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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jhaelen" data-source="post: 7653018" data-attributes="member: 46713">I'd like to give an example to illustrate these criteria:In the DSA rpg, there are hundreds of classes. The reason why there are so many is that the designers really tried to allow players to play absolutely every individual that might have a place in the game's setting. What they didn't do though, is to think about what a pc of any of these classes is supposed to do or contribute in the context of a typical adventure set in their game world. A party consisting of a baker, a shepard, a catamite, and a pearl-diver may have trouble dealing with almost any kind of conflict that might be expected to come up in an adventure. So, are these good classes?Neglecting the setting when designing classes works better. It's what D&D's been doing at least since 2e: The core rules define a (small) set of (broad) class concepts that can work in a multitude of (somewhat similar) settings. Then, in setting-specific supplements they show how to use and modify these concepts to work well within the setting. This can be done by introducing new feats, alternate class features, prestige classes, etc.There are some obvious advantages to such an approach.Imho, the question is, if I know from the beginning what kind of setting I'm going to play in, wouldn't it then make more sense to incorporate everything required for them to fit-in, right from the start?Many rpg systems are doing this if the system is meant to be used only for one particular setting, e.g. FFG's 'Star Wars RPG' or 'The One Ring' for Middle-Earth based games. FFG even decided to split their RPG system into three 'sub-systems' to account for different campaign types played in the same setting.Again there are some obvious advantages to such an approach.I'm of the opinion you have to decide for one or the other approach. D&D hasn't always taken a well-defined path there. AD&D 1e had a bunch of classes that carried the baggage of belonging to a very specific cultural group that didn't necessarily have to present in the setting that was used: Assassin, Monk, and Druid are all examples that didn't work well as 'generic' classes, especially because of the way they worked mechanically: all of them implied the existence of a certain kind of organization.</blockquote>

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