Seriously, what's so great about a class-less system?

[mmadsen]

What is so great about a class-less system, and why can't a class-based system give that?

Build yourself and your friends in D&D. Now build them in GURPS. That should be argument enough right there.

(Never did understand why a powerful magician would have to be able to lift cars with a high STR needed to be able to cast lotsa spells).

A standard GURPS wizard doesn't need a high strength to cast spells. High skill in a spell reduces its fatigue cost. In actual play, you do not see Conan the Archmage.

What's wrong with the Archetypes, especially when they're as flexible as 3e D&D classes?

Flexible classes aren't problematic, especially when you're willing to trade off a bit of detail for simplicity, but D&D classes aren't all that flexible. The Fighter and the Expert are pretty flexible classes -- and I very much like those two classes -- but every class in the game, even the noncombat NPC classes, ties Hit Dice, BAB, and all Saves with everything else.

Should a better architect have more hit points than his apprentice? Should he fight better? Dodge fireballs better?

When you're tying like abilities together, a class makes perfect sense. When you're tying unlike abilities together, a class make no sense.

 

[Tsyr]

Build yourself and your friends in D&D. Now build them in GURPS. That should be argument enough right there.

I don't play games to build myself. I play them to build Conan, or Gandalf, or Han Solo, or things like that. I'm boring.

 

[med stud]

I dont hink any of the systems are "better" then the other. The class based system is great for high fantasy and illogical dungeon delvings, but it makes me insane when Im trying to add an ounce of realism to it.

The class less system is best for real world simulations, where a gun is supposed to be deadly, and in the more "tactical" games, where the PCs and their enemies are trying to get the jump on each others.

 

[Skywalker]

It's not as big as you make it out to be.

Nor as little as you make it out to be. I have really problem understanding how you can say Cthulhu and D&D are similar "middle ground" class based systems except in the broadest of terms. In Cthulhu you pick your own career, you pick your own skills that fit with that career and your advancement is based on skill usage. In D&D you pick a predetermined class and fit your concept to it.

Coupled with the "learn by use" class mechanic, that has a pretty strong effect on the shape that the characters take. And they do tend to be logical and consistent, unlike many pure-skill type systems. The presence of even this meagar of a classlike structure is telling.

In Cthulhu you learn skills that you use, whether or not they are career related. This is not class related.

Players picking 8 skills of their own sounds like a GURPSish pandora's box and a shove in the wrong direction. Note here that the issue is not just balance, but beleivability of the character withing the context of the setting. I can just imagine what type of GURPSish wacko character some min/maxing players I knew would have come up with for that one. "Lessee... what's important in CoC... dodge, shotgun, psychoanalyst, occult lore..."

You can never take into account abusers of systems. Even so the Cthuhu system is designed for any combination of skills and so choosing skills in CoC has a lot less impact than tinkering with the classes in D&D. I agree that it is possible to take advantage of this (as any game) but this is going a little off topic.

Eh. Much grousing about nothing. For some people they work, for some people they don't, but I imagine that on the whole they are balanced -- regardless of the fact that I don't care for them. That proves next to nothing.

Actually it does. Whether or not they are out of balance is not important. What is important is that the changes generated much discussion. This would not happen if someone wanted to modify the Priest Career Skills in Cthulhu. Again because Cthulhu is designed to be modified in such a way.

You are stating what you want to do in mechanical terms... e.g. arcane spells versus divine spells. That sounds mildly like metagaming to me. If you were to express this in terms of the basic concepts, I see little or no problem with writing up this character as a cleric/sorcerer.

Its not metagaming. Its a complaint that the rules fail to give effect to player concept. Despite your insistence that tinkering is easy in D&D the need to tinker to fit your concept is the real issue. Its not as easy as you suggest and I think looking at the amount of discussion D&D generates regarding to rules modifications is an example of this issue.

