Why are they called "Clerics" and not "priests"?
Because cleric is Greek and priest is Latin.
>>43834337
But why'd that matter?
>>43834387
IT'S TRADITION
>>43834305
Priests are the name of the job, anyone with faith in anything can be a priest for it, even if it legitimately IS a fictional entity that doesn't actually grant them power. On the other hand, clerics take the power given to them by the gods, and use it to spread the best aspects of there specific religion, using it to affect the lives of as many as possible, usually indirectly as well. They tend to focus on non-violent methods or non-damaging attacks.
>>43834337
no
a cleric is a cloistered clerk, a subtype of priest.
a cleric is a scribe of god, familiar with the deeprites, a priest blesses peasants and rubs on bread.
>>43834305
Because they're christian flavour priests. Their signature ability is exorcism. Though the class would also be pretty good flavour for an imam, who can be referred to as clerics as well. They point is they do miracles with an abrahamic feel, by contrast with the pagan stylings of druids, the other OG priest class.
>>43834949
The guy that blesses bread is a cleric and a priest. Gj knowing an etymology though
>>43834305
>Why are they called "Clerics" and not "priests"?
Because you also have "Rogue" instead of thief and "Fighter" instead of warrior/fighting-man. I'm guessing that "Wizard" was selected over magic-user/sorcerer/mage/magician mainly because of Lord of the Rings.
And why you wear periapts and pour endless water from decanters instead of amulets and jugs.
And why there are tables listing a dozen terms for "prostitute" and even more for polearms.
Gygax just couldn't resist jerking his thesaurus off all over the game.
>>43835168
But Gygax did call them thief and magic-user and fighting man. Come to think of it it's impressive clerics have stuck to their guns this far.
>>43834387
Because Arcane magic uses Latin and Divine magic uses Greek. And it makes sense that way since Harry Potter magic (which is obviously arcane) uses Latin, whereas Divine magic is Greek since the Greek gods are way more well known than the Roman ones.
>>43835231
Sssh! On this board, we blame other people's shit on Gygax.
>>43835231
>But Gygax did call them thief and magic-user and fighting man. Come to think of it it's impressive clerics have stuck to their guns this far.
Cleric stuck around because it had just the right amount of obscurity. They ended up ditching thief/fighting-man/magic-user because they were too obviously descriptive.
Thieves became rogues because people wanted to play expert sneaks without being called criminals
>>43835271
Now you are just talking shit.
What has arcane magic to do with anything? And according to your logic priests use arcane magic while clerics divine? And Harry Potter? Seriously?
>>43835351
Pretty much this, in the early days class was intended to be your literal occupation (which made sense when RPGs were expanded wargames, battlefield characters were always expected to fit into a handful of categories like knight, wizard, general, hero, etc). But with a RPG they need to be more broad, they want a limited selection of core classes to be able to represent just about any character, so rogue now represents a skill set more than an actual occupation.
>>43834337
They're both from Greek.
>>43835395
What would happen if Harry Potter got a part time job working a clerical position though?
>>43836959
Then he would be wasting his talents
>>43836977
but he needs the money!
A clerical error
>>43834305
Why are they called "Bards" and not "minstrels"?
Why are they called "Fighters" and not "warriors"?
Why are they called "Rogues" and not "thieves"?
>>43836959
They would burn him on the stake for witchcraft.
>>43834305
They used to share the general umbrella of Priest alongside Druid, just like how Fighters, Paladins, and Rangers were all Warriors.
>>43837111
>Why are they called "Rogues" and not "thieves"?
alternatively
>Why are they called "Rogues" and not "Assassins"?
Because Priest was an overarching category of classes that included Cleric and Druid.
>>43837111
Because bard sounds better.
Because warrior was the category that included fighters, rangers, and paladins
Because thief has worse connotations than rogue. Although in this case, Rogue was actually the category that included thieves, bards, and assassins, and then it got pushed down to the thief class' slot once they dropped the concept of class categories.
>>43834305
Why do the english call french fries chips and the americans fries?
Why do they call so many things differently?
Fuck if I know, but that's how it is so you have to deal with it.
>>43835231
It's not called fighting-man in 1e
>>43837665
1e is actually the 5th edition of the game.
Because of religious connotations that a word like "priest" may cause thanks to retarded, overzealous Christians.
>>43837676
You make it very difficult to misinform people.
>>43837690
I try. Although actually, I think I got it wrong. AD&D 1e is actually closer to 6 or 7 versions after the original Arneson hack.
>>43836959
For seven years straight every major event (and half the minor ones) would be related back to something that happened when he was too young to remember it.
>>43837111
>Why are they called "Bards" and not "minstrels"?
Because as originally conceived the class was more inspired by the celtic poet aste of that name (check the 'colleges' that 1e bards had to progress thrugh for example) rather than the romantic troubadours theyd become in later depictions.
Minstrel of course would be a totally inappropriate term, implying that they were mere hired musicians.
