Loosely-organized attempts at prose and wisdom from an incredibly unwise individual.
All Classes Are Not Created Equal
Crossposted from http://www.sepiasnakesigil.blogspot.com
Something that really irritates me, and had me stumped for the longest time in the development of my own roleplaying system was the issue of classes.
Specifically, how many should there be? What differences should they have? How much customization should they have? And so on.
Most people who have played D&D for any length of time seperate it down into four classes, who, at their core, are seperate and irredeemably different than each other. They usually name Fighter, Rogue, Wizard, and Cleric, letting such friviolities as Hexblade, Samurai, Barbarian, and the like out to rot, as some sort of combination of those few.
Putting the calls of "Bullsh*t! Bullsh*t!" away, let's look at the reasoning for these classes. Surely, there is a good reason for fighter to be there. After all, he's the big tough guy, the one who get slapped upside the head and takes all sorts of pain so the squishier guys can shoot their spells and whatever else. The theif, on the other hand, deals with locks and traps so that the party can steal better, so that everybody gets less arrows shot into them. The cleric, obviously, exists to patch the party back up, and to provide both frontline combat ability and some assistance through his magic. And the Wizard, dear wizard, he exists to fling fireballs and make everybody fly and whatever else he decides to do.
And it's all flawed.
The main flaw is that the roles are reduplicated, or in some cases entirely unnecessary. The biggest example is the theif, of course. Why the theif? Well, think about it. The theif is a character who is a relatively inept warrior whose entire purpose is to steal things and get away with it. He relies upon fighters to save his hide from the physical problems, and the wizard to help him escape from the magical ones. In short, he's a fighter minus the fighting. A warrior without the war. And why?
It's entirely possible to have a fighter who is also a theif, a man who is capable of intelligent thought and disarming traps and stealing things, who is also able to put on some armor and slash through some people. It's called a hero, this amazing man. It's a hero in the very most classical sense, ranging back to the greek Oddyseus, or possibly even the sumerian Gilgamesh.
In the systems I'd always come up with, there were basically two roles, one for each way of solving things. If you solved things with blades and muscles, then you were basically a fighter. If you were a sneaky fighter, then you were a sneaky fighter. If you used bows, then you were a fighter who preferred to be called an archer, or whatever. If you solved problems with the powers of your god or gods or arcane formulas or demon-pacts, or any other sort of mystical and magical powers, then you were a sorcerer. If you were a holy man, you're still a sorcerer. The rules didn't care about the flavor, only your abilities.
That, to me, is how a system should be. It should be rules-light, with no rules for anything other than combat. Already I can see people asking why, people telling me why rules need to be thick and heavy to cover every possible situation and how we need skills covering things like diplomacy and social skills and not putting your elbows on the table and all that "fun" stuff. That's a topic for a different post, and I promise I'll go into it then.
(I apologize if any of this is a bit unclear, I've got a headcold and am running a fever. Bear with me, please.
)
Something that really irritates me, and had me stumped for the longest time in the development of my own roleplaying system was the issue of classes.
Specifically, how many should there be? What differences should they have? How much customization should they have? And so on.
Most people who have played D&D for any length of time seperate it down into four classes, who, at their core, are seperate and irredeemably different than each other. They usually name Fighter, Rogue, Wizard, and Cleric, letting such friviolities as Hexblade, Samurai, Barbarian, and the like out to rot, as some sort of combination of those few.
Putting the calls of "Bullsh*t! Bullsh*t!" away, let's look at the reasoning for these classes. Surely, there is a good reason for fighter to be there. After all, he's the big tough guy, the one who get slapped upside the head and takes all sorts of pain so the squishier guys can shoot their spells and whatever else. The theif, on the other hand, deals with locks and traps so that the party can steal better, so that everybody gets less arrows shot into them. The cleric, obviously, exists to patch the party back up, and to provide both frontline combat ability and some assistance through his magic. And the Wizard, dear wizard, he exists to fling fireballs and make everybody fly and whatever else he decides to do.
And it's all flawed.
The main flaw is that the roles are reduplicated, or in some cases entirely unnecessary. The biggest example is the theif, of course. Why the theif? Well, think about it. The theif is a character who is a relatively inept warrior whose entire purpose is to steal things and get away with it. He relies upon fighters to save his hide from the physical problems, and the wizard to help him escape from the magical ones. In short, he's a fighter minus the fighting. A warrior without the war. And why?
