Hi all! I know my discussion of Shamans is slightly more generic than that of the Druids, but the more I read, the less universality I could apply! I hope I can rectify and get you guys the clearest possible picture, but as with any indigenous religious practice, summary is the death of complexity. Hope I've still given enough context to make the point! -Tom.

from what I can truely tell at a glance is that shamans focuses on channeling the elements and spirits of ancestors, while druids harness the powers of the Wild, be it nature, fey or beast

Using Gul'Dan as the thumbnail image for shaman feels like such a very specific insult xD Yeah he was a shaman for a little bit but very quickly became one of the most iconic examples of warlocks

4th Edition made a GREAT distinction between druids and shamans. First of all, the way they delineated power sources was brilliant to begin with (Martial, Divine, Arcane, Primal, and Psionic). From a gameplay perspective, druids were battlefield controllers, while shamans took care of healing and support via summons. From a power fantasy point of view, druids drew on the totality of nature as a whole, sort of the pulse of the world/planetary consciousness/natural gestalt, if you will. Shamans, on the other hand, were intimately bonded to a single spirit that represented an aspect of nature (the Great Bear, the World Serpent, and so forth). Mechanically they play very differently and from a roleplaying perspective they FEEL very different.

I would love to hear your interpretation of the difference between the druid/shaman/animist and the cleric/priest/deist approach, and how we could use that to help with world building and how to use it to influence class design. What separates a Druid from a Nature Cleric, for instance?

In WoW, shamans were only restricted to the Horde from 2004 to 2007. Ever since, shamans have been available for both factions.

*"The fuel for my magic, is LIFE!"* _boi does that phrase hits different if you picture a different character saying it..._

The Druid is mostly unrelated to any real-world practices, religious or other. It's exemplified by how, lore-wise, they mostly keep to themselves and take the side of nature over people. I don't think we need a Shaman class, because I think what they are is mostly covered by the Cleric, mechanics-wise at least. The lack of religious orders does raise the question of what can cause a shaman to have a certain cleric domain, but I think that can be explained by the shaman's personal tendencies and attributes.

I'm an animist, and there are actually a lot of diverse interpretations on the idea. Some are more aesthetic and spiritual while others can be more grounded in reality. It was this fact that became the foundation in my homebrew shaman class. Shaman was a class but the subclasses (D&D5e) were different animist cultures that could be found around the world. Each played differently due to the different beliefs and customs they had, which made for easy flavor and abilities. With a little creative liberty to fit the world, and renaming some of the realworld parallels, I had a pretty fleshed out shaman class that fit my setting. The gist of it all was they were diviners and would use those spirits as energy to perform their rituals and magic. How they did it was dependent on the subclass, as well as how they interacted with the spirit realm/denizens of, etc. I thought humans were poorly done in the game and I hated the lack of effort so I gave them a boost to wisdom (sapien) and gave them a tenacious resolve they could depend on when luck went against them. The two fit so well together in my setting, its a match made in heaven. Anyway just wanted to share. Thanks 😅

If you are worried about the connotations of a word, you are going to be forever running from word to word.

Druid is one of my favorite classes in d&d. I tend to refer to my characters as Druid or Shaman interchangeably. And, yeah. I find it fun to draw influences for my Druid's from nature related mystic and esoteric traditions, from around the world. And not just the British isles in antiquity.

I would love to have Shaman, Witch, and Psion make a return to dnd. For now I just have my 4E books to look to.

"roll for initiative" Proceeds to do the shaman dance afterwards 😂

This topic is by far one of the most convoluted discussions one could have on fantasy classes and their origins at least that I know of. I've researched this myself a while back and from what I could find on shaman is that it is a modern term that is used generally for many different traditions, there are trends that goes with it but there is no single concept of shamanism which was touched on in the video. It would not make for a good replacement to druid. But druid is a well defined thing that I have found has little to do with their fantasy counterpart. Druids are, at least as I remember from my reading a while back, story tellers, historians, and important people in their societies, but more akin to bards except from a more nature oriented society. There was also a higher rank druid but I don't remember what they were called. Keep in mind this is from my own flawed memory the knowledge put forth may be dubious, I'd have to research it again to be sure.

