D&D General Character Classes should Mean Something in the Setting

[Steampunkette]

Once more this appears to be something you have imported from Pathfinder. The fluff for the Aberrant Mind sorcerer states "An alien influence has wrapped its tendrils around your mind, giving you psionic power. You can now touch other minds with that power and alter the world around you by using it to control the magical energy of the multiverse." Not even a single word of how that has to do with lineage and it explicitly was not a birthright or passed down from your parents and it is explicitly about something that happened to you.

The "Draconic Bloodline" is the only sorcerer subtype that is explicitly about lineage. Most of the others can be if you want them to be with fluff like "You might trace your lineage to an entity from that place, or perhaps you were exposed to its fell energy and transformed by it." for the shadow sorcerer but do not have to be. When it says "perhaps" it doesn't mean "this is the only possibility and please ignore the others we're presenting".

Spellcasters that are about lineage are included under the heading of the 5e sorcerer - but not all 5e sorcerers have anything to do with lineage.

To look at the actual 5e fluff for the Storm Sorcerer "Your innate magic comes from the power of elemental air. Many with this power can trace their magic back to a near-death experience caused by the Great Rain, but perhaps you were born during a howling gale so powerful that folk still tell stories of it, or your lineage might include the influence of potent air creatures such as vaati or djinn."

As ever except for the sorcerer type literally named after a bloodline and the one mentioning the mind lineage is one but only one option. And near-death experiences and major weather events are explicitly sorcerous origin stories. Your fluff appears to be the Pathfinder (1e) Stormborn bloodline from the APG which states "You trace your heritage to fierce and proud spirits of storm and sky, and living lightning sings in your veins." but once again this is Pathfinder and not D&D 5e.

Indeed. Other than the draconic bloodline there isn't a canonical Birthright necessary for 5e's sorcerers. Birthrights are merely one of the possible options presented for sorcerers. You can't change what doesn't exist.

There is one for Pathfinder sorcerers. But Pathfinder isn't 5e.

You mean the way they actually did with the sorcerer class in the 5e PHB? Something like the way they said for the Wild Sorcerer's sorcerous origin in the PHB:
"Your innate magic comes from the wild forces of chaos that underlie the order of creation. You might have endured exposure to some form of raw magic, perhaps through a planar portal leading to Limbo, the Elemental Planes, or the mysterious Far Realm. Perhaps you were blessed by a powerful fey creature or marked by a demon. Or your magic could be a fluke of your birth, with no apparent cause or reason. "

So that's (a) a portal to Limbo, (b) a portal to the Elemental planes, (c) a portal to the Far Realm, (d) blessed by a fey creature, (e) marked by a demon, or (f) a fluke of your birth. That's between three and six different examples of different ways to get power as a sorcerer with the Wild Magic origin in one single paragraph in the PHB depending on how you count, precisely zero of which are bloodlines.

So the 5e PHB did literally exactly what you say they should have to demonstrate the "Wider Storyline for Sorcerers". That's because this is 5e canon - and the idea that sorcerers are based on bloodlines is something from Pathfinder - or possibly from the SRD only having the single sorcerous origin that's explicitly about your bloodline.

... cooool. That's a whole pile of fascinating information. Thank you for sharing it. Worth noting, Pathfinder isn't where the idea of Sorcerers being bloodlines came from, it goes back to their introduction in 3e, through 3.5, through Pathfinder, into 4e, and now into Pathfinder 2e. If one of those influenced my mindset it's probably all the D&D ones that I've played and maybe some of the Pathfinder as well, but primarily D&D's long tradition...

And ultimately: 5e D&D doesn't -have- Canon. No D&D does. It's all based on the individual settings you're playing.

But. Why, exactly, are we talking about it?

Sorcerers may have a lot of story written into the class, but they've got none written into the settings. Which is the problem I'm elucidating with this thread. Without setting-specific story or lore or canon or whatever you choose to call it, they're sore thumbs and loose ends.

I don't give two flying frogs (cr 1/4) in the end whether the story is Birthright, Stolen Power, Granted by the Gods, or whatever the heck else. I used Magical Lineage in -my- setting 'cause I think it works well as a direction to go, what with the whole idea of a classist variant of magical power creating social hierarchy and narrative distance between Sorcerers and Wizards. Y'know, 'cause I'm the kind of writing nerd that likes to adapt sociology and politics into fantasy worlds through allegory as a way to make that fantasy world feel more "Real".

