"Oddities" in fantasy settings - the case against "consistency"

[Bedrockgames]

No, it's accepted by the societies doing the enslaving. Example: real-world Roman Empire.

Being very into this period, I find it lends a bit more credibility to a setting to include this stuff. The extent of slavery during the Roman Empire was pretty staggering

 

[Wolfpack48]

Yes, it means separating your personal beliefs from the setting, but that said, slavery would be considered evil by most of my characters. The D&D Slavers series definitely had the slavers as the Bad Guys.

 

[TwoSix]

Some classes are much more amenable to this than others.

It'd be easy to fit the various caster classes into this model, and Monks have kind of been there since day one anyway; but I can't see how you can slot something like Fighter into this, as pretty much anyone can learn how to fight.

Which is exactly why I would only do it with entirely new classes, as I stated. Ideally, I'd use a system like Shadowdark, with its terse class mechanics.

 

[TwoSix]

Yes, it means separating your personal beliefs from the setting, but that said, slavery would be considered evil by most of my characters. The D&D Slavers series definitely had the slavers as the Bad Guys.

Introducing slavers as NPCs has generally been seen by pretty much all the groups I play in as raising a "kill-on-sight death flag" on the slavers that's usually reserved for demons and undead.

I generally avoid trying to present it as uncontroversial or morally neutral outside of an explicit Greco-Roman analogue, Bronze Age morality kind of empire.

 

[pemerton]

I think it would be a fascinating design challenge to make a setting where every PC option is fully immersed in the setting fiction. Every class is a particular group or faction or specific embodied methodology of learning. I've actually been noodling around with that idea the past few months, mostly because it's so different from my normal "class-as-metagame" approach.

Isn't this what Monte Cook did with Arcana Unearthed/Evolved?

 

[Baron Opal II]

But some NPCs in the setting are kings (barons, dukes, princes, etc) with d6 (or whatever) hit points; whereas in most approaches to D&D that I'm familiar with, a PC has to be somewhere above 1st level to become a king.

There is no pathway I'm aware of that will enable a D&D player to play a character the same as one of those NPCs.

First, be 9th level.
Second, perform favors for existing nobility.
Third, be granted such rank by said nobility.

 

[pemerton]

But some NPCs in the setting are kings (barons, dukes, princes, etc) with d6 (or whatever) hit points; whereas in most approaches to D&D that I'm familiar with, a PC has to be somewhere above 1st level to become a king.

There is no pathway I'm aware of that will enable a D&D player to play a character the same as one of those NPCs.

First, be 9th level.
Second, perform favors for existing nobility.
Third, be granted such rank by said nobility.

I think your first step means that you have more than d6 hp.

 

[pemerton]

Like I said, it is fiction, so you can have it work however you like. I just feel that if in the fiction a random peasant can learn to cast fireball without any other magical training, then this should also be a thing that is available to PCs. As a feat or something.

Because character creation and leveling mechanics aren't about, or need not be about, simulating all possibilities in a setting. A character with fireball who isn't fifth level may well be perfectly in keeping with a setting, something the GM ought to be allowed to have happen, but it could also be something that would be overpowering for a player character to be able to do. There are tons of things that will be possible in a setting I am not going to want to make part of basic character creation, no?

Just to add to Bedrockgames's point here:

Earlier in the conversation, Bedrockgames noted that perhaps the NPC farmer who can cast the single fireball would have a chance of failure. I can reasons why that might make for a fun NPC - I mean, I can imagine the players ally with this farmer, and then some threat turns up, and maybe her fireball can save them, and one of the players rolls the failure dice, and everyone is looking, eager, to see whether it works or not . . .

But gating a player character ability behind a failure roll - so you have an x% chance of being overpowered, and a (100-x)% chance of being underpowered - might be pretty unsatisfying at some tables (probably not all).

Expecting every imaginable sort of fictional person to also be a playable character in a game like D&D strikes me as unrealistic. At least given how I'm familiar with D&D being played.

 

[pemerton]

No, it's accepted by the societies doing the enslaving. Example: real-world Roman Empire.

Presumably Spartacus was part of his society. Did he "accept" slavery?

(The question isn't straightforward to answer. Particularly if we think about other verbs that might be used - eg was he resigned to slavery?)

 

[TwoSix]

Isn't this what Monte Cook did with Arcana Unearthed/Evolved?

That book got closer, but I was envisioning something even more specific. Where a "class" would be something that no more than a few hundred individuals possessed, and their abilities (or other calling cards, like a specific uniform or appearance) would identify them to "people in the know" as a member of a particular faction.

Something like "He healed that injured soldier with a touch of his hand! The only people who can do that are the monks of St. Resenevor, the Daeva of Mercy; their order trains in White Spire far to the south, beyond the sands!"

A class like the classic AD&D druid, which has a lot of unique spells and other mechanics, and also an embedded hierarchy within the class mechanics, would be about as generic as I would like to get.