"Your Class is Not Your Character": Is this a real problem?

[Aldarc]

Start or end, the fluff is a guide to the class and can't be discarded without discarding the class itself. Class is not mechanics. Class is the mechanics plus the class fluff. If you completely re-write the fluff, you have a brand new class, even if the mechanics are the same as a barbarian.

Absolute rubbish.

 

[TwoSix]

If you want to have a cultured knight and flower of civilization who gets really angry and rages in battle, you are not playing a barbarian. You have completely thrown out the guidelines and what makes the class a barbarian and have created a new class.

Even if it's a whole new class, it's immaterial. The fiction is bigger and broader than the rule set. That's why you can run Eberron with Savage Worlds, or Forgotten Realms with Barbarians of Lemuria, or Golarian with 5e. It's why you can run any fantasy game with a village and a site to explore, and just build it out during play. The only thing that limits the concepts in the fiction are the participant's understanding of the concepts of the boundaries of the fiction.

Any ruleset is just an inexact method of allowing the players to describe characters within the world in a way that all of their contributions are roughly equivalent, and provide a mechanical method for the players to contribute to the fiction.

 

[Chaosmancer]

ROFL Wow! Watch out that you don't fall and hurt yourself on that Slippery Slope there.

I even pointed out ways that you could do noble and barbarian. Nothing you say here is in any way a valid response to what I said. Was there a point to that response?

Because of what you express in this post

That serves as one of the guidelines for what a barbarian is. Whether you are a dwarven battle rager, an orc, a tribesman, or something else along those lines is up to the player to decide. However you decide, though, the guideline is that barbarians are uncivilized.

If you want to have a cultured knight and flower of civilization who gets really angry and rages in battle, you are not playing a barbarian. You have completely thrown out the guidelines and what makes the class a barbarian and have created a new class.

I know it came after, but it highlights the issue exactly.

A barbarian cannot be civilized according to you. They must be uncivilized.

Mechanics for noble? Their Position of Privilege feature says this "Thanks to your noble birth, people are inclined to think the best of you. You are welcome in high society, and people assume you have the right to be wherever you are. "

And the Knight in particular says "As an emblem of chivalry and the ideals of courtly love, you might include among your equipment a banner or other token from a noble lord or lady to whom you have given your heart — in a chaste sort of devotion. "

So, under your own logic (I must have either been a noble and become a barbarian, or been a barbarian and become a noble) my character has one of two possible existances. Either I am a tribal warrior, savage and uncultured who was granted lands, and therefore Old Blood nobles welcome me to their galas and events, even though I show up in animal skins and eat with my bare hands. Or, I was a nobleman, and through events I was left stranded out in the wilderness, and became a wild man to survive.

Yet, why? Why are you deciding that my character must act in these ways? Why is my personality decided by my class? Why do I hold a token of courtly love, if I do not believe in courtly love? How is honoring the great deeds of past warriors different if I do it with wine and an epic romance era saga (with accompanying family lineage) instead of in a bawdy song while quaffing cheap ale? Why must I throwing the serving woman over my shoulder and drag her off, instead of paying for a candlelit dinner with fine wines and pleasant music to woo her?

And so, I presented the slippery slope. If all Barbarians must by nature be uncivilized buffoons, unable to grasp the intricacies of high culture, then must all Fighters be grizzled veterans of war? All Clerics cloistered scholars who have taken vows of poverty and piousness? Are all bards horny lutists with a heart of gold?

You agree to one, why not the others? Why is it okay to say that one class has their personality set in stone, while the others do not?

 

[Maxperson]

Its following all the rules of a barbarian: the only thing that has changed is the fluff, or flavour text.

Note also that that flavour text is from the PHB while the character in question is an Ancestral Guardians barbarian, which has its own accompanying fluff.

The Ancestral Guardian follows the fluff that I just laid out from the PHB. You are also missing the point. Being a barbarian does not equal rage, unarmored defense, fast movement, reckless attack, danger sense, etc. To be a barbarian takes more than just the mechanics. The class is the mechanics plus the general flavor of the fluff that is written.

 

[Maxperson]

Absolute rubbish.

Well, that insightful and well written counter argument sure showed me.

 

[Maxperson]

Even if it's a whole new class, it's immaterial. The fiction is bigger and broader than the rule set. That's why you can run Eberron with Savage Worlds, or Forgotten Realms with Barbarians of Lemuria, or Golarian with 5e. It's why you can run any fantasy game with a village and a site to explore, and just build it out during play. The only thing that limits the concepts in the fiction are the participant's understanding of the concepts of the boundaries of the fiction.

Wait. Being a whole new class is immaterial to a discussion about what the barbarian class is? That makes no sense.

