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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Wolfen Priest" data-source="post: 301208" data-attributes="member: 3909">I'll concede you have a point (and a good one); but I think brand recognition is a HUGE factor for most would-be gamers.  99.99% of the general "gaming age" populace will not recognize the names White Wolf, Vampire, or even Gurps.  But I think it's safe to say that probably, fully 70% or more of all people know what D&D is.  That fact alone is enough to bring more "hardcore" gamers (like people here or at rpg.net, supposedly) back to it, if just for the nostalgia factor, if not to have an easier time finding other gamers.Your argument (and Monte's) about levels and classes being a staple of D&D is very sound.  There's not much to quibble with there, I guess.  Furthermore, I think most new gamers don't have the patience to learn a (perhaps more complicated?) character design process like gurps.  D&D is bad enough for most new gamers (trust me I know from experience with other gamers here).HOWEVER, that didn't stop them from selling Skills & Powers, which basically allowed players to 'buy' things just like what I'm talking about, not to mention the 2e DMG which had rules for designing variant classes using points.  I guess what I'm talking about is a sort of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 3.0e (or 3.1 if you prefer), which caters to the real hard-core gamers, and in such a tome it would break down the character abilities and give more control to players.What if I want a monk with backstab but without some other monk crap?  What if I want a magic-using guy with fighter BAB, rogue skills, and nothing else?  Why must we (as players) be shackled into 'classes' we didn't design?  And the worst part is, they aren't even balanced!  I mean the core 4 are, but apart from that, they really aren't even close.  A barbarian is no match for a fighter, really.  Heck the damage bonus he gets from STR is made up fro by the fighters +2 from weapon specialization!  It's negated totally, except for the BAB bonus.  But with a fighter's feats, it's no contest.... so much so that I wonder what they were thinking.  Don't even get me started on the monk or ranger!  The lack of class balance is probably the best reason yet to throw classes out the window. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /></blockquote>

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