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

[Son of the Serpent]

Source?

That will take some time. But i can dig around a bit. Ill find it eventually it seriously may be a while though. Under the mountain of shoddy misinformation saturation that exists. They are one of the oldest known examples of measured and tested use of psychotropic and even psychedelic drugs for battle performance enhancement though.

 

[Celebrim]

Look it up. it is well known.

It is well known in the United States that 1 mile of every 5 of the original Eisenhauer interstate system, was made straight, in order to provide expedient field runways for the USAF in the event that the United States was invaded.

It is also entirely false, which you will easily verify when you start looking for an actual source.

In this case, I haven't the slightest idea how I would go about verifying the claim that was made, which, as far as I know, involves a number of highly specific assertions about the Berserker cult for which I know of no textual evidences in the eddas and sagas. Now, I'm not an expert in those things, and I can only read English, so it's entirely possible that I don't know the source he's referencing.

Hence, I'm asking for the source.

 

[Son of the Serpent]

Look it up. it is well known.

Thankyou for the vote of confidence. Im going to see if i can find some of the sources again for him though. Its been a good five years since i looked into it though. Hes being pretty reasonable.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

It is well known in the United States that 1 mile of every 5 of the original Eisenhauer interstate system, was made straight, in order to provide expedient field runways for the USAF in the event that the United States was invaded.

Never heard anything about the interstate system being using for that, but it was modeled on the German Autobahn, in that it was designed to be used during a potential war inside the US for fast movement of military vehicles around the country.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Yes, mostly.

Martial abilities are somewhat abstract, but a Battle Master knows that his ability to trip someone is superior to others because of his extensive training (trip maneuver). A Champion knows that his training (or fighting spirit, etc) makes him “better” at making use of weapons than others (improved critical). A Rogue is specially trained to target weak spots to devastating effect (sneak attack). Because certain abilities tend to be grouped together, these are noticeable to those familiar with such things, and adventuring types can be classified by them. The names applied to such classes and subclasses can of course vary.

With magic and supernatural abilities it is even more overt. The fluff in the PHB is assumed in my world (unless specifically over-ridden). Wizardry, Sorcery, spell levels and spell slots are all actual things, as is the ki that empowers a Budoka (the term “monk” is used as it is in the real world to refer to monastics in various cultures, not to refer only to ascetic ki-focused martial artists), the divine powers possessed by paladins, clerics, druids, and rangers, etc. All of this is in game and forms a part of the character’s identity.

I also have a clear divide between magic/supernatural things and non-magical things that bounds fluff. A Budoka’s Ki is supernatural, for instance, and it isn’t possible to refluff the class as a brawler. Rangers are supernaturally empowered spellcasters, not wilderness warriors with some inexplicable tricks.

Part of my enjoyment of D&D involves experiencing D&Disms, and the in-world reality of such things is a D&Dism that was presented to me in almost all of my formative D&D experience.

 

[Shiroiken]

Yes and no. Bard, Druid, Monk, Paladin, and Rangers are concepts that exist in my game world, and while most characters will use the title associated with their class, they don't have to. Barbarians, Cleric, Fighters, Rogues are not specifically tied to any specific profession or title. To those unskilled in arcane lore, Sorcerers, Warlocks, and Wizards all fit under the classification of "mage."

 

[doctorbadwolf]

There are rangers and Druids and things, but not all of them have class levels.

 

[cbwjm]

Just another thought, backgrounds are often what people are known by rather than classes. A pirate, a sage, a merchant. A guild crafter might be known by where his skill lies, a folk hero might consider himself a simple farmer. If you're known as a soldier, it doesn't matter if you are a fighter, ranger, paladin, barbarian, or rogue; to others, you are a soldier. I know in a previous game that I thought of one of my players more as a pirate than as a fighter/cleric.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

So, is character class an in-world concept in your campaigns?

It's obviously true that there's an in-world difference between characters with 'wizard' written on their sheet and characters with 'sorcerer' written on their sheet. If that in-world distinction didn't exist, then we wouldn't be able to use different rules in order to model those characters.

As to whether those distinctions are recognized within the game world, well... the rules in the book are intended to model one specific world: The Forgotten Realms. While you don't have to play your campaign in that setting, you do need to make changes to account for any differences between that world and the world you're actually using.

While you could use the word 'monk' to describe the character concept labelled 'paladin', doing so adds complexity to the system with no real benefit. I mean, it's not like the characters in the game world are actually speaking English. Whatever their term is for the knight in shining armor, it translates into our language as 'paladin'.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

While you could use the word 'monk' to describe the character concept labelled 'paladin', doing so adds complexity to the system with no real benefit. I mean, it's not like the characters in the game world are actually speaking English. Whatever their term is for the knight in shining armor, it translates into our language as 'paladin'.

The amount of wordplay used in official modules for riddles, puzzles and the like suggests that the characters in the game world are actually speaking English.

Since we've already got human beings of clearly recognizable terrestrial ethnicities running around on this world that is not and never has been Earth, to say nothing of all the cows and pigs and lobsters and pine trees, the English language would be the least of D&D's plausibility problems.