MShipley88 wrote:The druid as presented is not a medieval point of view. It is much closer to a modern, secular whatever-ism. The game druid does not even match the historical druid. The concept of a defender of nature is entirely modern. Medieval Europeans (the people of 90% of fantasy game worlds) would not have even been able to understand the concept...would have returned only blank and puzzled stares even if you explained it to them. 8O The concept of "no moral component" is alien to heroic fantasy role-playing. Good and evil are starkly contrasted. The idea of remaining neutral in such a clash is incomprehensible. Even when the characters and the conflicts take on modern tones (such as the Elric novels), even the evil guys know they are evil. :evil: So, the druids on the sidelines, yawning enormously, are not one of the better components of the game. :roll: Mark
Deadlord36 wrote:Sooooooo, about that objectionable art..............
Achizar wrote:Well, Daoism is hardly modern OR secular. That leads to the question of (1) whether D&D druids are meant to represent Daoist principles and (2) if so, whether they belong in the default D&D milieu any more than monks do (and EGG is on record as saying that the latter really didn't). As for what historical druids did or what medieval Europeans would have understood, I doubt they would have comprehended killing orcs or finding the Eye of Vecna, either, so that's not really the litmus test. Obviously the game is not intended to be a realistic historical simulation.Your strongest point is the one about heroic fantasy. I admit it's hard to imagine how true neutrality fits in this scheme, though I wonder whether that's more to do with the conceit or our lack of imagination.It's hard. People struggle with paladins, too, for I think the same reason. The alignment requirements of these classes require a very fine sense of moral subtleties and if you paint them with too broad a brush, the classes become caricatures at best and unplayable at worst.
Achizar wrote:That can work in the short term in a typical party of PCs (killing orcs to prevent them from overrunning the countryside), but could be difficult long term (because inevitably a TN will have to prevent someone good from overreaching as well). All this speaks more to the difficulties of TN as a concept than it does the druid as a PC class, though, at least if you concede that druids can be NG/NE.
NetRodent wrote:Achizar wrote:That can work in the short term in a typical party of PCs (killing orcs to prevent them from overrunning the countryside), but could be difficult long term (because inevitably a TN will have to prevent someone good from overreaching as well). All this speaks more to the difficulties of TN as a concept than it does the druid as a PC class, though, at least if you concede that druids can be NG/NE.The Good/Evil axis of alignment always struck me as very subjective. The paladin that slays a rampaging horde of orcs, did good when measured by human standards. When measured by orcish standards, the paladin is evil because he slew a migratory tribe of orcs looking for new lands to settle and raise families. The Druidic neutreal comes from realizing that the countryside is being overrun by both orcs and humans, and neither side has the best interest of the "countrside" itself at heart; they both want to exploit it.Furthermore, consider Tree-beard from Lord of the Rings. He's as close to a neutral character as possible. "Which side are you on?" one of the Hobbits asks. "I'm on nobodies side, because nobody is on my side" the ent replies. The ents didn't care about the epic struggle between good and evil because it didn't involve them. The ents couldn't have cared less if the orcs killed every last man, elf, and hobbit; they only sacked Isengard because the orcs were destroying the forest.
Deadlord36 wrote:Well, they had a long-standing feud with orcs anyways, so killing them was a personal thing.Excellent point, the Ents are probably the closest thing to Neutral possible.
deimos3428 wrote:Deadlord36 wrote:Well, they had a long-standing feud with orcs anyways, so killing them was a personal thing.Excellent point, the Ents are probably the closest thing to Neutral possible.I'm going for a half-ent/half-green slime druid!
The Good/Evil axis of alignment always struck me as very subjective. The paladin that slays a rampaging horde of orcs, did good when measured by human standards. When measured by orcish standards, the paladin is evil because he slew a migratory tribe of orcs looking for new lands to settle and raise families. The Druidic neutreal comes from realizing that the countryside is being overrun by both orcs and humans, and neither side has the best interest of the "countrside" itself at heart; they both want to exploit it.
Furthermore, consider Tree-beard from Lord of the Rings. He's as close to a neutral character as possible. "Which side are you on?" one of the Hobbits asks. "I'm on nobodies side, because nobody is on my side" the ent replies. The ents didn't care about the epic struggle between good and evil because it didn't involve them. The ents couldn't have cared less if the orcs killed every last man, elf, and hobbit; they only sacked Isengard because the orcs were destroying the forest.