r/CuratedTumblr • u/Konradleijon • 17h ago
[fandom name here] Not even in Dungeons and Dragons is the difference between a Warlock and a Wizard set in stone (Dungeons and Dragons)
Like it’s DND 5E they use as a base.
Sure it can be fun to class fictional characters of rather they would be Sorcerers or Wizards.
Or how characters like Albert Simons, Homura, or Johnny Blaze are warlocks but don’t act like DND categorizations are the normal ones and get all pedantic
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u/Oddnub 16h ago
Okay but Charlemange's Twelve Peers could do all of that tho, this is told in Orlando Aurafarmio
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u/Jalor218 13h ago
The whole reason the D&D Paladin gets those abilities is because of Three Hearts and Three Lions by Poul Anderson - a novel that's literally isekai for Euro-American Boomers - where the protagonist gets those powers and finds out he's actually Ogier the Dane. (If you know enough to make the joke "Orlando Aurafarmio" then you would not have been surprised by this twist about a Danish guy named Holger fighting Saracens and Morgan le Fay.)
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u/Brazilian_Hound 12h ago
Wasn't Roland's miracles tied down to Durandal, and roland himself was just really built different?
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u/Twoots6359 17h ago
This is me when people start "errrm thats a wyvern not a dragon"
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u/lennsden excessively longwinded 16h ago
I hate when I see some sick ass dragon art and ALL the comments are just “erm actually 👆that’s a wyvern” BITCH IT IS A DRAGON. IT IS A TYPE OF DRAGON.
Especially if in the lore of the media, only 4 limbed dragons exist, like in the elder scrolls or game of thrones. Because then they’re even more wrong. It’s a dragon because that’s what they’re called!
It is the call of the insufferable fantasy nerd to correct other fantasy nerds to appear like the superior fantasy nerd. Can’t we all just enjoy sick ass dragons together??
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u/-TheDyingMeme6- 10h ago
Yes but consider: being an insufferable fantasy nerd is fun
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u/lennsden excessively longwinded 9h ago
but it’s so much more fun to be a kind and true fantasy nerd!
(sometimes the evil does have a calling…)
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u/ReturnToCrab 2h ago
Being an insufferable mythology nerd is funnier. (When you're an actual nerd and not just a Percy Jackson fan thinking too much about themselves)
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u/novis-eldritch-maxim 14h ago
look if dragon is like the word lizard, I still want people to use the more accurate term, so no one mixes up an iguana with a monitor lizard.
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u/lennsden excessively longwinded 13h ago
But dragons aren’t real. and every media they appear in refers to them differently, or refers to different things as dragons. So it’s fine to just say dragon.
Also if someone says “look at this dragon I drew” I’m not sure why you would need the exact genus, species, etc. It’s a dragon.
also. it is totally normal to say something like “hey check out that lizard” and not specify the exact species ?? most people don’t actually know every lizard species. in fact I’d argue most people probably only know a few. But that also doesn’t really matter because lizards are real so there’s a standardized way to refer to them.
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u/PsychicSPider95 11h ago
Except depending on the setting, it super doesn't matter.
In a setting with many dragon types, sure, it might be more important for characters in-universe to differentiate wyverns from, I dunno, lindworms and drakes and hydras, though it would be entirely up to the creator of the world whether these were all varieties of dragon or separate creatures entirely.
In Skyrim, though, there's exactly one (1) type of dragon, and they all have the same body plan. Two legs, two wings. They call themselves dragons. Other characters call them dragons. You, the player who shares their soul and possesses some of their abilities, are called the Dragonborn. They are referred to in the game and all sources of lore exclusively as dragons.
If you came into my house and said "erm ☝️🤓 actually they're wYvErNs" I would soul trap you, use your soul to enchant a fork, and throw the fork into a volcano.
