I'm sorry, I just don't find your argument very compelling but to each his own. It's not like we're the designers anyway, so I don't find much incentive to continuing this debate.
I will say one thing as a sort of coda however, it very much does matter where the overlap comes from in my mind as DnD has often skirted the line of orientalism when dealing with Asian influenced cultures, to the extent that they have over-essentialized and generally distorted many cultural idioms in their portrayals over the years. For someone with that quote about sex/gender equality in their tag, I would have thought you'd be a bit more sensitive to these issues.
I'm sorry, I just don't find your argument very compelling but to each his own. It's not like we're the designers anyway, so I don't find much incentive to continuing this debate.
I will say one thing as a sort of coda however, it very much does matter where the overlap comes from in my mind as DnD has often skirted the line of orientalism when dealing with Asian influenced cultures, to the extent that they have over-essentialized and generally distorted many cultural idioms in their portrayals over the years. For someone with that quote about sex/gender equality in their tag, I would have thought you'd be a bit more sensitive to these issues.
That's all I have to say.
Wow. Ok, first, it was obvious a few posts ago that neither of us really saw much to write home about in the other's arguments.
Second, and more importantly, are you seriously accusing me of cultural insensitivity right now?
Really?
Because there is nothing insensitive about stating that it isn't important what the exact nuances of the original source material or inspirations are.
It really doesn't. I don't care that dwarves and elves are bad paralells to their norse counterparts. I don't care that barbarians are basically an idiotic stereotype of a handful of cultures. It doesn't matter that Druids are nothing like Celtic Druids.
And no, it doesn't matter that DnD blurs the line a bit with monk and ninja archetypes.
More sex and gender equality and racial equality shouldn't even be an argument--it should simply be an assumption for any RPG that wants to stay relevant in the 21st century.
Assasin was a class in AD&D. I have got the book "The scarlet brotherbook" where it´s (with the monk).
Ninja could be a rogue theme but... if there ir ki like soucer of power the ninja will be a stealthy ki-user (like the equivalent to lurker from the complete psionic). (Imagine it, a ninja like a rogue with body chakra slots..do you rebember "magic of incarnum"?).
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Book 13 Anaclet 23
Confucius said: "The Superior Man is in harmony but does not follow the crowd. The inferior man follows the crowd, but is not in harmony"
Assasin was a class in AD&D. I have got the book "The scarlet brotherbook" where it´s (with the monk).
Ninja could be a rogue theme but... if there ir ki like soucer of power the ninja will be a stealthy ki-user (like the equivalent to lurker from the complete psionic). (Imagine it, a ninja like a rogue with body chakra slots..do you rebember "magic of incarnum"?).
And just as importantly, it's a popular fantasy archetype, with relatively broad scope combined with focused themes.
In other words, exactly what it takes to be a good class.
More sex and gender equality and racial equality shouldn't even be an argument--it should simply be an assumption for any RPG that wants to stay relevant in the 21st century.
youtu.be/3CdSY4jCQvI?t=12m33s This is a clip from the anime soul eater. One of the characters in that series, Crona, fills the "Dark Magical Girl" (warning: tvtropes) archetype seen in some anime and other fiction, and obviously has some potential relevance to discussion of contemporary dark magic character archetypes. Crona has more than one "shadow" that she struggles with. The most obvious outward shadow is a demonic sword of black ichor that lives within Crona's body. The demon sword is interesting as an idea for shadow magic power sets - manifesting as a separate entity a la 'casting' a shadow, creating a blade of darkness, etc. While they maintain a symbiotic relationship, however, the demon sword is still an independent entity, rather than part of Crona's own consciousness. To me the more interesting shadow thematically is the one that appears in episode 21, when we get a glimpse into Crona's soul. Here Crona's inner child is confronted by a shadow manifesting the character's fear of weakness and desire to lash out at others. But the shadow isn't there to fight or consume Crona, instead it seeks catharsis. It's part of Crona, and wants Crona to stop pushing it away and accept it. The scene runs from about 12:33 to 17:00. Note the youtube video was posted by funimation, the company liscenced to distribute Soul Eater, and is legal.
