It sounds like Steampunkette is upset because FR fiction has not caught up with mall food court of classes in official product. But if they want to drop certain classes in their world because the lore/fiction does not jive with their heart, go right ahead.
Or does Steam want something like. Jasper's international school fighters teach generic fighters. Oofta's school teaches international wizards who don't play Quittiche. And the average man on the street can tell what a person's class is just by looking at their outfit and strange walk.
You're really bad at picking up what people think from their posts, Jasper. Might I suggest accepting what people are saying rather than trying to make a bunch of insulting inferences about their thoughts and ideas?
Rangers already have a place in FR. Quite a bit of lore actually, even beyond Drizzit. And if Drizzit isn't famous enough for you, I'm not sure what you want.
Artificers are new to FR. That's the lore for them, so of course they don't have a long historical precedent.
Oh my goodness, Jmartkdr...
I don't know if I have a better way of getting my point across to you, but I don't see how I'm going to do it if you keep trying to sidetrack the overall argument with pigeonholes and tangents.
This isn't about any one setting. It's about all of them that leave class concepts flapping in the wind rather than making them a part of the world, and the design processes that go into that ideology.
You know one of my -absolute- favorite settings for -exactly- this reason? Dark Sun. Every class had a role, a purpose, a narrative driving force. Yeah, you could ignore it for your character, maybe make a Warrior Bard rather than an Assassin, for example. But it fit into the world from the Sorcerer-Kings and their Paladin-Lackeys through to Druids and Psionicists.
Character classes were members of dysfunctional societies, or nomads, or wasteland raiders. Their powers came from terrible sources or benign ones. And their use of those powers occasionally had serious and lasting repercussions.
I see the issue differently but would agree with you that it is a problem.
The degree of fantasy associations and world-anchoring vary greatly by class. Some classes are painfully tied to an aspect of the world, like paladins having an oath that's treated as a class feature. Others are not. As you say, for example, fighters are straightforwardly generic. There is NOTHING in their base kit that grounds it in a wider context; it has a preferred manner of fighting (fighting style), has grit (second wind), is decisive (action surge), is resilient (indomitable), and fights well (extra attacks up to 4)... that's it.
Every other class is given loads of flavor, though the conventional view holds otherwise.
(only picking on
@Snarf Zagyg because he stated the conventional view so succinctly)
Looking at the rest of the core four:
- Wizards have to study books to learn magic--why should magic involve books, that's not necessary, is it? Most historical people who believed in magic didn't assume that to be true.
- Rogues have diverse technical training, but all of them can pick locks, disarm traps, and very seriously injure combatants who aren't paying attention--those things kind-of go together, but how do you build a D&D character who is great at skills but not sneak attacking (or magic)? Such people presumably exist and can have adventures.
- Clerics--yeesh--why does a man of god wear medium armor and deter zombies? That's hopelessly specific.
----
So, having buried the lead, my view is that classes should be partitioned--not unlike the way the PHB partitions common and uncommon player races.
Generic classes and subclasses would compose one group (fighter, specialist,
magic user), which would make as few assumptions about setting as possible and could, presumably, be slotted into almost anything.
Flavorful and thematic classes and subclasses would compose a second group (or multiple groups), anchored to a broader setting which they support and which supports them--or, at least, tied to a broad genre of fantasy which they fit--i.e. keep that high magic kitchen sink shenanigans out of Ravenloft and Darksun, please, thank you.
But, of course, that ship has sailed.
Forcing a homebrew setting to accommodate monks, paladins, warlocks, and druids by printing them as universal classes in the PHB is also limiting. Not that your point is incorrect... but just sayin'
As 5e is constructed, I like thinking of classes as metagame building blocks too.
But the reason for that is that WotC manifestly
does not treat them as fiction agnostic. Paladins have oaths, warlocks have patrons, and druids aren't allowed to wear metal armor. You can ignore these class features if you like (I often do), or handwave them ("my druid's breastplate is made from bones, honest"), but they aren't meant to be.
Some classes, by design have lore that matters while others don't.
I pretty much entirely agree with you, Squibbles, except for this:
Generic Fighters always have setting ties. Whether it's knightly orders or armies of fighting men or something else. There's always plenty of different narrative-specific places to put a fighter. The whole class isn't any one of them, sure. I'm not saying it should be. But even the most generic fighter can be a part of the world. Even if you don't choose to be a member of a particular subclass "Hired Sellsword" is still a common enough identity to tie yourself to the world through the people buying your skills.
Same goes for Rogues. Thieves Guilds provide natural connection to the world, and are generally a core part of whatever the "Biggest City" is in a given setting. Your rogue doesn't have to be a part of the guild or anything, but it's there. And it creates a sense of context for Rogues, thiefly or otherwise.
And Wizards? There's always some Tower or Guild or School or other... Or dozens of them. Or potential mentors and figures who have been around forever. Ancient spellbooks and works of great magic to study and seek out...
Clerics and Heralds, by their very nature, have setting-specific narrative positions in various churches and faiths, orders or knighthoods. Not to mention direct quests from their divine sugar-parent.
Bards always have a long list of potential taverns to frequent, nobles to seek patronage from, and adventuring parties to team up with and sing about.
And there's plenty of places to put a Berserker whether in back alley fighting rings or vast open plains or deep jungles with tribes of like-minded people.
We kind of think of Fighters, Wizards, Rogues, and Clerics as not needing any hooks... But that's because the very process of fleshing out the most basic details of the world (Politics, Nations, Magic, Religion, Cities, Wildlands, Etc) grants them just -so- much to work with.
Sorcerers, Druids, Warlocks, Artificers, Rangers, and Monks often, but not always, get the short end of this stick. Rather than have specific setting-lore they're often relegated to whatever lore can be cobbled together from their class abilities and a high level overview of their class fantasy.
Yeah, artificers are tinkers... who do they tinker -for-? What kind of people do they associate with? Where do they wind up in a social hierarchy? The Circle of the Land is a subclass, but is there -actually- a druidic circle in the world tied to that identity or are druids and their works just kind of background assumptions with no serious development?
The general answer is
shrug because the setting rarely says.
It's maddening, to me.
