D&D General Is character class an in-world concept in your campaigns?

[Son of the Serpent]

Also you get scenarios where you gotta ask yourself. Does the disposessed farmer (original profession) jack (known by his friends as lucky jack) know hes a latent sorceror level 2 (with a lot of unconsciously knee jerk cast subtle spells (not as the meta magic. As in spells that are just not obvious. There are actually quite a few)) bard level 1 with 2 levels worth of fighter capability or does he think hes just a really lucky rogue with a bit of musical talent? Or does he realize he really has no levels in rogue and is actually just a multi classed clusterf#$@? This is where the fourth wall becomes a strange thing of awkward perfection. By the way. In some editions it is actually core canon that more than half of sorcerors start casting spells before realizing they know how to cast any and may in fact have whole levels (obviously at the extremely low range) before actually realizing what is going on. So this really does happen.

 

[Salthorae]

For my games it depends on the class and your closeness to them.

Much more so for the arcane classes for those who are affiliated. Wizards/Sorcerers/Warlocks mostly have inklings of the others and the distinctions between them.

Clerics/Druids get mixed up for Nature oriented priests, especially since Clerics are in Druid orders and Druids are in the priesthoods of those gods.

Barbarians are a social construct more so than a class, though there are people who fight with rage and passion, it's just another way of doing it and sometimes its powered by shamanistic totems or something.

Minstrels are more known while Bards are more legendary, through their own efforts

There are definitely Rogues, but rogue/roguish means what it does in our world, so you have rogues of all stripes (fighters, rogues, bards, whoever is a thief or roguish).

Rangers are Rangers, Scout Rogues, Druids, Fighters with outlanders, etc.

Monks are pretty rare and would be seen as something odd.

Paladins could certainly claim being from an order of monks.

 

[Son of the Serpent]

I just realized a more basic way to answer this question than i before offered.

The in game functions exactly like the out of game on this one.

But the class build on the character sheet is much like the capabilities and skills of the real world are to us.

It doesnt directly define your titles or your resume. Or vice verse.

 

[Arnwolf666]

True. And they had an uncommon knowledge of performance enhancing drugs as well as medicine.

A close to real world version could be represented in game as it being a prestige class with a prereq of 1 (or another low number) level of either druid, rogue, or alchemist and an additional minimum entry requirement of (insert low number) ranks knowledge nature and the same in heal check. Add a feat for enhanced form of raging ability when under influence of recipe drug cocktail for added realism.

They weren’t performance enhancing drugs... um... they were magical potions. Yeah that’s it. Magical potions to get them to help them channel their ancestral spirits to um. Alchemy darn it.

 

[FrogReaver]

At some point during our last game session, I turned to our warlock and said "I expected you to help us with that, sorcerer", and his answer was "I'm not a sorcerer, I'm a warlock". My reply was "warlock, sorcerer, wizard, conjurer, or mage, I don't care, it's all the same", to which he answered, "it's the same for you, who have no understanding of arcane matters".

So, is character class an in-world concept in your campaigns? Could the mightiest sorcerer in your world be in fact a 20th-level wizard? If my oath of vengeance paladin was trained as part of a monastic order, would other people disagree if he referred to himself and other members of his order as warrior monks and tell him that monks are supposed to fight unarmored?

To answer my own question, except for some very specific situations, like druids in AD&D 2e, I never treated character class as an in-world concept. In my own games, a light-armored fighter with a criminal background does not see himself as fundamentally different from someone with levels in the rogue class.

What about your own campaigns?

Not explicitly class - however, certain classes do carry certain fictional baggage. The spell casting classes most notably all cast a bit differently. That difference does make it's way into the fiction. For example wizards are ones who study spells and sorcerers are those that cast without book or study. But in fiction the difference in casting may or may not be what distinguishes a wizard from a sorcerer. In my campaigns it's a hodgepodge - some classes carry a real difference from others in the fiction that can be easily codified and others don't.

Mostly the name of a class in the fiction is typically a descriptor that can be applied to multiple classes in my games - but sometimes the class name itself associates only with members of the given class. Sorcerers and wizards are a good example for my games of such a 1 to 1. However an in fiction barbarians could be a member of nearly any class.

 

[Son of the Serpent]

They weren’t performance enhancing drugs... um... they were magical potions. Yeah that’s it. Magical potions to get them to help them channel their ancestral spirits to um. Alchemy darn it.

In the vast majority of cases the berserkers actually had 100% comprehension that what they were doing was taking performance enhancing drugs actually. The ones who thought it was magical were actually the outliers. The norse are one of those cultures that basically always seemed less advamced than they were when in fact they were typically more advamced than most. Its a thing. Sorta how the druids of the celts had aside from alchemic philosophy some actual ahead of their time chemical knowledge. Basically the norse are one of those groups that buck the general trend of medicinal advamcement as far as most cultures in a given time go. They would engage in religious rituals too but usually just because it would help psych them into the right mind set and also made them appear more fearsome to others.

In game you can take this or leave it. But the vast majority of the time the scandinavian berserkera actually knew exactly what they were doing.

 

[Son of the Serpent]

They weren’t performance enhancing drugs... um... they were magical potions. Yeah that’s it. Magical potions to get them to help them channel their ancestral spirits to um. Alchemy darn it.

there totally also was some ancester and totem ritual stuff going on too though.

 

[Celebrim]

In the vast majority of cases the berserkers actually had 100% comprehension that what they were doing was taking performance enhancing drugs actually.

Source?

 

[Arnwolf666]

In the vast majority of cases the berserkers actually had 100% comprehension that what they were doing was taking performance enhancing drugs actually. The ones who thought it was magical were actually the outliers. The norse are one of those cultures that basically always seemed less advamced than they were when in fact they were typically more advamced than most. Its a thing. Sorta how the druids of the celts had aside from alchemic philosophy some actual ahead of their time chemical knowledge. Basically the norse are one of those groups that buck the general trend of medicinal advamcement as far as most cultures in a given time go. They would engage in religious rituals too but usually just because it would help psych them into the right mind set and also made them appear more fearsome to others.

In game you can take this or leave it. But the vast majority of the time the scandinavian berserkera actually knew exactly what they were doing.

Great post. Yes I agree with the history. Just fluff I don’t like in my fantasy. Well I might use it in a specific campaign. Berserk always bothered. Personally I found it to be a vice and should make a person worse in combat. But that is another topic where the rules are clear and a homebrew solution would destroy player expectations.

 

[Arnwolf666]

Source?

Look it up. it is well known.