It's you who keeps bringing up Pen&Paper as a "reality simulator" (don't worry, I'm fully aware of the world being fictional) - but any serious simulation (and you take this one *very* serious, it seems) should be consistent and make sense as a whole. "NPCs are negligible" doesn't make sense as an agrument without the world the simulation is supposed to portray making that distinction as well, and therefore having an in-world explanation for the lack of complexity of most NPCs.
Of course it doesn't make sense, this is why we have suspension of disbelief. It takes a lot of work to create a character sheet for every single individual and the simple reality of it is that if they are not important to the story it is not worth stating them and you can use several basic guidelines that exist in the DM manual in order to give them the appropriate stats if necessary without creating a sheet. I also don't understand where you connect numerical values and if you would like I can describe several NPCs with no character sheets from my campaign that are wildly varied and extremely complex while adhering to these principles.
It's entirely possible to restrict actions from a gameplay point of view? Yes. Levels are part of gameplay. Experience is a part of gameplay.
And yet, background doesn't 100% figure into experience, there's no defined system for that, otherwise you'd have every player list what their character did before the campaign started, and that would have to be translated by an exact formula into XP or milestones, resulting in their appropriate character level (or the other way around: take character level and limit by some exact formula to what is possible for a character of that level to have accomplished before the campaign started - again, heavily subjective (and therefore subject to DM decision) anyway.
Yes the metric we use for this is called common sense. As I have already pointed out you cannot start a level one character as being the headmaster of the academy of magic because you simply do not have the skills and it raises several questions to which there is no answer. I never said background figures 100% into experience I said that background is used in conjunction and consideration of your level to determine what it realistic for you to have accomplished and what is not. Again. A level one character being the headmaster of the academy of magic does not make sense. It is not realistic. It is not believable. It creates cognitive dissonance and internal inconsistency.
Yes, and your only interpretation of 'noteworthy' seems to be by game terms metric. Something that is quantifiable on the character sheet. But guess what, someone with a Persuasion bonus of +6 at Lv1 is deemed *very* persuasive, while someone with that bonus at Lv 20 would be mediocre at best. It's all relative, and doesn't serve to describe strength + weaknesses of a character in general, narrative terms. Trying to translate char sheet progression into narrative and vice versa in a 100% way is what you apparently like to do, and that's fine - just don't expect everyone else to follow your dogma on this.
A +6 bonus to persuasion is not considered very persuasive and you can fail to persuade someone with a DC check of 10 which is beyond easy. I may be misremembering but I'm quite sure there is a section in the PHB that even explains this as well as explaining how having, for example, a 9 in intelligence doesn't mean you are a blithering idiot but could just mean you lack education.
Oh, are we really going there?
Also, accusing me of something you yourself brought into it, and all in the same sentence? Should I maybe quote your own signature to yourself now?
Please point me to a statement where I attacked your person.
I don't know about you, but DnD never managed to trick me into believing it was real, nor that it was a particularly well-crafted representation or computer model that could deliver accurate predictions of how things could work in a fantasy setting. None of those definitions work for me here, so: Nope, DnD ain't a simulation for me. It's a game system designed especially for player convenience - well, let's say with the *goal* of player convenience.
It means nothing if a definition does not work for you. If you are pretending to do something you are participating in a simulation by definition. If you are going to ignore reality to suit your arguments then I congratulate you on deceiving me into wasting my time and we can call this quits.
I don't debate the existence of objective reality, it's just you who takes a lot of your own convictions and misrepresent them as objective reality to which everyone else has to subscribe - or be "wrong". If this works well for you, by all means, stick to it. Just maybe accept that other people can easily seem to ignore said objective reality and have fun doing that. Take the example of the poster above me - wizened old crone at Lv1. I don't see a problem with that, not even with said crone saying she knows a lot about herbs, nature, remedies etc. - in game terms, level-adjusted via proficiency bonus to what a Lv1 character can do obviously, but in narrative, still damn knowledgeable about this stuff. It doesn't bother me, and I find it more enriching than any notion of narrative-gameterm-consistency.
My own convictions? I have included definitions and examples and have pointed out your lack of evidence, reasoning or willingness to even address the simple examples I have provided for you. You may notice how I said starting as a level 1 wizened old crone is 100% okay and I have no problem with it but that it doesn't mean you get to start with level 5 spells. She can have this knowledge you describe at level but her proficiency and capability to use it to brew potions, harvest ingredients etc will be limited by the numerical value that scales with level. I.e her proficiency in crafting is directly tied to her level which is exactly what I said.
You can make even that extreme example work if you really want to, and quite easily: said champion was betrayed, severely wounded / cursed or otherwise incapacitated, and now is barely back in action, having to basically re-learn a lot while in constant pain that limits what he can do (represented by character level, comparable to a level drain of older editions. Also due to the betrayal and general shunning of his person, his renown is now barely worth more than the normal soldier background, he can pull a few strings, call in some remaining favours, but that's it.
Yes you just proved my point. You cannot have the champion without including many reasons to limit his effectiveness and power because it does not make sense, it is dissonant and it is unfun for everyone else involved. You quite literally just demonstrated the exact principle you are arguing against. /applause
