D&D 5E L&L: Subclasses

[Sadrik]

If you suck as much flavor as possible from the rules, you're left with bland, dull, dry text, and that doesn't inspire ANYONE to be the student of a disgraced samurai on the high seas.

I don't think it is a matter of sucking flavor from the classes/sub-classes it is more they have created a perfect avenue for fluff and they simply need to use it. Backgrounds are the area that fluff should be. A background is a perfect little packet of fluff and regardless of if you use the adjoined skill system you can use the fluff. Want to be a gladiator? you can now be a ranger one, a fighter one, a paladin one, and you can even multi-class and be one. If the fluff is there but written in a different section of the book and easily applied and allows you to make what you want and opens up so many more options would you see that as an advantage? I certainly would.

I don't think that they should add strong stiff fluff for the few people who may not use backgrounds. In computer programming a class creates an copy of itself and the method defines how it works. Good analogy to how I see the interaction between class and background and specialty for that matter too.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I don't think newbies are quite as incompetent as we often seem to assume around here, nor do I think that "gaming" is some sort of super-skill that takes decades to master. Furthermore, I don't think it'd be any great trauma to have a "to build a Samurai" section somewhere.

I was being facetious, and it's not about incompetence, it's about familiarity.

How about we have the "to build a Samurai" section built right into the game itself?

I really don't have a problem with that, and in fact happily play games with even simpler/less math than that, and I even play it with my "newbie" kids. The critical part is making sure that you present players with the ability and good advice on creating the fluff, or supply them with the fluff, if you want fluff-regulation.

IME: Creating/supplying "fluff" is not a problem newbies typically have. The problems newbies have usually center around the math or procedural end of mechanics. Having dealt with newbies playing both FATE and D&D, I can tell you that its the procedural/numerical end of D&D that causes the problems, because there's where you need to get it "correct". Often, when introducing people to D&D, I find that I'm having to constrain their fluff to meet the mechanics. Throughout this conversation, with all the wacky examples, I keep thinking "This is just so much easier in FATE" because the mechanics are simple and straightforward. Now, if people want to re-work D&D so that it has something like FATE's aspects (which Backgrounds seem to be recently orbiting) and ditch all these feats and subclasses and make it a rules-light(er) game....I'm all behind that. I don't think that's a very popular notion, though.

The game is about dungeons and dragons, not about math and mechanics. It needs to be more than dry numbers.

Backgrounds are the area that fluff should be.

Fluff should be bursting out of every decision a player makes. There's not "one place" for fluff. Fluff should be dripping from the walls and filling up the lungs. A player shouldn't be able to ever feel like they're just generating random numbers for an engine to crunch They shouldn't be able to swing a dead cat without hitting at least a half-dozen interesting character and adventure possibilities, driven deep into every choice they make.

 

[Sadrik]

No, fluff should be bursting out of every decision a player makes. There's not "one place" for fluff. Fluff should be dripping from the walls and filling up the lungs. A player shouldn't be able to ever feel like they're just generating random numbers for an engine to crunch.

I agree that it should be bursting out of the backgrounds however I think you can easily run the risk of if it is bursting out of everywhere you wind up with a mess. You wind up with fighter gladiator pirates which is not clear what it is. Clarity would dictate that the background is where you get background fluff. Class should be where you get your basics. The more details you hard code into the class/sub-class the more difficult it is to modify. I would like to see d&d be highly extensible and object oriented to use a few more IT terms.

 

[tuxgeo]

I was being facetious, and it's not about incompetence, it's about familiarity.

How about we have the "to build a Samurai" section built right into the game itself?

The game is about dungeons and dragons, not about math and mechanics. It needs to be more than dry numbers.

Fluff should be bursting out of every decision a player makes. There's not "one place" for fluff. Fluff should be dripping from the walls and filling up the lungs. A player shouldn't be able to ever feel like they're just generating random numbers for an engine to crunch They shouldn't be able to swing a dead cat without hitting at least a half-dozen interesting character and adventure possibilities, driven deep into every choice they make.

This.

