No classes, no levels, OGL - how does that sound?

[Zappo]

I just did above!

Sorry; I checked the "Who's Online" and I didn't see anyone posting (I guess it's not 100% reliable). Anyway, skill-based systems ertainly don't have as much of a market as D&D, but that's only because D&D is the single biggest RPG around. All the major systems except D&D are skill-based - GURPS, Storyteller and Chaosium for example.

Please notice that I am *not* talking about a D20 classless game like CoC. I want to hear your opinions on a completely new system designed to fit well where D20 fits poorly, so that an OGL game developer has all the options available. And yeah, I also think that GURPS is way too complicated, but again I'm talking about a new system, not GURPS. Storyteller for example is very simple and it would work quite well if only the probabilities weren't so weird.

Yes, I know that skill-based is tougher on the DM. Not much to do about that, I guess. Still, there are many people who do play GURPS, Storyteller, Chaosium and so on, and the difficulty for the DM can be reduced by character templates and the like.

 

[Agnostic Paladin]

Two things: I wasn't mentioning it casually. And it's not really my idea. I've seen it floated more than once.

As to actually building it, I think that the biggest challenge (even moreso than the increase in work for DMs and adventure writers) is the reworking of the experience system. Not so much the spending xp to get skills & feats & ability increase & whatnot, but in the handing out of experience. I like that D&D has concrete experience for given tasks and the defeating of creatures; off-the-cuff and story awards bug me - they're all well and good for storyteller where the game's more of a group storytell than an actual game with rules and structure, but at its heart, D&D is a tactical combat game and wargames need real rules.

 

[bwgwl]

i can't say i'm that big a fan of classless/levelless systems any more. i did play GURPS and HERO pretty much exclusively from the time i stopped playing 1e AD&D until 3e came out (about 12-15 years).

i dropped GURPS and HERO for 3e because d20 uses classes and levels. IMO it's just too much of a chore for the GM making up NPCs in those systems. i liked being able to whip up a 3rd level fighter (or a 3rd level Strong Hero ) whenever i need to, in a fraction of the time it'd take me to stat one out in either GURPS or HERO.

another thing i like about d20's levels is that it's "punctuated positive reinforcement." in a game like GURPS, where you'll get maybe 2-4 character points per session to use to improve your character, improvements are so gradual they're almost invisible. i've played GURPS characters for a couple of years, and at the end of the campaign, they don't feel any better than they did at the beginning of the campaign, because the rate of advancement was below the level of perception. and, there's not really a whole lot of difference between a 150-pt GURPS character and a 200-pt character.

in d20, levels are noticeable. it's like Christmas every time you go up a level: better combat abilities, better saves, more skill points, more hit points, feats, class abilities, etc. at the end of a campaign you can feel that your character has improved, because there's a marked difference between a 1st level and 10th level character.

i like that sense of accomplishment and reward, whether i'm playing the game or GMing it. i don't think a levelless system can give you that kind of feeling.

 

[Tsyr]

well, in CoC d20, you all play what is effectively an expert...

can someone give me an example of a classless/leveless game... i've only played DnD and Warhammer, with a little bit of Chaosium CoC...

BESM, Shadowrun, Unisystem (Mostly classless, anyhow)...

 

[Zappo]

Two things: I wasn't mentioning it casually. And it's not really my idea. I've seen it floated more than once.

"Casually" in that it wasn't the main subject of the thread.

As to actually building it, I think that the biggest challenge (even moreso than the increase in work for DMs and adventure writers) is the reworking of the experience system.

Nononononono, I am not talking about making the D20 system classless, but about making a new system, with no relation whatsoever with D20.

 

[Michael Tree]

Nononononono, I am not talking about making the D20 system classless, but about making a new system, with no relation whatsoever with D20.

I misunderstood then. Change my #1 response to "Maybe, if the first setting designed for it was good."

Systems are a dime a dozen, and whether or not they are OGL is essentially irrelevant to me. OGL really only helps games that are popular, with lots of people wanting to write supplements. The chance of yet-another-generic-RPG-system gaining that kind of support is infinitessimally small.

I thought you were talking about a classless, leveless system based on the D20 game mechanics. I would like to see that. In fact, I've been working on one of my own, but don't have the time to polish or publish it.

 

[Mordane76]

My first real RP experience came from WWGS playing Vampire, so my baptism into this subculture predisposes me towards skills-based systems. I have a real problem with the stratification of levels in d20; it's hard to maintain my suspension of reality when I have to deal with the fact that my players will be of X power level one day, and then X+1 power level the next; it's probably partially my fault -- I mean I could with-hold XP until they complete the entire quest, but that also seems wrong; I can't believe that constantly using a skill will not result in any change until X number is surpassed, but I can't deal with that once X number is surpassed, EVERYTHING about my character increases, regardless of its use.

I've seen a couple of the classless systems here on the boards, and most of them have some merits, but in general they seem fairly clunky and unwieldy. I like some of the mechanics, but I don't know about implementation. If I could find a way to make it work to my satisfaction, I'll be on the OGL d20 Skill System bandwagon in a heartbeat.

 

[teitan]

This is actually a topic I have been thinking about myself. What is the OGL game was based on D20, classless and leveless with a new magick system? Include Feats as talents and drawbacks for bonus skill points etc? Design it as setting specific or generic?

Jason

 

[Aaron2]

What is the OGL game was based on D20, classless and leveless with a new magick system? Include Feats as talents and drawbacks for bonus skill points etc? Design it as setting specific or generic?

Can a game without levels and classes really be considered to be "based on d20"?

I just don't see the martket. A non-D&D compatible OGL game would be next to useless to D&D players and, with the d20 stigma attached, wouldn't appeal to non-D&D players.

Its like Godlike, why bother?


Aaron

 

[Zappo]

I don't think skill-based systems are so niche as described in this thread. All major systems save D20 are skill-based. Ok, so D20 has the majority of the market, but saying that all the rest together isn't worthy of attention... I bet it would make WW fans quite mad.

I just don't see the martket. A non-D&D compatible OGL game would be next to useless to D&D players and, with the d20 stigma attached, wouldn't appeal to non-D&D players.

That's one of the big points of the problem, I think. If when I say OGL, people immediately think D20, as several people did on this thread and as many people do every time an OGL thread springs up, then clearly someone who developed an OGL skill-based system simply has no hope, no matter how good the product actually is. The target audience - the aforementioned WW fans, for example, or GURPS players - will think it is a hacked up D20 system and won't touch it with a 10-foot pole, even if it is actually a beautiful Storyteller++ game.
And the people who actually expect a classless D20 will be disappointed, because they aren't the target audience.

I think this is simply horrible. We have a powerful legal tool at our disposal - for OGL is nothing but a legal tool - and it seems irrevocably bound to be used with D20 only and, maybe, some other specialized product.

The OGL was undoubtedly a real stroke of genius on WotC's part. Now, RPGs are basically divided between class/level systems (D20 + some niche games) and skill-based (everything else).

I don't think an OGL skill-based system is good for the players. As many of you have pointed out, players already have a slew of skill-based systems, and if they want to develop their homebrew setting for GURPS noone from SJG is going to stop them. I am thinking about the authors, the people who want to publish. Making a new system from scratch is a hard task! A very hard task, at least as hard as making a new setting.

I don't know about you, but if I were a new author, I would just love to have a premade system, already fully developed and thoroughly playtested, so that I can focus fully on the setting instead of wasting time with probabilities. And currently, I am forced to use D20, and if I want my game to be skill-based I'm screwed.