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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Steampunkette" data-source="post: 8248706" data-attributes="member: 6796468">Warlocks are a great example of this phenomenon.By being tied to a powerful otherworldly figure, they've got a somewhat strict tie to the world. One which, like a paladin or cleric, strip their power away the moment they don't like what the Warlock is doing. These NPCs are often Evil, or at least Alien. Malign or Strange, they have their own goals which may not always align with the warlock's, and they're always tied to the specific setting you're in.Yeah, you're a Fiend Pact Warlock,  which feels fairly generic, but your patron has a name and a role in the narrative. Schemes and plots and enemies and such. Usually.Sometimes being a Fiend Warlock just means you've sold your soul or done some terrible evil in a one-off event, or been born of a cursed bloodline, and you choose to forgo your potential narrative ties to the campaign setting because your power was attained in a single event and any "Patron" involved isn't micromanaging you as their hand on Krynn or whatever planet you're on. And that's fine.What I'm referring to is the Baseline of Sorcerer. The Baseline of Ranger. They should have some ties to the world that any player is, of course, free to ignore. If someone were to play a Sorcerer at my table in the Ashen Lands campaign setting I wouldn't demand a 4 page History Report on their lineage and bloodline with provided patents of nobility reaching back at least 3 generations on one side.That player could just be using the class to represent a character with Magic. Hell, that player could play a Sorcerer and call themselves a Wizard or a Mage, for all I care and hang out in the prestigious halls of magical knowledge like a Wizard. Or claim to be a Warlock and ask me to write them up a Patron that gives them Draconic Power for their Dragonblood Sorcerer and I'll gladly oblige and put it into the world for that player in particular and everyone in the game world will treat them just like a Warlock regardless of their Sorcery Points and Metamagic Feats. Their draconic patron might even have specific goals of it's own that they're directed to.But beyond mechanics, things should have a narrative connection to the setting. Something that a player can look at and say "Yes. That is the setting's narrative for my class and I like it and want to explore it!" or "Yes. That is the setting's narrative for my class and I would prefer to not have that." While the actual main thrust of it is giving the class a place and way to exist within the cultural narrative of the world for the DM to use to build and flesh the world out. Which is the purpose to which I'm referring. Not a narrative straitjacket for players to be bound to.A basis which uses the class fantasy to enrich the world.</blockquote>

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