If JRPGs are based on western games and the classes are taken from DnD etc why are druids usually left out?
>>47620698
Figure it has something to do with Shintoism. If there are spirits for just about everything, the spirits of the forest and nature would just fall under that same category and role that deals with them
>>47620698
Japan favors Shintoism, which is somewhat animistic, and naturally respects nature and the natural world in that religion.
Their Clerics are already druids, and most examples of ascetics that live in the natural world to draw inspiration and power from it wind up looking like Martial Artists instead of Religious Magicians.
Western druidism was viewed as contrasting to clerics and such because of the association with christianity and the like vs pagan faiths the likes of which were native to Europe before the church started getting too big for the roman empires.
Or I dunno, maybe they have another name for tree-hugging animal loving eco terrorists and aren't fond of the notion because ass-hats like that keep getting in the way of their whaling industry.
I'm sure someone can do better guesswork than this though.
>>47620698
The reasons for this are actually usually more mechanical then thematic.
"Pet" Druids wouldn't work to well in older JRPG's where party composition and encounter balance was based off a set number of PC's in the party, usually 3 or 4. And since Summoners were usually their own thing in Final Fantasy, that left that role out as well.
Healing and buffing Druids is the other role they could play, but that role is traditionally taken by Priest and White Mage types; the more "nature" magic that is utilitarian in nature again runs into simple mechanical limitations in early JRPG's.
Finally, it must be said that Final Fantasy is a ridiculously heavy influence on JRPG's the way Super Mario Brothers is an influence in side-scrolling and platform games and Street Fighter is on fighting games.
Though different classes of sorts were used in Final Fantasy games, they never really included a Druid-style class for the mentioned mechanical reasons.
You'll note lots of MMO-style JRPG's tend to heavily make usage of classes with similar or near-identical names to traditional Final Fantasy classes for example.
>>47620769
>>47620758
Was pretty sure I'd see some answers like this. I love /tg/, but it overthinks stuff sometimes.
>>47620698
Because the "nature" thing is usually left to the elven ranger stereotype. Bows, animal companions and stuff. While the whole "nature" magic is represented with white mage types, casting from "life" based spells or summoner types, which call monsters and stuff.
And the japs don't tend to repeat themes in their classes, they are usually very clear cut and separate. Unlike modern D&D where you can have a nature based ranger, nature cleric, druid, paladin of the forest and fey-descended sorcerer all in the same party with overlapping hippie nature bullshit themes.
>>47620698
Do Geomancers in Final Fantasy count? Those have been around for a while.
>>47620698
Wizardry didn't have Druids.
>>47620698
Because druids are boring, and just don't really have the "it" factor that other classes do. Tanking shit like it's nothing? Great. Firing off earth-shattering spells? Perfect. Talking to animals, shapeshifting, and doing plant shit? Lame.
The closest you're likely to get are summonners and such, because the beasts they summon can be cool. But nobody fantasizes about turning into a bear when they could be a fucking wizard or legendary warrior instead.
>>47622280
I dunno. Shapeshifting is pretty much my number one desired super power of all time....
(That said, I still have no interest in playing a druid. A summoner sounds way cooler.)
>>47620873
But the fact they chose priests and summoners over druids is linked to these "overthinked answers". They said it in a convoluted way, but the fact there is no druid in JRPG is basically due to the fact there was never any druid in asia. Because a druid is a celtic priest.
>>47620873
saying Japanese cultural products are probably affected by Japanese culture is "overthinking"?
>>47622374
Historical druids are nothing like D&D druids though
>>47622385
This could be said about a lot of D&D classes. Most of them were based not on historical, but rather on literary and mythological prototypes.
>>47622385
Possibly true. But we'll never know. The only things we supposedly know about real druids is what Caesar wrote, and that was a handful of throwaway lines in his self-propagandizing reports. So that was probably mostly made up. and everything else was certainly made up in Victorian times. For all we know druids might well have been the Celtic equivalent of the mad old tramp that lives in the bushes on a roundabout, wanking in public and shouting at passing cars.
>>47622385
I've seen some historical texts suggesting rather distinctively that bestiality actually was a thing.
>>47622695
Yeah, but in all fairness, have you SEEN girls from North Wales?
>>47621361
And Blue Mages for the animal side.
>>47620835
>Finally, it must be said that Final Fantasy is a ridiculously heavy influence on JRPG's
Yeah, but D&D was a huge influence on Final Fantasy. The original Final Fantasy I actually had Black and White Mages using spell slots to cast... they didn't have spell preparation, but it was still very D&D inspired.