It's entirely possible to have a fighter who is also a theif, a man who is capable of intelligent thought and disarming traps and stealing things, who is also able to put on some armor and slash through some people. It's called a hero, this amazing man. It's a hero in the very most classical sense, ranging back to the greek Oddyseus, or possibly even the sumerian Gilgamesh.
In the systems I'd always come up with, there were basically two roles, one for each way of solving things. If you solved things with blades and muscles, then you were basically a fighter. If you were a sneaky fighter, then you were a sneaky fighter. If you used bows, then you were a fighter who preferred to be called an archer, or whatever. If you solved problems with the powers of your god or gods or arcane formulas or demon-pacts, or any other sort of mystical and magical powers, then you were a sorcerer. If you were a holy man, you're still a sorcerer. The rules didn't care about the flavor, only your abilities.
That, to me, is how a system should be. It should be rules-light, with no rules for anything other than combat. Already I can see people asking why, people telling me why rules need to be thick and heavy to cover every possible situation and how we need skills covering things like diplomacy and social skills and not putting your elbows on the table and all that "fun" stuff. That's a topic for a different post, and I promise I'll go into it then.
(I apologize if any of this is a bit unclear, I've got a headcold and am running a fever. Bear with me, please.
)
Tags: ad&d, classes, d&d, fighter, magic-user
Total Comments 11
Comments
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It is not an inherently bad idea to separate damage-intensive spellcasters from support/healing spellcasters.
Your definition of the thief's place in a party is focused on his out-of-combat abilities, rather than his in-combat abilities, creating an inherent inequality. Most games released in the last ten years or so give thieving characters (almost always called "rogues" now) increased damage output in exchange for decreased resilience. It's fine to have an armor-clad warrior who can deal with traps and locks; 4e supports this by letting you train additional skills with a feat.
Niche protection is one reasonable way to design a game. In my experience, classless systems wind up vaguely modeling class-based systems, as each character in a party finds a niche and specializes in it. That doesn't mean, of course, that there's anything inherently wrong with that design either.
HavenPosted 7th October 2008 at 08:02 PM by Shieldhaven
- I think it comes down to why you want the niches at all. If you're separating damage/manipulation effects and support effects you're saying something about the kinds of mage you want to portray. Same with tough fighters and nimble fighters. And fighters vs. mages.
The point of classless is that either the people don't want niches, or they would rather their niche comes about via their choices rather than being pre-defined.Posted 7th October 2008 at 09:58 PM by SilvercatMoonpaw2 -
Personally I prefer classeless systems like ShadowRun where you pick and chose your skills and abilities via a point buy system.
Posted 8th October 2008 at 03:38 AM by Nylanfs -
There is an argument to be made for purely effects-based gaming, where you simply pick whatever abilities match the mechanics of what you want to do, regardless of whether you're shooting arrows or firebolts.
However, there IS a good reason for classes and roles. Some people see them as a crutch, but a class is more than that. A class is a coherent bundle of abilities that provide a clear role in the party, a clear fighting style. Sure, you can do that with a point-buy system too -- but recall why 4th edition D&D dumped the 3rd edition version of multiclassing! There were many, many more bogus combinations than valid ones.
A class provides a clear framework. With point buy, it's far too easy to screw yourself over by taking abilities that sound good on paper but don't work together or actively cripple each other. You might be able to avoid them by doing the analysis, but you might not... and do you really want to force EVERY PLAYER to do a careful analysis before they pick abilities?
A class is an archetype (or sometimes a set of several related archetypes) that automatically works mechanically.
At any rate, your view of the thief is out of date. At least in D&D, from 2nd to 3rd to 4th edition, each one has made the thief a more valid combat threat and reduced the need to balance in-combat weakness with out-of-combat strength. 4th edition explicitly repudiated that point of view, instead considering each class in the context of a fight, and each class in the context of a skill challenge, and balancing them from that side of things.Posted 8th October 2008 at 04:38 PM by Keenath -
Shieldhaven- I think that seperating magic casters into damage and healing is extremely gamey and sort of goofy. I can't think of a single wizard/shaman/priest who was only able to cast "damage" spells or "support" spells and couldn't switch back and forth as they needed to. Well, I can't think of a one that wasn't based on D&D or a derivative. The seperation seems goofy and contrived, precisely to produce, as you put it, niche protection. I'm not saying that niche protection is a bad thing, but I'm saying that it's a somewhat artificial way to design a fantasy game. It's not to my taste, and that's why I write about the reasons I don't like it.