The player is the last person I would allow that decision to. My experience is that even a fairly responsible player can make some illogical characters and generous justifications when it comes to making their characters. And I generally trust the judgement of a person with a vested interest in making their product playable over one with a vested interest in making their character competative

Though I agree that the GM should hold ultimate balancing power I don't agree with your judgment of players. I understand that there are some players out there who see RPGing as a competition rather than roleplaying out interesting concepts. Again this is going a little off topic so I'll reserve any further comment. However I will just say that with a classless system the need for tinkering is reduced and that this issue does not even arise.

But I still maintain totally classless is an empty cup.

I think there is a little misunderstanding here. As I have said I like classes as a game play tool. They are extremely useful and many games have them that assist concepts and flexibility. However despite my love of the game I find that D&D is often restrictive, arbitrary and contrived for the sake of game play. Psion you seem to consider that all systems with any form of "class" is a class based system. I think that is a bit simplistic given the spectrum of games out there.

As for classless systems I think UA is an excellent game and about as full a cup as you can get.

However I prefer the level of class found in Tribe 8, Cthuhlu, WW, Blue Planet and the like. I find they assist in concept but are not restrictive.

 

[Psion]

I don't play games to build myself. I play them to build Conan, or Gandalf, or Han Solo, or things like that. I'm boring.

I was about to say... this ain't papers & paychecks 3e.

 

[bret]

I'll try to give a couple of examples of why classless systems are better than DnD.

I've got a Wizard in a DnD campaign whose background is third son of a noble. No big deal, got trained in magic because he wasn't taking over the 'family business.' He will help, partially by doing scrying and creating magical items.

Look at his skill list. Gee, almost everything related to being a noble is cross class for him. Sense Motive, Diplomacy, Speak Languages, etc. That is something a thief or rumor-monger (read: rogue or bard) would do, no someone who casts spells.

He can get Knowledge: Nobility. The other stuff costs him dearly.


In a system like D20, you've got a couple of choices:

• Just pay the cross class skill cost and be done with it. Why are you worrying about character background anyways? It doesn't help you kill anything.
• Work with your GM to have your skills changed around so some of these are class skills. Now when you talk to a different person, you have to explain that you're a 'X level Wizard, but with a custom skill list.' Good luck bringing it into a game where GM doesn't want to deal with rules varients.
• Seriously damage your spell capability by multiclassing with a different class (maybe the NPC noble class, maybe the rogue). This not only seriously damages your ability to work with magic, in the case of a Rogue multiclass it gives you a whole lot of 'class abilities' that have nothing to do with the background.

With a classless system, you would just take the appropriate skills. They make sense for that characters' background, so it really isn't a problem.


I don't see anything wrong with a stereotypical wizard coming from a noble house. This just isn't that far from the real world where the younger sons were sent to a monestary to train, what exactly breaks the GENERIC stereotype of a Wizard?


Every time I try to create a character, I run into some stupid rule that gets in the way of creating the character. I've been gaming for *mumble* decades and I'm just sick and tired of not being able to represent various character backgrounds if I play a certain class of character.


I prefer classless systems because they allow me to match the background I've come up with for a character with the character's capabilities. They don't have assumptions that some game designer I've never met heavily built in.


They also allow for the orphan trained from birth by ninja masters who is a murder addicted psychopath, but I don't tend to play such character nor do I game in groups where others do that.

 

[Skywalker]

Flexible classes aren't problematic, especially when you're willing to trade off a bit of detail for simplicity, but D&D classes aren't all that flexible. The Fighter and the Expert are pretty flexible classes -- and I very much like those two classes -- but every class in the game, even the noncombat NPC classes, ties Hit Dice, BAB, and all Saves with everything else.

mmadsen - you said it better than me Its a shame as d20 has room for flexibility. Again d20 Modern, d20 Cthulhu and d20 Godlike seem to have those flexible classes. Hurrah.

Another good example was Fading Suns d20's priest, guilder and noble concepts. They were essentially social tool kits in a similar manner as the Fighter. Excellent.