My guess is that Druids never showed up in Final Fantasy (and thus never showed up in later works inspired by it) because the designer only had the core rulebook, and the Druid was a special advanced class that came out later.
That, and what people have already mentioned: respecting nature is already a huge part of Japanese culture, so they really didn't need to create a class based around doing something that most everybody is assumed to do already.
>>47622280
>Tanking shit like it's nothing?
I'm a dire bear now.
> Firing off earth-shattering spells?
I have a spell called "earthquake" that literally shatters the earth.
>Talking to animals, shapeshifting, and doing plant shit? Lame.
That tree just got up and it's about to beat your pansy ass into the ground. If you try to run, every fucking animal in this forest will tear you to pieces. Also, I'm still a dire bear.
Yeah, you're right... totally lame.
>>47622280
> MRW "plant shit" is lame
I fucking hate how terrible DND flora is treated. Plants are so underutilized. Almost as bad as "Vermin" being its own type, and animals being hilariously underpowered.
>>47621361
Aren't they based on taoism?
And with Blue mages I wonder what their western equivalent is.
>>47622280
A character that turns into animals and monsters mid fight sounds pretty cool.
I can see it working out like all the monster tamer classes only the tamer turns into the monster instead of summoning it.
>>47622280
>>47620698
The Japanese already revere nature more than westerners. It would not make sense for them to devote a single class to it when everyone does it, while also having other skills like using a sword, being a priest etc.
>>47622280
I don't think you know what a fucking bear is.
>>47622695
It is now too though.
>white girls
>>47620984
Lots of JRPGs don't even have elves, way more than WRPGs.
>>47624876
The guys that urbanized majority of their own land and are the biggest contributor to the deforestation of the rain forests?
>>47622280
Druids as depicted in modern fantasy literature do suck. Even my personal favorite fantasy setting; The Witcher falls into the same trap. Druids are always depicted as tree-hugging hippies who are all about preserving nature.
This is bullshit
We need less hippy druids and more fucking terrifying Wicker Man druids.
>>47624466
Geomancers are based off of feng shui, Green Mages are the standard japanese equivalent to Druids - basically no one in Japan would know what the fuck a "druid" is.
>>47620698
>What is a Geomancer
>What is a blue mage
>What is a berserker
Have you even played a jrpg anon?
>>47622585
The Cleric was literally based on Van Helsing and introduced as a to directly counter a player's OP custom Vampire class (This being back in the day when Elf and Dwarf were "classes" mechanically).
That's right, vampire as a class is older in D&D than one of the staple classes.
>>47626090
Actually, it's older than most of the staple classes, since at the time it was basically just Fighting Man, Magic User, Elf, Dwarf, HalflingVampire.
>>47620698
For the exact same reason you do not find Dragonfire Adepts, Duskblades, Warlockes, Chronomancers, Psions, Marshals, Beguilers, or Artificers in jrpgs.
Different games made by different people. Quit trying to force it to be your game.
>>47620835
>it must be said that Final Fantasy is a ridiculously heavy influence on JRPG's the way Super Mario Brothers is an influence in side-scrolling and platform games and Street Fighter is on fighting games.
I would have thought Dragon Quest was the bigger influence on jprg's in general.Or at least the Japanese view of the western fantasy genre/setting.
>>47624876
Hahahahahahahah! Yeah. Tell that to the whales and dolphins. Tell it to the mountains they concreted over 'just in case there's a landslide. Tell it to the forests they've 'urbanized' to make them more 'aesthetically pleasing' Or just go back to fapping over drawings of underaged girls you disgusting weeaboo. People like you are a good reason why Japan should have been nuked MORE.
>>47626219
I think his argument was more along the lines of the tired old
>white people-destroy nature everywhere they go and concrete everything because fuck trees. Exterminate species off the planet for fun
>Non-white people-always in tune with "Mother Earth" and love all nature forever and never harm the land or water. Have never thought of overhunting at all
>>47626203
Yeah, Dragon Quest is by far the bigger influence on classic JRPGs, at least when evoking the 8-bit era. I've seen more references to it than FF.
>>47620698
>>47622280
>Talking to animals, shapeshifting, and doing plant shit? Lame.
>>47620984
>Because the "nature" thing is usually left to the elven ranger stereotype. Bows, animal companions and stuff. While the whole "nature" magic is represented with white mage types, casting from "life" based spells or summoner types, which call monsters and stuff.
