When Fluff Met Crunch

[cokefiend]

We all have our most/least favourite bits and pieces of fluff and crunch when it comes to the game rules, but something I've always found amusing is the interaction between the two.
Now, don't get me wrong, rules are necessary and flavour is what makes the game (at least in my opinion), but sometimes, they just don't mesh all that well.
So I was wondering if anyone else felt the same way.

My favourite example is the Druid restriction on armour. At first glance, sure, it looks good. But the more I thought about it, the worse and worse it seems. "You want me to WEAR METAL ARMOUR? I will gladly kill, eat, and then wear the skin of one of my fellow animals, as such helps maintain the Cycle Of Life, and serves The Balance. But WEARING METAL? Metal, which is carved out of the non-sentient earth, dug from the very ground that is incapable of feeling pain?! What a horrible mockery of all I stand for!
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to spend my hoard of gold and jewels in those buildings constructed from stone and wood, for which mountains were quarried and forests chopped down."
Sure, the druid is powerful, and needs a few restrictions. But if you're going to give a nice fluffy reason for it, couldn't it make sense?

What are all your favourite inconsistencies between flavour and mechanics?

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

Crusaders in ToB.

It says in the flavor text that they are more often than not lawful in alignment unless they happen to be crusaders of very chaotic deities. But thier way of getting manuevers is completely random. Claiming it is from random divine sparks of inspiration. But what I've been taught is that randomness does not equal law.

[Bears With Lasers]

It just SEEMS random. The entity granting the Crusader maneuvers has a plan, and the crusader has faith in that plan and takes what comes!

[Hallavast]

Yeah. I don't get the whole druid armor absurdity either. I realized that it was silly when I was trying to explain it to a friend of mine who was a first time player. I said "druids can't wear metal armor, because metal isn't a natural part of nature" or something to that effect. She looked at me funny and said "so metal is just some artificial substance made in big cities, huh?" to which I replied "uh... yeah..."

[Dervag]

What would be really good and consistent was if druids were categorically prohibited from using refined metal at all. Gold is OK since you find it in its elemental state and don't have to melt down ores to get at it. I'm not sure about copper; I seem to recall that it is sometimes found in elemental form. But iron would be a no-no unless you could get it out of a meteor.

The other idea with the druid armor prohibition is that wrapping your body in a layer of inorganic matter, especially refined metal, cuts off your ability to draw power from nature. And it may even do so in ways that being inside a stone building, or carry a sack of gold or some other metal object, do not.

[Tormsskull]

Before someone elses mentions it seriously I'll mention it sarcastically.

Assassins and having to be evil. Just because you study day in and day out a profession dedicated to killing as efficiently as possible doesn't mean you have to be evil.

[Abardam]

Who wears gold armor?

[Ikkitosen]

Lannisters :)

[Bears With Lasers]

In coat of gold or coat of red, a lion still has claws,
And mine are long and sharp, my lord; as long and sharp as yours.

[Pegasos989]

Before someone elses mentions it seriously I'll mention it sarcastically.

Assassins and having to be evil. Just because you study day in and day out a profession dedicated to killing as efficiently as possible doesn't mean you have to be evil.

Fighters don't need to be evil and they train all days to killing as effectively as they can (EDIT: Actually, they can be trip monkeys and train to protect others who kill as effectively as they can...). Wizards study for centuries to learn spells that cause deaths in various ways. Hell, paladins have full bab, smite evil and numerous spells, most of them helping them in killing.

So in DnD, there is nothing at all wrong in killing.

One can use poison to kill for just as noble cause as a paldin can swing the greatsword. You can be a good fighter and participate in war, killing hundreds while you whack your way towards enemy commander or you can be an assassin and just kill only the opposite commander, avoid the whole war and... But right. You know how to use poison, so it is evil.

[Tormsskull]

Before someone elses mentions it seriously I'll mention it sarcastically.

Fighters don't need to be evil and they train all days to killing as effectively as they can (EDIT: Actually, they can be trip monkeys and train to protect others who kill as effectively as they can...). Wizards study for centuries to learn spells that cause deaths in various ways. Hell, paladins have full bab, smite evil and numerous spells, most of them helping them in killing.

So in DnD, there is nothing at all wrong in killing.

One can use poison to kill for just as noble cause as a paldin can swing the greatsword. You can be a good fighter and participate in war, killing hundreds while you whack your way towards enemy commander or you can be an assassin and just kill only the opposite commander, avoid the whole war and... But right. You know how to use poison, so it is evil.

Whew, posted before him.

[Pegasos989]

Whew, posted before him.

Yet, gave nothing to explain why you have such an opinion nor countered any reasons I presented, so you could just as well not have posted at all, right?

[OzymandiasVolt]

So why can't druids wear metal again? If it has to do with wearing inorganics, then druids shouldn't be able to wear stone armor, which they can. If it has to do with wearing treated substances, then they shouldn't be able to wear leather or leafweave armor, which they can.