Nylanfs- Me too, and mostly because I always want to play a character not allowed by most class-based systems, like a druidic warrior-priest or a spellsword or diablo-necromanceresque-bone priest. The creativity of the players is the most valuable thing in your group- why squelch it?
Silvercat Moonpaw- I one hundred percent agree, in that if you want to seperate damage from healing, that's fine. But it certainly shouldn't be hard-coded into the game. If you want to play a pacifist, or a balls-to-the-walls chaos mage, then that's fine. But there's something fishy about the arcane vs divine seperation that stinks to me. Also, the point about niches is spot-on and I couldn't have said it better myself.
Keenath- I think effects-based gaming is a pretty good idea, and if there's a system out there that works like you describe, I'd like to hear about it.
That said, I do appreciate that classes give you a sort of equal playing ground, that you can pick a class and jump in and then go from there, instead of having to worry about optimal skills and abilities and such. But really, you're not reducing the analysis any less by divorcing skills and abilities from their classes- you could easily be creating more. Let me explain. When you have the choice of Class A, B, or C, you have to take all of that class, with little to no ability to change your mind should dynamics change or your preferences shift or whatever. What seemed like a good pre-made mix of abilities and powers and spells and whatnot might turn out to be a lot less fun, or weaker than you anticipated. At least with classless gaming, you know exactly how the skills work out and how to go about fixing the weaknesses that you've presented yourself- very often, with class-based gaming, you've screwed yourself over and are stuck being sub-par with your lackluster class while the rest of the group is doing fine.
And about the theif- I really do feel that the archetype is... unsavory, and possibly not for the reasons you think. I'll write up a post soon, certainly, and see if maybe that doesn't clear up these muddy waters. Suffice it to say for now that the theif, as presented in 4th edition isn't a problem. No, really. He's fine, but that's because he's more of a sneaky fighter who wears light armor and stabs people in their jibbly bits instead of fighting fair, and it works in 4e edition. That said, you'll notice he's called a rogue, and not a theif. His main purpose is stabbery and not skullduggery, but like I said, more on that later.Posted 9th October 2008 at 05:22 AM by Verdande
Updated 9th October 2008 at 05:39 AM by Verdande - Changing the thief to the rogue is a good thing - none of the other base classes are named for a specific crime (inasmuch as "assassin" is not a base class anymore, and no one calls wizards "arsonists," no matter how justified), and there are plenty of rogue concepts that don't revolve around stealing things. (Assassins, spies, locksmiths, swashbucklers... all of these are better described by the class name of rogue.)
It is more or less a given that I disagree with you on the matter of separating damage-casters and heal-casters. Divine miracles sometimes take the form of smiting the unbelievers, but then heal-casters generally have some means of dishing out damage.
If you're willing to completely ignore all concept of a balanced game, then do as you will. But having a fighter who can only stab things for relatively consistent amounts of damage, and a spellcaster who can heal and burninate and everything else that any spellcaster does in any story... good luck balancing that, or convincing anyone to play a fighter.
HavenPosted 9th October 2008 at 04:04 PM by Shieldhaven - Haven- No need to be passive-agressive, my friend. You'll notice I agree with you on the rogue's name change, because, like you said, theif is a profession, not a class as such. Like you've noticed, the rogue is much closer to the assassin, which is a concept that the fighter doesn't really cover all that well.
As for seperating the damage casters and heal casters, I guess the real problem I have with it is that I don't really see why it should exist. Maybe I'll expand it a bit more in a future post.