The closest counterparts to the Druid class are probably
>Beast races. Anything from "feral guy with claws who hunts good" to "nine-tailed fox that shapeshifts and controls the elements".
>Sennin. Look it up. Then look up xian, because way more information on the Chinese variety has been translated.
You also have shugenja/yamabushi, whose religion involves a lot of hiking up sacred mountains, but their archetype tends to be more like "mysterious Dex-focused cleric".
>>47624520
There's the Morph from Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. You have to have a Hunter (Hume class) use a special maneuver to capture the monster first, then take care of it at the Monster Bank in one of the cities. If you also have a Morpher on your team, it will learn how to change into that monster in battle, gaining all of its abilities.
I'm not sure how good they are... I never got around to using one, since most games I end up sticking with my default team of 2 debuffers and 4 heavy hitters.
>>47625644
Japanese culture values nature in the same way that most cultures value most of the things they claim to value... and by that, I mean that most people just act like they do because it makes them seem all caring and thoughtful.
>>47626272
Traditionally, Japanese culture actually does include a deep reverence for nature... it's just that in the modern age, "tradition" doesn't mean much to most people anymore (nor should it... "tradition" is never a good enough reason to do anything). But the memory of when keeping in tune with nature was still important still exists, so it still gets associated with a culture that no longer really cares about that anymore.
>>47626272
Stereotypes have a basis anon.
Typically westerners are the ones that fuck up rivers and lakes, annihilate species by either industrialization or for fun like you said. And are the ones that institutionalized mass destruction of vast regions of the planet in the name of progress while have a total fuckall care attitude about nature in general. Westerners do not revere nature at all. Anything that resembles it is a modern (within the last 30 years at the most) hippie bullshit feelgood rhetoric which is loosely based on eastern tradition and does not constitute anything cultural in the least. Western religion is not even focused on the planet at all, it ignores it. The world is a horrible disturbing place of sin that is to be discarded.
Meanwhile the Japanese formed a religion and steeped tradition out of reverence for all aspects of nature down to individual rocks and trees as intelligent spirits that can be communicated with which is still thriving today. Nature itself is a living thriving thing that is to be respected as a you would fellow man. Using up and ditching the earth is not the goal. Working with it and being a part of it is.
I can go into much much much more detail on Japanese tradition as a whole equaling the more modern weirdo hippie traits of the rpg druid that only constitutes a single class but in short yes your comparison of West=hates nature, East=loves nature is an apt one.
I think the fact that western rpgs necessitated a whole class dedicated to actually giving a fuck about trees at all is telling about the society that created it.
>>47625777
Trips of truth
>>47626165
You can find almost all of those in JRPGs. Just not called those names specifically.
>>47626165
>Chronomancers
>>47626165
>Psions
7th Dragon, Xth Code, MOTHER FUCKING GOLDEN SUN
>>47628285
I think Druids are just considered to be a specialty flavor mage and therefore not worth adding into a game when they do not add in anything truly different. You already have healing mage, nuking mage, stat altering mage, and summoning mage. That pretty much covers everything with magic. Mage that does the same things only with tree and animal stuff is not enough of a difference.
It's rarer, but there have been a few "transform into a monster"-guy characters or classes in various JRPGs. I recall it from one of the Breath of Fire games, and I suppose FF7's Vincent and his ilk would count.
>>47631379
Sort of the Blue Mage class if they made a transformation into a creature instead of just copied its abilities.
Gau from Final Fantasy 6 comes t mind.
>>47628285
>Western religion is not even focused on the planet at all, it ignores it. The world is a horrible disturbing place of sin that is to be discarded.
Thats just not true. According to traditional Christian belief the world is created and sustained by God, God is good, so the world is good, as are all of its creatures.
The odd Christian sect has had hardline dualist beliefs and treats the world as evil, but that from the beginning was more of a belief found in Gnosticism and Manicheanism, which were some of the original rivals of the Church. Hell, Catholics don't even believe in "heaven" as a place where you go - the eternal life is supposed to come from God resurrecting them to earth in new, superior bodies.
A Gnosticism that believes that the world was created by the devil would fit your narrative much better. The Cathars believed that the world and nature was evil, and the medieval church found this belief problematic enough to launch a crusade on them.
All that really happened was that we had an industrial revolution before we realized what affect it would have. By the time we realized it we have gotten too used to material prosperity to abandon it. Likewise, these days every non-western people have followed suit and westerners are the ones who push environmentalism the hardest, even if it is usually coming from something heteredox within our tradition. It isn't a matter of tradition, it is a matter of people experiencing material prosperity and not wanting to give it up, regardless of ethnicity,religion,etc.