But the actual intent of the thread is that there should be -SOME- kind of lore outside the class description written into the actual setting. Which Sorcerers almost never do but are only one particularly notable example of the issue at hand.

 

[Neonchameleon]

then why have different classes at all just destroy the sorcerer and the wizard to make the mage?

why do you like your crunch and fluff so far apart?

It's not that they are far apart to me so much as fluff should be both inspiring and mutable. When GMing I'd start with the standard fluff - and then if people want to adapt it for their character then why not? It's done its job of inspiring them.

 

[Sithlord]

I don't like the story of just anyone being able to learn magic, whether wizardry, sorcery, or even bardic magic. I like the story of it being something that only a rare few are able to master and manage.

I respect that. That is not how I see the wizard. I see them as the one that got his magic by hard work and studying. The only key thing that screens a person out is lack of intelligence. But other than that it is hard work and self discipline and training and pushing yourself.

but the beauty of the game is we can do whatever we want in our home setting. And I think homebrewed settings is the pinnacle of d&d.

 

[Sithlord]

I would like the mechanics completely separated from the fluff. In fact, fluff should have its own separate chapter in any book, refering the crunch when needed.

DnD tries to be setting-agnostic, but still injects "lore" in its classes. That's what bothers me sometimes.

"Sorcerers carry a magical birthright conferred upon them by an exotic bloodline, some otherworldly influence, or exposure to unknown cosmic forces."

or maybe they just woke up one day, and they could do magic? Or maybe I want my character to be a scholarly type, so he actually studied to become a sorcerer? "But that would be a wizard!" But I want metamagic and sorcery points, why does it matter if my fluff is that of a wizard?

"Classes" should only be crunch. What it means to belong to a class, that should be 100% up to the setting.

For example, in my Dragonlance (War of the Lance) game Sorcerers, Wizards, and Warlocks were all Mages, they all go to school to learn, they all have to read books to learn. Because that's the lore of my world/setting. While Bards, Clerics, and Druids were Priests. Their mechanics did not inform their place in the world, it was their place in the world that suggested to them what mechanic (class) to choose.

I respect, but disagree. I do not want books that read like technical manuals. I want the fluff integrated deeply with mechanics. To each his own.

 

[Neonchameleon]

... cooool. That's a whole pile of fascinating information. Thank you for sharing it. Worth noting, Pathfinder isn't where the idea of Sorcerers being bloodlines came from, it goes back to their introduction in 3e, through 3.5, through Pathfinder, into 4e, and now into Pathfinder 2e. If one of those influenced my mindset it's probably all the D&D ones that I've played and maybe some of the Pathfinder as well, but primarily D&D's long tradition...

No problem at all. Although I would point out that 4e offers four different suggestions in the PHB2 of where the sorcerer gets its power, of which a bloodline is only one; as is so often the case the 5e fluff is the 4e fluff. 3.5 basically says "We don't know, but some claim draconic bloodlines I guess?" and offers no other suggestions (I assume 3.0 is the same) which is probably why Pathfinder went hard into bloodlines.

But. Why, exactly, are we talking about it?

Sorcerers may have a lot of story written into the class, but they've got none written into the settings. Which is the problem I'm elucidating with this thread. Without setting-specific story or lore or canon or whatever you choose to call it, they're sore thumbs and loose ends.

And this is where I'm slightly confused. Adventurers are almost all sore thumbs and loose ends - and if we look at either biology or sociology almost nothing fits into neat little boxes the way a class system would indicate so you expect there to be sore thumbs and loose ends. There's little that encourages non-bloodline sorcerers to form organisations so them just sort of being there both makes the setting more believable as it's slightly chaotic and means that wizardry and its books didn't come out of nowhere so much as an attempt to systematise what random sorcerers did. And possibly [random historical great wizard] was actually a sorcerer; of course the wizards are going to claim them after their death and the sorcerers aren't organised enough to argue.

As for druids not being that tightly woven in, I'm reminded of a comment in the wake of the Ever Given getting stuck; that if your ship has a Wikipedia page you've either done something really right or really wrong and it's probably the latter. Druids I see much the same way although they're more like safety inspectors than ship captains.

