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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Quickleaf" data-source="post: 7099106" data-attributes="member: 20323">For anyone who missed the TomeShow 2015 GenCon interview with Mike Mearls – who is being quoted and misquoted in this thread – here's the relevant transcript I just made. I tried to maintain some of Mike's upbeat and joking nature, as well as his inflections. It's pretty clear he's talking about identity / implied story / character.[SECTION]GenCon 2015 TomeShow<a href="http://www.thetomeshow.com/e/gencon-2015-mike-mearls-open-question-discussion-hour/" target="_blank">http://www.thetomeshow.com/e/gencon-2015-mike-mearls-open-question-discussion-hour/</a>25:23 – 28:50Interviewer: What would you change? And what is your opinion on using errata?Mike: We are not going to be doing errata for small things, only major errors. The one class that I realize irritates the heck out of me… and it’s a popular class, like when you talk about changing this, you’re like nervous because people like it and when you talk about  changing it that’s dangerous. The one thing I really don’t like, I don’t like is the fighter. Because every other character class when you make that subclass choice… If you’re playing a cleric, OK, you can be a cleric of the God of War, or of the God of Life. Oh, I can picture who that is in my mind, right? That’s a character. If you’re playing a rogue, you can be an Assassin or you can be a Thief, right? OK, I get who that is. But when you get to the fighter, you can be a Champion or a Battle Master. And I don’t think anyone knows what that is. What is a Champion? Is it that guy walking around with a belt? What’s the Battle Master? I used to play a lot of Battletech, so I think it’s an 85 ton mech with lots of weapons. *laughing* And so that to me was the biggest missed opportunity, cause when you think fighter, you think what kind of fighter do you want to play? Do you want to play a knight, a gladiator, a brawler, a berserker?We totally wiffed…One of the big things of class design… *joking side talk* One of the big principles of 5th edition design was working with nouns and verbs. Right? You can be this thing – it’s a noun that has resonance. It’s not like: You can be a…Champion. Champion is a great example. It’s empty calories. What is a Champion? Could a paladin be a Champion? Could a ranger be a Champion? That might actually make sense. But if you say Gladiator – oh, that’s a fighter. Gladiators kick ass, a whole bunch of weapons, and trickery, and all that stuff. A Knight. Well, a Knight could be a paladin, but then you get into the lore of the game, oh, Knights don’t use divine spells, they swear fealty to the crown – that’s a fighter.And so, the nouns we tried to use to describe the character types we wanted to be resonant and interesting… And the fighters completely whiffed, they’re just so… We were so caught up: We need a simple fighter, we need a complex fighter, oh my god, how will we handle this?  We got so down that mechanical rabbit hole, we ended up with literally these flavorless names. If I could go back, and shake myself 18 months in the past, “Just no, don’t do it!” I’d completely change how we approached the fighter.[/SECTION]</blockquote>

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