NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Guest&nbsp; 85555" data-source="post: 9257112"><p>Honestly I think this starts to make the game very weird in terms of setting consistency. I agree you can make NPCs just like PCs in AD&D, and sometimes you need and want that, but there are also plenty of stock options and there was an attitude or culture where you didn't have to strictly do that (which I think did emerge by the time WOTC had D&D). But the problem it creates is in terms of setting is something you can see in the  novels that tried to grapple with class. If class and levels are objectively underpinning the physics, this is something peopel in the setting itself ought to be able to sense. And then you have really weird moments that arise like in the Dark Elf trilogy where Drizzt is trying to find himself and a man he meets gives him insight by overseeing "You know what you are, you're a ranger!". Paraphrasing that quote, but he didn' mean, your a ranger because you protect the forest and wander, he meant deep down inside you, there is this Rangerness that is part of who you are. I always thought this was very bizarre (and I liked the Dark Elf trilogy a lot). This would periodically arise in TSR novels from that period and it never landed well because it created a very strange sense of setting. I see class and many other elements of characterization as broad simplifications meant to make characters for fun, balance, etc. And some of those things intersect with the world (the way a mage learns spells for example and the spells they cast). But many things are just simplified abstractions and shouldn't be liberalized in the setting, lest you find your inner ranger</p></blockquote><p></p>

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