[Tormsskull]

So why can't druids wear metal again? If it has to do with wearing inorganics, then druids shouldn't be able to wear stone armor, which they can. If it has to do with wearing treated substances, then they shouldn't be able to wear leather or leafweave armor, which they can.

Their spiritual oathes and whatnot. It was just something WotC did in order to force the druid into the scheme that they wanted/considered balanced. I've always seen it as some druids are keepers of the forest, and thus the druid base class is based off of that kind of druid. If you made a dwarven druid who hailed from a cavern or mountain, he'd probably be a lot different (as in, you could make a whole new class based around the druid but different).

[Ephraim]

Druids need to be in touch with the magnetic field of the earth. Wearing a Farraday cage around their abdominal and thorassic cavities prevents them from properly aligning themselves with the magnetic fluctuations of the earth.

[Peregrin_Tooc]

It's all about faith. Druid's magic is devine, isn't it? So, if the Druids believes he can't wear metal armor and use other weapons than a scimitar, a sling or whatever, he can't! It's as simple as that, at least for me.

[Thomas]

It's all about faith. Druid's magic is devine, isn't it? So, if the Druids believes he can't wear metal armor and use other weapons than a scimitar, a sling or whatever, he can't! It's as simple as that, at least for me.

Okay... so what about the druid who believes he can do it?

What I really want to know is, where the hell did the 3rd edition druid come from to begin with? The AD&D druid was just a cleric with a different spell-list and no ability to turn undead; it made sense. The 3.5 druid is... er... right. It's not a druid, it's some sort of shape-changing man of the wild. ('course the same goes for bards. Bards and druids were pretty much part of the same "order" or tradition.)

[OzymandiasVolt]

...
So basically they can't wear armor because WotC said so. Gotcha.

[Tormsskull]

...
So basically they can't wear armor because WotC said so. Gotcha.

Precisely.

[Person_Man]

Yeah, D&D has always had a strong pop-fantasy aspect to it.

While most uber-dork gaming purists like myself scoff at the internal contradictions within it, at its core D&D is designed to be read and played by really intelligent 14 year olds. So it has Knights and Ninjas and Wizards and Pirates, cause hey, they're cool! Like sports, its still fun for pretty much anyone who is into this sorta stuff. But the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant it is not.

Also, because so many young people play it, D&D has always had a "moral" aspect to it, which has became more prevalent after 1st ed and the whole witchcraft controversy, but has since fallen mostly off the radar now that video games are the great Satan. So Assassins must be Evil because if some kid's dad takes the time to look through the DMG but doesn't take the time to actually talk to his child and play the game with him, WotC has a built in excuse. "We're not encouraging assassination. Look, its evil! It's a bad guy!" But pretty much everyone I know revises the alignment rules to fit their world view once they get a handle on the crunch.

[Toliudar]

But the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant it is not.

For which, some of us are very, very grateful.

I don't think that assassins are evil because they train and train to know how to kill people. I think that assassins are evil because they are WILLING to kill people for money. A warrior may be ready to kill in defense of a cause, or because he's a soldier in service to his nation, church or clan. If a warrior is killing for money, I'd call him evil too.

[Thomas]

For which, some of us are very, very grateful.

Whew. For a moment, I thought it was just the Finnish translation that was heinous.

And yes, D&D books pretty explicitly say that the Evil part is killing people for money.

Yet, somehow, mercenaries are not all required to be Evil.

Go figure.

[Pegasos989]

For which, some of us are very, very grateful.

I don't think that assassins are evil because they train and train to know how to kill people. I think that assassins are evil because they are WILLING to kill people for money. A warrior may be ready to kill in defense of a cause, or because he's a soldier in service to his nation, church or clan. If a warrior is killing for money, I'd call him evil too.

All mercenaries and soldiers are evil? Besides, why can't assassin use his skills in defence of cause or because he is in service of his nation, church or clan?

[Thomas]

All mercenaries and soldiers are evil? Besides, why can't assassin use his skills in defence of cause or because he is in service of his nation, church or clan?

Because the PrC's fluff is stupidly over-specific.

I scrap it and let Ggood characters become Assassins if they really want. They just have to get trained somehow, which may present slight complications.

[Saph]

For which, some of us are very, very grateful.

Yup. :)

I don't have any problem with the druid or the assassin. The class I've never really liked, though, is the 3.0/3.5 clerics. Something about the combination of heavy armour and weapons and domains and spells just feels . . . off somehow. Don't know exactly why. Maybe it's that they're so good at everything. I just can't have as much fun playing them as I can with a druid, wizard, or other caster.

- Saph

[pestilenceawaits]

Yup. :)

I don't have any problem with the druid or the assassin. The class I've never really liked, though, is the 3.0/3.5 clerics. Something about the combination of heavy armour and weapons and domains and spells just feels . . . off somehow. Don't know exactly why. Maybe it's that they're so good at everything. I just can't have as much fun playing them as I can with a druid, wizard, or other caster.

