D&D 5E So Where my Witches at?

[Guest 6801328]

Knowing what I know about about Dilbert creator Scott Adams, I think you are misreading the intent of the comic and who is supposed to be the victim. Hint: it's not Alice.

But that is probably not an Enworld appropriate topic.

No, I think you are misreading my intent of sharing the comic. Of course Dilbert is the victim, and that's my point. (Also, that's not Alice.). Instead of being meek and demur she's aggressive and confrontational, if not very bright. You know, all the things a guy gets promoted for.

And for that she gets labeled a witch.

So, yeah, I don't think the problem with using the word "witch" is that it will insult wiccans by being historically innacurate. I think the problem is that the word has a second meaning which is pretty offensive.

 

[Guest 6801328]

So would putting a sidebar stating this subclass represents the common fictional depiction of witches rather than any historic or real world connotation (akin to what was done in Xanathar for samurai and cavalier) be sufficient?

Why is that even remotely necessary? If the sidebar is required for people to make the connection, it would have to be a pretty poor representation of a very well-known archetype.

 

[Remathilis]

No, I think you are misreading my intent of sharing the comic. Of course Dilbert is the victim, and that's my point. (Also, that's not Alice.). Instead of being meek and demur she's aggressive and confrontational, if not very bright. You know, all the things a guy gets promoted for.

And for that she gets labeled a witch.

So, yeah, I don't think the problem with using the word "witch" is that it will insult wiccans by being historically innacurate. I think the problem is that the word has a second meaning which is pretty offensive.

Sorry, Scott Adams is a big opponent of "cancel culture" and I'm pretty sure the point is Dilbert uses a correct word (acute vs a cute) and is attacked for being sexist despite not at all making a reference to her gender. The punchline is that after explaining that, it happens again (which vs witch) which will start the fight all over again. Believe me, Adams is commenting on how people take offense to perceived slights in innocent usage of language, which is the opposite of what you are arguing.

 

[Remathilis]

I don't think what Xanathar did for Samurai was sufficient. And WotC's gotten a lot of flack for it since then.

So the solution then is to NOT put a samurai option in the game and continue the notion that D&D is based only on western fantasy tropes? That seems catch 22.

Why is that even remotely necessary? If the sidebar is required for people to make the connection, it would have to be a pretty poor representation of a very well-known archetype.

WotC probably wanted to give people an option that reflected Kurasowa films or samurai Jack, not the intricacies of the Edo period. Same with cavalier being more Arthurian Legend than historical reality. The fact we need to spell out that the Halloween witch is different than modern Wicca or historical hate crime victims is sad, but the alternative is seeing a lot of D&D archetypes gone due to fear of backlash.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Sorry, Scott Adams is a big opponent of "cancel culture" and I'm pretty sure the point is Dilbert uses a correct word (acute vs a cute) and is attacked for being sexist despite not at all making a reference to her gender. The punchline is that after explaining that, it happens again (which vs witch) which will start the fight all over again. Believe me, Adams is commenting on how people take offense to perceived slights in innocent usage of language, which is the opposite of what you are arguing.

. . . Are you saying that the term "Witch" is being cancelled? So called "Cancel Culture" only applies to people, not words. Replacing one term with another isn't cancelling, that happens all the time. Offensive terms fall out of use in most cases. I don't see anyone reclaiming the term "Witch" anytime soon.

 

[cbwjm]

I am young enough to have watched it on tv, belive somewhere as the disks for it.

My guess is I caught it when my nieces and nephews were watching it and I thought "hey, they've animated that comic." I would have likely sat down to watch with them.

 

[Umbran]

Mod Note:

If this thread is going to dissolve into an argument about so called "cancel culture", some folks are not going to like the results.

Please stick to talking about classes to represent common fictional roles, before someone gets warning points and stuff.

 

[Remathilis]

Anyway, I guess we're stuck with warlocks for the foreseeable future.

 

[Mind of tempest]

My guess is I caught it when my nieces and nephews were watching it and I thought "hey, they've animated that comic." I would have likely sat down to watch with them.

can't really remember much of it as it was a girls show and I was sort of a typical boy so I only saw bits of it, it was some sort of water magical girl anime which is more than a single work exception some how.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

What is the difference between a witch and an enchatress? five years of marriage.

The witch, like lots of fantasy tropes based in classic mythology and folklore has changed, evolutionated. Today the D&D witches are hags or female warlocks. And in lots of modern speculative fiction witches are more like a specie or bloodline. Other witches are only maho-shojo or magical girls from a grimmdark manganime title.

And today in the tabletop game the PC witches are magical-girls wearing sinister-gothic fashion clothing.

* I miss the vestige game mechanic of the binder class (Tome of Magic 3.5), where summoning a vestige you could use a little list of powers or snacks. It was as if a cleric could to choose a different domain everytime with only a time for a ritual.