[Urbis] Fantasy and D&D clichés

[Matt Larkin (author)]

Speaking of barb cliches: Only "barbarians" can go berserk and fight with passion over precision.

[Tybalt]

In my game there are Celtic tribesmen that are barbarians.

[Wormwood]

Speaking of barb cliches: Only "barbarians" can go berserk and fight with passion over precision.

It is the Norse ideology again. Norses had berserkers, propably going off with Amanita muscaria, ie. fly agaric. One of the symptoms of poisoning by this mushroom is uncontrolable rage, so it isn't so much passion, but psychotic episode.

But this just proves the my point: Barbarian is just Viking cliché, not any primitive warrior.

[CYMRO]

Speaking of barb cliches: Only "barbarians" can go berserk and fight with passion over precision.

It is the Norse ideology again. Norses had berserkers, propably going off with Amanita muscaria, ie. fly agaric. One of the symptoms of poisoning by this mushroom is uncontrolable rage, so it isn't so much passion, but psychotic episode.

But this just proves the my point: Barbarian is just Viking cliché, not any primitive warrior.

Actually Berserkers were members of the mythic Vidar cult, who could transform into bears, as opposed to the Uller cult, the Ulfhednir that could transform into wolves.

The Barbarian is more a Howard//Haggard stereotype than anything else.  Reason enough why I dropped the class from my setting.  I made the rage thing a feat chain.

[CYMRO]

5. While dwarf women and children exist, you will only ever meet fully mature heavily bearded male dwarves.

Or you could revert to the 1st edition standard, and Pratchett standard, of heavily bearded dwarf females.

"There was no such thing as a dwarfish female pronoun or, once the children were on solids, any such thing as women's work."

    -- Terry Pratchett, The Fifth Elephant

[Wormwood]

It is the Norse ideology again. Norses had berserkers, propably going off with Amanita muscaria, ie. fly agaric. One of the symptoms of poisoning by this mushroom is uncontrolable rage, so it isn't so much passion, but psychotic episode.

But this just proves the my point: Barbarian is just Viking cliché, not any primitive warrior.

Actually Berserkers were members of the mythic Vidar cult, who could transform into bears, as opposed to the Uller cult, the Ulfhednir that could transform into wolves.

The Barbarian is more a Howard//Haggard stereotype than anything else.  Reason enough why I dropped the class from my setting.  I made the rage thing a feat chain.

I was talking about closest historical culture. I hope you weren't.

But I like barbarians in my settings. There is room for the 'noble savage' in the class structure and while fighter could fill in, problem is there is no limitations to the fighter and thus he will end up as too weapon-optimised for the role.

I have been toying with a idea of creating three barbarian sub-classes (not prestige, but seperate classes), where one would be good with horses (Mongols), one would have the rage (Norse) and third would be leaning towards ranger as nature based warrior, like plains-tribes in North America (Sioux or Apache warriors).