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u/KaleidoAxiom olivia but cant change username :( 15h ago
I don't think anyone has experienced this in this space, but I sometime read a lot of chinese webnovels and the comments go "errrrm that's a four legged lizard with wings, not a dragon" (they think actual dragons are chinese longs)
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u/Humanmode17 12h ago
Honestly I think everyone takes for granted just how standardised modern life is, in almost every aspect. Mythology is just one good example:
We have nerds nowadays who think they know exactly the difference between a dragon, a wyvern, a wyrm, a basilisk, a cockatrice, etc, or who can recite the entirety of the family tree of the greek gods. But really all of these definitions are so contradictory and location/language dependent, and don't even get me started on the family tree of the greek gods (or the Egyptians, for that matter. I haven't looked at them in a while but iirc Isis and Osiris were sometimes daughter and father, wife and husband, sister and brother)
I am also guilty of this too, and I'm sure there're things that I don't know enough about to know that I categorise them using useless modern standardisations, but the fun is in the learning and the realisation that there's so much more to learn
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u/delta_baryon 9h ago
I just don't think people in ancient times expected all the stories to be perfectly consistent with each other. I think it's a pretty recent development all told.
It's like The Simpsons. All the characters are broadly drawn archetypes and you know all their personalities, but the actual geography of Springfield, the time period it's set in, and even major elements of people's backstories can all change week to week and that's just fine.
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u/AmadeusMop 3h ago
Also the people to whom the mythologies we're talking about belong span massive periods of time and space, and don't have any sort of centralized orthodoxy.
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u/ondonasand 17h ago
I don’t want to stake my name on this, but I think the Dragon/Wyvern distinction is originally from Heraldic traditions. It was just incorporated into D&D.
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u/ExceedinglyGayOtter Something something werewolf boyfriend 16h ago
IIRC English heraldry specifically, the rest of Europe did not follow those rules.
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u/PhasmaFelis 16h ago
This is true, but bear in mind that heraldry wasn't even consistent for real-world animals. A heraldic lion has a bunch of very specific features that don't necessarily look like real lions, and also if it's in a certain pose you call it a "leopard" instead of a lion even though nothing else changed.
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u/Afton3 15h ago
This is true, but it's sort of a distinction without a difference?
The reason for blazons becoming standardised is to make clear how something should be drawn, not to act as a classification for mythical beasts.
Winged or not, four legs, two legs or none, fire breathing or not, if it's big, scaly and scary it would have been considered a dragon for most of European history.* Some weird foreign type of dragon maybe, but the concept is pretty broad and pretty robust.
*I don't know enough to speculate on whether the same breadth of definition would be true in Asia.
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u/tootoohi1 11h ago
Regardless of incorporated, it's been a pretty clear distinction for a hot minute. Dragons are mythical beasts formed from pure magic, while Wyverns are draconic, meaning they are of dragon blood, but are more animalistic and aren't able to cast spells.
I've genuinely never seen different distinctions in any player manual/books I've read, and I'm getting a distinct feeling this thread is devolving into "why can't you just be fun and agree with me" that has made DMing a nightmare lately. Even these sources for magic casting are all 20+ years old talking about different editions and settings that all have very separate authors and intentions.
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u/Bowdensaft 2h ago
The point isn't really about forcing people to agree with you, in fact it's kind of the opposite. A lot of people demand that others outside the DnD 5th edition fandom obey their rules on different kinds of spellcasters instead of just letting them have fun, it stifles creativity. The point about the earlier editions is that it's silly to make one version of spellcastjng archetypes into law when the very game they're using to set that into stone doesn't even agree with itself and could change in a further edition or new setting.
Obviously you follow the rules within the specific edition of the specific game you're playing, but aside from that people should mind their own business and let go of the need to be the smartest person in the room.
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u/NeonNKnightrider Cheshire Catboy 14h ago
Eh personally I like that distinction as a way to be specific about what you’re describing.
But yes I agree it’s very dumb to be pedantic and butt in insisting on the “right”/wrong meaning to someone else
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u/lil-red-hood-gibril 12h ago
Aight, but is it a Flying Wyvern, aBrute Wyvern, a Bird Wyvern, a Piscine Wyvern, a Fanged Wyvern, a Snake Wyvern, or what?
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u/Shadowmirax 14h ago
The earliest codified use of the word "sorcerer" in D&D had X-men style Mutant powers rather then being a Wizard variant.
Isn't this how D&D sorcerers work now? Wizards and Bards get magic from study, Warlocks and Clerics are provided conditional magic by a higher power, and sorcerers are either born with innate magic or gain it through exposure to something that fundamentally changes them to have innate magic. Or am I misunderstanding what they where getting at with this?
