Arguments and assumptions against multi classing

[GreyLord]

Just as prevalent? How about much more prevalent?

I can't speak for everyone, but my experience playing 1e (of which I have far too much) is that tables picked and choose what rules they were using, although there was a "gestalt" of core 1e rules that the majority of tables followed, and it was (in certain, nerdier corners at least) a mark of esteem when you could recite weird Gygaxian rules buried in the PHB or DMG that people weren't generally aware of- not that the table would follow the rule, just that you knew it.

My experiences jive with yours.

In my case, I was the youngest person in my original group of players and looking at where we all ended up, the most driven and opinionated. So as we embarked on our nerdy corner the only way I could avoid being taken advantage of by the DM (and later on, players) was to know the PHB and DMG well enough to be "that guy" and back it up on the fly.

Actually super helpful for later life, because it wired me for detail driven professions and public speaking. Of course, doing that put me behind the 8 ball on social skills. While I'm now comfortably in the "normal" range; I had to learn etiquette programmatically, and not experientially for it to stick.

So I guess my idiot savant skill is rules frameworks of any kind. (D&D, Cyber GRC, Coding languages, Academic programs etc.)

This is why most people could go from one table to the other and easily transition in AD&D. The Core assumptions at the table were the same, but there were many miniscule rules from the DMG or elsewhere that were commonly dropped.

On reflection of the time, I think much of that originally was in regards to the original D&D rules. The core booklets along with Greyhawk and Blackmoor were common ground that were used among the old wargamers that came in with OD&D. A LOT of the stuff from Strategic review or other sources were very hit and miss. Thus, the common ground that many would come from would be the three core booklets and the supplements (and normally only the first one or two).

These lacked a LOT of the additional rules that got tossed into AD&D.

In addition, because AD&D didn't get released all at once, people just played with the books that came out using the OD&D rules. This made it so that OD&D really was the prevalent version of AD&D...but with more classes and more defined monsters.

Later players didn't have this privilege. My guess, though, is that may of them started with the Red Box and Red Book of Basic (either B/X or BECMI). After learning the basics of the game, that's what they stuck with. They moved on from Basic or Basic and Expert right on into AD&D. The games are similar enough that you can intermix and so they played AD&D with the rules which were the same between Basic and AD&D and skipped most of the rest of the rules which added complexity.

Thus it was the things that were the very core ideas between OD&D, B/X, BECMI, and AD&D that formed the central core of the all those games and made it easy for people to go from table to table and place to place as everyone was using those core ideas.

Even 2e used those core ideas for the most part and thus that transition was pretty easy. (plus 2e had a grandfather clause that allowed a group to take any 1e thing and use it in 2e if they so desired...though I think that was more spelled out via other media and NOT found in the core 2e books).

 

[pming]

Hiya!

Sorry Arial, I just had to comment on this. DM pride talking here...

Up to the player.

For example, my current 5e PC is a Bar3/War 6. Conceptually, this PC (soldier background) is completely civilised, never worn a loincloth in his life. It's just that he has....anger management issues! They stem from the circumstances of his birth which (briefly and tastefully) involve him being conceived at the same moment his father transformed into a werewolf for the first time! Think Blade from the comics/films, but instead of being a bit vampire-y he's a bit wolf-ey. When he rages, he seems to manifest some minor wolf-ey features (hair, eyes, what-have-you) and the game mechanics of all that are simply the barbarian's Rage without any game mechanic alteration whatsoever! Exactly the same barbarian class mechanics, fluffed as a super-civilised army officer.

My fluff. It's up to me.

Just like I fluffed my background (soldier-officer) into Captain of the Avant Guard, the best regiment in the army, focusing on scouting and trail-blazing, with a uniform so smart its got a PhD from the best university in the land!

Yeah, I fluffed it, not the DM. I imagined this whole regiment. The DM is okay with it.

