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

[cbwjm]

While I know some really like the idea that NPCs don't have to follow the same rules as PCs, I've never cared for it. The way I look at it, 5e strikes a balance by making NPC statblocks that represent simplified class members for quick use rather than ongoing development.

The alternative that everyone else in the world works one way, and whatever party of adventures you are playing in a particular campaign are each the sole representative of their organized skill set (despite the fact that the class write-ups tend to imply there are many people of each class and subclass), is inherently unsatisfying to me, as someone who runs a "persistent world" D&D campaign, where more than one group of players and characters can participate in the world's ongoing history.

I kind of feel the same way, sometimes I build NPCs like PCs with the same hit dice and abilities, etc. However, I also know I'm probably not going to use everything with an NPC that I would when running a PC so I don't always bother noting down every ability. An enemy wizard for instance likely isn't going to have arcane recovery because I'm not going to find it immediately useful. On the other hand, an NPC wizard travelling with the PCs might include it.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

While I know some really like the idea that NPCs don't have to follow the same rules as PCs, I've never cared for it. The way I look at it, 5e strikes a balance by making NPC statblocks that represent simplified class members for quick use rather than ongoing development.

The alternative that everyone else in the world works one way, and whatever party of adventures you are playing in a particular campaign are each the sole representative of their organized skill set (despite the fact that the class write-ups tend to imply there are many people of each class and subclass), is inherently unsatisfying to me, as someone who runs a "persistent world" D&D campaign, where more than one group of players and characters can participate in the world's ongoing history.

You seem to be conflating "NPCs don't have to follow the same rules as PCs" with "NPCs never follow the same rules as PCs". Those are not equivalent statements.

Of course that PC monk isn't the only monk in the world. She isn't even the only Empty Hand monk in the world. But neither is every single other person in the world a member of one of the twelve PHB classes: the PHB was written to describe people living a very unusual lifestyle of action and adventure, not peasants and merchants and town guards. And even among those NPCs who are members of one of the twelve classes, not all of them conform precisely to the PHB rules. The PHB write-up for the monk's features and subclasses should not be taken as an exhaustive description of every single monk in the world; it just's the kind of monk that the PC happens to be. To build a PC that's a different kind of monk, homebrew new rules or buy a splatbook. All those NPC monks that don't follow the PHB rules can be presumed to be where such expanded PC options come from.

 

[DammitVictor]

Are character classes necessarily linked to social classes in the game world as part of the character's identity? No, not necessarily.

But if there are observable differences in how different kinds of magic work, the people whose lives and livelihoods depend on those differences are absolutely going to have names for those differences and terms for describing those differences and you can either make those terms up for your setting... or you can use the terms that the rulebooks have already thoughtfully provided for you.

Of course, people with neither education or experience will be ignorant of these terms. They won't understand the differences and they won't want to understand the differences. But nobles, soldiers, priests, scholars, and adventurers are going to have this stuff down pat.

edit: There's something really weird about this idea that player characters having functional knowledge of game mechanics is "metagaming" (and bad) when game mechanics are literally how their world works. I'm not a physicist or a physician by any means, but I can paraphrase most of the laws of thermodynamics and tell you when I need an ambulance without rolling a skill check.

 

[Salthorae]

edit: There's something really weird about this idea that player characters having functional knowledge of game mechanics is "metagaming" (and bad) when game mechanics are literally how their world works. I'm not a physicist or a physician by any means, but I can paraphrase most of the laws of thermodynamics and tell you when I need an ambulance without rolling a skill check.

Both are through modern conveniences and education though I would point out.

A "normal" person in the Middle Ages/Renaissance wouldn't have a conception of thermodynamics or gravity or any of that. They know "things that go up, come down" and common sense things about how the world worked, but... I mean alchemy was a job back then, but we look down our noses at much of what they did. They would also bleed to death and die in an ambulance situation more often than not, but yeah.

Similarly, a "normal commoner" in the game world is going to have no idea the differences between a sorcerer or a wizard or a warlock. They all use gestures and words and bits of guano to do the same effect. To them they're "wizards" or whatever generic terms the common folk have to classify people like that. Either way "they are not to be trifled with"

Fighters/Rangers/Paladins would probably just be associated with whatever group they were associated with. So there could be all three in the "Knights of XYZ". Similarly, you could have Fighters/Rangers/Rogues that are just sellswords and that's what they'd be called. Rogues would be foot soldiers of an army or a Shadow Thief. You could also have a Shadow Sorcerer who is a Shadow Thief too though because he uses subtle spell so many/most people don't even know he casts spells.

That is how I see it for my games anyway.

I can also see a game where there is a nation that has education at a high level and a codified mages guild where the different types of casters have different sashes so that you can identify them on sight (for some/whatever reason). Where Druid circles only allow initiates/members who adopt their ways and eschew anything else and if you can't take the shape of a beast you're not a Druid and to call yourself such is to invite the wrath of the Circle. Etc, Etc.

I.e. a world where the classes have self-organized to the point that common people everywhere in that world DO have a concept of them because of the way they organize.

 

[clearstream]

Similarly, a "normal commoner" in the game world is going to have no idea the differences between a sorcerer or a wizard or a warlock. They all use gestures and words and bits of guano to do the same effect. To them they're "wizards" or whatever generic terms the common folk have to classify people like that.

This chimes for me. I think the D&D class structure can be used to suggest the hierarchy of knowledge.

Most people can differ between martial, arcane and divine
Some can differ between a wizard and a sorcerer
A few can differ between an abjurer and a diviner

And that might be patchy and inconsistent e.g. knowledgeable about paladins, but ignorant about barbarians, or right on some details and wrong on others.

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

The alternative that everyone else in the world works one way, and whatever party of adventures you are playing in a particular campaign are each the sole representative of their organized skill set (despite the fact that the class write-ups tend to imply there are many people of each class and subclass), is inherently unsatisfying to me, as someone who runs a "persistent world" D&D campaign, where more than one group of players and characters can participate in the world's ongoing history.

I believe once we factor in the different feats, skills, ability scores, and even the possibility of multiclass characters, it becomes possible to regard each character as the sole representative of a given skill set without losing the consistency of a persistent world.

But we'd probably end up asking: is John, the Fighter, able to understand that the talents granted by his Great Weapon Master feat are not part of a fighter training package?

 

[Arnwolf666]

Depends what kind of game you are playing. Are the players exploring a setting or are they helping create a setting. Or something in between. If you are exploring a setting The choice is not the players.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Out of character, we refer to each other by class. In character, depends. What is the flavor? To the barbarian, he refers to all casters as wizards. My abjurer refers to himself as a mage. Many of my other PCs still use level titles from ADnD. “Shade the footpad” for example.

I miss level titles...

 

[CleverNickName]

Eh, not exactly. In my game world, the NPCs have their own classes mostly borrowed from 3E and Pathfinder (warrior, adept, commoner, expert, and the occasional new class of my own design, like "soothsayer" and "priest of Nerull.") Only the PCs have levels of Fighter, Barbarian, Wizard, and so on.

It makes the player characters unique and "special" in the world, and lets me be a little more creative with world building. It also keeps the players guessing as they try to figure out if the halfling with the pet wolf is a Ranger, a Druid, a Paladin with a special mount, something else entirely, or just a halfling with a pet wolf.

 

[BookBarbarian]

If I make a Fighter with the Uthgardt Tribe Member Background guess what other cultures are going to call him? An Uthgardt Barbarian.

Likewise if I make a Barbarian with the Noble or Knight background no one is going to think of him as a Barbarian.

So that's a no from me dawg.