Just a thing about your point about Shamans in Warcraft. (bear in mind I haven't engaged with the lore in over a year due to being against Blizzard) While both Shamans and druids are healers, advisors, and faith leaders in Warcraft, there are also major differences in what they're about. Shamans are about the primal elements of nature: Earth, Wind, Fire and Water sure, but their connection to the elements is a literal one, they commune with the elemental spirits who willingly give a Shaman their power. Druids, while also being natural, are not about the elements. They're about the living world, instead of the elemental one. Lunar and Solar forces, flora and fauna. They're also technically a faction neutral faction, as Moonshade was a place both the Horde and the Alliance druids could teleport to. The Tauren are a race very connected to the world around them, and had every nature related class. Druid, Shaman, Hunter. The race communes with both the elemental and the living world. In WoW, while similar in social position, considering Malfurion and Thall, the two classes did very different things with different themes.

In the GBA Fire Emblem games, Shamans were what they call dark mages and they promoted into druids (or summoners in Sacred Stones)

The need for strict definitions and categories is more prevalent in modern times. Wizards, warlocks, sorcerers, priests, shamans, and thaumaturges used to be heavily overlapping categories, or regional variants of the same idea. Dnd on the other hand separates them based on the origin of their magic. In my mind there is a deep connection between shamanism and the spirit world, whereas fantasy druids are more connected to the physical, natural world. If I were drawing the division, I'd say that shamans would cast speak with dead and conjure spirit, whereas druids cast lightning bolt and speak with animals. When conjuring a "spirit," is the spirit undead, fiendish, fae, or elemental? Again, there used to be a TON of overlap, which means separating them changes all the metaphysics for how shamans and druids work. Where do the natural and spiritual world separate? In animistic traditions, the line is deliberately blurry. In dnd, you cast a 7th level spell to go there.

I really appreciate hearing a like-minded person put things into the light for everyone. It is a strange feeling to be in a world surrounded by people where the misinterpretation of culture are so common place. Good for you for doing this video. I appreciated your music playing. Take care.

Before watching: In my head the difference is between the mental image of their role. Druids to me are the balance of nature tree hugging one with nature hippies. Living in communes/circles or alone in the woods and perpetual haters of civilization. So one with nature that they literally talk to trees/animals and gain magic from them. Shamans are village based. Rather than talking to the wild and preserving it they talk with their ancestors and preserve the tribe and its way of life. A druid ritual would have a lot of stones and plants. A shaman ritual would have like bones and blood and sticks. Witches are wild alchemist... hags. They're hags but not fey. Like a druid is a dryad but not fey.

The story I'm currently brainstorming, and that I'd like to put to paper, has both. While they can have similar fonctions in society, advisors and bridges to the natural, their magics operate very differently. Druids operates on life and vitality, while shamans channels minors spirit and can burrow from higher spirits.

Shaman by (OAP) on the Dms guild is a very good ritual casting focused class for d&d 5e

Would love to see more videos like this and on the intersection of religion and fantasy in general!

Yeah I've never really been a huge fan of Shaman as a class in DnD, same as classes like 'Ninja' both of which I found to be like their Core Class counter parts but better (I.E easier to break rule wise to be more powerful), whilst not really offering much to make them standout as their own unique thing (which neither really is in DnD terms, Ninjas, shinobi, assassin all fall under the Rogue archtype in my eyes much like Knight, Cavalier & Samurai for fighter) Cleanest solution I can think of would be giving the Druid class a more generic name like Fighter & have a part of their description text being 'often referred to by members of their cultures as Druids or Shamans' etc

The mabinogi is where i think the basis of a lot of the dnd class identity come from, especially the depictions in the battle with Baylor. Wizards, bards, fighters druids and witches are described doing different things that eventually made up certain class identities. Druids desciption is recognizable as the cleric, and the witch is the current druid. Shamen wasnt really a term used.

