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Another hit piece against Dungeons & Dragons

Started by GeekyBugle, September 17, 2022, 11:23:05 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

Zelen

Quote from: Chris24601 on September 24, 2022, 09:10:35 AM
So by the end of 3e there were the "barbarian", the knight, the ranger, the samurai, the marshal, the paladin, and probably more I'm forgetting...

You make a good case that "fighter" is really too broad of a category. (Pretty crummy name for a class too.)

Chris24601

Quote from: Zelen on September 24, 2022, 10:10:38 AM
Quote from: Chris24601 on September 24, 2022, 09:10:35 AM
So by the end of 3e there were the "barbarian", the knight, the ranger, the samurai, the marshal, the paladin, and probably more I'm forgetting...

You make a good case that "fighter" is really too broad of a category. (Pretty crummy name for a class too.)
I guess that depends on what you want a class to be.

If you want hyper-specific where there are mechanical differences between samurai and knights then, yes, Fighter is too broad. But then so is Wizard, Cleric and Rogue. We'd need a different class for every cultural representation of spellcaster, religious and skill-expert across every society you wish to cover.

Conversely, if you want broad archetypes, then Fighter fits right in with the broad archetypes D&D assigned to the cleric and magic-user.

There's no right answer to where you want that line drawn; but if you're going to draw it, you should at least try to be consistent. Don't split the fighter into every conceivable type of fighting man as diffused entities while aggregating every potential type of magic into just one or two classes.

As to the Fighter class name; believe me I've looked, but I have yet to find a better one for a category that could include everything from a bare-knuckle brawler to a mounted knight to a skilled barbarian bow-hunter and everything in between. Because even "warrior" doesn't actually cover all the categories (ex. the street tough) that could fall under the heading of "one who fights."

GeekyBugle

Quote from: Chris24601 on September 24, 2022, 08:42:27 AM
Quote from: GeekyBugle on September 23, 2022, 06:24:22 PM
Re Barbarians:

Counterpoint, Barbarian isn't a class it's a background, you could be a barbaric Thief, Fighter, Druid, etc.

Types of cultural background:

Savage (Stone Age)
Barbarian (Bronze/Steel Age, think the Celts, Vikings, etc before the Romans)
Nomadic (Steppes people, good riders, have steel are civilized up to a point, tribal)
Civilized (Romans up to the middle Ages, nation state)
Decadent (past civilized, too corrupt, given to vices, think the Stygians & Hyperboreans)

ALL cultures produce the 4 basic classes: Priest, MU, Fighter, Rogue. In different flavors, from Cleric, Druid, Shaman, etc...
That is, in fact, pretty close to how my system does it.

Barbarian is a background, Fighter is a class, and Berserker is one of the fighting styles a fighter can know.

The other backgrounds are; arcanist, aristocrat, artisan, commoner, entertainer, military, outlaw, religious and traveler. These provide all the non-combat abilities including skills and languages for the character.

The other classes are mastermind, mechanist, mystic, theurge and wizard (with NPC-only classes for diabolist and necromancer). These provide only the combat abilities for the character. The mastermind is basically a non-magical party buffer (contributes to the combat side of things by creating or pointing out openings for allies to exploit while not necessarily being able to fight well themselves), the rest each employ one of the paths of magic in the setting (magitech, primal, astral, arcane, abyssal and shadow respectively).

Mix and match with background to best fit your concept. Depending on your conception of them a Paladin might be a religious fighter or an aristocrat or military theurge. The former is more the early D&D variety who is mainly a fighter with clerical support magic, the latter is closer to more modern takes where their background is a warrior but their primary combat focus comes from smiting opponents with divine wrath.

But this also means you can have barbarians who are masterminds (scouts/guides), mystics (shaman), theurges (druids), wizards (rune casters), fighters (berserkers or rangers) or even mechanists (master smiths were often reputed to know magic secrets they imbued into their weapons or armor)... all from a single background.

I've got two types of backgrounds:

Cultural, as I already provided the example
Social, which includes stuff like aristocrat, blacksmith, etc.

Both provide skills to the class without a 200 entries list being needed.

In a modern setting these are changed for economic and occupational with the occupations being broad categories the player can specify within: Blue Collar (specify what exactly).
Quote from: Rhedyn

Here is why this forum tends to be so stupid. Many people here think Joe Biden is "The Left", when he is actually Far Right and every US republican is just an idiot.

"During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."