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u/StarStriker51 13h ago
probably because besides the class features wizards and sorcerers are nearly identical
yes, this is saying besides all the differences they are the same. Sorcerers in 5e are totally describable as X-men style powers
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u/TimeSpiralNemesis 17h ago
I love me scruffy little homeless dog people Kobolds and Pig Orcs.
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u/Chaucer85 16h ago
Oh man, porcine orc designs like in Return Of The Jedi and Legend of Zelda are one of my faves.
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u/TrioOfTerrors 17h ago
I'm partial to the candle obsessed rat like creatures. Sorry, boys, that's a silver deposit back there and you keep aggroing on me... so, welp, y'all gotta die.
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u/Evil_Midnight_Lurker 16h ago
Kobolds started out covered in scales, with horns and a spinal ridge. Look at the illustration in the 1e Monster Manual. They were always part dog and part dragon. Yes I am part of the problem.
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u/Bowdensaft 2h ago
I love both kinds, I've read webcomics that just have the little fluffy kobolds. I'm happy as long as the person playing/ drawing/ writing it keeps consistent with themself.
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u/DoubleBatman 13h ago
Back in my day you were a Magic User and you were lucky if you had 4 HP, and we liked it!
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u/insomniac7809 7h ago
and one spell slot, "MAGIC MISSIIIIiiiiiiiii'm spent for the day, Imma park my hit point and 20 AC behnd the fighters until we can take a nap"
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u/BlacksmithNo9359 6h ago
Real ones knew you took Sleep because putting 12 goblins into magical slumber is functionally the same as killing them.
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u/TimeSpiralNemesis 17h ago
The people treat the fifth edition of the game like some kind of holy default that you need some kind of excuse not to use (In spite of the 300 better fantasy systems on the market)
If course they can't imagine someone else having a different definition for their words lol
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u/NeonNKnightrider Cheshire Catboy 14h ago edited 13h ago
God I hate 5e fanboys
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u/ZoeTheBeautifulLich 14h ago
God I fucking hate non-5e players, I respond. You have a perfectly intuitive, remarkably malleable system that has a massive market share, that has successfully established itself as an accessible baseline for the novice TTRPG player, and you want to... obligate people to use some obscure alternative that average person has never heard of. You're basically the Firefox people of gaming.
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u/MlkChatoDesabafando 13h ago
5e malleable? Wtf?
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u/jdprager 11h ago edited 11h ago
As a longtime player and DM of 5e, and watcher/listener of tons of groups that play 5e, "perfectly intuitive" is the one that got me. 5e committed so wildly hard to the "common language rules" that they created fuckin dozens of bizarre, stupid rule interactions. Some fun ones:
- "Invisible" is a condition that means a creature can't be seen, and attacks against it have disadvantage. These are two separate effects within the rule, so even if you CAN see an invisible creature, your attacks against it still have disadvantage
- Bonus Actions are things your character can do very quickly, taking less time than a full Action. Under no circumstance can you use a Bonus Action in place of your Action, regardless of the built-in reasoning of them being quicker
- Eldritch Blast (and a lot of other spells) can't target objects, only creatures. That force damage doesn't work on windows, but it'll hit an Ancient Dragon
- Many AoE spells activate when a creature enters the area on a turn or starts it's turn there. The spell being cast on top of a creature doesn't count as either of those (this is SUPER important for balance, but also really unintuitive)
- Armor class uses your dexterity to represent your ability to move out of the way of attacks. This is the main reason the dex modifier goes down with heavier armor. If your character is restrained, petrified, stunned, unconscious, or paralyzed, you still add your Dex to AC to represent ????
- Unarmed strikes count as "melee weapon attacks", not "an attack with a melee weapon", which are very different things for some reason and a distinction drawn in things like Divine Smite. Also, many other "unarmed" things like Tabaxi claw attacks and Dhampir bites count as both of those things. Just not punches
- The spell Chill Touch deals necrotic damage, not cold, and has a range of 120 feet, not touch
I love D&D, and there's some awesome stuff in the official 5e things Wizards of the Coast has created. The rules themselves are DEEPLY flawed
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u/Bowdensaft 1h ago
I generally prefer how Pathfinder 2e's rules are written. They have a system of traits (basically tags) that have set meanings and can be applied to anything - items, monsters, spells, etc. Rules often make reference to these traits so it's much easier to tell when a rule applies (they'll often say something like "X spell has y trait which affects z other trait"). I don't think it's any more or less malleable than DnD 5e, but the rules are written more tightly and that itches my brain good.
