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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Arial Black" data-source="post: 6765960" data-attributes="member: 6799649">'If class is an element of fiction...' But game mechanics rearing its head in the in-game fiction is not part of the rules of D&D-5E or any other edition-even if you choose to do so in your game. You have your likes and dislikes, and I have mine. You are forcing your players to adhere to your likes, not their own, if you say that the game mechanic of 'class' is knowable to the inhabitants of the world. This would result in a game like the OotS comic, where the characters seem aware of their game mechanics, for comedy value.I couldn't take such a game seriously.I remember in an early game of AD&D joining a game in an RPG club, and another player asked-in character, mind you!-"What are you?". I replied, in character, "Er...Sagittarius, I think...why?". Even in the '70s I knew that 'character class' was a game mechanic, as unknowable to creatures in-game as hit points. I don't need new mechanics. My PCs are made according to the existing rules. Fluff is not rules. I'm the kind of guy who makes a detailed backstory for every character I play, whether or not the other players or the DM cares about 'role-playing' at all.A useful suggestion. But not a rule. Nor is a monastery the only possible source of training and/or asceticism.If you mean that the creatures in the world know if a person has the game mechanic that lets him crit on 19-20, rubbish!Working in casinos for over a quarter of a century is enough to show me that the objective chance of an occurrence is not forced to result in those occurrences happening in the proportions predicted. The fighter's player may roll a crit on 19-20, but what would those who observe the character in-game see? They would see that, sometimes, the guy gets a really good blow in. There is no way for those creatures to know any metagame reason for that more than usually effective blow; he could have rolled high damage without a crit, or low with a crit. He might be strong and have enchanted weapons. It might be a Divine Smite. He might have rolled 20 more times than usual.There is no possible way the creatures in game know that a particular blow was a crit, or that the crit was caused by a nat 20 not a nat 19, deducing what his 'class' was as a game mechanic.Now, you can certainly invent a special cadre of fighters whose 'crit on 19+' ability as fluffed as a particular technique, known only to them. But I can just as easily fluff the same mechanic as being....anything I can think of! Was it a destiny passed down through the generations? A totally different technique that looks nothing like yours, but results in the same mechanic? That's up to me, not you.Now that's what I'm talking about! Instead of "You're not allowed to play a character with monk levels unless he was raised in a monastery", talk to the player as in the examples above.The rogue/monk I've mentioned before has a place in the world, membership of an organisation published in the PotA book, membership of a secret organisation within the first organisation (that I made up, using elements existing in Forgotten Realms lore), a backstory, goals....I even re-fluffed my shortsword as a Chinese Jian without changing any game mechanics (although I would never re-fluff it as a greatsword!). I have created a future path for her in terms of the order she takes her monk and rogue levels, with an in-game story as to why, and had her training resembling special forces training adjusted by the expectation of 'elves' and 'magic'.To hear suggestions that, no matter how I connect my character to the world, I'm not allowed to play the Mechanics already approved, simply because I created my own fluff, and because the DM thinks the inhabitants of our imaginary worlds are aware of the game mechanics that govern them, is my objection.</blockquote>

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