Sure, the DM could refuse. If he were a jerk. He could say that he has already created every regiment in every army in the world and there can be no more....but why would he? Just to be a jerk? As if he has already thought of every detail in the world and the players are not allowed to think of anything? What kind of jerk would be like that? DMs are happy to let players think about that kind of thing! It's good that the player is so invested!

No, it's not up to the Player for this kind of world-changing "fluff". This kind of fluff, imnsho, it would be the Player that is being "the jerk". What "character" does the DM get to play? The world. Yes, he runs the NPC's, Monsters, magical talking doors, etc, but it's the WORLD, the "Campaign Setting" that is the DM's main "character". The DM shapes it and comes up with the "fluff". Not the player. At least not to anywhere near the same degree.

A player who comes to me with this (and I do have one...had, he moved farther south) gets the "groan and stink-eye". I don't like it for multiple reasons. The first of which is that the player is, basically, trying to "over ride" my creative outlet as a DM. The second is that now I have the unhappy task of saying no and the almost unavoidable "compromise" (or argument if it's a hard NO...but I am almost always flexible enough to work something into the world that lets the player get what he envisioned without completely messing up my world).

The specific things in the Barbarian/Warlord that I would have a problem with:

1. It assumes the barbarians Rage is just "He's really angry". Might be fine in some campaigns, but in mine that is a no-go. It's not just "anger"...there is a physical, mental and spiritual change. Supernaturally based. The "spirits of his ancestors take root", or "the Demon of Rage is let into the barbarians soul". Not just "fluff"; this is the basis upon which other world-specific fluff and rulings can be made.

2. It sets up a precedent of were-creatures "infecting" others without needing to bite them. This is in direct opposition to what a players reach should be in the rules from a purely rules point of view.

Now, I may be able to work with the first point. Maybe the character just THINKS he gets 'really mad', when, in fact, he actually IS being connected to the spirits of old. He's civilized and was never told anything different...wherein if he was born in a barbaric society it would have been "obvious" to the shaman what was going on. The second one, however, is going to have to be a hard NO! At least from the simple explanation given in the description. Again, might be able to work with it by assuming the PC is just outright wrong about how he came to be. Maybe his mother/father, step mom/dad, or whomever raised him told him about his circumstances of birth...but that was to keep the horrible truth from him.

Both my "concessions" would work in terms of world-fluff while maintaining the PC's belief of what happened. If the player was willing to go with that...that the PC's background isn't the "whole story" so to speak (or outright wrong)...we're off to the races. But a player that refuses and tries to pull a "It's MY character and MY fluff, so that's the way it is!" is going to be...."dissappointed" with the end result.

But doesn't that mean the player can abuse it by saying he's the king? Well, at that point the player is probably treading on the DM's toes, because the DM probably will have already decided who the king is and even if he hasn't he doesn't want the PC to have that kind of power.

I'd actually be more accepting of "I'm the King" than "I'm part were-wolf". Because being a king doesn't change anything in my world's core "bedrock". Saying "I'm King" is a problem, sure, but it's less of a problem than deciding how lycanthropy works for the entire campaign world.

((snip about Nobility PC's)) Or does he allow you to think of your own noble family and work with you to fit it into his world making adjustments as necessary, like a proper DM and not a jerk?

I know you're trying to just use it as an example, but there has always been a problem with the "Noble PC". I remember debates about this and how a DM should/could handle it going on back in the old print days of The Dragon (I'm sure you do to!). But as I said...a player choosing to say his PC is a noble is something that needs to have the DM's input. Most players know this and understand it, and want the DM's guidance in how to best integrate it to make a cool and playable character for a D&D game. A DM that just says "No, no Nobility past just minor status...like a Sir or maybe 'son of the Lord of the land'"...is not being a jerk. He's setting limits for his game world so that he can run the campaign as he sees it and as he wants to run.

