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

prabe

Tension, apprension, and dissension have begun
Supporter
All that stuff that people call 'fluff' is, actually, rules.

If you remove that from the game it ends up being a very lengthy and poorly thought out cooperative combat game.

A board game would make for a much better implementation of such a game.

I'll ask you a question I asked someone else who seemed to be taking a similar position, then:

I allow the Order Domain in my setting/campaigns, but I call it the Command Domain, because I think that better reflects what it does. I probably changed the names of the Domain abilities here and there to reflect the domain name I'm using. It's the only version of this Domain I've ever allowed in this setting.

Am I understanding you to be saying that I have substantially altered the domain, here? All I've done is change the name/s, what I would call "fluff." It seems to me that you're calling the name of something is a rule, whereas I think of it as, well, a name for a rule, and the rule is the same with a different name (that which we call a rose etc etc).
 

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I'll ask you a question I asked someone else who seemed to be taking a similar position, then:

I allow the Order Domain in my setting/campaigns, but I call it the Command Domain, because I think that better reflects what it does. I probably changed the names of the Domain abilities here and there to reflect the domain name I'm using. It's the only version of this Domain I've ever allowed in this setting.

Am I understanding you to be saying that I have substantially altered the domain, here? All I've done is change the name/s, what I would call "fluff." It seems to me that you're calling the name of something is a rule, whereas I think of it as, well, a name for a rule, and the rule is the same with a different name (that which we call a rose etc etc).
I'm sympathetic to the basic point others are making in this thread* but this seems such an edge case.

Interestingly in 13th Age every cleric domain explicitly has two alternative names. Eg "Love" or "Beauty", "Justice or Vengeance", etc.

*And I think the fluff/crunch distinction is only really meaningful when you have systems which are explicity desgined openly so they can be "skinned" (not "reskinned" - which implies you had to remove a layer before putting something new on.)
 

prabe

Tension, apprension, and dissension have begun
Supporter
I'm sympathetic to the basic point others are making in this thread* but this seems such an edge case.

Interestingly in 13th Age every cleric domain explicitly has two alternative names. Eg "Love" or "Beauty", "Justice or Vengeance", etc.

*And I think the fluff/crunch distinction is only really meaningful when you have systems which are explicity desgined openly so they can be "skinned" (not "reskinned" - which implies you had to remove a layer before putting something new on.)

Seems to me to be exactly at the core of the dispute. My feeling is the Domain is the same, and that my name for it actually fits what it does better than their name. There seem to be others who think I've radically altered the Domain into something entirely different, just by renaming it. It's a convenient example for me to bring up, because it's literally exactly what I did.
 

nharwell

Explorer
Well, vanilla classes are not quite defined. The basic four are part of it, with their subclasses as in the basic rules, at least i would say that. On top of that? Ask a Grognard and he would answer: why do you need more? Ask someone who grew int othe game with 3e + and he would say: each class and subclass in the PHB.

Still, vanilla is normally not defined so much by fluff. What is vanilla these days anywhere? 2e greyhawk is kind of vanilla, 2e FR eventually also. Dragonlance? It looks vanilla but i would say it is not, to much extra special rules.

Some classes require more backstory fluff than others:

Example:
a cleric can be basically played without church and does work perfectly without deities, purely following a principle (good/ light / evil etc.)

A druid normally requires druid circles, forests etc. etc. Still e.g. Darksun tied them to elemental specialities in the landscape e.g. a (water-) oasis.

A fighter is most universal (except EK).

A rogue comes second to it (except AT).

A mage reuires magic to exist in your game world.

A sorcerer? According to PHB there has to be either wild magic or dragons present in the campaign world.

Whereas as pointed out a cleric does need no "patron", a Warlock does need one.
Bang, you need some other planes or other mystic thing going on in your campaign so a lock does function.

Ok let us go on, Ranger, hm would basically work on its own.

Paladin hm eventually yes but it is tied to some ethics or codex so such things must be there. Would not make much sense in a very uncivilised setting.

Barbarian? That is also a cultural thing somehow, it requires some tribal or primal culture otherwise it is a lot of shoehorning. You do not believe me? Imagine a modern setting and try to define a meaningful barbarian.

Monk requires order, religious/philosophical organisation, so no except some hermit or so.

A bard? Cultural and best high culture required, at least plus it needs magic.

