"Your Class is Not Your Character": Is this a real problem?

[Don Durito]

I like this explanation. If someone would want to refluff the paladin in my forgotten realms or Dragonlance game and call it a Jedi. I would disallow this for not being good for the setting. I would also disallow a person wanting to refluff a monk as a brawler for the same reason. But there is a distinction I think. But I see what he is saying.

There is no firm place to draw this distinction however. Every table will draw it where they like.

(The issue is, that the game being so nebulous and uncertain about this itself, they will likely think that the line they draw is the most natural line.)

 

[abirdcall]

I'm trying to think of a nice way to say bollocks. An obviously false statement, although that doesn't mean I don't see where you're going. They are not, however, all rules, not in any common usage of the word rule anyway. If you want to talk about narrative that sets the parameters of the gamestate you might find some traction with some 'fluff', but you won't get it with class fluff, mostly because the character is generally entirely within the realm of the player to describe, and the difference in a class between rules and fluff is pretty clear.

It isn't within the realm of the player to decide though.

The player must work within the rules set out in the game (and any additional changes made by the table).

And then we also have the problem of actually defining what rules are 'fluff' and what are 'mechanics'. There can be no agreement there because there is nothing in the rules defining those terms.

 

[Chaosmancer]

DnD is a collaborative game, where the players and DM work together.

Players getting absolutely no say in their character and the setting, would violate this.

 

[DwarfHammer]

I've played a vengeance paladin as basically a superstitious barbarian who calls on his god in battle - primarily because I'm not fond of the barbarian class and felt the paladin would be more fun (I'm not sure it was really.)

However, if the DM had turned around and said "no" I wouldn't have protested.

you are still following a god. And barbarian is a fairly generic term. There are barbarians that are not members of the barbarian class. But I would rule all members of the barbarian class are barbarians. So no barbarians raised in waterdeep in my games.

I’m not going to say that my paladin can’t be an avid deer hunter because he is not a ranger that is a member of the hunter archetype.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Yes, a character that I would not play with. If they brought that to my table we'd give them a funny look and suggesting they work on the Barbarian part.

You didn’t make the claim that you wouldn’t play with the Barbarian Noble character. You didn’t have to. That was clear from you other posts.

You made the claim that Chaosmaster’s character wasn’t creative. You made the claim that he only made the character to get the Barbarian’s rage mechanics. You also claimed that it was a “gimmick” character. Those claims are demonstrably false.

 

[Don Durito]

you are still following a god. And barbarian is a fairly generic term. There are barbarians that are not members of the barbarian class. But I would rule all members of the barbarian class are barbarians. So no barbarians raised in waterdeep in my games.

Maybe. But I completely ignored all that stuff about actually swearing an oath of vengeance.

 

[DwarfHammer]

Why this one?

The same reason as a cleric. The same reason as a Druid. The same reason a Methodist or baptist preacher is. The same reason a Buddhist priest is. The same reason a shaman basically is.

 

[abirdcall]

The same reason as a cleric. The same reason as a Druid. The same reason a Methodist or baptist preacher is. The same reason a Buddhist priest is. The same reason a shaman basically is.

Paladins get their abilities from their divine god in the games I play. As always other people can do what they want and works for them.

It's just not what a normal Paladin is in 5e.

If that's your setting that's fine, I was just wondering.

I don't really understand why we're talking about real religions now though.

 

[FrozenNorth]

If you want to have a cultured knight and flower of civilization who gets really angry and rages in battle, you are not playing a barbarian. You have completely thrown out the guidelines and what makes the class a barbarian and have created a new class.

I don’t want to speak for Chaosmaster, but I’m not sure he would disagree with you. His character would probably not refer to himself as a barbarian, but would still be an entirely legal character.

 

[Captain Panda]

No, that's not a Monk. It's pretty easy to make that character concept work, they just need to spend some time learning to be a Monk in there somewhere.

Okay, I think we're making progress! Let's say I want to use the monk kit, and don't want to steal the monk title now that I've changed the fluff. What if, instead, I want to call the kit (which is the same as the monk kit), a new class called "Punchy Hobbit Bumpkin." That work?