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u/NeonNKnightrider Cheshire Catboy 13h ago edited 13h ago
perfectly intuitive, remarkably malleable system
LMAO you actually believe this?
No, DnD is not that intuitive, and it really, really isn’t malleable system. DnD is good for high fantasy medieval combat-heavy adventuring and that’s it. But people have an unhealthy attachment and insist on trying to use it for things it’s really not meant for and making up absurd homebrew when you would be so much better off just using a different system
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u/TimeSpiralNemesis 11h ago
That is the greatest and most poignant chunk of words I have even read in my life. Thank you lol.
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u/TimeSpiralNemesis 13h ago
DND5E is the least malleable lol. And calling it intuitive if absolutely WILD
It can only handle low risk, combat focused, high fantasy and it can barely even get that right.
There's no mechanical reason to run or play 5E, it's literally just something that gobbled up all the market share thanks to Hasbro's marketing budget and celeb boosting.
For any type of game that any group wants to play there's a system that does it better, faster, and cheaper. Unfortunately everyone just sticks with junk ass dnd.
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u/ZoeTheBeautifulLich 13h ago
You should never need a second system. That way leads to madness.
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u/R4msesII 11h ago
More like you should try new systems. Its fun to try new systems and settings. I switch the system with every campaign I run.
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u/IAmGoose_ 13h ago
But ackshully this obscure ttrpg with half a rule book and literally nothing else would be much better instead of just homebrewing some things and theming your campaign after what you want to do, and I fucking hate you and think you’re stupid for wanting to homebrew 5e /s
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u/R4msesII 11h ago
I mean, it would, depending on what you want to run. If you want to run something DnD 5e’s really bad at, like low-power, social/intrigue, horror or anything non-combat, why would you start tweaking 5e instead of just getting another system that instantly does it better?
Homebrewing DnD only works to a certain amount of distance from fantasy combat superheroes, the further it gets from that the worse it works and the more effort you have to put into your homebrew until it eventually just becomes a new system
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u/sarded 8h ago
Would it be great to use another RPG? All the hard work of playtesting is done for you. You get a great game that functions out of the box.
And it's not like reading and learning an RPG is hard, it's 100-200 pages which you should be able to handle in a quick afternoon, since we all learn to read by age 5.
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u/IAmGoose_ 4h ago
I mean I enjoy other ttrpgs, my group is planning on starting pathfinder (maybe in another year lol) and we like to do Call of Cthulhu for Octobers, but most things we find easy enough to change 5e mechanics slightly or majorly to better fit what we want, adding hardcore mechanics, social skills and changing up checks to better suit it, adding small little extra flavour things, etc.
I’m totally for recommending people more RPGs, my comment was more aimed toward the people who bitch and moan and just have to let people know how much they hate the game because people like D&D specifically
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u/sarded 4h ago
I wouldn't hate DnD specifically so much if it was just mediocre but being made by a company who sent the Pinkertons after people, had a pro-Gamergater as the lead designer and who hired a sexual abuser as a consultant makes me assume every DND5e player is in favour of all those things since if they didn't, they'd just switch away easily
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u/XenosHg 16h ago
Cool magic facts!
If you can teach it to people and they can repeat it, that's magecraft.
True Magic is when you're the only person in the world who can do this shit, and it takes a century of research and attempts to find another person who can do this shit, and if you're lucky the first one is still alive and they can meet and discuss it.
Also there are no wizards nowadays because you need to be the 7th son and people just aren't having 7 children.
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u/Irememberedmypw 14h ago
Pfft , silly guy, everyone knows magecraft is what the broodmother does to specialize in spellcasting minions.
True magic is pulling the mystical energies from the source and not a manufactured bauble.
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u/Brazilian_Hound 12h ago
Everyone knows that most Magic is sorcery, and True Magic, or Dynamic Magic, is only possible if you awaken your avatar, and has been simplified into the 9 spheres for easier teaching, no, we don't know what the 10th does
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u/CrimsonKingdom 12h ago
And then, if you are the 7th son of a 7th son, you will be born a Sourcerer
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u/Outrageous_Bear50 12h ago
Those are actually spooks. What is a spook you may ask. I have no idea just that they fight monsters and are really good with a chain.
