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The Privilege of Sorcerers (infosec.pub)

submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by juergen_hubert@ttrpg.network to c/rpg@ttrpg.network

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One of my pet peeves of modern fantasy media is the notion that some people are "special" - and thus implied to be "better" - than other people because of some inherent magical ability. One of the best-known modern examples of this is the Harry Potter franchise, where the protagonists are mostly mages, and even the characters who actually care about the welfare of the latter do so in an extremely patronizing way - i.e. by stopping the "bad mages" rather than working together.

In #dnd and similar #ttrpg, the concept is represent by the "sorcerer" and similar characters who gained their cool powers from some innate birth ability rather than study and hard work.

And while there is nothing wrong with wanting to play such a character, just for once I would like to see an in-setting examination of what it means to have this privilege, instead of the more common:

"Oh no, woe is me, I have been born with special powers and will be hated and persecuted for them. Thus, I must spend most of my time in a secret society with my fellow very special people!"

To be clear, people born with privilege did not ask to be born with privilege, and cannot be blamed for that. However, they should also acknowledge that they have this privilege, and not assume that they are somehow "better" than people without it.

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[–] dumples@piefed.social 3 points 1 day ago

To my fair for DnD does imply that all player characters are special and that's why they can do what they do. Especially when the magical classes. All priests can say the words but only those blessed will manifest the clerical / druidic magics. They are the special ones but still have to learn to power up.

Also it's not as binary in Dnd. There's a reason not every NPC is high level regardless of age. Most settings have implied that at a certain point a spellcaster maxes out the spells they can do. All those casters who can do 1st level spells only some are implied to be still learning but others are just as good as they can be.

So there's isn't one class that is special but all of them