Now, DM's that try and decide what a Player can/can't choose...after the DM has said "All PHB classes"...that's being a jerk. "Oh, Bill, you can't be a Beastmaster because I don't really want to deal with pets and stuff. Sorry. Make a different guy" after Bill has already created the character; that is being a jerk. Or at the very least, indicative of a DM who doesn't know what he's doing.

But my DM says that I've lost my paladin powers! WTF? Why? "Because you could have given the beggar 10 gp instead of 1gp, and I'm the DM and what I say goes and how I interpret the text of the law trumps yours!"

That's the kind of DM I'm complaining about!

And I would be right behind you 100%. However, to me at least, there is a HUGE difference between "You COULD have given him more, so loose your paladin powers" and "No, lycanthropy doesn't work that way in my world".

Then there are those who (wrongly!) read the exact same words and come to the conclusion that the only allowed PCs are those three examples per class. That the game mechanics of class (barbarian, bard, cleric) are not only the metagame but also the in-world reality. That a 'fighter' is something that the creatures in the game world can know, as opposed to a thief. That the creatures in the game world can get a microscope and tell the difference between a 'fighter' and a 'thief' by looking.

It's rare I say this, but those guys are role-playing wrong.

I only semi-agree with you here though. This is going to be very much a "style preference" of D&D. I, personally, see a Class as being a lot more than just a set of skills and abilities that one can 'learn easily'. In my mind, a Class is something that the character is actually BORN into. In my games the vast majority of NPC's are just commoners with no capability to be much more than that. They can learn skills, they can even become rulers (to some extent)...but they will never be "destined for greatness". A farm boy who joins the militia, then the kings army, and advances through the ranks is very likely still a "common, 0-level NPC", but with a bonus to hit and damage with some particular weapon. Or maybe he is a 1st or 2nd level Fighter (in 5e here). But that's it. He can fight in wars and participate in killing monsters...but he will never gain any levels past what he has. Ever. Because he wasn't "born" to be a Fighter.

But this is a style thing. Obviously yours is different, which is cool! Helps keep the game interesting, hearing other peoples side of things. From that aspect, I totally get why you would think a DM is being a 'jerk' for over-ruling your PC's background fluff. From my point of view it's the opposite; the Player was the one being a jerk for subsuming the DM's role as world-creator.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[5ekyu]

In this medium (Internet, gaming forum, debate) each side tends to exaggerate the other side's transgressions, partly because we are passionate and partly to better illustrate the fault.

In reality, I talk to my DM. He says he's starting a new campaign soon, each of you needs to create an th level PC. We talk as a party so our PCs don't tread on each others' toes, and we talk to the DM about our 'cool idea!' (TM).

In fact, we probably talk more than the DM wants to listen, because we are invested in our idea while the DM cannot be (because he doesn't know what it is yet) and the DM has to take in four or five such ideas while simultaneously readying the campaign.

This means that the DM is, usually, happy for us to do all or most of the work re: fluff. The DM can certainly pipe up and make suggestions to make it even cooler, tell us or talk to us about how our concept could fit into his world, or even say that a particular bit cannot work in his campaign and work with us to make adjustments. Bear in mind that he's already told us about house rules or campaign specific rules. For example, if the campaign is set in Krynn in the years between the fall of Istar and the heroes of the lance the DM will say that there are no clerics. Fair enough, we won't make any clerics; what about druids? And we get to know what the limits are and then create our PCs in that light.

So, at various pre-campaign start moments, each player will go to the DM and say, "Here's my PC". We can tell the story of our characters, how each mechanical ability makes sense for this PC (I'm super-civilised but I've got anger management issues, that's how my Rage ability makes sense for this PC, what with his werewolf-adjacent heritage).

At this point the DM reviews our characters sheets (for crunch). If I were to say that my rogue has the Rage ability even though it's against the rules because I don't have barbarian levels, he would just say no and I know that so I wouldn't present that. If I were to say that my barbarian Rage works differently than it says in the PHB, just because I say so, then I have overstepped my bounds. If that's something I want then I'd have to explain it to him and ask, nicely, and take it like a gentleman if he says no.