Very interesting video. I have some mechanical alterations I want to make to Druids, so rethinking some of these things is good, too. I do agree that Druids are Shamans. In fact, it may be more accurate to call the class Shamans, because we also widely call the society that Druids presided over "druidic society" or the like, and we might call anyone in that society "Druids." Kind of vague and ill-fitting of the class. However, I think that we use the term "Druid" *because* they are more mysterious than the other shamans we know. And yes, D&D is based primarily on European fantasy. I think we should still use the term "Druid." People use the term "Shaman" to name classes the same way they might use "Gladiator" or "Pugilist:" they really just want to make a class and grab a synonym or near-synonym to justify said class. Nothing inherently wrong about it, though. I wouldn't get bent out of shape about Shamans being "monster classes" in earlier editions. My understanding is that ANYTHING that isn't a player is designated a "monster" in older editions, like Sages or Merchants.

I usually play sharmans as clerics with druid spells or just flavour my cleric spells with ancestor and mysticism visuals. Edit: Heck, you could do a Warlock as a sharman too. Would give them the charisma to be leaders too.

In my worldbuilding these two are basically the same, but are using different aspects of the realm they borrow their power from. I like to use different terms for the same "base" because it adds some flavor and diversity to the world itself. The social and religious role is the same, but the way they treat their own powers and the way they use it is so different they kinda deserve to be named differently.

15:45 Not sure the horde is more primitive. Sure superfically it seems to be but when you actually look at the horse it come across way less that way. In face the horde is one of the best representaitons I have seen of races such as orcs.

“Druid” suggests specifically a nature priest oriented toward holy trees. The word derives from proto-Indo-European “deru,” meaning tree - the same root as “dryad,” another longtime D&D favorite. Shamans need not be naturalistically oriented; indeed, seeing things from other worlds than the world of nature implies that they are not. In my homebrew world of Firma, shaman and druid are essentially just titles for clerics of different deities. Shamans are clerics of Voder, god of storms, with the portfolio of Tempest and War. Geyora, goddess of nature, is called the Two-Faced Goddess; her Green Face is oriented toward the surface of the earth, and her Black Face toward the subterranean world. Clerics of the Green Face are called druids, and function as 5e handbook druids, while clerics of the Black Face are called witch doctors, and have the portfolio Knowledge, Trickery, and War. Humans and nonhumans both may worship any of these deities.

Perhaps an alternate method for delineation would be as cast ranks or as class advancement. Hedge Wizard -> Shaman -> Druid.

Interesting! Thanks for the insight. And one type that I have never seen represented in media and as for norse spiritual leaders here in the north, they are termed Godi for male leaders and Gyda for female leaders. Its the terming of both chieftain and priest. The term basically means " The one who speech for the gods/ godesses "

im creating my own tabletop setting where 'druid' is what your called when you choose that class and your true neutral, any other alignment and your class is 'shaman'

Anyone that tells you your definition isn't good enough is probably just an immature "Ugh! You just wouldn't understand 🙄!" child.

Ive been searching the internet for an hour trying to find answers to my questions & you Sir have provided the answer. Thankyou :)

I think you might find that your "shaman" in the thumbnail is actually a warlock named Gul'dan :D

My take: Scrap druids, clerics, and monks and roll them into a new shaman class. The term shaman is already used to refer to so many different kinds of community leaders, mystics, and holy people of entirely unrelated traditions, so I see little issue with using the word as generally meaning a spiritual leader and wise person.

Definitely interested to hear more about past Druids

We use Druid and Shaman as different classes for the same reason we use Fighter, Knight, Barbarian, Monk, Paladin, and Samurai as names for different classes, even though in history they'd basically be referring to the same things. The name is just an evocative placeholder for a set of concepts and mechanics. In universe, it's likely nobody would call themselves a druid. They would have a specific name from their culture, or (more to the point of the video) just call themselves Shamans.

17:30 I think the real problem is that DnD does such odd things with it's divine spellcasters already, both Clerics and Druids are very far removed from their historical inspiraitons.

Warlocks, clerics, sorcerers, paladins, druids, diabolists, shamans, totemic warriors, etc often seem like wizards who didn't like all that stuffy hard work and found a shortcut that worked for them. From my perspective, all the classes that gain power from another being are the same and the rules should do more to support the narrative around that relationship.