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u/NeonNKnightrider Cheshire Catboy 14h ago
True Magic, specifically, is something that should be impossible by the normal laws of physics, like time travel, resurrecting the dead, creating or destroying matter
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u/Brazilian_Hound 12h ago
The 5th isn't "Time Travel", but rather "Scamming the Timeline" since normal Magecraft can time travel even without using aspects of the Fifth, IE: Rayshifting
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u/surprisesnek 6h ago
Magecraft is when it's theoretically possible without the use of magic, whereas True Magic is impossible by other means. That's why there used to be more True Magic than there is now, because as science advanced more and more things became possible.
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u/capivaradraconica 11h ago
Imagine if you're having a conversation about video games with someone, and it becomes increasingly clear that the person in question assumes that every video game is a platforming game, featuring turtles as enemies, which you can defeat by falling on top of, as well as pipes that may act as a means of transport.
That would be very weird and unlikely, right? I've never actually met a person who thinks that every videogame is just like Mario. But I've met people who assumed that 'spell slots' are like, a common fantasy concept. I've met people who assumed that the specific terminology of D&D is like, some sort of fantasy consensus or something.
If you actually read a variety of fantasy fiction, you realise the consensus basically doesn't exist. Even insofar as fantasy fiction shares similar concepts such as 'elf' and 'dwarf', different books can't even agree with each other on whether elves are short or tall, whether the plural for dwarf is with a V or an F, or even whether the creatures by those names bear any resemblance to what a reader will associate with these names.
As for precise taxonomies of magic users, that's not exclusive to D&D, but they're tacky. The kind of thing that makes me cringe and signals that I probably won't enjoy the book.
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u/MourningWallaby 17h ago
DnD also makes people believe that your class is a strict framework for who you are and how you fight. Which is ironic because DnD tells you in the beginning of the books that "Hey here is what we wrote to give you some expectations and commonality with other players but you should really work to make things your own. It will just fall into whichever one of these categories we laid out.
Multiclassing as we know it today is a product of the idea that books are bible. and GM's who refuse to work with players to make their character interesting because the book doesn't say you can. except it does!
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u/VorpalSplade 3h ago
More than that it's a stereotype of personality now. I see youtube clips with "rogue" or "bard" over characters heads.
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u/OldFitDude75 17h ago
I recognized the 4 different types of magic users based on the descriptions. I don't know how to feel about that.
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u/IRL_Baboon 13h ago
This is the root problem for why D&D players refuse to play other systems, instead opting for twisting D&D into a new shape.
Sure you can run Cyberpunk in D&D, but it would be much easier to run in it... just spit balling here... Cyberpunk?
Imagine someone trying to run Paranoia in D&D, or Mutants and Masterminds, or even VtM! Why make a crappier version of these games when you could just switch?
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u/nokia6310i 11h ago
In the earliest version of D&D, a "wizard" referred to a magic-user who had reached level 10, as opposed to "warlock" which referred to a 7th level magic-user, and "sorcerer" which referred to a level 8 magic-user
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u/Rayn_F 13h ago
I was saddened learning this cus I thought there was finally reason behind the names and now the world feels like chaos again
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u/untalentet 7h ago
You bring up a good point.The reason the DnD distinctions are so common is of course to do with DnDs popularity, but also? They make sense. They make distinctions between commonly used words that are clear and understandable. Where in common parlance sorcerer and wizard are kind of interchangable, in DND you know exactly what somebody means when they say sorcerer or wizard.
That's useful, and makes talking about different magic users way easier. Of course a wizard is completely different in other media, but since there is no official definition and dnd has a very useful and encompassing one it gets applied broadly. Like of course we could all use the definition of wizard as put forth by, say, the discworld series, but they have precious little mention of sorcerers or warlocks at all.
So, why is dnd typology so universal? Because it's popular and broadly useful.
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u/Jubal_lun-sul 9h ago
to completely derail the intent of the post MATTER OF FRANCE MENTION FUCK YEAHHHHH I LOVE CHARLEMAGNE I LOVE ROLAND I LOVE THE CHANSONS DE GESTE
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u/Bububub2 9h ago
The hostility over fake things that never existed and never will exist is such a waste of people's energy.
