D&D 5E WOTC Possibly Removing "Druids" for Religious/Cultural Sensitivity Reasons

[Bedrockgames]

I Claudius is not particularly authentic from a historical perspective. It's just massively entertaining.

That is part of my point. It is based on Roman sources like the Twelve Caesars, and it knows the history (though the historiography is out of date for obvious reasons), but it has fun with it, freely deviates from it to make characters seem more real, and takes creative liberties. The aim was drama and comedy, not teaching history (I think it is a historical drama I appreciated as a history student but it wasn’t something where that is where you looked for historical information). The series especially used anachronisms to help bring it to life (particularly in characterization)

 

[Bedrockgames]

BTW, there is in fact a whole genre of dystopian Russian sci-fi called liberpunk where Western liberal cultural values are oppressive. And the Chinese are already making movies like Wolf Warrior 2 where brave Chinese special-ops teams defend people trying to make pharmaceuticals in Africa from European mercenaries. Other cultures have noticed what a great propaganda machine Hollywood is, I assure you.

I think when you watch it read media from other times and places, you need to be able to endure encountering ideas, history and messages that don’t match the sensibilities of your own time. I watch a lot of foreign media, especially Chinese movies. There is plenty of stuff like you mention. Ip Man is a great example of a movie that takes liberties with the history to advance a very nationalist message that also overlooks key details of the Chinese Civil war. It is still a great martial arts movies and Donnie Yen is iconic, but when you watch movies, whether it’s Rocky IV or Ip Man or something else, you can’t leave your brain at the concession stand. Movies are not history books. Many of them have skewed historical information, messages that simplify complex issues, bad messages and outright lies. I think the smart thing is to look to Hollywood and large movie studios across the world for entertainment but not for values, history, information, philosophy etc.

 

[Mind of tempest]

I have; and while I myself don't care much, there's certainly those as do.

I don't want to get rid of the Druid name because of any Pagan connections, I want to get rid of it to cut the class loose from the single culture it's tied to now.

Though it would have the same tied-to-one-culture problem as does Druid, one could use the name Skald for the Bard class. Bard, though, is certainly more generic, and thus probably better even if blander.

honestly, the two zeroined culture of the druid is to its detriment and likely is making the sub-classes harder to craft.

 

[Maxperson]

I think this illustrates a problem in that no matter what word you choose you're likely stepping on someone's toes.

DM: "So John, what sort of character are you going to play for this campaign?"
John: "I thought I would play an adherent of the god...
DM: "Wait! Adherent is not specific to any religion, so that's fine. The real world has god(s), though, so that steps on toes."
John: "Okay. Adherent of the deity..."
DM: "Stop. Deities are here, too. Steps on toes."
John: "Higher power..."
DM: "Nope! Steps on the toes of AA."
John(sighing loudly): "Okay. Adherent the something named Goonygoogoo."
DM: "Hmm. No. Goonygoogoo steps on Eddie Murphy's toes."
John: "..."

 

[Maxperson]

It’s not very evocative.

Neither are evokers, yet here we are.

 

[Micah Sweet]

honestly, the two zeroined culture of the druid is to its detriment and likely is making the sub-classes harder to craft.

Tons of folks have made druid subclasses. It seems to work out ok.

 

[Maxperson]

Domiciles and Dragons. Keep the alliteration, acknowledge the home-invasion aspect.

 

[Maxperson]

That's a design I can get behind!

Me too! Then I can push it off a cliff.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Tons of folks have made druid subclasses. It seems to work out ok.

and plenty of them at minimum chafe at the druid's thematics secondly a broad animist class lets us better do more conecpets thus overall an improvement.
not that I would not let you shape-shift into a bear I am not into taking away options blindly

 

[Maxperson]

i’d be down with all rogues being Strider

View attachment 306002

Everyone knows that Strider is a ranger.