So, i hope i did not forget anything.


Well, I'm not sure if I'm a Grognard or not - I've been playing D&D since LBB but I certainly won't pretend to speak for others. I do agree with your suggestion the we ("grognards", if I may) would say that the original game played such that you could define your character without specific subclasses or with particular 'fluff'. But we did constantly invent new classes, modify existing classes/races, etc, to allow playing many ideas and concepts. I personally can't think of anything then that defined 'vanilla' classes vs tightly constrained (?) classes like you are doing - and definitely not in 5e. I have no problem with it - I think it's a reasonable approach in your own game. But to suggest that it's the default or official rules frankly baffles me.
 
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ad_hoc

(they/them)
I'll ask you a question I asked someone else who seemed to be taking a similar position, then:

I allow the Order Domain in my setting/campaigns, but I call it the Command Domain, because I think that better reflects what it does. I probably changed the names of the Domain abilities here and there to reflect the domain name I'm using. It's the only version of this Domain I've ever allowed in this setting.

Am I understanding you to be saying that I have substantially altered the domain, here? All I've done is change the name/s, what I would call "fluff." It seems to me that you're calling the name of something is a rule, whereas I think of it as, well, a name for a rule, and the rule is the same with a different name (that which we call a rose etc etc).

You've made a change to the rules, yes.

There is nothing wrong with doing that.

Without the 'fluff' as people call it there is no game. It's just a loose collection of math formulas.

A board game can have a tacked on theme that doesn't matter. An RPG cannot. The theme is the game.

All the parts of the class descriptions are rules. Class has a large impact on the identity of a character. I think people who throw that out are missing out and I would not mesh well with a game like that.
 

prabe

Tension, apprension, and dissension have begun
Supporter
You've made a change to the rules, yes.

There is nothing wrong with doing that.

Without the 'fluff' as people call it there is no game. It's just a loose collection of math formulas.

A board game can have a tacked on theme that doesn't matter. An RPG cannot. The theme is the game.

All the parts of the class descriptions are rules. Class has a large impact on the identity of a character. I think people who throw that out are missing out and I would not mesh well with a game like that.

That's clear enough, and a place where we differ.
 

Greg K

Legend
I'll ask you a question I asked someone else who seemed to be taking a similar position, then:

I allow the Order Domain in my setting/campaigns, but I call it the Command Domain, because I think that better reflects what it does. I probably changed the names of the Domain abilities here and there to reflect the domain name I'm using. It's the only version of this Domain I've ever allowed in this setting.

Am I understanding you to be saying that I have substantially altered the domain, here? All I've done is change the name/s, what I would call "fluff." It seems to me that you're calling the name of something is a rule, whereas I think of it as, well, a name for a rule, and the rule is the same with a different name (that which we call a rose etc etc).
Substantial, perhaps not. However, in my opinion, you still have made a setting rule (if it is not intended to be used in every setting/campaign ) as have you made a change from what is in the rule book and, thus, would need to inform players of such as change so people are on the same page.
 

prabe

Tension, apprension, and dissension have begun
Supporter
Substantial, perhaps not. However, in my opinion, you still have made a setting rule (if it is not intended to be used in every setting/campaign as have you made a change from what is in the rule book and, thus, would need to inform players of such as change so people are on the same page.

Oh, no question about that. It's listed in the documentation that's available as a handout or as a link to a Google Drive folder. In fact, since I imported it when it was UA, It typed it up and added it to the other homebrew/third-party Domains I use.
 


Charlaquin

Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)
I remember at one point in one of the DNDBeyond YouTube videos where Todd Kenrik interviews Jeremy Crawford (might have been one of the early Artificer UA videos? I’m not sure), Todd brought up how much he appreciated that the text explicitly said, “you decide how [whatever class feature they were talking about] looks,” and Jeremy commented that the design intent is that players can always describe those things however they want. He went on to say that he recognized that they were not as explicit about that as they should have been in the Player’s Handbook and a lot of descriptions that were meant as thematic examples are taken by many groups as hard rules, and so they are now making a conscious effort to provide multiple examples of possible descriptions, and to explicitly state that the player can describe things any way they want.

So, I guess what I’m saying is, the Order Domain may indeed be FAW (fluff as written), the Command Domain is absolutely permitted by FAI (fluff as intended).
 

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