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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dire Bare" data-source="post: 8298942" data-attributes="member: 18182">While I doubt it is your intent, comparing "dudebro ninja masters" to someone's RELIGION is super uncool.While you will certainly find some of Japanese descent who find the West's appropriation of the ninja clumsy, irritating, and maybe even offensive . . . it's not in the same category as someone's religion. Also, there is the power differential. Ninjas, as a class, were not oppressed by Westerners (the Japanese, more broadly, certainly have been). Plus, while ninjas may be a historical artifact, witches are not. Not that I think my culture's clumsy adoption of "dudebro ninja masters" (is that still even a thing?) is okay.Wicca, or witchcraft, is a modern day faith that should be treated with respect. It's arguable whether modern day witches can trace descent unbroken back to pre-Roman Europe, but it IS arguable and also somewhat beside the point. The cultural archetype of the witch is complicated because it's MORE than just a modern day, or ancient, religious practice . . . we have centuries of folklore and fantasy stories portraying witches as scary monsters . . . but the fact remains that there is a group of folks out there to whom this is sacred stuff. Witches do represent an oppressed minority, either truly an oppressed people from Europe's past, and/or representing the oppression of women in European-descent culture. And witches most certainly are a historical and folkloric artifact AND a very modern phenomenon.I actually agree with you, that D&D needs an independent witch class. And I think you'd find a lot of Wiccan gamers who'd agree with you. The warlock IS a take on the witch, but one that doesn't really hit the witchy mark, so to speak. Still, developing a witch class that would embody the various archetypes without also being offensive to Wiccans isn't an easy task, which is one of the reasons why (I think) we have the warlock class and not the witch class. But if you look, you'll find plenty of community content (OGL and DM's Guild) takes on a witch class.Ditto with the shaman. I'd like to see an independent shaman class . . . but everything I said about witches applies to shamans as well.</blockquote>

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