D&D 5E Fluff & Rule, Lore & Crunch. The Interplay of Class, System, and Color in D&D

[TaranTheWanderer]

On this, we agree 100%. I might even go further, there is no need to fully explore all the nooks and crannies first. It is perfectly good to say "I know what <class X> has as its default theme, I am going for something else instead" with your very first character, if that's what calls to you. Producing good roleplay (however one chooses to define "good roleplay") is a perfect defense here, so long as breaking the archetype or trope actually does produce good roleplay!


But here we diverge. You have used an inappropriate standard. You do not "need" anything in a TTRPG. Ever. Nothing, not a single thing, is so vital that it cannot be removed or rewritten. Diceless games, games with no GM, freeform games--hell, despite the name, a tabletop is wholly unnecessary! To demand that an option justify the need to be there is not only unfair, but actively biased.

Necessity is not what is relevant in RPG play or design. Utility is. And utility is, at least to some extent, subjective. You don't need or desire these things, they have no utility for you. Others see great utility in them.

I was speaking for myself which is why I said, “I don’t need to delve into” things beyond the base books.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I was speaking for myself which is why I said, “I don’t need to delve into” things beyond the base books.

While that is fair, you did switch to saying (emphasis added), "Example: you don’t need an artificer class to play an artificer character." Perhaps I was reading too much into it, but the switch from "I" to "you" communicates a generalization. Speaking for the "generic you," as in anyone who might be playing.

 

[Vaalingrade]

You didn't need an artificer to play and artificer character because the DM would throw a big fit over inventing things not being something they did in the Middle Ages, kick you from the game, then post about how 'An Anime That Guy Ruined the Game' on Reddit for asking.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

While that is fair, you did switch to saying (emphasis added), "Example: you don’t need an artificer class to play an artificer character." Perhaps I was reading too much into it, but the switch from "I" to "you" communicates a generalization. Speaking for the "generic you," as in anyone who might be playing.

I can see why there was a misunderstanding. It’s why I don’t work in marketing or politics

 

[EzekielRaiden]

You didn't need an artificer to play and artificer character because the DM would throw a big fit over inventing things not being something they did in the Middle Ages, kick you from the game, then post about how 'An Anime That Guy Ruined the Game' on Reddit for asking.

Yeah that is...a more extreme version of stuff I have personally seen. I wrote some homebrew for 5e, in part because people talked up how much better 5e was due to being so much easier to write homebrew for.

Guess how many DMs have approved me to use it, when I was very up front with them that I wanted to do some playtesting to ensure it was balanced?

Three. Out of the couple dozen games I've applied for, only three. And not one of them actually accepted my application in the end. (I don't hold that against them, they had lots of applications, there are many reasons why mine might not have been accepted.)

 

[CleverNickName]

You didn't need an artificer to play and artificer character because the DM would throw a big fit over inventing things not being something they did in the Middle Ages, kick you from the game, then post about how 'An Anime That Guy Ruined the Game' on Reddit for asking.

Come on, I said I was sorry.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Come on, I said I was sorry.

Not Accepted!

 

[Scott Christian]

I have. Their already existing ideas of what classes are obviated any need. Because these things exist outside of tabletop gaming.

And you know what? His ideas didn't conform to the classes and archetypes of D&D, because his experience was elsewhere. His grounding was Fire Emblem and DOTA and Warcraft. Were there similarities? Sure, but similarities is a far cry from the "you know what this is, it's one and only one thing" you were pushing earlier.

In fact, your color analogy is great because color is so hugely subjective. What's purple? Well, we can often say what it isn't, but everything from fuchsia to maroon to violet to indigo might get labelled "purple." We know it isn't green or orange, sure, but there's such an enormous variation--to the point that you literally cannot even specify whether it needs to contain any blue or red specifically!--that it is really not very useful as a guide of any kind.

Like...look. Here's what you said earlier.


