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<blockquote data-quote="Steampunkette" data-source="post: 8248877" data-attributes="member: 6796468">It's Chekhov's Gun, essentially. You've written a play where there is a prominent gun positioned over the fireplace. By the end of the play someone should fire that gun, or else why have you taken the time to write, prominently, about a gun above the fireplace?Imagine writing a complex world in which Wizards and Paladins and Druids have all been major players. Where Fighters have been the Generals of powerful armies and Rogues have stolen from the very Gods themselves. And also there are Sorcerers. They've never done anything important or been relevant to any major events throughout history, but they exist. The Entities that they're technically the much-removed offspring of may or may not have done big things... But never Sorcerers in the entire narrative history of the world. They've had no cultural impact. Opened no schools, trained no soldiers, run no thieves guild. They're just -there-.They exist for no purpose in the written narrative -except- to Exist. Because &quot;Here's a neat concept, let's just add it in&quot;. Like adding bay windows to a toolshed. You've got a perfect place for tools and you can do stuff in it and oh, by the way, here's an architectural feature that doesn't do anything to help fulfill the purpose of it being a toolshed.It's like putting gold leaf on chocolate to eat. Sure it's pretty. But why are you eating gold except to show that you can afford to poop a shiny turd the next morning? It doesn't make the chocolate any sweeter or stronger, it's just there.And yeah, yeah, &quot;So players can be a Sorcerer instead of a Wizard&quot;... but outside of game mechanics what does that -mean-? Why not just let them use the Sorcerer Class and have everyone in the world call them a Wizard or a Mage or a Grofpbit because Sorcerers aren't part of the narrative? Why even design Sorcerers in the first place as a possible player option (Back in 3e) if they were never going to be a part of the story of the world you're building?This is what I mean by &quot;Existing only to Exist&quot;.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Steampunkette, post: 8248877, member: 6796468"] It's Chekhov's Gun, essentially. You've written a play where there is a prominent gun positioned over the fireplace. By the end of the play someone should fire that gun, or else why have you taken the time to write, prominently, about a gun above the fireplace? Imagine writing a complex world in which Wizards and Paladins and Druids have all been major players. Where Fighters have been the Generals of powerful armies and Rogues have stolen from the very Gods themselves. And also there are Sorcerers. They've never done anything important or been relevant to any major events throughout history, but they exist. The Entities that they're technically the much-removed offspring of may or may not have done big things... But never Sorcerers in the entire narrative history of the world. They've had no cultural impact. Opened no schools, trained no soldiers, run no thieves guild. They're just -there-. They exist for no purpose in the written narrative -except- to Exist. Because "Here's a neat concept, let's just add it in". Like adding bay windows to a toolshed. You've got a perfect place for tools and you can do stuff in it and oh, by the way, here's an architectural feature that doesn't do anything to help fulfill the purpose of it being a toolshed. It's like putting gold leaf on chocolate to eat. Sure it's pretty. But why are you eating gold except to show that you can afford to poop a shiny turd the next morning? It doesn't make the chocolate any sweeter or stronger, it's just there. And yeah, yeah, "So players can be a Sorcerer instead of a Wizard"... but outside of game mechanics what does that -mean-? Why not just let them use the Sorcerer Class and have everyone in the world call them a Wizard or a Mage or a Grofpbit because Sorcerers aren't part of the narrative? Why even design Sorcerers in the first place as a possible player option (Back in 3e) if they were never going to be a part of the story of the world you're building? This is what I mean by "Existing only to Exist". [/QUOTE]

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