2014: The End of Character Classes?

[Ahnehnois]

I think classes are unnecessary and yes, I'm willing to wave goodbye to them.

It seems to me that the more complex character generation gets, the less the choice of class means, to the point in late 3e where it's virtually irrelevant given the number of classes, the number of variations of those classes, and the fact that you can change each level. Thus, depending on how much character creation flexibility the system as a whole offers, classes can either be straitjackets that control your entire game experience or vestigial means of packaging abilities that serve no real purpose.

I agree that it's more of a sacred cow than a useful game design element. I wouldn't miss class-based character generation at all, and even though it's always been part of D&D, I don't think it's sine qua non, and I wouldn't think less of the game without it.

 

[Alzrius]

I've been using a truly excellent class-less sourcebook for D&D 3.5/Pathfinder for a while now, so I'd be just as happy, if not happier, to see classes go.

That said, the push-back I've gotten from my players says a lot about how popular this particular idea seems (yes, I know, disclaimer about my group not being representative of the community at large, etc.). Simply put, classes aren't really an issue of "better" or "worse" for most people - whether you consider them a wart or a pearl, they're a defining characteristic of what makes D&D "D&D" to most players. You dump them, and it's just not going to feel like the same game for most players.

 

[herrozerro]

As a savage worlds player, I have grown to love classless systems. I am not sure why you lumped in numenera though. It is just as classed as D&D, even more so since you cannot really multiclass.

 

[Dungeoneer]

D&D has reached 40 years. In my perspective, a long and excellent tradition! How far the dorky sibling of the table top war sim has come!

It's time to retire some ideas held by that tradition. On my chopping block: the character class. Many RPGs chose to go classless many years ago. The Elder Scrolls, arguably setting a new standard for eRPGs, has been letting players design their own classes for years. O.L.D., Numenera, Fate Core, Modos RPG...eschewing classes.

You don't need a class to describe your character. In some cases, if your character describes himself using his class name, he'll actually get weird looks ("you're a Fighter? Well, I heard the kid down the street is looking for a fight!") Classes have been mucking up the works for years now, pigeon-holing characters and requiring lengthy multi-classing rules.

It looks like D&D Next is bravely pushing forward with more classes. I understand 13th Age is doing so too, but with much more variety (or, just under-playtesting each class?) Did these franchises miss the memo?

What's your take? Are you willing to wave goodbye to classes?

As others have said, classes are just a design tool. Whether they meet the needs of a particular game depends on the game.

The thing about classes in D&D is that they act as a language to communicate very specific ideas about characters which everyone understands. If I say my character is a 'Level 1 Dwarf Fighter', you automatically know what kind of character I'm talking about, regardless of what edition of D&D you play.

Mechanically, D&D allows different types of characters to have different rules and behave in different ways. For instance, the Wizard has access to the 'Vancian casting' sub-system. Classes make a lot of sense for this approach, as you need some way to decide who has access to what. A point system works better for a game where all characters have largely the same abilities. I don't think it makes as much sense for a system like D&D where one player casts spells and another hits things with a sword and another sneaks around.

At any rate, the argument that classes are out-dated goes back to the early 90's, making the argument itself​ outdated.

 

[GMMichael]

A metagame note: I see D&D classes as having, among others, the function of providing power balance between characters by dictating what features your character can and cannot have. So, for example, a min-maxer can't take all attack bonus and then add several attack bonus-boosting spells to his character. Well,
1) Is it so wrong if I want my character to be good at only one thing (attacking)?
2) Do I need an invisible hand to guide me away from making an unbalanced/useless character?
3) Shouldn't the GM be taking responsibility for these things?

That said, the push-back I've gotten from my players [on a classless system] says a lot about how popular this particular idea seems

This does say a lot. Why are your players so attached to classes? Is it years of training, or something deeper?

I am not sure why you lumped in numenera though. It is just as classed as D&D, even more so since you cannot really multiclass.

I was going off this line from the website:
"Your type gives a basis for what your stats will be, and what you’re initially trained in and good at. Your type also helps determine your background and starting equipment. "

"Basis," "initially," and "background" suggested that the types are just there to get you started. Not hang on your back for your adventuring career. Please tell me if I'm wrong.

If anyone's missing a memo it's those who've failed to notice that class based games are incredibly popular.

And "everyone else does it" is, I'm afraid, a poor argument - it's entirely possible everyone else is wrong. (Or, more likely, "everyone else" has a particular set of needs that leads to one solution, while we have a different set of needs that might lead to a different solution.)

I need you guys to hash this out, and get back to me.

Saying "it's time to retire" some game mechanic just because it's old is like saying we should retire the wheel because it's positively ancient!

