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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9573560" data-attributes="member: 42582">Just to add to this: there are FRPGs which don't require the PCs to be adventurers, and that can focus on the vicissitudes of beggars, or nobles, or blacksmiths, or reigning monarchs. But I agree with you that 5e D&D isn't one of them. There are various rules elements - the centrality of combat ability to PC build; the lack of resolution mechanics to make (say) smithing or begging the sustained focus of play; the reliance on party play to really make the game work - that get in the way of those sorts of possibilities.But it does seem to be the way that 5e D&D is designed.Where does 5e D&D present this as the default?Even if we go back to AD&D, Gygax has NPC adventuring parties on his encounter tables, and those NPC parties are a GM-controlled analogue of a rival group of player-controlled characters - but, while the rival group of player-controlled characters can be expected to have "earned" their levels via play (given that they are PCs), nothing in the rules dictates that NPC adventurers have "earned" their levels by any particular means. They just have the levels that they happen to have, as dictated by the encounter rules in combination with GM decision-making.But why would a street thief be able to read mysterious languages? Or even be able to find and remove traps, if all they've ever actually done is pick pockets and lift merchants' wares?PC classes, in AD&D and in 5e D&D, are not "models" or "templates" of various life paths. They are bundles of abilities and ability-selection parameters designed to support game play.There's no "design flaw" in 5e D&D. PC levels are a game-play device, not a world-building device. In this respect, 5e is similar to 4e and to Gygax's AD&D.The GM (and other game participants) can build the world however they like, and populate it with whatever sort of powerful beings, or non-entities, that they like. The rate of PC levelling has no bearing on this.Right. It's not a flaw in a RPG that some RPGers prefer a different approach to the way PC build, NPC build and world-build rules interact. For those who want something different from 5e D&D, Rolemaster and HARP are both still in print, I think RuneQuest is still in print, and 3E D&D and derivatives are hardly difficult to get hold of.This notion of "flawed from our perspective" is, in my view, misleading. It is projecting a preference out of the person who's preference it is, and onto the object which is perfectly suitable for a completely standard sort of RPG play. If what you mean to say is that you prefer something different, then just say that.As far as hurting worldbuilding, it doesn't hurt it at all. Worldbuilding need not have anything to do with PC build rules. If what you mean is it precludes a particular sort of approach to worldbuilding, that uses/incorporates the PC build rules as general principles for all characters in the world, well that is true. But that approach to worldbuilding is just one of many possible approaches. And that is true even with the history of D&D.But by all accounts the book does what it says - it contains material for characters from Level 1 to Level <whatever>.</blockquote>

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