― George Orwell

Lunamancer

Quote from: Chris24601 on September 24, 2022, 09:10:35 AM
Or, I'm saying Barbarian is a silly name for a class unless all the classes are so broad as to be meaningless... i.e. "I'm playing the Greek class."

Well, hey, I agree. that it's a silly name for a class. I lean towards it being a silly class period. I still think it's worth doing a minimal amount steel-manning by finding a sense in which calling it "barbarian" makes sense.

QuoteI wholy agree with those who say the class should be called a Berserker given it's central feature is building themselves into a frenzy before attacking their opponents.

I'm the one that kicked off this branch of the thread by stating that the barbarian was the berserker (from 1E MM) made generic, and that doing so created problems.

QuoteAnd a huge part of why is because arguably the most famous fantasy barbarian, Conan, shares NOTHING in common with what WotC-era D&D has called the Barbarian. Conan is, if anything, a multiclass fighter/rogue, in D&D terms. His culture is considered to be barbarian.

Yes, the Barbarian as it appears in UA I believe is an attempt at having a Conan class, right down to its weird hatred of magic. I have my doubts how applicable the thief or rogue class is to Conan. I think what thiefly or roguish activities he does falls under fair use ability for all characters. Ultimately I'd say the problem is that Conan is one guy, one unique character. If I thought making berserkers generic created some problems, you can imagine what I think of making a specific person into a generic class.

QuoteAs I outlined above, Barbarian makes far more sense as a background which filters how the basic classes are perceived. What you say must be called a Barbarian I'd call a Barbarian Fighter. A ranger might also be Barbarian Rogue, a druid a Barbarian Wizard, and a shaman a Barbarian Cleric.

Yeah. Background makes perfect sense to me. This sort of thing is actually handled in core 1E. Or at least you have examples on how to handle it. Because it's a culturally-specific approach, and your fantasy world could have completely fictional cultures. Surprisingly few old-schoolers even know about it. But it's right there in print in Deities & Demigods.

For instance, under American Indian mythos, clerics are given an additional constraint--that in order to control something, he or she must have a part of it already. And it gives examples like to summon rain, the cleric must sprinkle water on the ground in the process of casting the spell. Or to cast a quest spell on some being, you need a piece of hair, article of used clothing, or something along those lines of the being.

On the flip side, a warrior can make a sacred bundle. It requires a certain series of quests, but once you have the sacred bundle you get +2 on all saves, only surprised 1 in 6, has a (natural) AC of 2, and one point is subtracted from each die of damage you take in battle. That eliminates the need for a d12 hit die, double CON bonus, or the double DEX bonus given to UA barbarians. Or for 3E, the d12 hit die, damage reduction, and uncanny dodge. No need for a special class at all.


QuoteThere's another thread about whether their are too many classes. I tend to say 'yes' largely in the sense that if you want more defined mechanics then the system needs another layer to it. One of the main reasons for why "fighters can't have nice things" in later editions of D&D is that too much what formerly made up the fighter's toolkit/conceptual space got yanked off into various classes that could be best summed up as "culturally specific fighters."

So by the end of 3e there were the "barbarian", the knight, the ranger, the samurai, the marshal, the paladin, and probably more I'm forgetting that all really belonged under the heading of fighter who because it was again a broad archetype could actually have things like a wide range of skills and various special abilities based on the broad areas of competence that professional warriors were generally expected to have (instead of not being able to know how to even do more than two of climb, jump, swim or ride a horse because all the cool skills "belonged" to classes split off from the fighter).

Sure. Or one thing I often bring up is, if you keep the number of classes small, to the level where a DM would naturally come to memorize them just through regular play, that means when writing up stat blocks, you don't have to spell out all the class abilities. One of the great strengths of old school D&D is you can put "C6" into a stat block and that instantly imparts a massive amount of information. Too many classes, and even before you run out of letters in the alphabet, you get to a point where the DM would have to stop and look it up, and so at that point you're better off just putting the info into the stat block, bloating it to the high heavens. It's not a good thing.

Quote
No, Barbarian as a class is not only a bad name for a class centered around going berserk, it is also at the start of WotC D&D's greatest failures as a system.

Well, who's to say what's the greatest or where it started. But I agree, it's not a good thing.
That's my two cents anyway. Carry on, crawler.

Tu ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito.

Zelen

Quote from: Chris24601 on September 24, 2022, 10:56:04 AM
There's no right answer to where you want that line drawn; but if you're going to draw it, you should at least try to be consistent. Don't split the fighter into every conceivable type of fighting man as diffused entities while aggregating every potential type of magic into just one or two classes.