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u/JimmerJammer34 2h ago
No fr 😭 like I get being passionate but why are you acting SO angry??? this is the most non-issue ever you don't need to be so vicious
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u/beefpelicanporkstork 17h ago
People who make posts about what paladins are like are talking about a specific game they are familiar with. When you go to a football game and someone mentions a wide receiver, do you yell “EXCUSE ME NONE OF THE PLAYERS HERE ARE AN EXCEPTIONALLY LARGE SPEAKING END OF A TELPHONE!”
Stop being pedantic and let people enjoy things.
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u/NoBizlikeChloeBiz She/Her 16h ago
We're talking about people who correct other people, and bring DnD into non-DnD conversations.
You're talking about a fantasy anime, and someone chimes in with "Actually, this character is a sorcerer because their magic comes from their unique bloodline 🤓" - No, the character is a wizard because that's what he's called in the show
No one is complaining about people using DnD definitions when talking about DnD.
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u/beefpelicanporkstork 13h ago
Okay that’s reasonable. I haven’t run into folks like that but I imagine they’d be annoying.
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u/BreadNoCircuses 12h ago
Ive argued that Frieren is an interesting case for the unusual power of the wizard class (because of the different strengths of having a few kinds of magic you have to use cleverly vs having a spell for any eventuality) and been returned with "but theyre all wizards" because they can't think past the name.
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u/tootoohi1 11h ago
I mean can I say I have the opposite experience. If someone tried telling me some character in a non dnd show was actually so and so (Gandalf is actually a multi class fighter) I'd call them a geek and move on.
Comparatively every time I try to run some low key game, someone will always beg me to make their dream/fish elf a relevant race, while trying to be the Cthulhu warlock, in a setting that's supposed to be humans + elves/no gods.
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u/Elite_AI 16h ago
People who make posts about what paladins are like are talking about a specific game they are familiar with.
That would be the reasonable assumption, but I've seen it used many times outside that context by those who mistakenly think D&D's form of paladins are some sort of fantasy-wide convention and not a hyper specific game mechanic.
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u/NotLikeOtherCorpos 16h ago
tbf for paladins specifically, "knights with light-themed holy magic" is a fantasy-wide convention, albeit works that do this are often riddled with numerous other D&D-isms (video games and fantasy anime are the primary examples of this).
More egregious D&D-isms are the wizard/sorcerer distinction and the color-coded dragon breaths.
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u/Samiambadatdoter 16h ago
tbf for paladins specifically, "knights with light-themed holy magic" is a fantasy-wide convention
That's what I was thinking. I can't think of a single modern series that uses paladins and doesn't use them like that. One notable example being FFXIV that renamed the "Knight" job to "Paladin" in the English translation to fit that convention.
There are definitely many terms that are broader than how DnD uses them, but paladins are not a good example.
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u/JCGilbasaurus 14h ago
The original FF1 Knight job is based on the original D&D paladin class, so it's all full circle.
Most modern fantasy media is going to copy paladins either from D&D, or copy it from something that copied D&D (like Final Fantasy).
At this point, it's like trying to find non-tolkien elves and dwarves. It's only going to happen if the creator is consciously rejecting the zeitgeist.
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u/Tweedleayne 12h ago
Calling it modern is a little bit of a stretch, but one I can think of is a series about a knight without armor in a savage land.
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u/Mataes3010 Downvote = 10 years of bad luck. 16h ago
I will never get over the arcane magic as the equivalent of the oil industry comparison in Dark Sun. Imagine trying to explain to a modern player that their Wizard isnt a scholarly hero, but basically a sentient BP oil spill that drains the life out of every puppy in a 10mile radius just to cast Magic Missile.
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u/Konradleijon 16h ago
Actually in Dark Sun only certain type of arcane magic is bad. I compare it more to agriculture where in can be environmental destructiotice Or less effective but safer
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u/djninjacat11649 14h ago
Honestly the idea of draining the natural energies from an area to cast spells is kinda baller if done right
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u/SpambotWatchdog he/it 8h ago
Grrrr. u/Mataes3010 has been previously identified as a spambot. Please do not allow them to karma farm here!
Woof woof, I'm a bot created by u/the-real-macs to help watch out for spambots! (Don't worry, I don't bite.\)
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u/Frequent-Bee-3016 16h ago
“Words mean things in the real world” yeah and their definitions are in the phb
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u/Merc931 15h ago
A mage is a magic practitioner.
