Well designed class and restrictions

[Bill Reich]

One of the important reasons, other than the ones that have been given already in the thread, for classes is that so player-characters would have to team up into a party. It was felt that a character with a wide variety of skills might not need the aid of others. It also gives you a shorthand, so that a player will know, in general, what skill bundle his or her character will have. This also meant that the other players in the game would know what ones character would contribute to the team. None of this is useless or wrong. It also isn't the only way to do things.

I have reached a compromise of sorts. A character can take a major career, what we call a "profession," which takes most of his or her training from some time in adolescence or earlier, and leaves limited room for other skill sets. The adventuring professions in my campaigns are Mage, Initiate, Elite Warrior and Master or Mistress of (an environment) There are also non-adventuring professions that would rarely fall to a player-character but that the character might deal with. Mages are intensely involved with magic, Initiates with worship, Elite Warriors with fighting, knights in a European setting, samurai in feudal Japan, the Kshatriya of India and whatever the Game Master has in the setting, and a Master or Mistress of an environment would be a ranger of the forests or deserts or a delver of the depths or perhaps a denizen of the mean streets of a city.

Other people would have more flexibility. Half-mages get less learning and less power and are sometimes treated badly by true mages and they often have access to only one or two types of spells, but they can combine their magic skills with something else, hedge-priests typically get their Powers at even-numbered or odd-numbered levels but can take another skill set also. Fighters served in the army or the militia or were or are bandits. They start out a few steps behind Elite Warriors but can have another set of skills. An Inhabitant of an environment has concentrated less on those skills than a Master or Mistress but can add a different skill set.

Also, what is usually a non-adventuring skill-set can be added to an adventuring skill set, in order for the character to make a living, to provide "color" to the character or for other reasons.

Elves, being long-lived (and rare) can take two full professions. Dwarfs can take one full profession and one of the lesser careers.

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https://sites.google.com/site/grreference/home/05-the-black-mountain/at-the-high-point-inn

 

[Ednoc]

I love you guys.

Thanks for all your answer. That's pretty constructive and I can see a lot of different point of view.

Game design is not that easy. But I think, in many way and if we talk about system that look like d&d and non-social focused, a class system is important. Why ?
Because a lot of people need archetypes. We can observe that from a lot of videogame for example. RPG aren't made exclusively for rolpmayers veteran who want to broke the game or find original mechanics that they have never found everywhere else. New comers or "casuals" but even veteran like to have these archetype because they talk to everyone and everybody know what a fighter is and will do, that a wizard is going to cast spells etc...
The interesting thing is that some people think that a warrior must fight with a sword be strong and.... that's it.
But why couldn't he be sneaky, or intelligent ? Because his class isn't designzd that way so a lot of his skills, or actions aren't going to take these charactristics in consideration.
And the reason why is probably because archetypes are arxhetypzs and
It would be difficulte to balance all that stuff.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Make a few characters for Mutants and Masterminds and come back to this topic...

http://www.d20herosrd.com/

 

[Jhaelen]

I think my prefered way of doing 'classes' is the way FFG's Star Wars implements it:

Each 'Career' (= Class) offers several 'Spacializations' (basically a set of class skills and a 'tech-tree' of special abilities).
Characters starts with a single specialization but may pick up as many as they like as they get more experienced.
It's easier for them to pick specializations within their class, but if they're willing to make the investment, they can choose from all of them.
As the icing on the cake there are two specializations that anyone may pick-up (as if they were specializations within their class).
The system doesn't use levels, advancement of any kind is paid with xp.

Earthdawn uses a similar system, except it retains the concept of levels.

Edit: I wanted to add something regarding niche protection:
This is also something that works rather well in FFG's Star Wars system. Basically, it defines a couple of roles that should ideally be covered by a party of player characters:
1. Face (specialist for social skills)
2. Combat
3. Sneak
4. Pilot
5. Support (a medic and/or commander type)
6. Know-it-All

Most careers allow a role to be covered very well, and to dabble in a secondary role without having to pick up any additional specializations. And while it's theoretically possible to be somewhat proficient in all roles, you'd end up being the infamous 'jack of all trades, master of none', because you're spreading your skills and abilities too thin. Allmost all parties will be more successful as a whole if they specialize in different things.
So, it's really only long-running campaigns with highly-experienced characters that will see someone reasonably proficient in many roles.

 

[Celebrim]

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...-class-design-in-rpgs-and-general-video-games

 

[Tony Vargas]

Game design is not that easy. But I think, in many way and if we talk about system that look like d&d and non-social focused, a class system is important. Why ?

Obviously, because you're specifying a system that looks like D&D. That means a class system, in which killing things and taking their stuff is of prime importance. Otherwise, not going to much look like D&D.

Because a lot of people need archetypes.

Archetypes are out there in force. It's rare that a class does 'em well, though, because RPG classes tend to be a lot less broadly-drawn than genre archetypes, but more broadly-drawn than specific examples, so, whether you're building to an original concept or ripping a specific one, the class will tend to clash - and because RPG archetypes must fit the kind of troupe play expected, while most genre archetypes tend to be closer to loners or Hero + sidekicks than an ensemble cast.

New comers or "casuals" but even veteran like to have these archetype because they talk to everyone and everybody know what a fighter is and will do, that a wizard is going to cast spells etc...

Interestingly, that happens with classless systems, too, because archetypes still exist, and people still play them, they just have the freedom to play just the spin on it they want.

The interesting thing is that some people think that a warrior must fight with a sword be strong and.... that's it.
But why couldn't he be sneaky, or intelligent ? Because his class isn't designzd that way so a lot of his skills, or actions aren't going to take these charactristics in consideration.
And the reason why is probably because archetypes are arxhetypzs and
It would be difficulte to balance all that stuff.

Classes can end up being /bad/ for balance. Your example, above, that the strong warrior can't be stealthy, even though strong warriors in genre are often extremely stealthy, is illustrative. In AD&D, the Fighter & Thief were both imbalanced - the fighter was arguably too strong in the early game, utterly outclassed by casters, later, while the thief was just egregiously underpowered at all levels. The Thief was niche-protected into relevance, 'needed' in any party, by hard niche-protecting his skills, thus, so that the under-powered Thief would be needed by the party, the Fighter was stripped of archetype-appropriate abilities.
Class thus wasn't used to correct imbalances, but to paper over them with arbitrary niche protection.