I agree that the fiction is bigger and broader than the rule set. You can indeed make whole new classes just fine. I'm just saying that the new class isn't a barbarian. Once you change the fluff to the point that the character is no longer recognizable as that class, call it something different. Call it an Angry Knight or something.

 

[Chaosmancer]

The Ancestral Guardian follows the fluff that I just laid out from the PHB. You are also missing the point. Being a barbarian does not equal rage, unarmored defense, fast movement, reckless attack, danger sense, etc. To be a barbarian takes more than just the mechanics. The class is the mechanics plus the general flavor of the fluff that is written.

So being a barbarian means eating large hunks of meat with your hands? Dressing in animal skins and bathing once a year? Never cutting your hair or trimming your beard? Spitting upon ancient art, not understanding nuance and innuedo?

Do I smash my plate against the ground when done eating? Carve scar tattoos into my face?

If I cannot be someone who believes in my word being my bond, romantic love, and enjoys fine wine and epic poems of glory, who must I be?

 

[Maxperson]

A barbarian cannot be civilized according to you. They must be uncivilized.

Incorrect. That is not according to me. It is according to the PHB.

Mechanics for noble? Their Position of Privilege feature says this "Thanks to your noble birth, people are inclined to think the best of you. You are welcome in high society, and people assume you have the right to be wherever you are. "

And the Knight in particular says "As an emblem of chivalry and the ideals of courtly love, you might include among your equipment a banner or other token from a noble lord or lady to whom you have given your heart — in a chaste sort of devotion. "

So, under your own logic (I must have either been a noble and become a barbarian, or been a barbarian and become a noble) my character has one of two possible existances. Either I am a tribal warrior, savage and uncultured who was granted lands, and therefore Old Blood nobles welcome me to their galas and events, even though I show up in animal skins and eat with my bare hands. Or, I was a nobleman, and through events I was left stranded out in the wilderness, and became a wild man to survive.

Or, as in the example I gave some time earlier, Noble can be adapted to barbarian use. Barbarian society exists and the son of a chief would qualify. Barbarians would be inclined to think the best of you. You would be welcome in the councils and such(high society). It's not as if someone with a traditional Noble would be welcomed into barbarian councils or that barbarians would be inclines to think the best of them.

Yet, why? Why are you deciding that my character must act in these ways? Why is my personality decided by my class? Why do I hold a token of courtly love, if I do not believe in courtly love?

It does say MIGHT include a token of courtly love. You do not have to have one. If you do have one, it is because you chose it. Nothing says you have to possess all of the traditional virtues of a knight, but if you CHOOSE knight, you are choosing enough of them to be recognizable as a knight, which takes more than a suit of armor. You are choosing to tie that roleplay to your character.

How is honoring the great deeds of past warriors different if I do it with wine and an epic romance era saga (with accompanying family lineage) instead of in a bawdy song while quaffing cheap ale? Why must I throwing the serving woman over my shoulder and drag her off, instead of paying for a candlelit dinner with fine wines and pleasant music to woo her?

Yes. Those things are obviously different. Just like karate and kung fu are obviously different ways to achieve a similar end result.

And so, I presented the slippery slope. If all Barbarians must by nature be uncivilized buffoons, unable to grasp the intricacies of high culture, then must all Fighters be grizzled veterans of war? All Clerics cloistered scholars who have taken vows of poverty and piousness? Are all bards horny lutists with a heart of gold?

And there is a Strawman of my argument. I specifically avoided the little specifics that don't change the general nature of the class, like being a scholar, having vows of poverty, being a lutist, etc.

It seems that your responses can only contain fallacious arguments. I'd love to see a valid argument from you in response to me.

You agree to one, why not the others? Why is it okay to say that one class has their personality set in stone, while the others do not?

What makes you think that the entirety of a barbarian's personality is uncivilized? That seems foolish and unnecessarily limiting to me.

 

[Maxperson]

So being a barbarian means eating large hunks of meat with your hands? Dressing in animal skins and bathing once a year? Never cutting your hair or trimming your beard? Spitting upon ancient art, not understanding nuance and innuedo?

If that's how you want to play it.

Do I smash my plate against the ground when done eating? Carve scar tattoos into my face?

Up to you.

If I cannot be someone who believes in my word being my bond, romantic love, and enjoys fine wine and epic poems of glory, who must I be?

Sure you can. Uncivilized people can ALSO honor their word, be romantic to their lovers, enjoy wine, and epics of glory.

 

[Aldarc]

Well, that insightful and well written counter argument sure showed me.

Perhaps if you gave me any evidence that you were open-minded to counter arguments, but I know better than to waste my time with providing well-written counter arguments when you have no interest in actually listening or changing your position.

Furthermore, it is not my place to say why you are wrong; it is yours to say why your positive assertion is correct. And you have not made a compelling argument for your case. If you had, you would have been able to convince a single person of your point, but you haven’t. Have a pleasant day.