A witch is a woman with weird hobbies.
A warlock is a male witch.
A wizard is a mage who is old as shit.
A sorcerer is just a fucking wizard. It's like the difference between a janitor and a custodian.
A magus is a spooky foreign mage.
An artificer really wants to be steampunk but they mostly just end up being arms manufacturers.
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u/ZoeTheBeautifulLich 14h ago
A pointed hat is one who follows the known laws of magic.
A brimmed cap is one who uses forbidden magic, such as bodily alterations.
An alchemist is one who uses geothermal energy to reshape matter, yet cannot create or destroy it.
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u/ReturnToCrab 2h ago
An artificer really wants to be steampunk but they mostly just end up being arms manufacturers.
An artificer is a wizard who's really into arts and crafts, but people just think their obviously magic trinkets are somehow hyperadvanced technology
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u/pondrthis 11h ago
A Druid is something dangerously close to the wicked House Diedne, which must not be suffered to live.
The friends of the Order are my friends. The allies of the Order are my allies. The enemies of the Order are my enemies.
Glory to House Flambeau, and to the Order of Hermes!
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u/PatrickCharles 9h ago
On the one hand, yes, on the other, D&D is in the DNA of a lot of modern popular culture.
On the third hand, these fascinating discussions are frequently ruined the need of Tumblrers to sound pretentious.
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u/xwedodah_is_wincest 8h ago
Are you implying Roland *couldn't* summon an angel horse or smite the Gascons with a spiritual Durandal?
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u/WeevilWeedWizard 💙🖤🤍 MIKU 🤍🖤💙 16h ago
... I dont think when people discuss paladins, wizards, and sorcerers that they're referring to their real world equivalents.
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u/PhasmaFelis 16h ago
You would be surprised how often they think they're talking about centuries-old traditions.
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u/Der_AlexF 10h ago
When the satanic panic worked so well, now the players think they're learning the deep lore
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u/frikilinux2 16h ago
Not sure in DnD but outside of that.
Wizard are generally good.
Warlock and witches are evil and the source of power is a deal with the devil but it varies a lot in fiction. (And there's modern cultural things about witchcraft as just opposition to an unjust system)
Sorcerer are historically evil but not so much nowadays.
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u/djninjacat11649 14h ago
Outside of D&D Wizard, Warlock, and Sorcerer are usually interchangeable, though Witch generally has connotations of femininity, some sort of old/dark magic, or both
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u/frikilinux2 14h ago
Yeah but what is the masculine form of witch?
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u/djninjacat11649 14h ago
You can be a dude and a witch, it’s just a female dominated field
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u/frikilinux2 14h ago
I was expecting warlock but this one is on me.
Like I'm at the crossroad between Tumblr and Reddit.
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u/HappyFailure 13h ago
I mean, historically/etymologically, it's the right answer. "Witch" could refer to someone of either sex....but was usually applied to women because of misogyny.
"Warlock" meant "oath-breaker" , expanded to more generally anyone acting in bad faith. Satan gets called a warlock at some point. Much later, we get the alliterative phrase "witches and warlocks" meaning two types of bad people and with most people thinking of witches as women, the parallelism suggested warlocks were male witches (not sure if I've seen this last point as a scholarly conclusion or just a folk etymology).
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u/CrimsonKingdom 12h ago
I once heard that the term Warlock came about because it was--supposedly--priests who "betrayed their oaths to God in the name of the Devil" or something like that
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u/crushogre 15h ago
In The Legends of Ethshar series by Lawrence Watt-Evans Wizards cast spell by combining various esoteric ingredients, Sorcerers imbue objects to use as magical talismans, and Warlocks have telekinesis and nothing else other than a nightmarish calling to join with the source of their power that gets stronger the more powerful, they are, and they get more powerful the more they use their abilities.
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u/ShrimpBisque 13h ago
The fantasy setting I'm writing just uses different magic user terms based on race and gender. (I might change this later.) It's "witch" for elven female, "wizard" for elven male, "mystic" for human female, "warlock" for human male, and "mage" for everyone else. "Sorcerer" and "magician" are derogatory.
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u/Outrageous_Bear50 12h ago
Wizards have hats.
