But that doesn't entail that class interactions have no bearing on one another. Just to give an example: the relationship between a classic paladin and a classic assassin might take any one of infinite forms, but there will infinitely many more relationships that probably don't make sense for those two particular characters.
From whom? Mostly, I think, from [MENTION=6801209]mellored[/MENTION] - who has pointed to such instances as strangers being inspired by great speakers such as MLK.
We don't have to turn to great orators to encounter cases of people disliking someone and then, because of something that person says, coming to respect or be inspired by them. That's a pretty mundane part of ordinary living among fellow human beings.
For my own part, I don't see that inspiration need depend on admiration nor on [near-]worship nor on formal authority (that the latter is neither necessary nor sufficient for a person to be inspirational to those subordinate to him/her I take to be obvious). But, in the context of a FRPG, I think it models the genre tropes of loyal friendship, gallant leadership, of love, of being able to tame both men and beasts, etc. It implies a person who, when s/he speaks, calls others to attention - because of the choice of words, the strength of personality, the resonance with the others' concerns.
To me, this is not very mysterious. The literature is replete with such figures - Aragorn, Faramir, Gandalf, Turin and other in Tolkien; Arthur the King; Conan in many of the REH stories; Siegfried in the Ring Cycle; Captain America and Cyclops in the superhero version of fantasy adventure; Flash Gordon; etc.
Wolverine doesn't like Cyclops very much; that doesn't mean that Cyclops can't inspire him (consider, for instance, the difference between Cyclops' and Prof X's approach to the team, and Wolverine's response, when Cyclops returns to earth during the Dark Phoenix arc).
I'm talking about the Avengers movie cynical Nick Fury, not the "real" Nick Fury who I think very plausibly is a warlord.
In 5e, the Persuasion skill refers to "good faith" attempts to influence others. To me, this is pretty core to the inspirational archetype. (Others upthread have posted counterexamples, and [MENTION=6801209]mellored[/MENTION] thinks this is about alignment. That's all fine. But those aren't the characters that I see as paradigms of the warlord, and I think in understanding the rationale for the class it's best to start with the paradigm.) Cynical manipulation is not inspiring people; it's using them. A tactical warlord might be a good fit for this, where the tactics include pushing peoples' buttons.
This whole line of argument is somewhat opaque to me.
First, I don't think there's no way Boromir could be a warlord, but I don't think it's the most natural reading of his role in the group or his place in the story. For similar but more obvious reasons, I don't think that Aragorn could be an assassin (even though he's good at scouting, sneaking and disguise, all of which are classic assassin abilities in D&D).
Second, I think I've already explained why not: he doesn't, in general, serve as an inspirational figure to his fellows. He doesn't provide them with much comfort. He doesn't tend to restore their hope.
Third, I don't understand why you think that class and (for lack of a better word, and given your rejection of the term "personality") story should be independent of one another. Gygax told us, in his PHB, that choosing class is choosing the role that one will play. That is, to choose one's class is to choose a certain range of mechanical options for engaging the fiction, and hence a certain range of story possibilities. (Which may well be infinite, but not therefore all-encompassing.) If I want to play my character as resembling Boromir: somewhat bossy, even overbearing; with a tendency to arrogance, and a relative disregard of others; why would I choose the inspirational warlord? That doesn't necessarily seem a good fit. (The tactical warlord might be a different matter.) I wouldn't choose the classic paladin either, for similar sorts of reasons.
D&D has no mechanics suitable for resolving PC vs PC social conflict. Hence there is not need to discourage - it just doesn't come up. (Contrast, eg, Burning Wheel, where the mechanics are fine and PC vs PC social conflict is no different in its salience to play from PC vs PC physical conflict.)
On the charming matter: if the bard has 18 CHA (which, per p 62 of the Basic PDF "measures your ability to interact effectively with others, . . . includes such factors as confidence and eloquence, and . . . can represent a charming or commanding personality) then it seems hard to deny that s/he is charming. Especially if also trained and expert in Persuasion, which (per the same page) signals aptitude in "influenc[ing] someone or a group of people with tact, social graces, or good nature."
Of course a player is free to play his/her PC as s/he wishes, but if the PC asserts that the bard is not charming, the rest of the gameworld is going to disagree! (Aren't they?) It will be the dissenting PC who comes off as the unpleasant person - jealousy or some sort of personal inadequacy can be one common reason why a person spitefully rejects the approaches of another genuinely good-natured and pleasant person.
That could all make for interesting intraparty roleplaying, but it woudn't at all tend to show that the bard is not charming.
Presumably at those tables no one would play a warlord or take the Inspiring Leader feat (because these are mechanics pertaining to social interaction between PCs), no one would ever recover hit points because an ally restored his/her hope (because the game has no rules for generating hp recovery simply out of freeform RP), etc.
That's rather foreign to my experience. I work in a university, with a fairly standard bureaucratic hierarchy. The leaders in the bureaucracy aren't the most inspiring or personable or comforting people; to the extent that they are there on merit, the merit is generally skill in policy development and implementation, plus a good knack for putting out the dozen spotfires that arise daily in any big organisation of that sort.
I've played a lot of D&D as well as spent a lot of time in bureaucracies. There has never been a sense of injustice to anyone generated by having a PC with high CHA not be the (de jure or de facto) party leader. But that has never been taken to mean that, in the fiction, the other PCs don't find that PC a charismatic person.
Sure - Tolkien is a very devout person, and this is reflected in his fiction: so, ultimately, providence will ensure that one is born to an office who is capable of honouring and upholding it. That doesn't mean that there are no usurpers, though - his books are full of them (in the in-fiction timeline, from Melkor and Feanor onwards): they hold offices but are not inspirational leaders in the manner of Faramir or Aragorn, who are (if you like) true occupants of their offices.
In what way?
Also, by play here you don't mean makes action declarations. You mean something like establishes characterisation. Except I don't think you can even mean that, because in 99% of games without warlords or bards in them, the players never bother to consider whether or not their PCs are inspired by one another.
The presence of the warlord (or the inspiring bard, who even back in Appendix 2 to the AD&D PHB could inspire by reciting poetry, with no suggestion that this was casting a mind control spell as seems to be the dominant understanding of the 5e Bless spell) does invite the other players to consider their PCs' relationships and attitudes towards the warlord PC. That is not manipulation of anyone, that I can see.
Why is it not ideal?
In your warlord-free game, what happens, mechanically, when one PC inspires another? I assume nothing. (I assume you don't use the Inspiring Leader feat either, which seems to be no different as far as this "agency" matter is concerned.)
Once you introduce inspirational mechanics into the game, you have to choose how you are going to engage with them. If you choose to play your PC as someone who is never moved by others, or who is not moved by this particular other person, then you are choosing, also, not to be buffed - because, once those mechanics are in play, those buffs are the mechanical expression of being inspired - which you have decided is not the case for your PC.
How else do you imagine it working out? How do you envisage having inspiration mechanics, yet it making no difference whether or not a player engages them via his/her PC?