Great video! I like your point of view on things, but gul'dan (the orc in the thumbnail) is a warlock not a shaman 😅

This is a good discussion esp. wrt the sordid history of monster shamans, but i feel a bit more critical deconstruction shows this all as otherwise arbitrary. The Roman flamines and Greek hierai (priests in each context) fulfilled the exact same roles as Druids and Shamans. Similarly, anything we would call magic or divination played a similar role, like the haruspex, oracle, pythia, etc, whose roles have been absorbed by Clerics, Wizards and Sorcerers. Similarly, the cleric originates specifically from the ancient Greek Christian context, the kleros, and bears zero resemblance; a cleric did not do magic, they administered sacraments and ministered to the community, and were often but not always spiritual leaders. In some ways this overlaps with what you've said of Druids and Shamans, and in other ways doesn't. But it would be no good to dispense with every magic user class or collapse them into a single things; at a certain point, the gaming tradition takes precedence for its own sake. Ultimately, the issue draws down to two things in my mind: the invention of the secular which firmly separates the world of politics from that of spirit, and the necessity of archetypal game design that pulls on human psychology and heuristics. In reality, no words used here are going to fairly or appropriately describe the arbitrary class chassis and types we've developed because its all fictional and fantastical in ways the terms used aren't; unless you invent new terms and dump every cultural heuristic in favor of either pure mechanics or nonreferential language, which to me is bland, confusing or even impossible. So the lines need to be drawn somewhere.

I think when you have issue like this i find helpful to see how others have made the distinction in translating the words into other languages. I'm certain The dungeons & dragons has had to translate these terms into other languages for their publications.

Please do this for Clerics and Paladins! ❤

Can we talk about where witches fall in all of this?

Great Video !

I like the sound of your voice, the way you speak, and the music in your background, but the audio is a tad too low for me. Can you record louder without being louder? I don't know how that works?

Only one nit to pick. In WOW the alliance races of Dwarf and Drenai can be Shamans.

this was answered in 1982 or whatever in Arcanum. You really should check it out

in my created world, Druids and Shamans are kind of tricky to spot the diference of, this is becouse they tap in to the same source of magic but do it in different ways, i'm going for a more Scandinavian Viking Shaman for as the feel, Shamans are not primitive but brutish and with this are just more common in more brutish races (Orcs, Minotaur, Trolls), race cultures that are "Modern" and really more socially advanced than Humans are Dwarfs and Hobgoblins who also uses Shamans. Shamans are expected by thair powers to fight for them kind of like a paladin or warlock however a Druids is not as expected to commit bloodshed but more of protect the entity. in more un inspired words Shamans are more in tuch with Spirital Incarnations of the Natural world and Druids are more in tuned with the more metaphysical aspcts of it all. even if it sunds close to it nither is a Warlock, they are concidered Oocultists, there a Cleric is someone worshiping something like a God or champions a godly Idea (even if they dislikes the gods), a Oucultist venerates and respect something more lokal. excample, a Hag moves in to a Village, the Hag quickly becomes the most powerfull local creature, someone would notice that a powerfull force have arived and wishes to appeace it or work with it. where Clerics are Macro Worshipers the Druid/Shaman are Micro Worshipers

I imagine that the main distinction between Druids and Shamans is that while they both are connected to ancient, primordial things, Druids deal more in earthly things (plants, animals, the land itself), while Shamans deal more in unearthly things (spirits, the spirit world, the future).

My understanding of shamanism is mostly in contrast with priesthood. In practice there's a continuum between these general bimodal poles, but it's a very useful categorization regardless (much like gender is a bimodal continuum and a useful albeit flawed system of categories). Basically, shamans are granted power directly by spirits or gods, and do rituals on request, mostly in something resembling a client-professional relationship, rarely in a permanent place of worhip, and generally divorced from secular political power. Priests on the other hand are selected for their competency are performing rituals in the prescribed manner rather than having any inherent power, perform their rituals on a relatively invariant schedule, serve as a leader to a group of followers, usually in a permanent place of worship, and often have great secular political power. Druids are a good example of how these distinctions get pretty fuzzy. They were directly empowered by the spirits, did rituals both on request and on a schedule, didn't rely on permanent places of worship, had a lot of secular political power, and those they served were both clients and followers. They definitely fall more on the shaman side of the continuum, but also show how you have to treat things on a case-by-case basis. Also interestingly, modern psychotherapists are basically shamans under this definition, and those areas where they don't meet the definition are basically areas where racist and anti-primitivist and anti-tribalist bias enters the picture. For the purposes of D&D the difference is largely a matter of prepared vs spontaneous casting, where the prepared casters are more like priests and the spontaneous casters (and, often, half-casters) are more like shamans. So a Wizard or Bard would be an Arcane Priest and a Warlock would be an Arcane Shaman, whereas a Druid is a Primal Priest and a Ranger is a Primal Shaman. And if I were to redesign the classes from scratch, I'd make an effort to reinforce these lore differences with consistently applied mechanical differences (while adding a third category of non-ritual (ie non-spellcasting) magic akin to being a mutant, demigod, or superhero for a bit more class diversity (think the lore of a Barbarian or Sorcerer, )(and also removing non-magical classes, because every class should have some justification for being able to be an equal contributor in a party with people who can cast Wish)).

