evocative.

The advantage of using specific historical terms like Shaman or Warlock or Druid is that they connote things. They carry or imply more meaning. They feel more grounded in some sort of place and setting, even if the definitions being used in the game are not well-matched to the historical realities of the terms.

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

The advantage of using specific historical terms like Shaman or Warlock or Druid is that they connote things. They carry or imply more meaning. They feel more grounded in some sort of place and setting, even if the definitions being used in the game are not well-matched to the historical realities of the terms.

I agree. I'm just not getting the right match between the class and the name "Druid", so I was crowd-sourcing some relplacements.

Right now I like "wilder". But I'm sure that isn't the right kind of evocative for others.

 

[Greg K]

The response I got back was "Go to each individual nation as most have their own terms they use (Indigenous nations are unique and not a hivemind), but if you have to, use Medicine Worker."

Not a single person said "shaman" was appropriate to use for describing a particular individual in North/South American Indigenous cultures.

My instructor for Religion, Witchraft, and Magic grew up in the Navajo Nation. She used the term "shaman" when speaking in a general sense, but always stressed using a particular peoples' own term when refering to a specific group and their practices (edit: which in North America alone are already going to have variance among the broad regional classifications of Indigenous groups let a lone within them).

 

[Undrave]

Lol. Arguments are inevitable. We have already seen disagreements about what a witch should be. Some want the witch of Wiccan traditions like Gardner or DIaniac. Others want the evil witch from fairy tales and/or Medieval Europe and later that makes pacts with the devil or even folklore beings such as Baba Yaga. Some want them as arcane casters, some nature casters and some as divine casters. Then you have "witches" whom are psychic (in part or full).

No so much an argument as the fact that some languages just don't have enough synonyms to elegantly cover Wizard, Sorcerer, Warlock and Witch, especially if they have gendered nouns... I checked the French version and they already had to pull out some obscure words to make a difference between Sorcerer and Warlock. Dunno what they'll have to use if you wanted to make a Watch class separate from Warlock.

 

[Undrave]

I agree. I'm just not getting the right match between the class and the name "Druid", so I was crowd-sourcing some relplacements.

Right now I like "wilder". But I'm sure that isn't the right kind of evocative for others.

How about Animist?

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

No so much an argument as the fact that some languages just don't have enough synonyms to elegantly cover Wizard, Sorcerer, Warlock and Witch, especially if they have gendered nouns... I checked the French version and they already had to pull out some obscure words to make a difference between Sorcerer and Warlock. Dunno what they'll have to use if you wanted to make a Watch class separate from Warlock.

English benefits from having borrowed from saxon and roman roots so it has somr variety in this vocabulary (mage and wizard, I guess).

French players have some hard time sometimes remembering which is which between Ensorceleur and Sorcier (the former being more used for "bewitching" smile than people who cast curses).

 

[Greg K]

No so much an argument as the fact that some languages just don't have enough synonyms to elegantly cover Wizard, Sorcerer, Warlock and Witch, especially if they have gendered nouns... I checked the French version and they already had to pull out some obscure words to make a difference between Sorcerer and Warlock. Dunno what they'll have to use if you wanted to make a Watch class separate from Warlock.

I understand the lack of words. I was pointing out that we aready can't agree amongst ourselves let alone introducing issues of translation you were mentioning

 

[Jack Daniel]

Eeeeh...if you want the the folks translating D&D into other languages to hate you maybe...

I can't imagine why the OP would care about that, given that this whole thread is about one table's search for an appropriate house-rule.