Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
What does Dickens have to do with this? He didn't create street urchins or that stereotype. He just wrote about them.
Arguments and assumptions against multi classing
What does Dickens have to do with this? He didn't create street urchins or that stereotype. He just wrote about them.
smbakeresq
Explorer
As far as street urchin background consider they Spartans would deliberately not give enough food to feed all children in training to teach them to be self sufficient and scrounge for their own.
The urchin stereotype is certainly mapped to small, quick, stealthy types, but it’s easy to alter it a little bit to something else.
I would consider the Boomerang Boy in The Road Warrior a street urchin even though he lived where there is no streets.
Urchin comes from the French word for hedgehog, probably because at that time kids in streets were like hedgehogs, they were small, wild and in large numbers.
The urchin stereotype is certainly mapped to small, quick, stealthy types, but it’s easy to alter it a little bit to something else.
I would consider the Boomerang Boy in The Road Warrior a street urchin even though he lived where there is no streets.
Urchin comes from the French word for hedgehog, probably because at that time kids in streets were like hedgehogs, they were small, wild and in large numbers.
Hussar
Legend
Ladies and gentlemen, I present Exhibit A.
Arial Black
Adventurer
Exactly!
So if the DM says that multiclassing IS allowed, then another player has no business being upset if I choose to play a MC PC.
Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
The Spartans didn't have urchins. Those boys where expected to be fit as infants, entered military style programs at age 7, hazed and fought each other to build strength and ability, and while food was kept scarce, they were also expected to remain physically fit.
FrogReaver
As long as i get to be the frog
If that’s your point we agree. Once the rule allowing multiclassibg gets established the. You don’t tell someone not to use that rule.
Do do you agree that it would be wrong for a player that wants multiclassibg to ask he DM for it after the DM has stated no multiclassibg?
Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
Words mean something. D&D uses many, many words that correspond to the real world. Barbarian, cleric, fighter, wizard, rogue, sword, dagger, mace, spear, elf, dwarf, human, and on and on and on and... Barbarian corresponds to the real world equivalent of barbaric tribes, Conan, etc. At no time in the real world were street urchins considered to be barbarian hordes.
If you want to change the meaning for your game, have at it. Enjoy. For my games, I'm going to retain the intended meanings of those words.
I don't have a horse in the 5e MC race, but a Google for "street urchin savages" turned up this, citing a 1959 monograph on The Victorian Child:
If D&D is somewhat anachronistically going to include a street urchin archetype - no doubt there were orphaned/homeless children in mediaeval towns and cities, but as a trope or archetype it fits more with mass urbanisation and industrial cities - there doesn't seem to be anything odd about taking the Victorian conceptions of "savage, destructive packs" seriously.
half-savage children, street arabs, street urchins, mudlarks, and guttersnipes — filthy, ragged, lying, cursing, and hungry, roaming singly or in packs like young wolves, snatching stealing, stone-throwing, destructive, brutish, and cruel when not merely hopeless and lost.
If D&D is somewhat anachronistically going to include a street urchin archetype - no doubt there were orphaned/homeless children in mediaeval towns and cities, but as a trope or archetype it fits more with mass urbanisation and industrial cities - there doesn't seem to be anything odd about taking the Victorian conceptions of "savage, destructive packs" seriously.
Arial Black
Adventurer
I have another point of view to that bolded part: no it bloody well isn't!
As I mentioned when I first posted in this thread some 600 pages ago, DMs have control over everything in their world EXCEPT the PCs!
The PC's fluff is the prerogative of the player, not the DM, where 'prerogative' = 'final word'. The player (ideally) knows enough about the DMs world in order to make sensible decisions (so no cyberware fluff in a world without cyberware, no werewolf fluff in a world with no lycanthropy), and the player has to obey the game RULES set down by the books and modified by the DM (so if the DM says the barbarian CLASS is not available, then that's the way it is).
But fluff = backstory here. That's up to the player, within the realms of possibility. For barbarian culture fluff, the only thing required is that there exists people with that culture in the DM's world. If the DM says that there are no barbarian cultures in the world, then that's the way it is. But the lack of any barbarian culture (which is a bit strange, bit this IS within the DM's purview) in no way prevents the use of the game mechanics of the barbarian CLASS, in and of itself. I could fluff my Bar 1 with (to take a popular example!) the urchin background. Certainly, not ALL urchins would use the barbarian class mechanic to represent them, but some would. Mine definitely does, and I know that because my fluff is up to me!
The only way a DM could prevent this is to ban the class AND the culture. But as long as the class is available, I can fluff it in any way that makes sense in the world. I could not fluff it as cyberware/lycanthropy without those things being in the world, but I have infinite idea space available to think of something that would apply.
Being raised on the mean streets is available, unless the DM's world has no mean streets on his world anywhere. Okay, no mean streets, no barbarian culture, but the class mechanics ARE available? Okay, I will steal my idea from the Deathstalker books, where Owen Deathstalker and the rest of his noble family have special organs which supply a special cocktail of adrenaline and other battle drugs at will, but they can only produce a limited amount per day. Maybe two lots at 1st level, three lots at 4th, you get the picture.
Rubbish! Not every single person in the 'culturally barbarian' tribe will have levels in the barbarian class! Some will be rangers, some druids, some fighters, maybe even a paladin (vengeance?), while most will be NPCs without a specific class. The idea that a player creating a PC from this culture without any levels in the barbarian class is somehow being dishonest is an unmerited slur.
Other unmerited slurs include: if you play a MC PC then you must be:-
* powergaming,
* trying to spoil MY fun
* trying to change MY world
* forcing the DM to make ALL urchins have levels in the barbarian class
* etc. etc. ad nauseum
Warpiglet
Adventurer
I say more power to you. However, if you cling too tightly to your dictionary and the characters you have seen before, you are going to miss out on a lot. In fact, if the only barbarians allowed are Conan with a different name and hair color, burn out is a real possibility if you are long in the hobby. If you are a DM, you are going to straightjacket players with too much rigidity.
Again, from Sage Advice:
“Each class has story elements mixed with its game features; the two types of design go hand-in-hand in D&D, and the story parts are stronger in some classes than in others. Druids and paladins have an especially strong dose of story in their design. If you want to depart from your class’s story, your DM has the final say on how far you can go and still be considered a member of the class. As long as you abide by your character’s proficiencies, you’re not going to break anything in the game system, but you might undermine the story and the world being created in your campaign.”
Obviously, you can set the limit if you are the DM. Some limits need to be set. However, for every “different idea” someone presents, you find an example of when such would not be possible. Respectfully, renaming the Urchin may be what you want. Perhaps running through the city and using thieves tools might not fit your idea of a half orc child. Of course you could swap some skill and rename the package…
But you seem to be very wedded to a fiction someone else made and its not even class fiction but background!
Somewhere some player’s shenanigans must have ruined one of your games! This is nothing to do with class balance. Now this is about telling players their history is improbable? They are heroes! Their rise to first level is improbable! OK, so you want some logic? Agreed we need to explain some tales to understand them.
But the way this is going, only little rogues could have been urchins. Barbarians? Better have the outlander background, all of you! Let people make things up. If it is all is just what appeals to one person, the DM, it’s not about world building; it’s about control and restriction.
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