Do we really need Classes anymore?

[Zhaleskra]

Classes are good for "plug n play". Some gamers, such as me, are not interested in "plug n play". I didn't get there automatically, it took a bunch of role playing game experiences.

 

[Psion]

As far as I am concerned, yes. Most games I care to play these days have some sort of class, archetype, or similar structure. I find that freeform design games are more difficult to manage and result in groups with many characters that are too fuzzy a focus or over-specialized.

One thing I think is important about classes that many designers miss is that classes help define what the game is about. The characters' abilities define how they deal with problems and what sorts of problems they deal with.

An earlier post about siloing is also something to pay attention to. Often I find players gjo for "sexy" abilities and skip over useful and conceptually appropriate ones. Putting these abilities in a class or structure helps both the concept and viability of resulting characters.

When I was first working on my Nexus D20 system I was thinking in terms of Classes such as in T20 Traveller and Spycraft 2.0. I was mixing it with my idea of having Feats under Skills. I had more and more Classes and they were less and less different from each other. After a while I realized that I could make Classes all day long but there wasn't much point to it because it was just proving that the game system didn't need them in the first place.

A few things.

First, just because you can make classes doesn't mean the gm or players are as good at it or want to.

I would also wonder if such classes are broad enough. One thing that vexed me in 3.5 was all the classes that could have been handled by a slightly broader class with a few more player selectable features. Indeed, I wonder, since you mention spycraft 2.0, how many classes could have been done with soldiers + origin and feat choices? It sounds like you may be commiting the gm and players to a bigger design chore than warranted.

Indeed, one criticism I hear from former gurps players about that game is that they initially thought the freeform nature would be a boon, only to discover they were designing archetypal characters anyways.

Basically I think that level based games are starting to shed their need for classes. They have been together for so long that most people don't see how that could be but we have Mutants and Masterminds and D20 Call of Cthulhu already that don't have classes and they work fine without them.

I dunno. My opinion and experience differs here. I consider the skill system of d20 coc superior to brp coc, but consider its chargen markedly inferior.

As for M&M, I know many people who would like to gm it, but consider making villains a chore. Or fall back on the archtypes. Further, I consider supers to have somewhat different requirements, powers being a more important defining characteristic than skillsets in many cases.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Classes, and levels, are a framework that makes playing, running, and balancing easier.

I have seen classless/levelless campaigns break down because the GM had no idea of how to balance thing without a framework - including a Storyteller who never let his players spend experience because it would unbalance his scenario. The idea of rebalancing the scenario never occurred to him - the only balance that he could think of was to leave the characters as novices for the entire campaign.

Unsurprisingly he set up the game one week to find that he had no players - everyone ditched on him.

If you are decent at balancing things then you do not need either classes or levels. Spycraft and Fantasy Craft use other methods to balance NPCs.

For players it gives a quick way to fill in a necessary role - whether that role is tank, skill monkey, blaster, or healer.

And knowing what roles have been filled, again, makes it easier for the GM.

The Auld Grump

 

[pawsplay]

I
My limited experience with GURPS indicates that it's a lot more predictable with lower point (gritty) settings, where the variance of abilities isn't so high. Once you get to higher point (super) settings, making such assumptions about PC abilities is very much more difficult: there's not really much of a baseline.

That doesn't make GURPS poor at balance; that is a reflection of the fact that D&D 4e doesn't do the Justice League at all. When dealing with very powerful characters with widely varying abilities, there is only so much a system can do to filter bona fide differences in ability. Superman can lift an airplane, Batman can't. Batman is the world's greatest detective; Aquaman, less so. Considering that M&M virtually gives up on balancing such characters, GURPS is definitely in the top tier of such games. M&M simply leaves many abilities arbitrarily priced and often cheap (like long-range communication or lifting humongous objects) while squishing all combat capabilities into a playable range (in which Batman can hurt Superman with a punch on a good roll).

GURPS, Hero System, and DC Heroes (the Mayfair MEGS version) are the gold standard for that sort of balance. Something like D&D doesn't even come close; it's not even equipped to put a horse in the race. D&D 3e gave us Savage Species and its ample demonstration of how varying character strength did not work well within that framework; D&D 4e provides an even more constrained experience than M&M.

Four Colors to Fantasy is an interesting beast; it essentially turns d20 into something very close to BESM d20 or GURPS. And it works pretty well.

Mind you, the classless d20 concept described in the first post is also outside such concerns, unless you go level-less as well. In a leveled system, using menu choices, you can calculate the options available to a character of any given level.

 

[Umbran]

Considering that M&M virtually gives up on balancing such characters, GURPS is definitely in the top tier of such games.

Hr. I find GURPS Supers to be among the worst of such games, rather than the top tier. I find more balance inherent in M&M than in GURPS. Heck, I find more balance inherent in FASERIP, and that's saying a lot.

Different strokes for different folks, though. Perhaps we just interact with the balancing issues differently, and so find more strength in different places.

 

[prosfilaes]

Unclassed systems are harder to design and harder to learn.

I'm not sure I buy that they're harder to learn. I've had to backtrack a couple times on my latest Pathfinder character, because this affected that which affected these two things. In GURPS, a skill check is attribute + bonus based off number of points (+ circumstances). In D&D 3, any number of things can change a skill check; class, race, feats, alternate class features. Heck, just at the skill points level, if a fighter/rogue has put 10 skill points into a skill, it matters at which levels he put the points in (in 3 & 3.5; PF is better on that). When class based systems try and become more flexible, they tend to become a lot more complex then unclassed systems are.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Hr. I find GURPS Supers to be among the worst of such games, rather than the top tier. I find more balance inherent in M&M than in GURPS. Heck, I find more balance inherent in FASERIP, and that's saying a lot.

Different strokes for different folks, though. Perhaps we just interact with the balancing issues differently, and so find more strength in different places.

GURPS remains the only game where I saw system mastery really being abused - a few players who were very familiar with the system produced some horribly unbalanced characters that were well within the rules, and this was without using Supers.

It was bad enough that the GM gave up on the campaign after the second game.

Between that and some very obnoxious GURPS players in my area I decided that I was never going to try the game again. Loved the Discworld supplements though, and Goblins also looked very good - in truth it was much more the players that annoyed me than the rules.

The Auld Grump

 

[Dice4Hire]

Mutants and Masterminds 2E was a powergamer's wet dream, also. I never saw so much powergaming in my life as I saw with that system.

Never saw so many people whose whole fun with the game was making characters, either.

Good game though. Just unbalanced.

I am a fan of classes as it simplifies a lot of hte game design and balance issues. Yes, it can be gamist and strain beleiveablility, but it has a lot to offer.

 

[pawsplay]

Hr. I find GURPS Supers to be among the worst of such games, rather than the top tier.

How recent if your experience with GURPS Supers? GURPS 4e substantially changed GURPS Supers. Older versions were kind of a mess, although I would still say Supers second edition is at least on par with FASERIP, rather than worse.

 

[Heathen72]

How recent if your experience with GURPS Supers? GURPS 4e substantially changed GURPS Supers. Older versions were kind of a mess, although I would still say Supers second edition is at least on par with FASERIP, rather than worse.

Certainly much better than GURPS 3.5.