Originally Posted by Thrythlind
Originally Posted by backstabbath
You still didn't answer my question.

Do you KNOW that the tropes you're talking about are driving away prospective players, or are you just saying that because you heard it said by others?

Myself directly, with Barbarian, nope. I have experienced some condescension and been referred to by equivalent terms in other languages while living in other countries (fortunately a rare occurence) and have avoided Barbarian even when the mechanics match my concepts because the concept of the noble savage does not match what I want and because it does not the culture I have in mind for that culture.

Which is going get "Well that's just your personal experience" and dismissed.

So if you don't know that these tropes drive anyone away from the hobby, including you yourself who, it sounds, has a particular aversion to the term "barbarian", what makes you so certain that there truly exist potential players who would be players were it not for word usage such as "barbarian"?