Mixing Crona's two shadows, combining the outward manifestation and abilities of the demon sword with the inner emotional foundation and longing for catharsis of the inner shadow creates more or less the version of shadow magic that I long to see. Darkness born out of the rejection of some part of the self, be it pain or suffering or even something generally positive but that the conscious mind rejects (as a villain might reject their own love or compassion if it gets in the way of their goals). This rejection fragments and twists the soul, giving rise to a 'shadow' that can torment the individual mentally, but that can also be harnessed as a weapon, manifesting to lash out at those around it.
Here we have a version of shadow magic that's fearsome and dangerous, that 'normal' people and respected magical fields would be justifiable afraid of, yet at the same time is not something inherently evil - after all, the shadow seeks catharsis, unity in the soul, and it's only by facing the shadow and owning up to it, only by embracing that part of the self that others run from, that the shadow caster gains access to the deeper mysteries of their art.
youtu.be/HT_V1I_rtEA This is a collection of clips from the Kingdom Hearts video game series, various quotes and speeches made by the main villains of the series. Note that it's spoilery.
Kindom Hearts, especially the key villains Xehanort, Ansem, and Xemnas, are goofy and extremely melodramatic, and you know, I love that about it! Some shadow archetypes are all about the silent, internal brooding, but dark magic in fiction also gives rise to some of the biggest hams and drama queens around, and I'm all about embracing that as well.
Early in the Kingdom Hearts series, the 'light = good, dark = evil' dynamic was in full swing, but as the series progressed the lines were blurred somewhat. Characters like Riku continued to use "the darkness" even after abandoning evil. Kindom Hearts is a great example of the kinds of abilities I'd like to see available to shadowesque characters, regardless of whether shadow magic remains a theme. They animate living shadows - even animating the hero's shadow and turning it against him. The teleport, shot jumps through shadow, or 'gateways of shadow' that allow travel over phenominal distances, between worlds or even different layers of reality, control 'undead' creatures (the 'heartless' are similar to shadows or wraiths in D&D, just with a more physical form - when a human is killed by one, their soul is ripped out and tranformed into another such monster).
Ansem, the main villain of the first game, even manifests his own 'shadow' (actually his undead soul) as a monstrous guardian beast, not entirely unlike how Crona manifests the the demon within her (at least, when it's in 'creature' form and not 'sword' form). Manifesting your shadow as a creature of darkness through which you can channel your attacks, to me, sounds like a fantastic basis for a 'shadowcaster' class, litterally casting your shadow out into the battlefield to strike down your enemies.
Kingdom Hearts, as described in the clips above, establishes a strong metaphysical rivalry between light and darkness, establishes a strong connection between dark magic and the soul (just replace the word 'heart' with 'soul') which forms the foundation of that rivalry, and gives it all a metaphysical meaning. Souls arise from a world of darkness beyond normal reality (the 'world of light'), and return to that world of darkness after death, not unlike how souls in the Points of Light setting pass from reality into some other place beyond a 'door of darkness' in the Shadowfell.
I meant to throw up a couple other clips, but I've gots to head to class. Anyone else have some good examples of the kinds of things they want to see out of dark magic character archetypes? Characters that do the kinds of things you'd want your beguiler/shadow assassin/dark knight/necromancer/etc. to be able to do, or that use dark magic as a sort of character building metaphore that you think would be neat as a metaphysical basis for dark magic that might then inspire interesting character types or mechanics?
I'm more familiar with books. Kylar Stern from The Night Angel trilogy is a great example. His power is "dark", but it is definately Good aligned.
I didn't mean to be especially low on the 'executioner' type. I actually like the Exec class quite a bit, for all I was disapointed by it's reduced shadowyness for HoS. I see room for such a class, but then again I could also see poisons incorporated into the repetoir of rogues who chose to invest some sort of character resources in their use.
I agree. I also don't think that poison use and shadow magic use need to be seperate for assassins.
really, I think that the wetboys from the Night Angels trilogy make a great example.
Dammit, you would get the the Night Angel trilogy as a good example of Shadow magic before me. And double damn to mallisten for nabbing the KH series, as well as Corona.
I'm sure I could think of other fun examples of people using shadow magic for good, or at least for interesting, but those were the easiest.