I agree it's about level of distinction you want to make. Look at the magical counterparts: Wizard, Sorceror, Druid, Cleric, Warlock, Psion, Necromancer, Witch, Elementalist, Shaman, ... There's a billion of them, many of them inventing whole new magic systems. In comparison having Barbarian, Paladin, Cavalier, Pirate, etc. seems very non-objectionable.

VisionStorm

#140
Quote from: Zelen on September 24, 2022, 04:07:47 PM
Quote from: Chris24601 on September 24, 2022, 10:56:04 AM
There's no right answer to where you want that line drawn; but if you're going to draw it, you should at least try to be consistent. Don't split the fighter into every conceivable type of fighting man as diffused entities while aggregating every potential type of magic into just one or two classes.

I agree it's about level of distinction you want to make. Look at the magical counterparts: Wizard, Sorceror, Druid, Cleric, Warlock, Psion, Necromancer, Witch, Elementalist, Shaman, ... There's a billion of them, many of them inventing whole new magic systems. In comparison having Barbarian, Paladin, Cavalier, Pirate, etc. seems very non-objectionable.

Unless you happen to object to having a billion variations of what's essentially a "Magic-User", with their endless permutations of "it's a damage spell—BUT...a spirit taught it to me!" or "it's a damage spell—BUT...I learned it from a book!" Then having endless variations of "It's a Fighter—BUT...he comes from a tribe!" or "it's a Fighter—BUT...he knows how to sail and likes to rob trade vessels!" becomes just as silly.

Three classes is all you need (four if you want to keep the Arcane/Divine split): Warrior, Specialist, and Mystic (or Wizard and Priest). The rest are just superfluous variants of the three (four), better achieved through subclasses, backgrounds, skills/feats, or a combination of all those—and maybe multiclassing, but I'm at the point where I think multiclassing should just be replaced with subclasses and/or feats.

But that's a different topic that has been discussed a bunch of times before (I think there was a thread about it recently).

EDIT: Found it...
https://www.therpgsite.com/pen-paper-roleplaying-games-rpgs-discussion/dd5pf2etc-are-there-too-many-classes-now/

Kerstmanneke82

Quote from: GhostNinja on September 23, 2022, 12:12:25 PM
I wrote a post on my blog going over stupid points in the hit piece.  Probably going to post a link to my rebuttle on the comment section of the article.  We will see how it goes.

If you are interested: http://www.therustyaxe.com/2022/09/23/clueless-writer-posts-hit-piece-against-dungeons-and-dragons/

*Edit* I sent the author of that article the following email:

"I read you're article on D&D and it is clear you know nothing about D&D or role playing games at all and decided to write an article about something you know nothing about.

Which promopted me, a gamer for many years to post a blog post pointing out the misconceptions and simply wrong statements found in your article.

http://www.therustyaxe.com/2022/09/23/clueless-writer-posts-hit-piece-against-dungeons-and-dragons/

Read it or dont.  But you should really know what you are talking about before you write an article if you want anyone to take you seriously.

- GhostNinja"


Sent the author a link to my blog as well. Got blocked, but used my other twitter-account to check on her status, wherein she says, I quote: "got sent three whole Wordpress blogs over the past week, all of which displayed an impressive command of ad hominem attacks and a complete lack of critical thinking or creativity." End quote.  I guess you and I are two out of three.

The Spaniard

I checked out the author's Twitter feed... what a dumpster fire.  Most of these people need a villain to attack so they don't have to face their own inadequacies and are projecting their BS on others.

BoxCrayonTales

These people aren't interested in changing their views or steelmanning their opponents.

I used to think they had a point. Then I saw a scientific survey showing no connection between orcs and real racist attitudes. That was enough to convince me.

I still think there's a lot of cringy stuff, but I don't think orcs are supposed to be a racist sublimation.

jhkim

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 25, 2022, 05:38:17 PM
These people aren't interested in changing their views or steelmanning their opponents.

I used to think they had a point. Then I saw a scientific survey showing no connection between orcs and real racist attitudes. That was enough to convince me.

I still think there's a lot of cringy stuff, but I don't think orcs are supposed to be a racist sublimation.

I don't think there's any single thing that orcs are supposed to be, and I really dislike the increasing tendency of shoving everything into a binary of either purely racist (and thus uniquely evil and not to be seen) or purely non-racist (and thus beyond any reproach).

