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Message: <blockquote data-quote="empireofchaos" data-source="post: 6782349" data-attributes="member: 6800918">The classification would be along class lines, obviously, since the powers are associated with classes and not backgrounds (assuming people possessing the powers can emerge from any background; there can, in some settings, be a close association between certain classes and certain backgrounds, however). But the classification is the end of the process, not the beginning. It's not that you find a baby and say "that's a druid!" It's that you find a child, or even an adolescent or an adult with unshaped power, and you nudge or force this person into some sort of structure, where her being a druid is the end result of the process. And it entirely conceivable that archetypes like eldritch knights and arcane tricksters (as well as people who switch class) generate all sorts of headaches for the powers that be (this also creates an in-game reason for making multi-classing difficult, because of the social pressures). But these headaches don't mean that these classifications are entirely absent.Well, the idea of a census is not necessarily to be ruled out of bounds - a lot of people are about to celebrate a holiday marking the birth of someone born during a census taken 2000 years ago, and designed to group people into tribes (some of which had a monopoly on priestly powers). But it doesn't have to be anything as sophisticated. The practice of casting lots or a horoscope, or using divination to locate that special baby in a faraway village so it can be raised in a special environment is a tried and true trope in fantasy and legend alike. And again, the point isn't to place people into a priori categories, but to manage their power through institutionalization, which can be successful to varying degrees. As far as fighters and rogues, most of us who think class has meaning accept that these are likely the least structured, most amorphous classes because they are more numerous, but also because they present less of a challenge to the social order, so they probably come in for less scrutiny. Granted - that's been the subject of debate for over 560 posts now. I'm just trying to lay out how it might work on the basis of some fairly uncontroversial assumptions, and then people can adjust these to their own table as they see fit.I didn't say or imply that everyone is aware of the differences. In fact, quite the contrary. The elites keep this knowledge, as well as most other knowledge, under careful wraps, and most of them don't see the whole picture, either. I have absolutely no problem with the stipulation that the run-of-the-mill peasant has no understanding of the differences between wizards, warlocks, and sorcerers. But just because they don't know doesn't mean the class doesn't exist.OK, so that's one example. I think it's valid - if the GM can find a place for the character in the world somehow, and not valid if he cannot. The point isn't so much that "they" would need a name for that character's class - they would just try to tap the person early on, and to somehow control his powers (especially if they happen to be the power to rage). And it may be that the person is actually of barbarian descent (that's a possible point of compromise; there are countless others, obviously). But I don't see how restricting people from choosing classes if their concept doesn't correspond at all with the GM's concept of the class is any different from restricting classes to particular races. The latter was a common practice in AD&D, and, in one setting I run, barbarians are restricted to humanoids who live beyond the urban frontier (no humans, elves, etc.). Does this mean I have to prepare a full precis of such restrictions for every new player prior to character creation?And names can vary, of course - there is no reason why a single class has to go by a single name, or that a class name might refer to something other than the class (we keep returning to terminology). Though if there are monks in the class sense, and monks in the social group or background sense, that can create a certain amount of confusion for the player (like it creates confusion for the in-game peasant).</blockquote>

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