NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Brodie" data-source="post: 7718381" data-attributes="member: 6776288">I personally don't understand the hate (strong word, but I couldn't think of anything else) towards class/level-based games. Leveling I can understand to a degree; you gain enough xp and you ding a new level and suddenly you're so much better than you were before. That's jarring and unrealistic. But I REALLY don't like (old) World of Darkness as I have no concrete idea of just how powerful my character is or isn't. Meanwhile, L5R has a system method of ranking up abilities with xp, but it also have levels (called Ranks), and you get a new technique at your new rank. Some L5R gms will require you to train for a bit before you can access that. Much as I love Fate Core, it places third after D20 OGL and L5R. If I'm numbering favorites, that is.Back to classes, though... Classes are just a mainstay in culture. Look at ANY fantasy novel/series and most times you can fit characters into classic D&D classes. Same applies to sci-fi, but a little more loosely since there really aren't clearly defined, trope-ish classes for sci-fi. But sci-fi tends to have their own rogues, fighters, doctors, heavy-weapon-toting bad asses, smooth talkers, specialists, and occasionally a holy person. I could be talking about Dark Matter, I could be talking about Firefly, I could be talking about something else. Even in a system without classes and total freedom in character creation, players will have a character in mind and they'll end up filling a certain role on the team anyway. Granted, sometimes you might find the team is made up of nothing but heavy-weapon-toting bad asses, but that's the kind of anarchy that COULD arise in a classless system. COULD. I'm very aware that it doesn't happen all the time. It my WWII-set Dresden Files Fate game (pre-Fate Core), I had a smooth talker/rogue, a doctor, a military sniper, a wannabe-druid, and the bad ass (who happened to be a seneschal to a Russian dragon). That over simplifies their characters (except maybe the bad ass), but that's how they developed their characters.Does D20 have great rules for social interaction? Not really. Do I care? Not really. Can the system accomplish what I want? Out of the box, no, but I can hack the crap out of it to make it suit my needs. For example: the western game I ran some years ago. I wanted to be able to let my players get into bar brawls, but I hate the non-lethal damage system. My solution? I incorporated rules from the WWE Know Your Role RPG (d20-based). They have a stamina track and hit points. Critical roles on damage run the risk of doing serious harm and thus actual hit point damage. Otherwise it's all stamina and an opponent can get knocked out/pinned. (Know Your Role is surprisingly awesome if you look at how it makes D20 work for the 'setting.') Reading this thread, I've had ideas on incorporating more social mechanics into my space game.</blockquote>

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