But if I present him with a character sheet that says 'Barbarian 1', and includes a description of the Rage ability that is copy/pasted from the PHB with no alterations, then he simply has no grounds for complaint! How I fluff my rage for this PC isn't in his purview!

No, I'm not foolish or impolite enough to begin my conversation with, "Here's my PC; it's my way or the highway!", because that would be insane and foolish and I probably wouldn't have a game anymore.

But equally, if the DM finds that my PC is mechanically RAW, he has nothing to object to and I would be stunned if he banned my fluff, saying that it's his way or the highway! He wouldn't treat me so badly anymore than I would treat him badly.

Even if he said it politely, I would be absolutely stunned and gobsmacked if he refused to allow my fluff even though my crunch was unimpeachable! It wouldn't make sense to me! What would he care? My civilised, anger management-challenged version of Rage in no way messes with his world. My cool idea doesn't impose anything on the rest of his world! There is nothing to object to.

If my DM was that kind of person, one who inexplicably and irrationally messes with my PC like that, then he probably wouldn't be my DM for long. He wouldn't be reasonable at that point.

What actually happened was that the DM thought it was a cool idea too! Everyone is happy.

Again the reasonable pre-amble to the unreasonable aspersion and declarations.

You remain consistent.

You may feel it is only the GMs place to question your character's mechanics. You may jump directly to it being a sign of an "inexplicable and irrational" type of GM.

That is just your "feeling" on the matter, your expansion of player agency and not by any means any sort of definition that goes beyond that.

that belief would get you out the door at my game, and i suspect many others, even tho i would likely approve every case of fluff you have described.

But the belief that these are out of bounds for rational Gms and the tendency to jump to that conclusion as soon as it seems even a polite denial occurs... not the type of "tension between player and Gm" i invite to my table to inflict on my players.

Might need to consider adding ""Player Agency" is banned" to my campaign pre-campaign info sheet now that i know this is what it has transformed to. It would give my players a laugh for sure. So it has entertainment value.

 

[5ekyu]

Most players have a story about a DM playing 'gotcha' with a paladin, with fall/fall 'choices' or what-have-you. This is mine:-

I'm the only player in a 2e campaign. I'm playing 3 PCs, and the DM is playing 3 DMPCs, because that's what we always did.

One of my PCs is a paladin. I'm not one of those guys who plays them lawful/stupid, or tries to get away with as much murderhoboing as I can while claiming innocence; I really play a good guy. In fact, I generally play good guys even if I'm not playing a paladin.

So the party is in Sembia. The DM has read the info on this country, and has interpreted that info as this: if the party goes to a restaurant and because we are there some other people dine elsewhere, we get charged for their meals as well as ours. No, it doesn't make sense to me either, but I treat it as just another challenge to negotiate.

One morning one of the maids at the inn said something to my paladin about my dwarven friend's lack of manners (the dwarf was one of the DM's DMPCs), and could I do something about it? Sure, says I, I'll have a word.

Anyway, before my paladin saw the dwarf, baddies turned up and it all hit the fan. We were running and fighting and running, trying to save the (ungrateful) town. We did. Hooray for us? Not so much, the town charged us for all the damage because obviously the town wouldn't have been attacked if we weren't there!

We left town.

After a few days in-game (which was a few weeks later in real life at one session per week) my paladin started to lose his powers, one by one. Why? You don't know.

It kept happening, and the DM kept refusing to tell me why and all my guesses were wrong.

It turned out that I was losing my powers because I had broken my word.

What word? What are you talking about?

You said you would talk to the dwarf on behalf of the maid, and you never did.