Oh, Cecil Harvey of FFIV, before turning to Paladin, and any class therafter within Final Fantasy that used Dark Knight abilities like Blood Blades or the Dark Force type ability (i.e. doing more damage to everyone at the cast of doing damage to yourself). I know there are many other anime and game examples, but that one's all I can think of for right now.
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quote author=56832398 post=519321747]Considering DnD is a game wouldn't all styles be gamist?
The final fantasy dark knight has a number of interesting abilities that can fit into a 'shadowish' character archetype...
You know, fudge it. I know power sources aren't going to be a thing anymore, and I've come to terms with it, I'm not even bitter about it. But for the purpose of this thread, I'll keep using the term "Shadow" to refer to characters with dark magic flavor, whether it's arcane, divine, a physical warrior who incorporates dark magic into their ability set, or whatever.
Pulling from a few different games, what do we get?
- Heavy armor, weapon user - mundane combat ability - hits hard with generic "fight" command - magical ability to sacrifice own health to deal more damage on physical strikes - magical ability to sacrifice own health to unleash area attacks - magical ability to drain health from the target (synergy!) - magical ability to attack enemy's magic point reserves / soul
That's actually a pretty interesting ability set, and I could very much see it forming the core of what a character does round by round in combat (ie, providing the foundation for an actual class). I think the blackguard does a pretty good job of some of that as well, particularly the domination blackguard who gets some of the life drain / sacrifice health feel down.
To play devil's advocate, though, is that an ability set that could be sufficiently well represented by an ability skin applied via a theme to 'fighter' or 'paladin' classes? I don't know. Maybe? I know I'd prefer it as a class, but I could honestly see it going both ways. The problem I have with it as an 'advanced theme' in particular is that those wouldn't kick in until later levels, a la paragon paths or prestige classes, meaning that the 'dark knight' would be a character that players wouldn't get to play right from level one. This is a problem I had with locking a lot of character concepts behind prestige classes in 3e - it makes players play characters that don't want to play for five or more levels before they're finally allowed to play the characters they do want to play, and even then it's usually something 'tacked on', rather than really worked into the characters play style on the fundamental level that an actual class allows.
Kyler Stern from the Night angel trilogy is a great example of the 'shadow assassin archetype. Invisibility, darkness, entropy, life consuption, a resurrection ability that cost the lives of friends or loved ones, that's neat and flavorful stuff added onto the usual 'skill monkey/mobility/finesse damage' roguish archetype in a way that could justify its own class. In the book, much of kyler's more magical powers later on came from an artifact rather than inherent or learned ability. But yeah, a lot of it works well for the kind of 'shadow assassin' archetype I'd like to see.
Then again, those powers were layered on top of an ability chassis much closer to the less magical executioner class than the more magical ossassin, and could arguably be reasonably well modeled by a rogue (if we allow for poison use as something a rogue can do or specialize in). If a rogue class could choose an arcanish background or design a custom background mixing stealth, infiltration, and arcana skills, then select a theme specializing in poison use, and then at a higher level select an advanced theme granting Shadow powers (maybe a shadowdancer theme including invisibility, creating darkness, teleportation through shadows, maybe even an animated shadow), maybe even a level dip in some kind of arcane class provided multiclassing casters wouldn't suffer from the problems it had in 3e, would that be adequate to convey the feel of this character archetype without needing an entire class dedicated to it? It certainly sounds like it could work. But as with applying the same strategy to dark knights (discussed above), doing it this way leaves you with a character who's cool dark magic abilities are somewhat tangential to their primary play style, which is still defined by their rogue class. And again it gates off the archetype from low level play - if you want to play a shadowdancer you've got to wait till level six, until then here's your non-magical rogue. Kyler may have had to go through such a journey, but I'm not sure I want to demand it out of everyone who wants to play that archetype.
For comparison purposes, take the 4e o-assassin. I liked the at-will teleportation right from level one, I liked the different feel of its striker mechanic. If the above design philosophy were applied to 4e, then we'd never have an ossassin class, instead we'd have a shadowy paragon path for rogue characters. To me, that isn't anything like as satisfying an implementation of the character concept as the actual assassin class was, for all I acknowledge its deep mechanical flaws, including flaws inseparably tied to the things I liked about it (I like the feel of how shrouds work, but delaying damage is inescapably in conflict with the striker role).