>>47631870
>>47631379
So the western equivalent to the blue mage is the shapeshifter? I think I agree with that.
It's mostly an inertia thing, the early games that took inspiration from western TTRPGs mostly focused on roles as opposed to class/flavour or used really early ones. Neither of these lend themselves to druids.
When you are making a bear-bones system of classes you tend to start with whatever best exemplifies a role, so you have your offensive magic user, and your support magic user, Druids try to cover multiple roles, it's the same reason that Paladins aren't as common.
Additionally if you are ripping classes wholesale you will probably start with base classes from TTRPGs and remember, this is before 2e D&D, Druids had yet to become a major class.
>>47633180
The guy is arguing that all Japanese have a spiritual reverence for nature on the level of a fantasy Druid.
There is no bothering to argue back at that nonsense.
>>47624466
>>47625982
Feng shui has its roots in Taoism and uses the Eight Trigrams among other Taoist elements to determine things.
>>47628793
They're only called Time Mages because of the character limits at the time. The proper translation would be Time-Space Mage, seeing as they have both time spells (Haste and friends) and space spells (Gravity and friends).
>>47620698
because driuds are the most comfiest class ever and from what i heard in japan druid there are more hardcore treehugger than elves
>>47620698
To be honest, I don't even think Character Classes are all that common in Japanese RPGs. Even Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest only feature them half of the time. It might also have something to do with the fact that a lot of Japanese RPGs are Urban/Science Fantasy such as Mother, Pokemon, Shin Megami Tensei/Persona, the Xeno Series, and later Final Fantasy games.
>>47640991
Classes are completely pointless when you can only get named, plot important characters and can't drastically change what they individually do.
There's no point in giving your sword wielding protagonist a specific warrior class if there's literally no one else who is even remotely similar, he is always a warrior, and he can never change that class. Just give him stats and abilities and call it done. Similarly, there's no point in making Love Interest Girls A and B a priestess and a sorceress respectively when neither of them can ever change what spells and passive abilities they get and what kinds of weapons and armor they're good at using. Just give them their spells and proficiencies and call it done.
Classes as we know them are only relevant when you can actually change what a character does or can recruit generic characters. In most JRPGs, they're just titles and there's no real need to actually have them.
>>47641053
It should be noted that tactical grid games (Fire Emblem, Final Fantasy Tactics, ect) needs classes for the simple reason that you do get multiple characters with similar abilities and it's important to differentiate the guys who can use swords real good from the guys who can use swords real good, but have a completely different upgrade track later on.
Also, more of those games have generic units.
>>47623798
>That tree just got up and it's about to beat your pansy ass into the ground. If you try to run, every fucking animal in this forest will tear you to pieces. Also, I'm still a dire bear.
Oh no, what will we ever do? All we have is a party that are all wielding torches and plenty of spare kerosene.
>>47626219
>Tell that to the whales and dolphins.
Asshurt sea rapist detected.
>>47626203
>>47626431
FF is basically a nonissue franchise in Japan, which is why Squeenix experiments with it every time instead of giving more of the same like how Enix and now Squeenix does with DQ.
The reason druids don't show up in japanese versions of western fantasy is because they don't understand the difference between a cleric and druid. Nature worshiping priest and priest who worships god are lit the same thing to shinto.
>>47640103
Well, we all know that space is just times lazy brother anyway.
>>47641053
Even in JRPGs where personalized character creation is a big deal (Disgaea, Etrian Odyssey) Druids are pretty absent. I'll have to agree with the anon earlier in saying that they are already pretty well covered by other classes.
That being said, I would be so down with a JRPG that was centered solely around cute mikos in place of traditional druids.
>>47620698
>>47620698
Sword World has druids. They're just characters with shaman/nature magic.
I'm pretty sure SW is the only JRPG actually directly based on D&D apart from their version of D&D, and even SW is only barely related to D&D because it has a completely different system.
You're saying absolutely nothing here.
>why are druids usually left out?
The same reason the vast majority of western RPGs leave them out. They're setting specific and often unnecessary.
List of JRPGs based on D&D:
>Wizardry, but not really.
>???????
>>47631379
Monica in dark cloud 2
>>47635785
Japanese people worship mountains and rivers and stuff. That doesn't mean they're any more spiritual or that anyone actually cares about protecting nature, it just means the idea is less foreign.