I had forgotten all about it. Meaning, as a player I had forgotten, but for me weeks had passed instead of hours between request and my paladin seeing the dwarf (when the fight started and I had more important things to think about). In real life as soon as I saw the dwarf I would've been reminded that I needed to speak with him about the maid, but as a player there is no-one to see, and the thing that's taking my attention is trying to kill me.

So I said that surely my character would've remembered! After all, I didn't mention going to the toilet or shaving either but I didn't explode in a hairy mess! We have to assume that the adventure focuses on the exciting bits and lets the mundane bits happen in the background.

So, that's how my paladin lost his powers. Because his player has a bad memory.

If the DM had said, "this is what happened last week....and you also promised to speak to the dwarf about the maid", I would have done so! And if I knew about it and chose not to speak to the dwarf then, yes, that is not appropriate for a paladin and some form of admonishment (which in 2e could easily mean that his powers stopped working as they should) would be in order. But paladins fall because of bad choices, not bad memory! Even worse, it wasn't the paladin's bad memory, but his player's bad memory. And understandably given the disparity between game time and real time, and actually seeing someone reminds you that you need to talk to them.

So I get a knee-jerk reaction whenever paladin powers are taken away. Especially in 5e when that has been deliberately written out of the game! Especially when they are taken away simply because the player wants to multiclass within the rules!

yes... there are bad gms and gms who make mistakes and Gms who think "gotcha" vs players are the way to go... thats why there are feet, discussions at session zero, and hopefully dialogs between player and Gm about the character and play before the game.

Obviously i think many folks would agree (today) that a paladin should have a good idea that "this is right by my boos and this is not" and get clues along the way.

But again i say - if your Gm is determined to run "gotchas" your "fluff is mine dictate" wont stop the vast majority of what he can do to "gotcha".

Let me suggest this tho...

Is it perhaps worse for the player - Gm dynamic for the two to adopt a less collaborative viewpoint such as "fluff is mine" as opposed to spending a bit of time going over the "fluff" especially the "fluff" that matters?

See, when me and my players get together to work out characters' details we come at it from the perspective that the "fluff" matters to all of us - player and GM" and that it is as much an important element to the campaign as the mechanics to each of us.

Without the presence of a "GM KEEP OUT" sign on the character "fluff" and with full understanding that it will matter to the campaign - we are driven to work out these kinds of details including a broad and strong understanding of what obligations are incurred and of how things have been "seen to work" in the past by the character (assuming the pact or oath had been in place for a while.) Some examples of "skirted the edge" and "results were" are created - mostly by the player but suggestions by the GM.

By not putting the big flashing neon "GM KEEP OUT" on the fluff, we are driven to work out the necessary details and examples and "how this relationship works" well before it comes up in game.

To some that might make us irrational... but for us... it works.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

What would he care? My civilised, anger management-challenged version of Rage in no way messes with his world. My cool idea doesn't impose anything on the rest of his world! There is nothing to object to.

This might be the core of the disagreement. Your character is a part of the greater world, so by declaring a truth about your own character, you are declaring a truth about the whole world. You are saying that the world is configured in such a way as to allow your character to exist. Such is the case, regardless of which truth you declare about your character. If you're playing an elf with green hair, then you're saying that the world is configured in such a way that an elf can have green hair.

In this example, you posit that your civilized "barbarian" can have an anger-management problem, which allows them to strike harder and shrug off mortal wounds as a result of their supernatural heritage. In doing so, you are declaring a truth about the nature of lycanthropy, which was not true before you said it. That is what you are imposing on the rest of the world, and what the DM may well object to.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

As a semi-aside...

I had one situation "recently" (in the last decade) where a player had some absolutely nutz-o history and description for his character's background (yes, the same player I said that tries to 'write in' stuff about my campaign world to fit his new PC). He told me the PC's background story and I was just kinda shocked, really. I mean, I've been playing with him for decades, yet every now and then he would come up with something like this.