I homebrewed a Shaman subclass for 5e based on the Warcraft Shaman. The WoW Shaman to me is just so fun and nostalgic, and they're different from druids in that they derive power from the elements, which works fairly well within DnD lore

17:15 Atheopagan here... Yes, Durids are a form of shamanism. But Druids are referring to a specific type of shawman. As for the shape changing abilities of druids I would refer you to the durth of shapchanging in European folklore. Which is probably what they are going for. Durds died out *WELL BEFORE* the Christianization of Rome. So Christianity is really just working off 3 hand sources at best. Those of us who are reconstructing older beleif systems are doing it through two frames simultaneously. One of he academic frame to get our best interpretation of the past. The other is ecstatic experience. Both need to weighed with the other. Most RPGs do this who have classes. In the occult Mage, Warlock, Magus are almost/can be synonymous. In the games they are all magic users, with an arcance bend. Druids, Shawmans, Clerics are all divine casters. So these fields are all related but different and specific. I am going to listen till the end but this is all kind of nails on a chalkboard logic. Fighter, Warriors, and Soldiers all have historical context. Why are RPGs using these words to describe things in a fictional setting? Don't all RPGs know depending on historical POV many of those words mean almost the exact same thing?! Disservice! P.S. 2 seconds later you *really* glossed over how faith, magic, and everything works inside the settings you called out specifically. You could have had a much more compelling video topic looking at the connections of real world faiths, and occultism view on gods/magic system and how they conncet to popular RPGs. A lot is made up out of whole cloth..Some creators are clearly fascinated with the subjecr matter. There isnt a lot of creators what have a rigorous academic background looking into the somewhat complex topic.

15:38 Using some really outdated information there. Shamans have been available for both factions since 2007. Unless you specifically mean World of Warcraft Classic. Side note, not a great example of a Warcraft shaman on the thumbnail either. Guldan is normally the poster child for warlocks in Warcraft specifically because he failed to become a shaman. I did enjoy the video though, this question has always been one I was curious about. I'd love to hear more.

