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No. That's not my position at all. You've assumed that I'm talking about 3.X on a forum dedicated to discussing all pre-4e versions of D&D, in a thread tagged "Game Theory and Design". In addition, you've assumed that the Rogue is up for grabs, when the OP specifically mentions the three...

Another XP for Gary. Suddenly I feel less guilty for all the edition warring and RPG flaming I've done...

In a simple phrase? Brevity is a virtue, but I think my saintliness has been over-stated in these quarters... alright, I'l quite whining and try. The best I can do is provide you with a paraphrase for "skill guy": "The kit masquerading as a character class."

Love the setting, but I don't think the plot does it justice. A lot of the "bang" you're going to get out of this setting is when the players run into bizarre creatures. If they are bizarre creatures - it might as well be an escape from slave pens inhabited by more mundane humanoids...

If you did, it wasn't clear to me. Could you try to make just the point of how we get from "a bunch of guy, including skill guy" to "supermen", without spending most of the time on the terrible consequences? (As other posters have noted, the consequences may not be that bad, but I just want to...

Don't get me started on priest (it's a class like blacksmith is a class). The struggle with theming characters is enlightening in itself. It's pretty easy to lump characters into magic-user/not: just check the special effects! But when you get down to drawing a line between rogue and warrior...

Once again, you're missing an important step! ;) I know it's convenient to run off at the mouth about the terrible consequences, but they don't happen until and unless you explain how we get from "if there isn't a skill guy, the other characters (plural) will do their work" to "and here we have...

You're short one premise. How do we get from "if there isn't a skill guy, the other characters (plural) will do their work" to "and here we have a character (singular) who can do everything"? By the way, I'm not even sure that it's a bad idea to have characters who are potentially effective...

I see where we disagree. There's no way that "Skilled guy" should have a monopoly on cunning. I also refuse to translate "everyman" into "Skilled guy".

Hold off on the unlicensed reductio, cowboy. ;) I'm not even granting your dichotomy yet. Why is it that getting rid of skill guy (who is good at every skill) makes everyone good at every skill?

I worry about this approach. It's starting to sound like "class niche exists because class niche can exist". What does it represent? So indulge me on theming this: Which character from the game's literary foundation is a Skillful guy?

That sounds like a false dichotomy, Jimlock. :) Are the design choices really "skill guy among others" or "supermen only"? If so, does that mean that Fighting Man, Cleric and Magic User were supermen until Thief turned up?!

All of this is fairly well considered, though it does read a bit like a set piece. ;) My question doesn't depend on the utility of skills in the system. I'm not asking, "What can skill guy do?" I'm asking, "Why do you need to be 'skill guy' to do such things?"

This 3 class model is only true as of 3e. (I'm not even sure that it applies in 4e.) To cover the genre, you need just two classes: Fighting Man Magic User Both of them do what they say on the tin. Everyone has skills.

So, that's a vote for going from Edition War to Edition Revolution? Rally to the Palace of the Silver Princess, comrades!

Follow-up on the "how many classes" question. Some posters raised 3 classes (warrior, caster, expert) as an alternative. Let's ponder the expert. In any game that's recognisably D&D, all PCs are adventurers. It can be assumed that they're all quite proficient in many of the routine tasks of...

My favorite D&D memories are of parties and adventures, not characters. Frankly, I think the less you bring to the table when you start a campaign, the more you'll get out of it. I recall one party where the concepts could really be summed up as "shifty wizard", "swaggering rogue" and "burly...

5: Fighting Man, Cleric, Magic-User, Dwarf, Elf - both of the demi-humans using race-as-class. Some folks feel that the old races add color to a game, but think the Thief/Rogue as "skill guy" encourages the view that other adventurers are unskilled. 7: As 5, plus Thief and Halfling - again...

It's how you use it.

I'm starting to think that Cleric was a bad idea.