I don't get the arguments for bioessentialism

[Distracted DM]

::: waves arms at the who supposedly wrote the Hobbit and LotR in universe, as well as at copies of The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales of Numenor and Middle-earth, the 12 volumes of the History of MIddle Earth, the nine other books published since 2005, and the various letters Tolkien sent out, not to mention Valinor knows how many notebooks and letters yet unmined or lost to time :::

It's not even always clear when Tolkien is authoritative.

Yup- people can change their minds! Or be inconsistent based on how they're feeling
I'm no Tolkien, but a lot of my ttrpg setting isn't solidified until it becomes game-relevant. And even then, say I run two The Night Below campaigns... I might "curate" the events that show up as "historic" fact in later games for reference/incorporation... Maybe you'll hear events from both/either as "fact," people speculate, tongues wag, their cousin heard one thing and their aunt another... Anyway, what was I talking about?

 

[gban007]

On the race as classes type thing, does anyone have experience on how Soulbound goes on that front? One i want to play, but had to bow out of my role playing group just as they were starting a Soulbound campaign, but from what I saw it divided classes by race, with each race having maybe 4 classes available, but each of those classes is only available to that race.

 

[FrozenNorth]

1. Unwieldy is subjective. It might be too many classes for you.

So, if there are, say, 8 different races, that makes 32 classes. I think that makes it unwieldy by any reasonably objective metric.

2. Challenge of differentiation can be overcome with good design work and creativity.

Any challenge can be solved if you simply handwave it away.

3. Balance concerns can also be overcome with good design work, for example a point-based class creation system for which many examples are provided for context.

There is a more classes you have, the harder it is to balance, With 4 races and 4 distinct classes for each, that is 16 classes that have to be balanced against each other.

 

[MGibster]

Hot take. The players DO care. They just don't know that they care.

Some players care. One of the things that makes D&D so popular is it caters to a wide audience. If you don't care about the particulars of a setting, it's generally not going to be a problem. You can essentially play the exact same D&D character in Forgotten Realms that you can in Greyhawk or Eberron. D&D also caters to the players who love the particulars of a setting. Those who really enjoy exploring places like Greyhawk or the Forgotten Realms. Being able to appeal to both those who care strongly about and those who don't is really one of D&D's many strengths.

 

[Micah Sweet]

So, if there are, say, 8 different races, that makes 32 classes. I think that makes it unwieldy by any reasonably objective metric.

Any challenge can be solved if you simply handwave it away.

There is a more classes you have, the harder it is to balance, With 4 races and 4 distinct classes for each, that is 16 classes that have to be balanced against each other.

All of these claims are subjective, no matter that you say otherwise. And who said anything about "handwave"? That's coming from you. More subjective feelings on your part. And IMO, the easiest way to "balance" a lot of classes is to have a point-based class creation system, as I suggested.

How about you not claim objectivity in your opinions, please? You don't see me doing it.

 

[SableWyvern]

For what it's worth, I allow 33 classes in my typical ACKS/BX (race-as-class) games. My upcoming Rolemaster game has 39 available professions (before accounting for all the priest, cleric and elementalist sub-classes available), which is four to six less than the last RM game I ran (curated due to setting, not because of any need to reduce the number).

I've received no indication from any of my players that this is unwieldy in any way, and I don't really see how it could be. You pick something you like the sound of and then you worry about the one class you picked; after the decision has been made, the number of classes you aren't playing has no real affect on you. The only complaint I've had is with respect to RM, where a number of players are able to create a shortlist of 4 - 5 professions they are very interested in, but then struggle to choose just one of those, because everything on their shortlist seems cool.

"Balancing" hasn't been an issue for me in either game.

 

[Micah Sweet]

For what it's worth, I allow 33 classes in my typical ACKS/BX (race-as-class) games. My upcoming Rolemaster game has 39 available professions (before accounting for all the priest, cleric and elementalist sub-classes available), which is four to six less than the last RM game I ran (curated due to setting, not because of any need to reduce the number).

I've received no indication from any of my players that this is unwieldy in any way, and I don't really see how it could be. You pick something you like the sound of and then you worry about the one class you picked; after the decision has been made, the number of classes you aren't playing has no real affect on you. The only complaint I've had is with respect to RM, where a number of players are able to create a shortlist of 4 - 5 professions they are very interested in, but then struggle to choose just one of those, because everything on their shortlist seems cool.

"Balancing" hasn't been an issue for me in either game.

Awesome! I've long been a fan of ACKS, and I just picked up Rolemaster at Gencon. Haven't played it yet; still going through the material. How do you like it?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

but a better example of creatures that seem to have a biological basis for their behaviour and way of thinking might be the creatures from Ringworld

On the other hand, I put forward At the Mountains of Madness. The elder things, despite physically appearing closest to starfish, think very like humans, with a tendency to make the same mistakes.

It may be that due to the limitation of universal physical laws, there are not many ways to be sentient.

We don’t have any reference points apart from human, but if you look at the most intelligent animals from a wide variety of groups: primates, cetaceans, corvids, octopus, you see a lot of emergent similarities in their patterns of behaviour.

 

[SableWyvern]

Awesome! I've long been a fan of ACKS, and I just picked up Rolemaster at Gencon. Haven't played it yet; still going through the material. How do you like it?

I haven't looked all that closely at RMU; from what I have seen, I felt it was simplifying where I wanted detail and adding detail where I didn't need it, but I suspect the core is still RM enough that my overall impression would probably be positive if I didn't already have the RM that I need and want.

My personal Rolemaster is a very heavily modified RMSS that I rewrote from scratch. In the end, it's mostly RMSS with a simplified and streamlined skill system. Before I started the rewrite project, I was expecting to incorporate a mix of RM2 and RMSS material, but it turned out I was more satisfied with RMSS than I realised, and the only thing I brought over from RM2 was the method for generating potential stats.

In any case, while I generally don't like picking "favourites" of anything, if I was pressed and had to pick a single favourite RPG, it would be Rolemaster, so it's far to say that I like it quite a bit.