>>47620698
Wizardry and FF didn't have druids because I guess the current DnD edition they were based on didn't have them yet. So it didn't become a JRPG staple. Another reason is that druids never really entered Japanese mass culture psyche as much as they did in the western culture, and are a foreign and obscure concept. I guess I'm trying to say that JRPGs don't have druids for the same reason WRPGs as a rule don't have classes based on Korean Shamanism or something.
Final Fantasy and other JRPGs do have nature-calling rangers, shamans, beastmasters and geomancers and the like, but they're usually not called druids.
>>47641758
Final Fantasy. Also Wizardry isn't a JRPG.
>>47620698
Because Shinto is the closest parallel to druid beliefs, and most Westerners (incorrectly) think of Shinto like it's some kind of Christian based religion instead of animism. Druids would be redundant in JRPGs.
>>47620873
>I love /tg/, but it overthinks stuff sometimes.
Oh, I'm sorry.
Cuck cuck cuck cuck. Cuck cuck cuck, cuck cuck cuck cuck cuck. Cuck cuck cuck? Cuck, cuck cuck cuck cuck cuck. Cuck cuck, cuck!
There, that's the level of discourse you expect from 4chan.
>>47641673
>The reason druids don't show up in japanese versions of western fantasy is because they don't understand the difference between a cleric and druid. Nature worshiping priest and priest who worships god are lit the same thing to shinto.
Most cleric-type characters in JRPGs are either overt abrahamic priests with miters and crosses, or vague white mages with clear christian overtones who cast Holy spells and banish undead with the powers of god, though. I can't really remember a single JRPG healer who is Shinto-themed rather than Abrahamic-themed.
>>47620698
New jap material, has druids.
See stuff like Log Horizon for anime example.
>>47622658
>Possibly true. But we'll never know
For all we know, the priests of the celts WERE elf babes in fur bikinis who could turn into bears.
>>47620873
it's a 0 thought required answer to anyone whose watched anime at some point in their life.
silly non-weeb.
>>47643233
Most of those "Abrahamic" JRPG priests are blatantly Shintoist in everything other than costume (e.g. teenage nuns who are the daughters of priests and were trained since birth).
>>47643252
Elder Tale is an American MMO in-universe, though. It's basically Everquest if WoW never happened.
Every region has two classes that are altered to be more culture-specific, which takes the form of aesthetic changes and exclusive equipment. For the Japanese server these werePirate->Samurai andMedium->Kannagi. The druid class was left untouched.
>>47625777
http://goblinpunch.blogspot.de/2014/09/7-myths-everyone-believes-about-druids.html
>captcha: select all images of trees
THEY KNOW
>>47635785
Except they fucking do anon
>>47643233
You mean like.........every single fucking white mage to ever appear in a game ever?
One of those anon?
Why the hell do you think they are white and red? Because Catholic priests are known for their white and red?
OP's question is fucking retarded. Druids are in JPRGs they are called WHITE MAGES and there is no fucking difference between the two classes at all. Only OP showing off how disgustingly fucking stupid he is for not knowing dick about a culture outside of the US.
>>47647114
How high do you have to grind your white mage before you can shift it into a dire bear and start fucking things up in FF on average?
>>47646738
What if dolphins and whales really are the secret mortal enemy of the Eastern Druid, and their efforts to hunt their asses into extinction is an ongoing war against the evil Sea Druids?
>>47647244
No need, go high enough and you learn Holy and then you can fuck shit up.
>>47626058
Geomancers have a terrain based ability and can avoid natural hazards from what I remember. Probably closer to ranger or Horizon Walker if you want to get specific
Not really a DnD thing, but man do I wish it was
A barbarian
>>47647114
Remember that episode where Kikyo had to wildshape to save InuYasha?
>>47649670
Dolphins summon tsunamis and whales cause earthquakes.
Clearly they have been at war for centuries.
>>47649670
>Japanese Druids killing evil Whales.
Fuck, I want to play this now.
>>47650263
Get the 'research' and fishing industry on board for advertisement and we'd have the best anime of the season.
>>47651024
Miko Magical Druid girls vs killer Tsunami dolphins and Earthquake whales?
>>47649670
>>47651137
I think this was the premise of a Touhou fanficwhich was actually surprisingly decent
>>47651297
Link it, nerd.
>>47651912https://www.shrinemaiden.org/forum/index.php/topic,6913.0.html
It's also on fanfiction.net but the version there is incomplete