Wow. That was an amazing explanation of the real world druid and shaman. I am impressed. I am not going to nit pick this. The explanation was far better than I expected from a gaming channel. I think ot distinctions like this. Shaman was originally the word for a magician in Siberia. Then it became a broad umbrella term for old-fashioned paganism around the world. A druid is essentially a Celtic shaman. Shamans in general required a lot of training. Druids are hardcore. The amount of training is like training from first grade to getting a PHD. The wizards of DND and the mages of WOW as being described as magicians that get powers by studying alot. In western media in general, wizards and witches are depicted as wise. The druids and shamans are a lot like that. They are closer to nature, but they still have thier own intellegence. Heck that even explain why druids in DND get thier magic powered by the wisdom score. Druids come in three subgroups. There is the bards, ovates and druids. They have specific roles. I do agree that the elements for shamans and the shapeshifting for druids are wierd. That doesn't fit reality very well. It does suck that DND 5E doesn't have a shaman classs. The video gave an explanation of it being problematic. I didn't think of that. This is so inconsistent though. Barbarian and warlock are in 5E, and they are more problematic. Barbarians are worse than shamans when it comes to racism. At least shamans have some intellegence and nobility to them. Barbarians are all about rage abd aggression. Even the word barbarian sounds a lot like a slur. This is a horrendous way to depict people of color. If they did so anger and agression, there was a good reason for it. It was wrong for the whites to invade places in the first place. The colored natives would just fight to defend thier homeland. That is a very good reason to go into war. Maybe the barbarian stereotype is a way to tone police the people of color. Maybe the Saphire stereotype is a way to tone police black women specifically. Such stereotyping is still scummy. Warlocks are problematic in a different way. Magicians have a false and negative sterotype of worshipping the Devil. This was done by the Christians in order to stamp out Paganism. Witches are the main example of a magician with the negative stereotypes. It was so bad that is lead to mass murder in the Witch Craze. Later on DND itself was a victim of false accusations of Satanism. This was during the time of the Satanic Panic. The stereotype is a touchy subject for me. It hurts when so many people were murdered, and that was hard to ignore. In both WOW and DND, the warlock works as the negative stereotype of magicians. They are into summoning demons and serving demons. It isn't good. In both franchises, the demons and other infernals are generally depicted as evil. The warlock class is something that I find offensive but can power through okay. I did come up with my own version of the warlock. This is an occult magician. They have a creepy and cool vibe. However they are 100% demon free. It is totally possible to go into the Occult without getting into Satanic territory. There is interesting philosophy and ceremony there. I tend to characterize warlocks as those that are into a secret society. When I homebrew DND. I change the warlock flavor to be less offensive, but I leave mechanics intact. I imagine the subclasses as being members of various secret societies. It is less about being devoted to various patrons.

I had this idea forming from before I hit play on this one, But honestly given the descriptions, you could make an argument not just for Druids being folded into Shaman as an umbrella term, but *Clerics* as well. This one might feel weird, because our image of a Cleric is powerfully informed by the Christian Crusades and surrounding time periods, etc. This is why older editions had them oftentimes only having proficiency with blunt weapons, for example. But in the game, and especially in 5e, a Cleric is just a member of a religious tradition with a direct line to a god. Everything else is just flavor, and can be adjusted accordingly. And yes, "Shaman" now has some reflexive uncomfortable connotations. Could even be reflexively perjorative, depending on your experiences. I don't personally feel like "Holy Person" has the same elegance to it, but the great thing is people can decide which words they'd like to use.

0:12 location or location of origin.

So from a video series on werewolf history, I learnt that Roman's myths where you could turn into wolves was considered a gift from the gods, so if that series was accurate they wouldn't see turning in to animals beastly but evidence of connection to the divine.

One homebrew take on the druid i have seen is by Ross Liesser, each subclass is inspired by different real world practises of different cultures and he hired a sensitivity reader to make sure he was representing these cultures and their practises fairly. I didn't use to see a reason for druids and shamans to be different classes in DnD, but now I think their is room for it. If the druid dosen't have that much to do with their historical counterpart, which in my opinion they don't have in 5e, they instead become a caster that draws their power directly from nature, nature as a single powerful entity or just a force that can be utilised, and doing so by living in and becoming one with nature, which means their greatest aligance is to nature and other druids and not much more. A druid in this sense dosen't have that much overlap with a shaman in my opinion and leaves a lot of room for a shaman class that is a religious and comunity leader, focused on communing with spirits and casting their magic by getting help from spirits. I'm sorey if this second part comes of as a bit conveluted or unclear, but just ask me if you wan't me go clarify something in my reasoning.

I always just thought of druids of being similar to wood elves - people of nature that are in tune with it. Druids to me are a race, not a class. Shamans on the other hand learn ancient and occult nature magic, could be human, an elf, or even a druid.

Sorcerers vs wizards. IRL they're the same thing

I feel the druid class has been based more on the Celtic revival that started as a reaction to modernism. This led over the years to the growth of fantasy stories, language revival, and neo-Paganism, including neo-Druidism and Wicca. While some claimed to be reviving an ancient practice most modern practitioners of neo-Druidism understand it to be an invention inspired by stories and unreliable accounts. In this way it has a very strong place in games like D&D as it was born from the same movement that inspired modern fantasy tropes. And it is important to state that modern neo-Druidic faith is not less real or meaningful just because it is a modern faith and not an authentic recreation of its ancient inspiring source. I know a lot of faiths put value on the idea of their religion being handed down by direct connection with the divine but for a lot of modern Paganism it is very human in that it is human creativity and exploration in ourselves and the world around us building paths to the divine, as natural or supernatural as that may be. Though in truth D&D has two druid classes: the druid and the bard, with the later probably being more accurate and the former being a generalised representation of the Celtic stories and revaluing of nature from the anti-modernist movement.

