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Message: <blockquote data-quote="redrick" data-source="post: 6675242" data-attributes="member: 6777696">There doesn't need to be a description of subclass, because the subclass isn't the most flavorful part of a fighter character. That's where we both agree. Some are saying that this is good, and others are saying that this is bad. But, for the sake of argument, the fighter doesn't have to be so evocative as Errol Flynn or swashbuckler. The player can just say, "My fighter is a knight." And then she can go from there. She can come in with a lot of flavor and story about her knight and tell everybody about it during the first game, or she can develop her understanding of the character over time. The game makes no assumptions for her. The Fighter is just a regular old chicken breast. Maybe she wants to slather on a bunch of spices of her choosing. Maybe she actually likes the taste of chicken breast, and is happy to leave it at that.The Warlock, as you say, relates to a character type written up in the book. But, the problem was, and I am taking this example from actual play with real players, the player in question didn't actually want the full flavor package of the PHB Great Old One warlock. Unfortunately for her, she didn't realize that, because she didn't have the opportunity to fully internalize that flavor package while she was flipping through the PHB skimming the descriptions of various character classes. (Now, lest you say, "well, she should have started with Basic", this player had played a basic fighter once. A dwarven fighter criminal, who worked as a legbreaker for some smugglers at the docks.) The player didn't realize that the Warlock flavor package didn't work for her until a couple of sessions revealed a strong disconnect between her understanding of the character and the DM's understanding of the character, and the DM's attempts to plug her rough sketch backstory into the campaign. (We all gave a brief writeup to the DM, and he spat us back a sort of "plugged in" version, with place names, factions and deities filled out.) It was frustrating, because she came away feeling like she was Doing It Wrong. (And, for all I know, the DM felt the same way — he was a first-time DM just reading the PHB and trying to make sense of it.)I think Moonsong's distinction of "active support" and "passive support" is a very good one. The Warlock provides a ton of active support for character concepts. It's loaded with some really cool flavor, and I know some people who've really enjoyed their Warlocks for this reason. The fighter, on the other hand, presupposes very little flavor and say, "paint me." The fighter works so well for that, because there's a fighter in every novel with a sword in it. Finding a model for your fighter is easy as pie. So it can get away with less active support for character concepts, because there's so much support to be drawn from elsewhere.</blockquote>

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