The evocative* nature of the game is part of what makes it fun to play: the Fluff evokes the Fantastic.

* (no, not "provocative")

 

[jrowland]

I agree that it should be bursting out of the backgrounds however I think you can easily run the risk of if it is bursting out of everywhere you wind up with a mess. You wind up with fighter gladiator pirates which is not clear what it is. Clarity would dictate that the background is where you get background fluff. Class should be where you get your basics. The more details you hard code into the class/sub-class the more difficult it is to modify. I would like to see d&d be highly extensible and object oriented to use a few more IT terms.

There is a maxim in composition writing: Show. Don't Tell. It seems to me that KM's position is fundamentally this. If it is not clear what a Fighter gladiator Pirate is, it's up to the player to Show. Don't Tell. This a great roleplaying opportunity. That uncertainty as to "what it is" is a good thing. It allows for creative expression. The old TSR tag line was "Products of your Imagination". I think that is a rallying cry worthy of D&D next. What is a fighter gladiator pirate? Let your imagination decide!

 

[Ratskinner]

The game is about dungeons and dragons, not about math and mechanics. It needs to be more than dry numbers.

Fluff should be bursting out of every decision a player makes. There's not "one place" for fluff. Fluff should be dripping from the walls and filling up the lungs. A player shouldn't be able to ever feel like they're just generating random numbers for an engine to crunch They shouldn't be able to swing a dead cat without hitting at least a half-dozen interesting character and adventure possibilities, driven deep into every choice they make.

I totally agree. I just don't think that D&D's architecture supports that attitude very well. Otherwise, [MENTION=14506]Sadrik[/MENTION] 's post handles what I would say without re-hashing complaints from upthread.

 

[Ratskinner]

There is a maxim in composition writing: Show. Don't Tell. It seems to me that KM's position is fundamentally this. If it is not clear what a Fighter gladiator Pirate is, it's up to the player to Show. Don't Tell. This a great roleplaying opportunity. That uncertainty as to "what it is" is a good thing. It allows for creative expression. The old TSR tag line was "Products of your Imagination". I think that is a rallying cry worthy of D&D next. What is a fighter gladiator pirate? Let your imagination decide!

ermm...maybe....I can't say I see how naming decisions about subclasses would affect this one way or the other.

 

[Argyle King]

If Warlord is not going to be a class, then I don't feel it should be relegated to only being a fighter option. I think it lends itself naturally to fighter, but I also believe that -if warlord is simply going to be a character option- that it is also an option which is well suited for many other classes.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I agree that it should be bursting out of the backgrounds however I think you can easily run the risk of if it is bursting out of everywhere you wind up with a mess. You wind up with fighter gladiator pirates which is not clear what it is.

I'm skeptical that this can ever actually happen.

There's an intelligence behind every character created in a game, a person who makes choices about the kind of character they want to be and express. There is a reason a player takes one option over another, or at least an explanation. The puzzle pieces have to fit together, because they are assembled by a person, and that person has an intent behind every choice they make, and a mind creative enough to harmonize that apparent dissonance.

I can think of dozens of gladiator pirates. I think you could, too, if you gave it a minute. There is no mess here: there is only a player making a character they want to play.

Clarity would dictate that the background is where you get background fluff. Class should be where you get your basics. The more details you hard code into the class/sub-class the more difficult it is to modify. I would like to see d&d be highly extensible and object oriented to use a few more IT terms.

Clarity, like "elegance," is a tool, not a dogma. The only thing dictated by the game should be the measure of what is fun, and I can tell you without much market research, that gladiator pirate is a lot more fun than brawler sailor

 

[Sadrik]

I'm skeptical that this can ever actually happen.

Yeah me too. It does not mean that I will not stand up for a game that winds up not being a morass.

Clarity, like "elegance," is a tool, not a dogma.

Very true, there is no perfect only better. It is only a suggestion. Keeping your vinaigrette salad out of your potato salad, and out of your baked beans is advisable. But you know what swirl 'em up and you might get something fantastic, but you might also get something inedible.