Or even in Schwalb's discussion of backgrounds and themes (now added to the OP), 'Necromancer' is given as an example of what might be an advanced theme of mystic. That bothers me, because the fundamental things you'd be doing every round of every day, in and out of combat, are the same things that every other wizard is doing. How is any sort of pet using concept supposed to work that way? If it's just tacked onto an independent wizard framework, how could it not be either two minor to be worth the hassle, or too powerful to be allowed to exist? Localized temporary effect spells taken in place of area temporary effect spells may work for a summoner (although most fans of that concept I know prefer Pathfinder's version for the always active and customizeable pet it uses), but for something like a necromancer, that's supposed to have lasting pets? I love the shaman's implementation of the pet class concept - but it's only able to avoid those problems with the concept by incorporating the pet into everything the character does right from the start, and that's the kind of design that from what I can tell necessitates its own class, it's not just a skin you can drop on an independent framework.
Then again, there are cool iconic fictional necromancers that do sort of fit into the mold of a wizard with a spooky skin more than something that revolves entirely around controlling the undead. Take Amanda Downum's Necromancer Chronicles (these are pretty awesome books by the way, if you hadn't read them). The protagonist, Isyllt Iskaldur, is a diplomat, spy, and wizard - specifically a necromancer. Seriously, she's James Bond, if he were a necromancer. You guys have got to read these books. Anyway, she doesn't do much animating of the dead, though - when it is done it's difficult to maintain even one corpse, and doing so requires the wizard's full concentration or the corpse just collapses. Mostly her magic involves entropy (sterilizing wounds, corroding locks, attack spells - though weaker than those used by fire guys) or interacting with spirits (seeing, summoning, interrogating ghosts, etc). In that setting, magic is divided by schools similar to D&D, but which school you enter is dependent on the nature of the wizards personal magic energy, not a choice of what field to study. Isyllt couldn't have simply chosen to be some other kind of wizard, and in general can't do the things other kinds of wizards do, and vice versa.
That said, I definitely see Isyllt as more of a "specialist wizard" than a "dread necromancer", if you understand my meaning. I could easily see her as a wizard class with a necromancy background that 'skins' her spells shadowy via altered damage types and grants access to limited animation powers that work more like summoning spells (whether summoning and controlling a spirit, or temporarily animating a corpse, but either way for only so long as she maintains active concentration). So while I love her, she does stand as a pretty good counter-example to the kinds of things I otherwise want out of these character types in 5e.
I think there's room for both a necromancy theme for wizards and a full class dedicated to controlling an undead pet or two. I thought there was room for both Necromancy Specialits and Dread Necromancers in 3e. But I'm pretty biased here, so others might disagree. Still, I hope there's at least one designer who feels that way working on 5e, so it can at least be discussed among those making such decisions.
As for 'ninja' as a name for a shadow assassin type class... I don't like it. Yeah, the orientalism does bother me, and I do think the connotations of the tropes that D&D designers are actively choosing to draw from in the here and now matter, and not examining them honestly when crafting a new iteration of the game would be, imo, just willfully ignorant. D&D is a great game, and I love the fantasy genre, but both D&D and fantasy in general have a decidedly mixed history when it comes to considerations of gender, race, ethnicity, and culture. Honest and considered examinations of non-western culture can add a wealth of inspiration to the game in terms of overarching themes and messages (I myself brought up the possibilities of recasting 'light and dark' in D&D based on the Eastern Yin Yang duality rather than the typical Western good/evil conflict. And, of course, Lore from non-Western cultures can add a wealth of material for fantasy creatures as well as compelling characters to inspire abilities for fantasy heroes and villains. But there is a line between opening a dialog with other cultural influences and just pulling superficial elements purely for their exoticism and recasting them in ways that subvert any original historical or cultural significance, and that's something that D&D and western fantasy in general has been guilty of all to frequently.
