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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 9745349" data-attributes="member: 2067">I'm not sure I'd agree that 4e's classes were diegetic (4e's systems were so decoupled from narrative that it's really hard to see the story gameplay even in it's very story-focused content, which there wasn't an insignificant amount of!). I would also probably argue that certain AD&D classes were VERY diegetic (but not all of them). But yeah, broadly agree. 5e classes (and even subclasses!) resist being part of the narrative to a significant degree. Some give you a starting point, and then it's kind of up to the individual player or DM how hard they want to lean into that RP. Others (fighters) don't even give you that much.I can kind of get why. D&D has to be All Things To All People, so if they were to commit too hard to diegetic classes, they'd have a bunch of people very upset at how the specific abilities of the Cleric of Crystal Dragon Jesus didn't let them RP the kind of cleric they wanted to play or could play easily in 2e or whatever. I just tend to think that the class design of D&D is one of the big places where the design of the game actively works against how it is played, even if it lines up OK with how people expect D&D classes to be designed. Appreciating that those are two very different things and that D&D kind of needs to serve both is one of the reasons that designing for D&D is a difficult and often thankless task, hahaha.</blockquote>