“What’s the different between Druid and Shaman?” Not sure but the shaman in the thumbnail is definitely not shaman

I felt that in Faerun the difference between Druid and Shaman is the same as Wizard and Hedge Wizard. In real life it's like the different between trained engineers and the guys that build things just figuring out own their own with a lot of intuition.

Druid = Nature, Shaman = Spirits?

There is no problem that needs a solution in this. Just leave it at being called druid and shaman as separate classes.

in a fantasy world, " Druids" and "shaman" would have...well, not that much to do with real world druid and shaman since they evolved independently, "druid" and "shaman" are very much colloquial terms rather than the actual religious term. Real religions are incredibly complex, and almost ALL religions contains some forms of "nature worship" "ancestor worship" ""belief in the afterlife" "philosophy" "useful real life science" and "belief in a higher power", that means when we worldbuild, we have to make every "religion" based class hyperfixate on one of them over the others if not exclusively. so for me, I like to divide them on element of religion as the source of their power, druids get "nature worship" so nature is their magic, while shamans gets "ancester worship" so ancestral spirits and sentient spirits are their magic, clerics gets "beliefs in a higher power" so the higher power is their magic etc. of course, I DO think a lot of fantasy do oversimplify what each class can do, "shapeshift" is not just a "druid" thing, and we really shouldn't use cultural "stereotypes" and "typecasting" for these classes. sharing roles and abilities between classes is okay, Wizards should be able to form giant swords with fire and armor with ice and charge into the enemy battlefields.

At least "druid" and "shaman" aren't ethnic terms. I personally choose to call the class "berserker" instead of "barbarian" because it feels less awkward for me.

Dang Homie!! You need to be a game designer…or at least a setting designer.

Good.

Druids could have been a shaman subclass

17:13 I don't know, VIking pagan practices are sually seen as shaministic not druidic.

Druids can be Shamans but not all of them... and not all Shamans are Druids.... it's an apples are fruits but not all fruits are apples kind of thing. But culturally Druids are probably limited to mostly Europe.

I can't remember any shamans in DnD. Not in Becmi, not in Ad&d, not in 5e. Not sure about 3rd edition, and 4th edition..... let's say I'm not qualified to talk about that thing.

I use them Interchangeably As American who is familiar with several Native Cultures, all the powers Druids have seem too close to animistic practices

I really don't think that druids and shamans are the same or that druids are shamans. I don't know what typology you are basing this off, but take that ideas around shamanism by authors like Mircea Eliade are often too general and more like his interpretation of "shamanism" as a type, rather than a part of particular native religions. One should probably look first at the culture at which this term was coined, the Evenki of Siberia, where shaman or haman means someone who dances trance. There is a particular set of characteristics shared by Siberian shamans, which is not found in other traditions dubbed shaman. I would not say that the ah-men (Curanderos) of the Maya people are shamans in the same way, as they have more priest-like attributes as well. The same goes for druids. Druids are community leaders, shamans are not, they are outsiders. That is black shamans, white shamans is a different topic, due to colonialism, their practices faded away earlier than the black shamans. I think it does a disservice to each religious expert to discuss them as types without the context of their culture.

Hey you! Person who thinks cultures with druids didn't write about themselves, or much at all. First, go look up the Book of Invasions. Then, go listen to the Táin Bó Cúailnge, or at very least go find the story about the two swineherds who turn themselves into various things and eventually become the two bulls who cause that whole epic cattle raid to take place. And then, finally, go look up what Ogham is. You got a very strong smh and a C- from me about that "shaman" term. And you really should go listen to people in the scenes doing the revival/reconstruction and look at the messy skein that is, before you decide whether and how well those traditions are dead or alive.

Druid is superior

The reason why the "good" races like humans etc have wizards, warlocks and druids, but all the "Bad" races like Goblins and orcs have only shamans, is to make them appear more primitive. They are already inspired by racist stereotypes and the Word "Shaman" is strongly connected to some of those.