 

[Steampunkette]

No problem at all. Although I would point out that 4e offers four different suggestions in the PHB2 of where the sorcerer gets its power, of which a bloodline is only one; as is so often the case the 5e fluff is the 4e fluff. 3.5 basically says "We don't know, but some claim draconic bloodlines I guess?" and offers no other suggestions (I assume 3.0 is the same) which is probably why Pathfinder went hard into bloodlines.

And this is where I'm slightly confused. Adventurers are almost all sore thumbs and loose ends - and if we look at either biology or sociology almost nothing fits into neat little boxes the way a class system would indicate so you expect there to be sore thumbs and loose ends. There's little that encourages non-bloodline sorcerers to form organisations so them just sort of being there both makes the setting more believable as it's slightly chaotic and means that wizardry and its books didn't come out of nowhere so much as an attempt to systematise what random sorcerers did. And possibly [random historical great wizard] was actually a sorcerer; of course the wizards are going to claim them after their death and the sorcerers aren't organised enough to argue.

As for druids not being that tightly woven in, I'm reminded of a comment in the wake of the Ever Given getting stuck; that if your ship has a Wikipedia page you've either done something really right or really wrong and it's probably the latter. Druids I see much the same way although they're more like safety inspectors than ship captains.

Every one of those "Unique Flower" (I must be clear I do not mean this in a derogatory way, I recognized about half an hour later it might come across that way) Sorcerers requires just -so- much supposition, though. About the setting.

Aberrant Mind: There must be some aberrant entity which grabs people's minds for some purpose (Unknowable or otherwise). What is -it- within the setting? Is it known to monster hunters? Warlocks? Wizards delving into ancient lore?

Primal Storm: Has to actually -exist- to strike someone. Not every setting goes ham with the "Standard D&D Cosmology". The Ashen Lands certainly don't. Assuming a Primal Storm exists: What are it's effects on the world? How do Sailors and Port Towns deal with Primal Storms?

Divine Soul: Requires gods to pick out people as a separate idea beyond "Paladin" or "Cleric" to grant them abilities. Do the deities do this? Have they done this in the past?

These are all aspects of sorcery have to be a part of the setting to some degree or another to "Work". Every variant, every option, every interpretation of the Sorcerer Class requires -some- level of "The setting has this function to it" that you can then hang your sorcerer on, providing them with the class fantasy as an aspect of the narrative, rather than a Loose End. And hey, if you want your setting's understanding of Sorcerers to be based on the different potential sources of Sorcery rather than a central narrative of power, that works just fine, too.

It just means working all those other options into the narrative. (I took the easy way)

"I have power" is a fine statement. But the question "Where does it come from?" should have an answer in the narrative, in the setting.

And you're right about 3e not explicitly stating that Sorcerer Magic came from Dragons. It was just heavily hinted at by multiple sources... including Dragons, which in 3e and 3.5e cast spells as Sorcerers, not Wizards.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Every one of those "Unique Flower" Sorcerers requires just -so- much supposition, though. About the setting.

With one exception I don't see that at all. And even that gives multiple options.

Aberrant Mind: There must be some aberrant entity which grabs people's minds for some purpose (Unknowable or otherwise). What is -it- within the setting? Is it known to monster hunters? Warlocks? Wizards delving into ancient lore?

This is the one exception. But it gives six suggestions:

1	You were exposed to the Far Realm's warping influence. You are convinced that a tentacle is now growing on you, but no one else can see it.
2	A psychic wind from the Astral Plane carried psionic energy to you. When you use your powers, faint motes of light sparkle around you.
3	You once suffered the dominating powers of an aboleth, leaving a psychic splinter in your mind.
4	You were implanted with a mind flayer tadpole, but the ceremorphosis never completed. And now its psionic power is yours. When you use it, your flesh shines with a strange mucus.
5	As a child, you had an imaginary friend that looked like a flumph or a strange platypus-like creature. One day, it gifted you with psionic powers, which have ended up being not so imaginary.
6	Your nightmares whisper the truth to you: your psionic powers are not your own. You draw them from your parasitic twin!

That's quite a range of possibilities of which only one has to be possible.

Primal Storm: Has to actually -exist- to strike someone. Not every setting goes ham with the "Standard D&D Cosmology". The Ashen Lands certainly don't. Assuming a Primal Storm exists: What are it's effects on the world? How do Sailors and Port Towns deal with Primal Storms?

