Seriously, what's so great about a class-less system?
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Psion
Adventurer
bret said:
Oy. Here to educate us are you.
That said: the idea of balance in a game is twofold:
1) So that every character have a role to play and has a comparable ability to affect the outcome of the game.
2) So that the GM can effectively challenge all characters without trouncing some of them.
Now I don't know how you think FAIR doesn't work into both of these factors, but it does. Fairness is an element of balance.
Now you don't have to be balanced down to a gnat's arse... and really, you can't be. But even D&D doesn't pretend to be... after all, it endorses random stat generation.
How balanced a game needs to be is largely a personal determination. Some groups have players that don't mind a little dichotomy in character power. But really, a relatively balanced baseline is the way to go. From there, if the GM wants to allows 11th level characters along side 1st (or 200 point alongside 100 point characters), that is entirely his or her perogative.
I think you making a distinction is faulty.
Which punishes unique character concepts. No thanks, I'll stick with the "balanced as best we can approach" taken by HERO.
That's true. And your GM should let you know if it would be a bad call to play a Courtier from Rokugan in your combat intensive game. However play balance is maintained if you take these things into account... you know your Samurai will fare better in combat, you know your Courtier will fare better in court intrigues. One of the central elements of balance is maintained as everyone has a role.
That doesn't mean attepts at balance are pointless.
I don't think anyone has said that. However it does make it easier to balance encounters. I really don't think this is an indication of the class system in and of itself, but the "balanced party" paradigm of D&D. Of course, I think you would have a harder time maintaining that paradigm without classes, so there is something there.
I don't think anyone has said that either. But the true myth that some are touting is that flexibility is everything and the player should be given as free reign as possible. The places that the class system DOESN'T allow flexibility is often what makes it more worthwhile as a game. IMO.
While I know that a vocal minority of GURPS players beleive that, I don't think many D20 system players do. Most D&D players I know are more than happy to play GURPS, Shadowrun, HERO, and numerous other systems.
I would say SF is the best thing to use GURPS for, I wouldn't say that means GURPS is the best for SF. I personally don't think GURPS is the best for anything... it's too generic.
In an odd way, this may be agreeing with you that no game is the best for everything. I just think that your implicit assumption that you may be trying to shove in there... that some games are the best at some things... is equally false. Games are about enteraining the players. And players, being human, have different likes and tolerances. No game is going to convey the best possible experince in a given setting or genre to all players.
However, in summary, I don't find your myths especially compelling, primarily because I don't think most of them are widely held.
Psion
Adventurer
LostSoul said:
Well, essentially. What I said was I think there should be more concrete guidelines for class creation. How I would use it would be to have it be a toolkit for the GM, leaving it to the GM decide what classes are available in the game... somewhat like I designed all of the package deals and spells in my Fantasy Hero game as were appropriate for the setting.
If your cuppa tea would be to hand it to the player, then go ahead, just not for me. I don't think it is prudent to a campaign's consistency to allow players to make their own abberant classes, and I think any point system is going to have exploits that I would rather not hand the player.
Plane Sailing
Astral Admin - Mwahahaha!
Phew, this thread takes a bit of wading through!
Having admittedly skimmed through most of the posts, I apologise if the following point has already been made or dismissed, but in the spirit of the original question...
I always liked Runequest. 2nd edition Runequest was the first classless game which I ever came across, and my players and I loved it. In the standard Runequest setting of Glorantha the game advancement of the characters was typically tied quite closely to the particular cult which they favoured - the character who hopes to become a humakti rune Lord will be nurturing different skills and abilities from the Orlanthi Wind Priest wannabe or the Storm Bull initiate.
In other words, the shape of characters was not formed by classes, but tended to organically grow into settings-based organisations.
This worked exceedingly well for Runequest. We actually liked the mechanics so much that we did a RQ conversion for Empire of the Petal Throne, a RQ conversion for the Dark Sun setting (which felt much grittier than the original D&D IMO!) and a whole independent Sci-Fi game based on the RQ rules set. In each of these cases there were campaign organisations and organisational structures set up which tended to lead characters down one path of specialisation or another, because the players had certain character development goals in mind.
So there it is. I'm not bashing one system or promoting another. Just giving an example of a classless system that I enjoyed and the way in which guided character development occurred in a classless situation.