>>43837682
That seems extremely unlikely
>>43835271
Avada kedavra is straight up Aramaic.
>>43837740
That's how I play my bard desu. He's more of a poet and knowledge-seeker than a musician. In my fluff he has technical ability with the instruments he's proficient in but no real musical abilitylike me ;_;.
>>43837490
Not every rogue is an assassin. Next.
>>43837852
And it's the most serious of Forbidden Curses
I always figured priest implied a person of station or authority within a church. Cleric was more general and didn't imply any specific rank, just that they were part of the clergy.
I like terms like Cleric and Magic-user because they're vague enough to allow for your own interpretation. Do you want to play or magic-user as a whizbang sorceror? Do you want to play him as a studious scholar? Do you want to play her as a wicked witch? Great. Go ahead.
Honestly, I think 3.5e messed up the class system a little because it tried to make character creation more flexible by adding more classes, when it should have been diversifying the classes that already existed. 5e has taken steps in this direction with its archetypes, but it's still got an inelegantly large number of classes.
>>43835283
> Sssh! On this board, we blame other people's shit on Gygax.
The hell we do >>43812906
>>43835168
> Because you also have "Rogue" instead of thief and "Fighter" instead of warrior/fighting-man. I'm guessing that "Wizard" was selected over magic-user/sorcerer/mage/magician mainly because of Lord of the Rings
This is all exactly wrong in OD&D. Fighting Man, Magic-User, Thief, Cleric.
>>43837665
The AD&D 1e PHB isn't published until '78. The original game came out in 74, and included Fighting Man as a class.
>>43837490
they were in fact called Thieves first. Assassin was also a subclass of thief in AD&D1e.
>>43835351
Thieves became Rogues by virtue of edition evolution. In 1e, Thief is the main class and there are variant thief classes in the way that Ranger and Paladin were variant Fighter classes.
In AD&D2e, they did away with the "subclass" system and instead made class "groups" - Warrior (including Fighter, Paladin, and Ranger), Wizard (including Mages and Specialists), Priest (including clerics and druids), and Rogue (which includes thieves and bards, because assassins got nixed).
By the time you get to 3e, they drop the class groups entirely and names get shuffled around again.
>>43839586
5e was going down that route but bad response during playtesting shot it down. DnD will never be able to truly improve the game because people will start screaming "not muh dnd!" or "you can't take out x class/mechanic/etc, it's iconic!" Look at what happened with 4e for trying a new formula.
>>43834305
Dunno. Clerics were originally ''Witch hunters'' but got turned into pedo-priests of the not!chatolic church.
>>43841363
I actually really liked the very early NEXT playtest material. Then every new update added more finicky junk until I lost interest.
That said, I'm an OSRfag, so I lean heavily towards "less is more."
>>43837111
>Why are they called "Fighters" and not "warriors"?
Warrior is a fighter with status, meaning he is integrated in the society.
A fighter is just someone who fights. Every asshole can be a fighter but being a warrior means you are in a caste system or similar.
>>43837749
To quote Leslie Fish:
"Why do you think Dungeons and Dragons got turned into Advanced D&D, with the names changed and the serial numbers filed off, and nothing's called a god or a demon anymore?"
That was a long time ago, of course, but the Christian hate mob was real.
What's a good alternate name for swashbucklers? I'm trying to differentiate warriors between those trained for the battlefields and those trained for duels and street fighting.
>>43843358
>What's a good alternate name for swashbucklers?
How about "not in the fucking game"?
>>43843365
I don't get it.
>>43843358
Bravo?
>>43843358
Protagonist.
>>43843441
I assume you're a WFRP player.
>>43843426
Excellent, thank you. I've been trying to stick to as few syllables as possible.
>>43834305
Clerics write and work with papers and stuff. Priests lead a congregation.
>>43843077
I think the critical difference there is that the warrior fights wars.
>>43843358
Duelist?
>>43843543
That could work as well.
Why are druids called 'druids' and not 'animal fuckers'
>>43843334
Case in point: tanar'ri
>>43839586
>>43841363
>>43842233
One of these days I'm going to brew up a 5E clone that focuses on incorporating things from early NEXT playtests and streamlining the whole package in general. I'll be taking influence from the OSRfags, but not let that style of design totally dominate the game.
>>43834387
>>43834687
>>43842175
>but got turned into pedo-priests of the not!chatolic church.
what a humorous typo
at least, I hope you don't play all your clerics like that
They wanted to Clericfy their importance.
>>43847413
please take your faux outrage and meta trolling into the woods and die
>>43847413
Case in point: this fucker.
Seriously, if you waste cops' time by reporting anyone who mentions lolis, you deserve kick in the ass from the "likely pedophile" and the cops for being a tool.
>>43834305
I asked Gary this very question. His sheepish answer: Poor proofreading -
Clerical error.
>>43837701
Stick to published editions of actual RPGs. i think that makes AD&D1 only the 4th.
potato patato