For example, Tolkien has explicitly said that his Dwarves are like Jews - including the clannishness and love of gold - and that their language was intentionally Semitic in character to reflect this. At the same time, he was emphatically against the anti-semitism of the nazis and sympathizers, and cast his dwarves as heroes with flaws for a reason.

There's no simple dividing line of right or wrong in this. I love Tolkien's work and think he is a great writer, but I believe there are fair critiques of him - including of his portrayal of orcs as a race that is born evil.

In my current D&D campaign inspired by Incan mythology and history, orcs are one of the founding races of the Solar Empire, and make up a majority of the imperial armies. They match pretty well with Tolkien's orcs in most ways, but here they don't have a dark lord but instead a commanding good-aligned emperor. I wanted to emphasize the Incan concept of "ayni" and how the empire is formed from compromise and banding together. I think it makes for an interesting difference, but I don't think it's the only or best way to portray orcs. It's just one way. Some people could say that it includes bio-essentialism and/or pro-imperialism, but there's more to it than such simple labels.

GhostNinja

Quote from: Kerstmanneke82 on September 25, 2022, 01:10:01 PM

Sent the author a link to my blog as well. Got blocked, but used my other twitter-account to check on her status, wherein she says, I quote: "got sent three whole Wordpress blogs over the past week, all of which displayed an impressive command of ad hominem attacks and a complete lack of critical thinking or creativity." End quote.  I guess you and I are two out of three.

The author of that article reminds me of video game critic Anita Sarkeesian, who calls anyone who points out her obvious lies as trolls and claims they are attacking her.   Doesn't want to hear alternite points of views and doesn't want anyone to point out her obvious lies and the fact she doesn't know what the hell she is talking about.
Ghostninja

GhostNinja

Quote from: The Spaniard on September 25, 2022, 04:55:33 PM
I checked out the author's Twitter feed... what a dumpster fire.  Most of these people need a villain to attack so they don't have to face their own inadequacies and are projecting their BS on others.

After reading that article, are you surprised?
Ghostninja

GhostNinja

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 25, 2022, 05:38:17 PM
These people aren't interested in changing their views or steelmanning their opponents.

I used to think they had a point. Then I saw a scientific survey showing no connection between orcs and real racist attitudes. That was enough to convince me.

I still think there's a lot of cringy stuff, but I don't think orcs are supposed to be a racist sublimation.

Its like Patricia A. Pulling  in the 80's who campaigned against D&D, until people put together the stats and blew her argument out of the water.  She was embarrassed and sliped into obscurity until she died.
Ghostninja

BoxCrayonTales

Quote from: jhkim on September 25, 2022, 09:14:33 PM
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 25, 2022, 05:38:17 PM
These people aren't interested in changing their views or steelmanning their opponents.

I used to think they had a point. Then I saw a scientific survey showing no connection between orcs and real racist attitudes. That was enough to convince me.

I still think there's a lot of cringy stuff, but I don't think orcs are supposed to be a racist sublimation.

I don't think there's any single thing that orcs are supposed to be, and I really dislike the increasing tendency of shoving everything into a binary of either purely racist (and thus uniquely evil and not to be seen) or purely non-racist (and thus beyond any reproach).

For example, Tolkien has explicitly said that his Dwarves are like Jews - including the clannishness and love of gold - and that their language was intentionally Semitic in character to reflect this. At the same time, he was emphatically against the anti-semitism of the nazis and sympathizers, and cast his dwarves as heroes with flaws for a reason.

There's no simple dividing line of right or wrong in this. I love Tolkien's work and think he is a great writer, but I believe there are fair critiques of him - including of his portrayal of orcs as a race that is born evil.

In my current D&D campaign inspired by Incan mythology and history, orcs are one of the founding races of the Solar Empire, and make up a majority of the imperial armies. They match pretty well with Tolkien's orcs in most ways, but here they don't have a dark lord but instead a commanding good-aligned emperor. I wanted to emphasize the Incan concept of "ayni" and how the empire is formed from compromise and banding together. I think it makes for an interesting difference, but I don't think it's the only or best way to portray orcs. It's just one way. Some people could say that it includes bio-essentialism and/or pro-imperialism, but there's more to it than such simple labels.
You're right. I find that arguers on both sides are too willing to embrace extremes and not accept room for nuance.

GhostNinja

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 26, 2022, 09:48:41 AM

You're right. I find that arguers on both sides are too willing to embrace extremes and not accept room for nuance.

NO! YOUR TOTALLY WRONG ABOUT THAT!!!  ;D

Just kidding, I totally agree
Ghostninja