The problem is, you can't actually point to anything universal that is always carried, the way you claimed here. Harry Potter magic does not in any way involve "draining" yourself, all the loss of energy comes from taking magical hits or getting worn down through the exertion of duelling. Even heavily exhausted characters can perform comparatively powerful feats. Special knowledge is only at absolute best tangential to Gandalf or Galadriel, and outright irrelevant in many other stories. Personal potency often matters a great deal, e.g. the Wheel of Time channelers would be kinda sorta Wizards except again you have the "it's in the blood" thing and some people are just really powerful while others are really weak overall but skilled in one specific area, and others still are just weak in general. Merlin, for example, is usually held to be a wizard because he's a cambion; yes, he accrues knowledge, but his magic doesn't come from that knowledge.

Not all "barbarians" rage, or wear minimal armor, or fight with mighty thews—and many look indistinguishable from "fighters." Not all "wizards" need teaching. There are common elements, features that are broadly applicable, but there are always exceptions and caveats that riddle the alleged universality with holes. The best you can do is saying you know things that definitely aren't Wizards, and common traits most Wizards have. You'll run into false positives and false negatives all the time, things that don't have the "universal" characteristics but that intuitively ping as Wizards, things that are called Wizards but fail quite cover everything. (Consider, for example, Diablo III: in that setting, Sorceress or Sorcerer refers to the studious, formal, rigid, rule-abiding way of doing things, and "Wizards" are looked down upon for their brashness, their wild abandon, their untrained willpower as their conduit to magic, even though Blizzard openly stated that the D&D wizard was their inspiration for the Diablo III Wizard, and they even directly copied some spell names,such as magic missile.)

"Green" covers nearly half the visual spectrum because humans are bad at distinguishing hues of green. We can usually identify what it isn't, but "teal" and "lime" are radically different colors even though they both read as "green." And that doesn't even get into things like color in other languages, e.g. Japanese, where a basal color is "ao," which covers everything English speakers would call blue AND green (but not yellow or violet). Or, for an actual English example, up until Middle English, the word "orange" did not exist; we called it "yellow red." Nowadays, it is its own distinct color, and also considered distinct from brown, even though brown is just dark orange, and even though we do not make exactly the same distinction between what Spanish calls azul (dark blue or "navy") from what it calls cielo (literally "heaven," aka sky blue). English speakers do not consider cyan a "color of the rainbow," even though it is (and may have been what Newton meant by "blue," with "indigo" being what we call "blue" today).

The archetypes can grow or subdivide, or merge together. Different cultural perspectives can lead to seeing a difference others don't, or not seeing a difference others do. It is incredibly subjective and extremely difficult to make anything like universal claims about what will or won't count as a particular color or archetype; yes, we can usually identify when something definitely is not that archetype or color. And we can usually identify when it indefinitely IS that archetype or color. But there are so many subtle variations at the edges, so many exceptions and nuances, that it is a fool's errand to try to limit what might qualify based on any kind of "universal" rules. Especially because archetypes are a hell of a lot more complicated and debatable than colors!

classes contain connotation, connotation contains tropes, and tropes are attached to lore. That was my claim.

Are you arguing against my claim?

No offense, but it is very difficult to tell. Everything I say, supports my claim. I do note there is a slight variance, but overall, I stand by my claim.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Are you arguing against my claim?

No offense, but it is very difficult to tell. Everything I say, supports my claim. I do note there is a slight variance, but overall, I stand by my claim.

TL;DR:

Tropes etc. may exist, but every trope etc. has glaring exceptions. Any "inherent" fluff is a useful suggestion: it can, and should, be ignored whenever and wherever doing so produces better RP.

 

[Scott Christian]

TL;DR:

Tropes etc. may exist, but every trope etc. has glaring exceptions. Any "inherent" fluff is a useful suggestion: it can, and should, be ignored whenever and wherever doing so produces better RP.

So you agree with my claim, and I agree with you - tropes can be ignored. I may not go so far to say "whenever and wherever doing so produces better RP." But, I agree they are just useful suggestions.