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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 6765560" data-attributes="member: 16814">Physician, heal thyself!I explained how I read your words.  That wasn't an exceptional reading.  You said you didn't mean them that way, and I acceded.  I do not see how I can be held accountable for misunderstanding your intent, yet you can simultaneously choose to interpret my words as hostile to you.  They aren't.  I disagree with you, and find that your choice of words to be unfortunately easy to mistake as a superior tone, but I have already acknowledged that you are 1) honestly engaging, and 2) have said that you do not mean to be dismissive.  Well and good, and I, again, acknowledge both clearly.  This doesn't, however, hold me to a standard where I cannot point out where your language choices appear to drift back into being dismissive, if only to, again, make sure that I am not misreading you.And my issue is that you force fiction on characters because of the player's choice of class.  I can (and do) achieve immersion in my game fiction, tying characters to my game world, without the crutch of forcing them into accepting a connection (be it membership, or conflict, or whatever) with a group based on a metagame (to me) concept.  You accept that classes have in-game reality, I do not.  But that doesn't, in any way, mean that I have less ability to hook players through gameworld tie-ins to their characters.  And that's my point.  Forcing connections to organizations through class choice works for you, and bully, but that's not the only or even best way to accomplish hooking characters into the game world.I tend to hook through backgrounds, not class.  For instance, there's a rogue in my game that has the urchin background, and is a member in loose standing with the Halfling Mafia, one of the crime syndicates in the main focus city of my campaign.  He's a member because he described his urchin background as running the streets as part of a criminal pickpocket gang under the direction of a criminal group.  He's not a member of the crime syndicate because he's a rogue, he's a member because his background says that he's a member.  He's hooked into the world, and that hook has both benefits (it was instrumental in making a task the party wanted to accomplish easier) and costs (he owes 'take', and even though he's not currently practicing crime, he still owes).Similarly, another rogue (arcane trickster) picked the solider background and was a member of the Blackguard Ranger Auxillary -- not a full member of the Blackguard because they're a strict NPC organization (their duties are inconsistent with adventuring unless everyone (or most) in the party choose to be blackguard, in which case the game would be one of missions, not choices).  He focused on outdoorsy skills, and was the party scout.  His background as being having served the Blackguard gave him a good deal of benefit as an ex-member in that he was able to chat up other members in social places and even gain access to barrack spaces on occasion to follow up on leads.  Given that the Blackguards are the premier mercenary force in my game world, that was a nice benefit.  But he was a rogue.In the first case, the character is playing to class assumptions, but because he wants to.  In the second, the character is decidedly separate from class assumptions, and is playing a hard-bitten woodland scout/sniper solider type.  Same class, nothing at all similar.  Both firmly connected to my game world (and both have more connections that I haven't explained, I stuck with the quick and easy ones that don't involve me explaining the details of my homebrew campaign world or the 'story so far').Yes, but I'd rather avoid coming up with new mechanics when there are class features that already exist that can do the job.  I get that you say that you can just add new mechanics and classes to do the same thing that I do with a refluff (you can't really, they're different things, but at least they belong in the same concept space), but one is fiction and the other involves considering mechanical balances.  I don't mind messing with the rules, but I don't want to keep track of a binder (or file, I am somewhat modern) that collects all of my rule changes/additions.  That's not the point, for me, of playing 5e.  So I keep any new/changed mechanics to the absolute minimum to satisfy my and my groups preferences and needs.  Fluff's easier for me, and I'd rather create a new bit of fiction to add a new concept than a new bit of crunch.What you presented wasn't a system, though, and, again, you mixed up fluff and mechanics and treated them as interchangeable.  A classless system is not what I'm looking for, nor am I looking for a simplified 53 system as you're suggesting.  I know we've covered it already, but you keep suggesting that I'm looking for something either simpler or completely different from 5e because I allow refluffing class ficitons, which implies that you think that I need such things because I'm unhappy with 5e.  I'm not, it's doing exactly what I want it to do.  I am not going to be better served by a dumb-down, simpler version, nor is a different system going to be useful to me.  I fail to understand why a difference in application means to you that I might be better served with a different game.  To restate: no, a classless system is not better for what I want to do. What I do is best for what I want to do.  Explaining to me, in a different way, how I might be better off with a different method is, frankly, a complete non-starter.  It's, to borrow a phrase, not even wrong.</blockquote>

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