Goddamn if I haven't disliked D&D druids since 1981. Contrived "nature trail hippies" as a basis for "druids" sucks. Giving them a "pantheon of old gods" can be a step towards correcting this horrible state of affairs. Shamans need a system of animism. Generally speaking one needs a form of medieval astrology (or corespondances) underpin much of this world building. The ancient Russians held the Finns to be the greatest sorcerers and in game terms this roughly translates to "shaman".

While I like the world of D&D, I sometimes yearn for a fantasy setting that is more... mysterious. Where words such as wizard, mage, sorceror, shaman, druid, witch, warlock, diviner, etc. might not have as clearly defined and well understood boundaries. Where there is more doubt about the existence of the gods and magic. ...wait, am I just describing ASOIAF? Well, maybe, something like that, but it's just that I think some of the 'magic' can be lost from the actual magic of a setting if it's all too well understood and codified. Also, I guess I don't actually like class-based systems of rpg, I prefer something more skill based where a class emerges as someone who have mastered a certain cluster of skills. In this way, spells and rituals could be picked up by anyone with the time, inclination and intrepidness. Because class-based systems seem to conflate something of a person's 'job' or position with their skills and abilities.

A few months ago I've actually renamed druids as environmentalists, or envires for short. I've made it for the very same reasons discussed in video: druids or shamans are not really what dnd class is about, even if some of the features are there. For me personally, "druids" always were about the environment they live in, be it forest, desert, city, mountain or even plane of fire, so the "environmentalist" seemed like the most obvious pick, even if it's not really easy to say or catchy. And so the "envire" was born and so far it worked perfectly, although, of course, it took some time to get used to

I mean, I've just renamed Barbarians to be "Battleragers" in my game. Name says it all, they rage in battle. Sure there's a subclass with that same name, but since it's a stupid subclass I'm just going to ignore it. And I'm also uneasy with how, at least early on, D&D leans heavily on tribe oriented verbage (such as totem) for some of the class and subclass features.

Fine. We'll just call them both witch doctors.

Your speech cadence is torturously slow yet punctuated. You have also bought way to far into contemporary precious snowflakery. Also, you shouldn't be spending any time at all on modern shamanic practices, any more than you should be comparing fantasy priesthoods to the modern catholic church. Neither are modeled on those thing. Also, arguably, Druids were in some respect shamans, though that mode might have only been true of some of them.

I am first to comment on this video.

I’m sorry but as one of Druidic faith i’ma have to correct the record here. Yes the old Druidic orders were academical in nature but that was largely as a result of one of our core beliefs. “We are born in the fog, and we die in the fog” meaning we believe in no eternal truth, to be a Druid is the religious equivalent of being a scientist before the invention of science. Also we did have shape changing kinda, see a truly gifted Druid can do a ritual that turns us into a wolf-folk permanently. It’s only for the most venerable among us but it is indeed done.

"KZfaqr discuss fantasy without projecting their own insecurities and a sense of white guilt onto it" challenge, difficulty: impossible.

The word shaman, literally only means a cultural, religious, and or political leader. Druids were shamans, modern religious leaders (such as priests, bishops, clerics, pastures, preachers, rabbis, and basically any other religious leader) are shamans. Any person, who has any form of dealings with anything spiritual (ie. any entity or force that is non-physical) is a shaman. When a preacher, in any of the local Baptist churches around me, "baptizes" someone in water, in the name of jesus, or god, or the holy spirit, or any such, are technically, definitively shamans; preforming shamanistic rituals. Shamanic or shamanistic, are almost synonyms with religious /spiritual, often (but not always) tinted with the expectation of leadership or rule. In modern times, shaman has become so broad in meaning though, that it is nearly useless. Except when used in its derogatory form, simply used by anyone, to refer to anyone else in an (othering) fashion.

Curious cultural conceptual review of the archetypes linked to natural animism The same with Wizards and Witches or even Sorcerers and Mystic Cleric Doctors, and others practitioners...🧙‍♂️🪄🎩🔮🎱✨ Also if the Celctic Shamans are call Druids wait to meet the Hmong , Manchu, Inuits, Yatiri, Machis, Fuegians , Dogons, Papuans peoples and more!!