And about the last bit: Sure, if I took D&D and gave the wizard all of the cleric and druid's spells and left the fighter as it is, then there's no real game balance. But I'm not talking about taking 3rd or 4th Edition D&D and mutating it around. If anything, I'll be wreaking havoc with AD&D, or, more likely, OD&D and seeing how it goes. As you've noticed, 3rd Edition D&D gives fighters, who should be the most exciting class, the short stick already, and 4th edition is so tightly designed that I'd be afraid of wrecking the delicate balance. But the older editions have the sort of laissez-faire attitude that really gets my creative juices flowing, so I'll either be working with that or making my own system up and using it to display my rather unorthodox ideas on what the perfect game is.Posted 11th October 2008 at 05:06 AM by Verdande
Updated 11th October 2008 at 05:32 AM by Verdande -
Why have classes at all?
If you reduce the number of classes to 2, then why have classes at all?
In such a system, you could simply make every ability, feat, power, spell, skill, or other characteristic buyable for a set number of experience points. Then characters would be truly customizable to an extreme degree.
A player could choose to be 80% fighter and 20% magic-slinger. Or 70% priest with 20% sneakiness and 10% martial arts, or whatever combination best suits them.
Hero system rules (Champions) does exactly that. Character creation is based on pointbuy. As experience is awarded, you don't have to wait to spend it. You don't have to wait to accumulate a set number of points to level, there is no "level". If your DM awards you points at the end of a game, you can spend xp whenever you like to increase your speed or strength or your defense or buy a new spell or effect, so long as you have enough to pay the cost of that upgrade.
I halfway think D&D may be heading that direction. The way they have systematized the power distribution and made it the same number for each class, they could easily toss away the restrictions that require you to limit your power selection from a class list. Why limit a character to choosing only from the martial powers list? If every power is equivalent to every other of the same level, then why not let a character choose from any list? He could choose from martial powers one level, then arcane powers another level, mixing and matching as he sees fit. Every character would be multi-classed in all classes. There would be no classes.
A "class" is a suite of powers, skills, stats and abilities that work well together and which define a specific role. But classes just restrict the options that a player can choose for himself. If you let players choose for themselves there is potential for greater fulfillment in the gaming experience for players.
There would be fewer stereotypes. No cookie-cutter "elf-wizards" or "half-orc barbarians"--well, you could have those too, if you wanted. But characters could be more multi-dimensional, painted in shades of grey. A priest you meet might go berserk on you. A wizard might wield a deadly accurate sword. Thieves might levitate and hurl scary spells at you.
If one is going to reduce classes down to 2, then classes lose next to all meaning. I see no reason at that point not to take the next step and reduce the number of classes to 1. Why not give players access to the full spectrum of character creation and allow them to mix-and-match as they see fit? They may be much happier with the result and take their characters in some surprising and innovative new directions.Posted 12th October 2008 at 03:11 PM by countgray - Countgray- That's exactly what I'm trying to argue. Cookie-cutting is bad, very bad, and what we need less of. That's part of the reason why I advocate getting rid of most of the classes and most of the rules. I can't get rid of too much of AD&D and still have the rules work, though, so more or less, there's the Fighting Man and the Magic User. One casts spells, one levells faster, fights better, and has more health.
In the system I'm designing as an in-house game, there aren't any classes at all. I might have to look at that system you mentioned, Champions, for inspiration, because it sounds more or less like what I'm shooting for. Of course, for the less creative, there can be suggestions of effective "builds" that have some good synergy, especially for people who are new to the system and aren't quite sure how the abilities pan out in actual play.
Lastly, your idea to throw away classes in 4e and let every player just choose powers based on what they want is pretty awesome, and I might just go that way the next time we play. I'm all for player freedom and letting them do what they want. After all, why restrict the most important thing in D&D- the player's creativity?Posted 15th October 2008 at 02:40 AM by Verdande -
If you don't like the idea of classes, there are plenty of good point-based systems out there. Why do you think you need D&D rules as a model? Are you simply afraid of buying into a new rules set? It's not as painful as it sounds. Start small with the core rulebook (D&D is unusual in having three core rulebooks) and go from there.Posted 30th October 2008 at 05:44 AM by airwalkrr - airwalkrr- I've bought/downloaded my fair share of non-D&D games, but they don't seem to resonate quite the same with me somehow. It's not that I'm afraid of buying into a new game system. It's that I like the way things are/were done in AD&D and OD&D and providing reasons why, as well as figuring out what I would want my own ideal system to be.
Speaking of which, what sort of point-buy systems would you suggest?Posted 30th October 2008 at 07:10 PM by Verdande
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