Anyhoo, I can't remember the specific details, but iirc it had to do with a reasoning of how his PC had pretty much all of the PC's class abilities...which were no where even close to what was established in the campaign world as a whole. Completely "re-writing history", so to speak. After asking a couple questions to clarify just what I was hearing was what I thought I was hearing, and getting "Yup, pretty much" to all of them. There was a long pause at the table as my DM brain whirled about trying to make some kind of in-world sense of this and decide on the spot if there was any way in h-e-double-hockey-sticks I could make it work, the silence was broken when I asked/stated:

"So your PC is crazy? Is that it?"

The player tried to explain again, and I had to cut him off with an ACTUAL explanation of what was/was not going on in my campaign setting. There was just no way this fluffy background was going to 'work' and let me maintain the campaigns internal consistency. I repeated "So, he's crazy then?" a couple times after he tried to "Rationalflufficize" (TM; PMing, 2018 ) each thing. In the end he saw why and where I was coming from and after another "So, he's crazy then?", he responded "Yup. I guess he's nuts". We worked with that. His character was, technically, "Insane" and had all manner of crazy beliefs as to how his abilities worked, where they came from, how he got them, etc. Turned out to be a fairly interesting PC...if short lived (insane PC's don't tend to last long), as his insane belief of how his powers worked, iirc, ended up getting him killed.

I guess there's a lesson in there about getting what you wish for or something. I mean, hey, if a player rationalflufficize's his PC getting his barbarian rage from having bad anger management issues then I have no problem as a DM using that to impose Wisdom Saves to not "fly off in a rage and kill someone" when a drunk d-bag picks a fight with him in the bar over a barmaid. ..."Well, a normal barbarian has learned to control his Rage. You have not, as your BG states, which says you have anger-management problems. And people with anger-management problems...especially epic ones like your character if he's a freaking Barbarian Class...typically do stuff they regret; namely put people in the hospital or kill them. So...yeah. I'll give you a Wisdom Save, DC 12 please".

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[5ekyu]

Hiya!

As a semi-aside...

I had one situation "recently" (in the last decade) where a player had some absolutely nutz-o history and description for his character's background (yes, the same player I said that tries to 'write in' stuff about my campaign world to fit his new PC). He told me the PC's background story and I was just kinda shocked, really. I mean, I've been playing with him for decades, yet every now and then he would come up with something like this.

Anyhoo, I can't remember the specific details, but iirc it had to do with a reasoning of how his PC had pretty much all of the PC's class abilities...which were no where even close to what was established in the campaign world as a whole. Completely "re-writing history", so to speak. After asking a couple questions to clarify just what I was hearing was what I thought I was hearing, and getting "Yup, pretty much" to all of them. There was a long pause at the table as my DM brain whirled about trying to make some kind of in-world sense of this and decide on the spot if there was any way in h-e-double-hockey-sticks I could make it work, the silence was broken when I asked/stated:

"So your PC is crazy? Is that it?"

The player tried to explain again, and I had to cut him off with an ACTUAL explanation of what was/was not going on in my campaign setting. There was just no way this fluffy background was going to 'work' and let me maintain the campaigns internal consistency. I repeated "So, he's crazy then?" a couple times after he tried to "Rationalflufficize" (TM; PMing, 2018 ) each thing. In the end he saw why and where I was coming from and after another "So, he's crazy then?", he responded "Yup. I guess he's nuts". We worked with that. His character was, technically, "Insane" and had all manner of crazy beliefs as to how his abilities worked, where they came from, how he got them, etc. Turned out to be a fairly interesting PC...if short lived (insane PC's don't tend to last long), as his insane belief of how his powers worked, iirc, ended up getting him killed.

I guess there's a lesson in there about getting what you wish for or something. I mean, hey, if a player rationalflufficize's his PC getting his barbarian rage from having bad anger management issues then I have no problem as a DM using that to impose Wisdom Saves to not "fly off in a rage and kill someone" when a drunk d-bag picks a fight with him in the bar over a barmaid. ..."Well, a normal barbarian has learned to control his Rage. You have not, as your BG states, which says you have anger-management problems. And people with anger-management problems...especially epic ones like your character if he's a freaking Barbarian Class...typically do stuff they regret; namely put people in the hospital or kill them. So...yeah. I'll give you a Wisdom Save, DC 12 please".

