Barbarian fluff! It's all over the place.

[Kazyan]

So I'm entering a homebrew-tolerant game to do the Barbarian thing, and I've come to realize that the "good stuff" is heavily fluff-restrictive in a way that doesn't mesh with my surly streetfighter concept. I'm not really sure what to do about it, even though I am pleased at how WotC gave life to these options.

I'm all for re-fluffing, but not de-fluffing. I don't want to just completely ignore the strong associations of e.g. Bear Warrior, Fist of the Forest, or Lion Spirit Totem Barbarian. Because that's just no fun in terms of roleplaying.

Barbarian options are really fluffy. What's up with that?

[sideswipe]

funny thing about fluff is people forget its a story of your life.

for example. if you were once a lawyer then by the way D&D people read fluff you must always be that lawyer no matter what.

you could then change your life, your family, your job, and your understanding. but you would still not lose the skills of the previous job.

In D&D terms. you started as a barbarian in a tribe that worshipped _____ and way of fighting was inspired by the lion. the totem of your tribe.

when they were wiped out / you left, you came across a young girl whilst wondering and was accepted into a different tribe as you fell in love with her.

(insert tragedy here) and then you wandered into the city and was incredibly puzzled by the huge tribe here and you, alone, hungry and looking like you could fell a tree in a single hit, were taken on by a local thug gang (or similar) and taught there lifestyle. you found your new family there and have been there since.

therefore you are a street fighter. and you have all the traits that you want from previous travels and life experiences.

[XionUnborn01]

Sideswipe has some really good points.

I just want to add that lion totem / bear warrior don't need to be separate.
The Aztec had eagle warriors and jaguar warriors in their ranks and I could see them being written up as barbarian at least in part.

The different animal styles of martial arts (tiger, monkey, snake, etc) weren't mutually exclusive. Just because you learned to fight with the ferocity of a bear doesn't mean you don't value the speed of the lion and so on.

[Red Fel]

So I'm entering a homebrew-tolerant game to do the Barbarian thing, and I've come to realize that the "good stuff" is heavily fluff-restrictive in a way that doesn't mesh with my surly streetfighter concept. I'm not really sure what to do about it, even though I am pleased at how WotC gave life to these options.

I'm all for re-fluffing, but not de-fluffing. I don't want to just completely ignore the strong associations of e.g. Bear Warrior, Fist of the Forest, or Lion Spirit Totem Barbarian. Because that's just no fun in terms of roleplaying.

Barbarian options are really fluffy. What's up with that?

The key thing to remember is that Barbarian, more than any other class, has basically one core function: Hulk smash. The Paladin can do melee, mounted combat, or casting (to varying degrees), the Ranger can do melee, ranged combat or casting (again, to varying degrees), the Fighter can specialize in myriad ways thanks to his bonus feats. The Barbarian gets really mad and breaks stuff, ad infinitum.

Accordingly, Barb options almost have to be fluffy. It's practically mandatory, given the lack of diversity to a Barb's abilities. Any version of a Barb, at its core, is going to boil down to the same "Hulk smash," to varying degrees. If you can't change the crunch, therefore, you change the fluff - make it "Forest Hulk smash," "Bear Hulk smash," "Hulk smash more carefully," "Hulk smash drunkenly," "Hulk charge and then smash," and so forth. The fluff is there because the crunch remains (mostly) constant.

That's not to say Barb is bad. Far from it - in many ways, being a Barb is being, to quote Hugh Jackman, "the best at what I do." But the fluff is there because what Barb does doesn't substantially vary.