You don't see any square wheels rolling around, do you?

But for D&D, classes are a sacred cow. I doubt I will ever see an edition of D&D that doesn't include classes as the default approach - and if such an edition were to be published, I rather suspect it would be the last edition.

I'm afraid you're right here. D&D is just stuck with classes. But are we stuck with D&D?

There have always been class based games. There have always been games based on a variety of other mechanics. And there always will be. I least, I hope so; the day we start stamping out certain styles of play is a sad, sad day for the variety of options available to gamers.

Let's not do any stamping. Let's provide the options. Specifically, let's say, "hey gamers! You can stop worrying about how to optimize your fighter/wizard! Now, you can just optimize your character!"

 

[herrozerro]

I was going off this line from the website:
"Your type gives a basis for what your stats will be, and what you’re initially trained in and good at. Your type also helps determine your background and starting equipment. "

"Basis," "initially," and "background" suggested that the types are just there to get you started. Not hang on your back for your adventuring career. Please tell me if I'm wrong.

Yeah, it's not exactly like that. Your type contains all of your available abilities as well. The closest you can get to multiclassing is taking jack who's ability list is about half glaive and half nano. but there is still exclusives on either side.

For example, there is no way for a glaive to gain nano esotaries. Unless I didn't see it on my read throughs.

 

[Morrus]

I need you guys to hash this out, and get back to me.

That's not really how conversations work. You may be mistaking this for some kind of staff meeting.

Let's not do any stamping. Let's provide the options. Specifically, let's say, "hey gamers! You can stop worrying about how to optimize your fighter/wizard! Now, you can just optimize your character!"

But I like optimizing my fighter/wizard. And, clearly so do many other people.

The ony real takeaway from this is that there is a large variety of games out there, and folks should play the ones they enjoy.

 

[delericho]

I need you guys to hash this out, and get back to me.

Not really, since I actually said pretty much the same thing as Morrus later in my post - although more games may be classless than not, more gamers use class-based games than not.

But, even so, "everybody else does it" remains a poor argument - whether that's for insisting that all games should be classless or that all games should be class-based. Fortunately, though, since I'm not calling for either of those, I don't have a problem there.

You don't see any square wheels rolling around, do you?

No. We call those square wheels "bricks" and we use them for other things.

I'm afraid you're right here. D&D is just stuck with classes. But are we stuck with D&D?

No. If you don't like it, you have the option of playing something else.

But it sounds like you want to go further than that, and get rid of class-based games entirely. Which I doubt you could achieve anyway (given the popularity of such games), but which would also be a bad thing - given that we can have both options, what is gained by not having both options?

Let's not do any stamping. Let's provide the options. Specifically, let's say, "hey gamers! You can stop worrying about how to optimize your fighter/wizard! Now, you can just optimize your character!"

The option already exists - there are plenty of classless games out there. In fact, even for Pathfinder the option already exists. So, really, I'm not sure what you're advocating here.

 

[Umbran]

What's your take? Are you willing to wave goodbye to classes?

Games without classes are nice. FATE's a recent favorite of mine, and it is classless. I run a classic Deadlands campaign, and that system also lacks character classes.

But, there is absolutely no call for every game to have the same structure. I'd argue the opposite - our gaming lives will be more full and interesting if there's diversity in the games available for us.

Thus, "everyone else is doing it" is a *LOUSY* reason for D&D to do it. To me, it is an argument for D&D to stick by its traditional structure, and keep classes.

 

[Alzrius]

This does say a lot. Why are your players so attached to classes? Is it years of training, or something deeper?

They were fairly open with their reasoning: they believe that Pathfinder - our current system of choice - is "balanced" in its classes and options...or at least, balanced enough that it's not a problem for them (as they do acknowledge that some choices are terrible, while others are, as they say "stupid good").

By contrast, they believe that the freedom that comes with being able to build your own character (at least using the d20 System rules) is far more unbalancing; that such characters will very quickly end up with more powers than a character of their level should have - or have powers earlier than a character of their level should - and things will quickly go out of control. In essence, they seem to see class-based characters as having a built-in safeguard against broken characters (presumably broken by way of being too good, but also possibly by being useless).

I tried to protest that (in my opinion) "balance" is largely based on the attitude of the player (e.g. they're not trying to make a game-breaking character) and situationality (how effective a given character is is based largely on what's happening right there at the table), but that stance met with no traction whatsoever.

Ironically, I was later debating this exact same issue regarding point-buy character-creation over on the Paizo forums, and it came to the attention of the co-author of the d20 point-buy book I linked to in my previous post. He's a very prolific blogger, and takes questions and requests on various systems, including that one, and he wrote a very insightful post on the topic.