^_^

Paul L. Ming

Hah.

My current character - a halfling sorcerer entertainer (singer, dancer, seer of mysteries) - believes dragons sing to her each night and she can tell the future thru her deck of dragons. Admittedly she knows most of the times she does her Seeress Drakania its just for show (and coin) but thats just for fun, not ehen she is serious.

Her sorcery effect fluff is that he spells verbals sound like muliple other voices singing with her - duet for cantrips, trio for 1st level etc and so that plays into her beliefs.

Sometimes they ask her to do strange things like get her fellow party members to particpate in a ritual - most did. That was 2nd level. At rth when she gets Dragon Song (Inspiring Leader) she will believe/know only those who did the ritual will benefit from that song.

How much is belief vs reality vs true? Work still in progress and future choices like "does she MC to Warlock or Bard or not" might play into that line between reality and insanity.

As always that line between fluff and IG reality/mechanics - not as distinct as some may believe so very strongly it must be.

But, loads of fun.

 

[Hussar]

Yeah, things like this make me very glad for my group.

"Yeah, you can have what you want, but, I'm going to beat you about the head and ears with the DM beatstick until you either give up in frustration or your character dies. Hey, what? I didn't kill your character. Got nothing to do with me. Nosiree."

If it works for you folks, hey, more power to you. Me, I'll most often rewrite the campaign setting at the drop of a hat for a player that's actually invested in the character he's creating. Setting is disposable AFAIC. It's probably the least important thing at the table. Certainly far, far behind what the player's want.

 

[Arial Black]

The specific things in the Barbarian/Warlord that I would have a problem with:

1. It assumes the barbarians Rage is just "He's really angry". Might be fine in some campaigns, but in mine that is a no-go. It's not just "anger"...there is a physical, mental and spiritual change. Supernaturally based. The "spirits of his ancestors take root", or "the Demon of Rage is let into the barbarians soul". Not just "fluff"; this is the basis upon which other world-specific fluff and rulings can be made.

Obviously my 'brief but tasteful' explanation wasn't enough.

The '...with anger management issues' was tongue in cheek. The Rage is fluffed as him 'letting the beast out'. The werewolf-iness threatens to break out when he is weak or angry, but it's not the anger per se that gives him the Rage powers, it's how his werewolf heritage manifests itself. So, a supernatural cause.

The genesis of the idea was the stats I rolled. Before rolling I wanted to try a Hexblade. When I rolled an 18 and two 17s I realised that if I choose vHuman then I could have three 18s. At last! After 40 years of rolling stats I can finally make a 'physically perfect' human with three 18s in the physical stats! Okay, my Intelligence is only 6, but we take the rough with the smooth, right?

Mulling for a few days on the question of why this PC is a perfect specimen (I usually need at least two weeks between rolling stats and a finished character sheet), I was in the state between sleeping and waking and half dreamt/half daydreamed the night of his conception. Daddy, the local squire, was out too late, got bit by a werewolf (who, unbeknownst to my PC, was also in league with a Fiend) but managed to kill it with a silver sword. Later, he recovered enough to go home. Feeling very strange and acting a bit strange, his wife tried to bandage him. He then started to *ahem* make love to his wife, and just at the *ahem* crucial moment the moon came out from behind the clouds and he started to change. The timing of *ahem* events was quite unique, conception/lycanthropic change-wise.

The change in daddy caused him to murder his wife moments later. A tragedy all round.