- Saph

Clerics are a weird class in 2nd ed they were pretty lame and it was tough to get anyone to play one. Now the pendulum has swung to the other side they are very powerful and everyone likes to play them. I have always thought that the domains you take and your deity (yes I think every cleric should have a specific deity even if it is a home brewed one) should determine your spell list and weapon/ armor proficiencies why would a deity of healing and good want a cleric to be able to cast harm or any number of other similar situations I know it would complicate things but I think it would make better clerics.

[Toliudar]

Clerics are a weird class in 2nd ed they were pretty lame and it was tough to get anyone to play one. Now the pendulum has swung to the other side they are very powerful and everyone likes to play them. I have always thought that the domains you take and your deity (yes I think every cleric should have a specific deity even if it is a home brewed one) should determine your spell list and weapon/ armor proficiencies why would a deity of healing and good want a cleric to be able to cast harm or any number of other similar situations I know it would complicate things but I think it would make better clerics.

Agreed. I think that, except for militant deities (the quad of Heironeous, Kord, Hextor and Erythnul, or ones like Moradin or Gruumsh), the cloistered cleric variant better matches my mental image of the class.

And Pegasos: if you disagree with the idea that killing for profit alone makes you evil, how about the fact that the entry requirement for the Assassin PrC is that you kill someone just to become an Assassin. If "murder is an entrance requirement" isn't evil, what is?

[Bouldering Jove]

I'll bite. The druid armor restriction actually makes a good deal of sense to me, because it just about openly admits that it's fundamentally symbolic: "The armor of the druid is restricted by traditional oaths [...] Druids avoid carrying much worked metal with them because it interferes with the pure and primal nature that they attempt to embody." It relates to what seems to be the intended philosophical core of the class: "The druid gains her power not by ruling nature but by being at one with it." Losing abilities for violating class fluff is about par for the divine course, so why not?

"You want me to WEAR METAL ARMOUR? I will gladly kill, eat, and then wear the skin of one of my fellow animals, as such helps maintain the Cycle Of Life, and serves The Balance. But WEARING METAL? Metal, which is carved out of the non-sentient earth, dug from the very ground that is incapable of feeling pain?! What a horrible mockery of all I stand for!
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to spend my hoard of gold and jewels in those buildings constructed from stone and wood, for which mountains were quarried and forests chopped down."

Killing, eating, and abusing other animals for selfish purposes falls under being at one with nature in my book. It ain't pretty. The druid isn't required to have a compassionate or harmonious perspective, as they "accept that which is horrific or cruel in nature," they only seem to need a reverence for the natural world and order. Neutral evil druids can probably get a real thrill out of going Apocalypse Now on the wildlife they most admire.

But as to why the metal armor is bad in the first place, there's nothing inherently wrong with metal as a substance to the druid, but worked metal armor represents an entire ideology of dominion over nature: tearing apart nature, strictly obtaining what you want while destroying or discarding the rest, then bending what you've taken beyond its natural state for your own purposes. Wearing metal just about says "The world's a tool to me," while hunting, eating, and skinning animals forces you to remain intimate with nature. Properly old school tanning methods will in fact get you much more intimate with nature's processes than you'd like.

The point about druid adventurers using the benefits of non-primitive society is a good one, but druids can be as tolerant as anybody of other ideologies, especially if they're on business in civilization and not having tea in a logging camp. At the very least, if you want to be taken seriously, you can't throw your philosophy in the face of everyone who asks you for currency or lives in a building. And if your income is pulled from the pockets of dead people anyway, you're preventing further mining by keeping gold circulating in the economy.

None of this is to say I think this hypothetical druid perspective is rational, but there's nothing stopping it from being internally consistent.

[Fhaolan]

The 3.5 druid is... er... right. It's not a druid, it's some sort of shape-changing man of the wild. ('course the same goes for bards. Bards and druids were pretty much part of the same "order" or tradition.)

I could be wrong, but I think it was an attempt to bring more Celtic-style mythologic sources into things. Shapeshifting is a common theme in Celtic myths, usually done by people who have magical abilities. As in most myths 'Good' magic users will be druids/priests/mystics, 'Evil' magic users are sorcerers/wizards. So it's not that far of a stretch to have druids with shapeshifting. It's just odd that it's an innate ability and not a spell.

[Thomas]

I could be wrong, but I think it was an attempt to bring more Celtic-style mythologic sources into things. Shapeshifting is a common theme in Celtic myths, usually done by people who have magical abilities. As in most myths 'Good' magic users will be druids/priests/mystics, 'Evil' magic users are sorcerers/wizards. So it's not that far of a stretch to have druids with shapeshifting. It's just odd that it's an innate ability and not a spell.

They've got nothing to do with Celtic druids. Shapeshifting was a common theme, sure - even the bull at the heart of the Cattle-Raid of Cooley was originally a man - but druids didn't go around changing into animals, as far as I read. (They did supposedly change men into trees, though.) They were priests and lore-keepers, augurs and advisors - the "next step up" from bards. The AD&D druid was much closer to the idea of a Celtic druid.