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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DSRilk" data-source="post: 4072518" data-attributes="member: 35212">I fail to see how I could get more specific than my merchant example - literally a real, individual character I created for a D&D campaign I played in -- it doesn't get much more concrete than that.  I also am not sure how on earth that character concept was at all influenced by the rules.  Seriously - what class or feats in the PHB are associated with creating a merchant/amateur artist, much less would lead one to see that as a D&D character archetype?  What skills scream, merchant?  Or artist, for that matter.  None.  After I had the concept, I picked skills that came as close as possible to fitting with the character.  He ended up with diplomacy, for example.  Why?  Because that was as close as I could come to a skill that represented haggling the way I saw him doing it.  Certainly not because I viewed him as diplomatic.  To the point, I had no intention, nor did I, play him as a diplomatic character excepting during circumstances where it involved dealing for something (as opposed to winning favor, or what-have-you).  I could see your point far more if I created a concept that involved a diplomatic character that could bluff a bit.  But that wasn't at all how it was.  As is evident by the traits that were described up front during the concept phase that had nothing to do with any game mechanics whatsoever.  The concept truly grew from the title character on a TV show called Lovejoy - a mystery series in Britain.While there are certainly times where character concepts are derived from the rule set, such as when I specifically set out to create a character that was a fighter who was convinced he was a paladin, and went around detecting evil based on what he thought was evil (as he obviously didn't have the power, but truly believed he did).  Given that several characters I have created had literally no connection to the rule set at all (the above merchant being an extremely non-broad example), the word "always" that you used is inaccurate.  However, it doesn't hurt me in the least if you want to think you're right on this, so if I haven't misunderstood what you meant, or you haven't misunderstood my previous post, feel free to consider yourself correct.</blockquote>

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