So anyway, yeah, I think cultural appropriation is an issue that needs to be considered whenever inspiration is drawn from a culture other then the designer's own. And personally, I think doing so would only improve the quality of the product itself by bringing the metaphorical, symbolic, or historical significance of these concepts along with their aesthetic trappings.
About Kylar's pre ka'kari abillities: He wasn't the wetboy he could have been, because he had no magic, remember? (well, couldn't access it).
In that regard, the wetboy is better seen by looking at Vi, Durzo and even Hu.
Ninjas, Monks and Asia:
Sure. Like I said, I don't give a damn what the origin of the overlap between monk and ninja in dnd is. It's not important to a consideration of what to do about it right now, unless some part of that history is still actively informing decision now, beyond the "this is what a monk is in DnD" being a result of the history of the monk.
We have to look at what DnD looks like right now, and what is good and bad about that, right now.
And honestly, the stealthy monk isn't even unreasonable.
Personally, I think the monk needs to be more like the 4e monk, which is pretty seperated from direct asian ties, while still having that "kung fu movie" feel that people want from the class. It can just as easily be used to make either of the main characters from Brotherhood of The Wolf as the characters from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. That's awesome.
More sex and gender equality and racial equality shouldn't even be an argument--it should simply be an assumption for any RPG that wants to stay relevant in the 21st century.
A thought came into my head and seeing as this thread hasn't fallen off of the front page, I think this isn't thread necromancy per say.
Even before 4E there's always been 3 broad elf stereotypes:
Wood-sy Elves who make the best rangers and druids (Primal)
High Elves who tend to focus on sorcery (Arcane)
Dark Elves drow who in DnD tend to focus on Divine if female or Assassination if male (Shadow?)
And even the females most of the time they don't war among themselves by putting on plate armor and beating the tar out of opponents with maces, they go about it with more secretive ways more Shadow like ways.
You know drow books are a given for any edition, and I'm not upset by that they're one of the most successful non-tolkien native races in Dnd, and seeing as one of their core archetypes is the assassin and even the most LG drow paladin will have a certain sinister aura around them most shadow characters will naturally have.
I mean, the underdark is a place shrouded in darkness, I see no reason that the use of shadow magic shouldn't be common.
Only issue I'd have is if that lead to a tie between shadow magic and the aberrant/Far Realm stuff that I'm seriously getting tired of.
More sex and gender equality and racial equality shouldn't even be an argument--it should simply be an assumption for any RPG that wants to stay relevant in the 21st century.
It's not thread necromancy if it's still on the top page, and if you're adding to the conversation rather than just bumping it. Besides, even if it were, seems appropriate for this thread.
Anyway, I'd also like to seen 'shadow' magic moved somewhat away from the far realm/stars/abberant stuff. To me, Shadow is at its most thematically juicy when it's something deeply personal - taking hold of the darkness within and unleashing it on the world around you, and this is pretty much 180 degress removed from the thematic foundation of the far realm, which is all about the utterly alien, the foreign interloper that does not belong. Likewise, I like shadow as part of a yin yang natural balance, even the undead might be viewed as a magical manifestation of the natural process of death, much as a fire or water elemental might be viewed as manifestations of natural processes. Far spawn, on the other hand, are again utterly alien, unnatural interlopers.
For me, shadow is about revealing the darker or suppressed parts of the self, while the abberant is about revealing how meaningless the mortal self - light, dark, or otherwise - is before the infinite gulf of the cosmos. As I view them, they're just not compatible concepts, thematically.
As for dark elves - this relates to the thread on revamping the feywild and shadowfell, but I always thought there was a lot of wasted potential there. The 4e cosmology has this classic trinity at its heart - world, feywild, shadowfell - and yet the designers never looked for other similar trinities that could have been tied to it, both in terms of traditional mythological lore outside of D&D (the triplet world would have lent itself so well to a classic pagan trinity of child, mother, and crone) and within D&D (bright magical world : neutral natural world : dark shadowy world :: high elves : wood elves : dark elves; I mean duh).
I would like to see a bit more thought put into thematic ties and implications and messages in 5th edition. Not establishing an assumed setting so much as establishing implied narratives tied to different abilities and character concepts. I thought they could have done a lot more with that in 4th ed vis a vis power source... but again, wasted potential, imo.