Meanwhile, the local cleric had been informed about the day's events re: werewolf and bitten squire. Knowing what the consequences would be, the cleric and the villagers rushed to the Big House (I'm imagining pitchforks and torches here) and get there just as the squire has horribly killed his wife. The cleric and villagers slay the squire/werewolf (proper MM werewolf BTW) because the locals have had a lycanthrope problem for ages and know all about silver weapons.

The cleric looks at the tragic mess and does something about it. He uses remove curse and raise dead on them both, making them both not werewolf and not dead.

But, not to put too fine a point on it, the *ahem* genetic material from daddy had just started to transform along with the rest of him, but it had *ahem* left his body before the lycanthropic change was complete, and since it had not fertilised the egg yet then it wasn't a person and certainly was not the target of the remove curse. Now, this is not normal! This is not how werewolves are made! But, how can it not have any effect at all!

So that was me basically (accidentally) stealing the same origin as Wesley Snipe's Blade character: not quite vampire, not quite human, but basically human with some vampire-like abilities. For me, my PC is a human not a werewolf, but that unique conception had effects that are represented in game mechanics by the barbarian class and the Rage mechanic. I also supported the concept by choosing Alert as my bonus feat at 1st level to represent the preternatural senses of a werewolf, instead of choosing GWM like I originally wanted.

2. It sets up a precedent of were-creatures "infecting" others without needing to bite them. This is in direct opposition to what a players reach should be in the rules from a purely rules point of view.

So, no, I'm a human not a werewolf, so I'm not changing how proper werewolves are made. What happened was a unique accident, and 'gave me some werewolf-like powers' is not me giving my PC some unearned game mechanic advantages, just me explaining his RAW level of barbarian.

The Flash got his speed powers when a bolt of lightning hit him and some chemicals. Now, this fluff in no way changes how lightning works in the world! The player making his superhero PC is not taking away the DM's control about how lightning works in his world! Wesley Snipes is not changing the way proper vampires work in the DM's world! And I'm not changing how werewolves work in my DM's world!

Both my "concessions" would work in terms of world-fluff while maintaining the PC's belief of what happened. If the player was willing to go with that...that the PC's background isn't the "whole story" so to speak (or outright wrong)...we're off to the races. But a player that refuses and tries to pull a "It's MY character and MY fluff, so that's the way it is!" is going to be...."dissappointed" with the end result.

I'm totally willing and happy to work with the DM on fitting my PC into his world. It's the best method of character creation when there is some collaboration. In fact, I wish the DM had done more! We are playing the Dragon Drop campaign and the world/countries are not really defined. If they were I'd be happy to work with my DM to fit my regiment into a kingdom or whatever. My character would be richer for it! My DM says that the guys who wrote the campaign are going to publish that world soon, but right now we have to make it up as we go along, and the DM is happy for us to do the heavy lifting re: our backstories.

I'd actually be more accepting of "I'm the King" than "I'm part were-wolf". Because being a king doesn't change anything in my world's core "bedrock". Saying "I'm King" is a problem, sure, but it's less of a problem than deciding how lycanthropy works for the entire campaign world.

I'm not changing how lycanthropy works in the DM's world, but the larger point is this: try making a detailed background for your PC without saying something about the world! You can't do it! You can't be expected to do it. It is within the game's expectations that you make up your PC's backstory and invent parents, a childhood, a house, some crucial events! The DM could veto any part of any backstory, but it's not possible for the DM to veto every part of every backstory on the grounds that "making stuff up about this world is my job not yours! Player entitlement!"

If a DM were to do that then he is preventing the player from making their own character at all in fluff terms! But it really is the player's right to make up his own character, that's all players have got! Without it, it's just Magic Story Time.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Since a lot of this thread has detoured away from the original topic, I just have to say that I have never been a fan of the Barbarian class because to me, Barbarian is a culture, not a class. The class should really be renamed to Berserker, as that fits what a lot of people seem to want the class to do, and then the Berserker class can have a sub-class/archetype called the Barbarian that is specifically for the nomadic/wilderness tribal types.