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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MoogleEmpMog" data-source="post: 3610283" data-attributes="member: 22882">For my purposes, it's not usable out of the box (because I don't like high/epic fantasy in the D&D mold).  IMO, it's not usable out of the box for Dark Sun, Spelljammer or Planescape, either.  Ravenloft, probably yes.  To be fair, I've never tried using 2e races and classes "straight" with C&C.Certainly a game I have no desire to houserule is subjective.  Wouldn't say otherwise.Um... yeah?It certainly isn't true of anything in any roleplaying game in any gaming group.  I have played with very few groups who, for example, sat down to play D&D 3.5 but did not allow the material in the 3.5 core books.  The same is true for pretty much every non-generic system I've ever played; aside from short campaigns with a limited scope, every or very nearly every option in the game's core rules were made available.Oh, it's skills outside primes?  My mistake.  I was thinking a D&D-ish skill system *instead* of the SIEGE Engine, since that was the houserule I'd seen in the past.New classes add flexibility, yes.However, classes out of the core book are much, much more likely to be disallowed than classes in the core book, IMX - to the extent that banning the latter, outside perhaps of a particular subsystem ("no spellcasters"), would generally mean people would pass on the banning GM's game.I'll address the issue of relative vs. absolute flexibility below.OK...Fair enough. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />Although I would just run FATE off my laptop were I to use it in its free form.Yet you were responding to a comparative analysis of four games (C&C, M&M, FATE/SotC and SWS).  It's really only useful to talk about flexibility in a relative sense.  It's not a binary on/off switch where one system "is" and another "is not" - it's a matter of one (say, M&M) being significantly MORE flexible than another (say, C&C).In one case you're paying for them in the core book (Mutants and Masterminds).  I don't consider that 'paying for options.'  I consider that 'paying for a complete system.'In the other case you're given a simple framework to create them for yourself, and they all work the same way (Spirit of the Century).It's completely different from designing them from scratch (C&C) or buying additional books for them (D&D).I suppose you could say that, with M&M, you'd need Ultimate Power and the Mastermind's Manual to match the flexibility of SotC, and possibly even the flexibility of D&D + all optional books.Kupo.If popular = good, the fact that the current edition D&D is the most popular game also squashes any notions of C&C's virtues.  Neither of us appear to think that, and the OP apparently doesn't, either.Ease of houseruling IS a fair measure, I suppose.  I don't find C&C especially easy to houserule compared to, say, M&M or Spirit of the Century.  Indeed, FATE is one of the most modular systems around.  I'll give you that C&C is probably easier to houserule than D&D 3e, and I haven't worked with Star Wars Saga enough to decide how it sits on that scale.See above.If you're not talking about comparative flexibility, you're not talking about anything relevant, other than the fact you like C&C.A class system can indeed have flexibility.  In fact, for crunchier RPGs, I actually prefer a class system, which is why I'm more likely to use Star Wars Saga as a default rulesset rather than Mutants and Masterminds.Nor is flexibility necessarily something I would always look for in a system.  If C&C's default model was something I wanted to game - Howardian Sword and Sorcery, say, or Final Fantasy 12's Ivalice, or Steampunk Western - I would be fine with its relative lack of flexibility.  Since it defaults to D&Dish high/epic fantasy, I'm not going to like it.In any case, flexibility within a class system can be defined in at least three ways:1. Flexibility within a class.  C&C is comparatively lower in this category than D&D 3e, which is lower in turn than d20 Modern and SWS.  This includes both the C&C core book and what I've seen of custom classes.2. Flexibility to move between classes.  Out of the box, C&C does not have this at all.3. Flexibility to create new classes that will work within the rules.  C&C, D&D 3e and SWS all lack a system for this (for D&D 3e, BESM d20 and Buy The Numbers both represent attempts to create such).  Arguably, C&C's somewhat simpler classes are more flexible in this sense, because there are fewer variables to account for by feel/fiat.Except that this renders all systems essentially irrelevant.Which, IMX, is manifestly not the case.  C&C plays very different from (3e) D&D, both play very different from M&M, and they all play radically different from SotC.Given sufficient time, you could reduce all of these games to the same mechanics and playstyle - but why would you buy ANY of them if you wanted to do that?  It would almost certainly be faster and easier to design a system from scratch to specifically fit your needs than it would be to, say, rework D&D until it looked like SotC, or the inverse.</blockquote>

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