We have two totally different takes on this.

I agree with you here Lost Soul within reason. Players should play the concept that they want. The GMs job is to ensure that the idea does not detriment the other players. Its important to restrain those few sad players who see RPGs as a competition.

 

[Codragon]

Re: Re: Re: Seriously, what's so great about a class-less system?

I would be really, really surprised if I found out that such a thing ever existed. I think they did it through eye-balling and play testing.

I read somewhere that such a thing DID exist - Monte Cook's board I think - I'll try to post a link to the post when I get time.

For those who missed my first post, "thing" refers to a document that contains mathematical formulae WotC used to balance out the classes when they designed 3E.

This is not to say they did not use plenty of "eye-balling" and "play testing", I'm just trying to verify that some sort of structured class design did exist.

 

[Zappo]

I have played a ton of games - here are my impressions:

GURPS: It is too complex and it has its share of severe quirks. Yeah, you can represent some characters that can't be correctly represented in a class-based system. But in the remaining 90% of the cases, players are making characters that an appropriate class-based system could represent. However, in all cases, it will take you a couple of hours to write the character sheet, unless you are a real pro and know all the infinite advantages/disadvantages and skills. Incidentally, a couple of hours is less or more the time it takes to write a custom class for D&D that is decently balanced and represents that weird character concept that player just came up with. The good part of GURPS is that you can really represent most characters you can think of (well, except for a Raistlin, that is), but it is done in a very inefficient way, from the complexity point of view.

Star Wars d6: OMG, that's got to be the ugliest system I've ever played. There are a helluva lot similar skills, but if you are a master in one, it has no influence on the others. This wouldn't be so bad, if not for the fact that the skills are vital. So, to be a good pilot you must raise a half dozen skills, while to be a fighter you only need two (shoot and dodge). And to be a Jedi and do all the incredible stuff a Jedi can do, it's just three skills, less if you only want certain powers. Since they cost the same, it means that when the fighter of the group is a real badass, and the Jedi even more, you will still be just an average pilot. Good points? Can't think any, really.

Storyteller (White Wolf): This is a good one, but it has its flaws. First of all, what you can actually do with a skill doesn't match what's in the skill description. Five dots should make you the king of the world in a given skill, but in practice that's hardly true.
Then, five levels for a skill are too little. There's sooo much between "trained for a week" and "average professional"... but in Storyteller, the first is one dot, and the second is two dots. Talk about "advancing in a chunk"! That's even worse for statistic. All weak characters are exactly the same: they have one dot in Strength.
Again, 90% of the characters could be represented just as well, and faster, by a class based system.

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying: Random character creation = bad. At least the new D&D has point buy. That said, the system works. But again, 90% - make that 99% in WHFRP case - of the characters could be represented just as well, and faster, with a class based system.

Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0: Has the same flaws and merits of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying, except that it's easier to implement a point buy. Plus, there are more than a few characters that can't be represented, because noone can ever have two different exclusive skills, but that's not a big deal.
Call of Cthulhu / Stormbringer: Random advancement? Be serious... it isn't even realistic, since you can be shooting a lot in three adventures straight and not advance in pistols at all, if you are a bit unlucky. Also... random character generation = bad.

I've played many other systems, but those are the most famous ones. Some are good, some are bad, but I haven't seen a single setting that couldn't be done just as well with a class-based system.

 

[Zappo]

I read somewhere that such a thing DID exist - Monte Cook's board I think - I'll try to post a link to the post when I get time.

For those who missed my first post, "thing" refers to a document that contains mathematical formulae WotC used to balance out the classes when they designed 3E.

This is not to say they did not use plenty of "eye-balling" and "play testing", I'm just trying to verify that some sort of structured class design did exist.

If it is true, this raises my faith in WotC by a notch! Mathematical analysis isn't a substitute for playtesting, but it does save a lot of time, and helps pointing out hidden flaws. I always make a few calculations as the first thing, when creating a new spell/item/class/whatever.