I don't know where you get the Primal Storm from? The fluff just says The Great Rain - it's a FR event, but plenty of places have had great storms. Or "A howling gale so powerful people still tell stories of it". How do sailors and port towns deal with once-a-generation storms? Badly.

Divine Soul: Requires gods to pick out people as a separate idea beyond "Paladin" or "Cleric" to grant them abilities. Do the deities do this? Have they done this in the past?

Are you telling the gods what they may or may not do? I suppose as DM you have that right - but this is one of the smallest manifestations of divine power around. Little more than making an "ordinary" cleric. If the gods are (a) real and (b) intervene at all then this does not remotely stretch my credulity. (It does on Athas, but that's a whole different story.)

And you're right about 3e not explicitly stating that Sorcerer Magic came from Dragons. It was just heavily hinted at by multiple sources... including Dragons, which in 3e and 3.5e cast spells as Sorcerers, not Wizards.

Point Which is part of why the dragon sorcerer was in the 4e PHB2 and the Draconic Bloodline in the 5e PHB.

Edit: I think where our mutual incomprehension lies is that you want total understanding of the setting. To me a good setting can be outlined but is bigger than I as DM can understand. And the players are more than welcome to fill in the parts I've left blank.

 

[Steampunkette]

@Neonchameleon

Whichever of the 6 suggestions is the one for your character: It still has to exist in the narrative. The Far Realm and Astral Realm, for example, don't exist in the Ashen Lands. And Mind Flayers and Aboleths don't exist in any setting that isn't official WotC because they're protected and copyrighted entities Hasbro doesn't want to share. Also not in Athas for a variety of reasons... Huh. MOST of the reasons on that list wouldn't work for Dark Sun!

It doesn't matter that there are 6 options or 100 options if none of them are in the setting as something for your character to be tied to.

The Great Rain was a big multiple-months-long magical event in a big magical setting as part of a much larger magical event in "The Second Sundering". It's not "Just getting hit by lightning in a random bad storm" it's "Big magic lighting empowers mortal as an unintended consequence 'cause God Daddy got tired of the kids fighting and reset the world, again." Primal Storm is the same sort of concept applied to other settings that have stuff like it without the God Daddy and Sundering.

Which explains why someone struck by lightning in -that- storm gets magic powers while most people just get Dead.

The Gods can do what they want in any setting. But if it's something they've -never- done before this one level 1 Divine Soul Sorcerer in the entire history of the world: What in the heck is going on -there-? Also: Not every setting has interventionist deities. Or deities at all. Midnight kind of does, but if that god intervenes it won't be good for you! (In Midnight the Evil God turned the imprisoning magic of the other gods against them and essentially put the whole planet in the prison they made for him so none of the other gods can interact with it anymore)

 

[Necrozius]

No matter how fantastic a setting is, I guess some players still want to be something even more unique and fantastic. In a world of wizards, warlocks, paladins, clerics, druids and monks, Sorcerors must really appeal to players who have very unique visions that go beyond the “norm”, I guess.

I wonder if there’s a correlation between the choice of Sorceror as a class and uncommon racial choice? It would make sense if my theory is correct.

Or super heroes. Sorcerors are basically unique super heroes in fantasy settings, I guess!

 

[Steampunkette]

No matter how fantastic a setting is, I guess some players still want to be something even more unique and fantastic. In a world of wizards, warlocks, paladins, clerics, druids and monks, Sorcerors must really appeal to players who have very unique visions that go beyond the “norm”, I guess.

I wonder if there’s a correlation between the choice of Sorceror as a class and uncommon racial choice? It would make sense if my theory is correct.

Or super heroes. Sorcerors are basically unique super heroes in fantasy settings, I guess!

Pfffft... no. >.>

WARLOCKS are Superheroes in D&D.

They get a little bit of combat, a little bit of spellcasting, a little bit of skill use, a lotta bit of social skills, and a built in "Brooding" mode.

And then you can pick your class features to accentuate any one part of those things. Becoming a decent combatant, a strong spellcaster, a competent skill user, or the fanciest face a party can get. And thanks to "Dark Patrons" they're basically already Ghost Rider and Spectre and stuff.

One dark alley in Waterdeep, a couple hand crossbows, a broken pearl necklace? Bruce Wayne studies ancient texts to become an Unarmed-Fighting Hexblade Warlock and RPs all his spells as Gadgets.