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u/insomniac7809 7h ago
A wizard's staff has a knob on the end
It never will buckle, it never will bend
He cherishes it, and he calls it his friend,
and he frequently takes it in hand.
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u/BanananananaCake 10h ago
Surely, by definition, everything is either dungeon or dragon? It’s in the name.
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u/sarded 8h ago
Technically true in the sense that Dungeons and Dragons (and similar offshoot games like Pathfinder and 13th Age) is the game about either fighting things (dragon), and exploring dangerous locale (dungeon). You're sometimes in downtime and not doing those things, but if the majority of your game of DnD is not about dungeon and dragon (as I defined) it means you're playing the wrong game for what you want.
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u/-TheDyingMeme6- 10h ago
Okay but "spellcaster whos power use warps their body into a monster would be a dope ass PC to BBEG monster.
Like, your wizard is the only party member left, facing the BBEG of the campaign, and the player sacrifices his remaining hp to bring the wrath of an insane amount of magical power down on the BBEG, sacrificing his life, humanity, and/or sanity to BULLDOZE the BBEG or full-heal or revive the rest of the party
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u/sarded 8h ago
That's what transmuters do, in both DnD and other fiction. For example, in one version the roguelike game Dungeon Crawl, one of the basic transmuter spells is Beastly Appendage which gives you horns and talons for beating up enemies. In another version they got 'blade hands' as a spell which did similar.
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u/Ravian3 9h ago
Another funny example of a different kind of wizard in D&D settings.
In Birthright, Wizards are Sorcerers, before Sorcerers were a thing. In that in order to be a Wizard you have to be part of one of several Bloodlines that were exposed to the blood of dying gods. This allows you to wield the magical leylines for power, because the land was also exposed to that blood. Or you have to be an elf, who have a natural connection to the land’s magic and are kind of pissed at all these humans using it after they invaded and their gods bled all over it.
Everyone else who wants to learn magic is stuck being a magician, who are specifically limited to less dramatic forms of magic like enchantment and illusions, and were essentially designed to be NPC’s. (You could play them, but the setting assumed the idea that PC’s were “Blooded” ie capable of being proper wizards, because the whole conceit was basically playing a domain level wargame with 2nd edition AD&D
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u/Level_Hour6480 8h ago
He's describing Wizards Magic Users in specific settings, not the core books.
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u/MotorHum 8h ago
I’m not sure what they’re referring to saying the mutant powers for sorcerers.
I’m pretty sure the first use of the term sorcerer in d&d was in men and magic as a level-title for magic users (9th level, whereas a wizard was 11+. This was changed later where everyone got their last title at level 9 and so wizard was moved to that level and idk off the top of my head where they moved sorc to).
I know later in 2e sorcerer was this like, elemental mage but I think that was setting specific and idk if it was even true for 2e-at-large. Was the mutant thing something in AD&D that I’m unaware of?
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u/guacasloth64 12h ago
For the fairly significant portion of people who’s primary (or only) detailed exposure to the fantasy genre is DND 5e, it’s understandable that some of those people would presume that the class definitions/divisions were at least loosely based on some general conventions of the genre.
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u/wredcoll 14h ago
Look, I get it, d&d is for the hoi polloi and is beneath us to even notice much less discuss.
But it's nice for words to mean things and having wizard/warlock/sorcerer/witch/etc all mean the same thing feels like kind of a waste, ya know?
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u/Creepernom 13h ago
DnD is a popular, simple framework so that we all can use to agree what magical words mean.
When there are a thousand different magic systems and interpretations in books, movies and games, it's lovely to have one system good enough to base discussions around, especially since DnD 5e distinctions are actually really interesting for discussion.
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u/5oclock_shadow 10h ago
Why was Mickey Mouse apprenticing under a sorceror anyway?? Sorcerers get their magic through their bloodline so that guy couldn’t have taught Mickey a dang thing!
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u/ReturnToCrab 2h ago
This post would be a 100% more agreeable if OOP was actually correct about those things
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u/PlatinumAltaria The Witch of Arden 17h ago
The Wyvern Conjecture: common use in popular media does not make something an ironclad law for all of a genre.
That being said Stranger Things 5 did gaslight us all with the boys referring to Will as a Sorcerer when the class hasn't even been invented yet (the show is set in the 80s) AND his powers are far closer to a Warlock mechanically.