Regards,
Having admittedly skimmed through most of the posts, I apologise if the following point has already been made or dismissed, but in the spirit of the original question...
I always liked Runequest. 2nd edition Runequest was the first classless game which I ever came across, and my players and I loved it. In the standard Runequest setting of Glorantha the game advancement of the characters was typically tied quite closely to the particular cult which they favoured - the character who hopes to become a humakti rune Lord will be nurturing different skills and abilities from the Orlanthi Wind Priest wannabe or the Storm Bull initiate.
In other words, the shape of characters was not formed by classes, but tended to organically grow into settings-based organisations.
This worked exceedingly well for Runequest. We actually liked the mechanics so much that we did a RQ conversion for Empire of the Petal Throne, a RQ conversion for the Dark Sun setting (which felt much grittier than the original D&D IMO!) and a whole independent Sci-Fi game based on the RQ rules set. In each of these cases there were campaign organisations and organisational structures set up which tended to lead characters down one path of specialisation or another, because the players had certain character development goals in mind.
So there it is. I'm not bashing one system or promoting another. Just giving an example of a classless system that I enjoyed and the way in which guided character development occurred in a classless situation.
Regards,
Mortaneus
First Post
So, Psion, basically what you're saying is that the main benefits the class system in D&D give are as follows:
1. Balance among characters
2. Ease of Adventure Design
3. Clearly delineated character design
4. Genre Adherance
Well, here's the problems:
1. Balance among characters: D&D is hardly balanced. Archers are almost universally more powerful than melee combatants. Clerics have WAY more advantages than wizards. The sorcerer, unless they specialize at blasting things, generally sucks. A 17th level wizard vs. a 17th level fighter will almost always rock the fighter's world. Not only can he time stop, and then horrid wilting and meteor swarm him into kibble, but also dominate his mind, switch bodies with him if the mage wants better physical stats, and has contingencies set to go off if the fighter so much as looks at him wrong. It seems classes do a poor job of ensuring balance among characters, and ensuring that characters don't step on each other's toes. In many high level parties, the mage and the cleric are the only ones who wind up doing anything effective. Everyone else's main features can be replicated with spell power.
2. Ease of Adventure Design: I guess if your party is a generic bunch of hack and slashers, this is true. However, I have yet to see any published module for D&D 3e where a party of diplomatic and sneaky types have a chance of victory. Almost univerally, adventures are designed with the plot being nothing more than a backdrop that leads the characters from one fight to another. Even those that aren't so combat intensive, still necessitate a level of brute force for their resolution. The system is designed that way. Look in the PHB. How many spells are there for combat purposes? Most. How many of the classes have combat as the primary focus of their class abilities? Most. How much of the book is dedicated to butt-kicking? Most. D&D is a game about fighting. It's written for people who want to kick butt. Where are the rules for detailed intimidation and interrogation attempts? Nowhere. Where are the rules for getting better at what you do by finding and hiring a qualified teacher? Nowhere. According to D&D, unless you're out sniffing out traps, butchering monsters, and ransacking bastions of evil for loot, you can't learn anything.
So, of course adventure design is easy in D&D. Just come up with a couple of fights, a goal, and a loose plot thread tying them together, and you have an adventure. It's the system and game focus that make adventure easy. Classes really have nothing to do with it.
3. Clearly delineated character generation: Well, it does do that quite well. If you, as a player, prefer to have your character ideas crammed into predetermined types, which give you a pile of abilities that probably make no sense for your background, and prevent you from aquiring any real degree of proficiency in any skills that deviate from the very stringent norms of your class without hamstringing your character by multiclassing, yes, it works quite well. If you, as a GM, don't trust your players to make characters that are more than a collection of stats and death dealing, and are so insecure in your abilities as a teller of stories that you must institute iron-clad regulations to prevent the game from getting out of hand, then it's great.
If, on the other hand, you want to play a game, have fun with it regardless of 'power level', and are versitile and dynamic enough that you can run with whatever the players want to do, then you have a problem.
4. Genre Adherance: The class system in D&D does this quite well too, provided the genre is D&D. It's most certainly NOT generic fantasy. If it were, Gandalf have fireballed the orcs, Li Mu Bai would have been immune to the poison in the dart, Ged would have been toting around a spellbook, Belgarion would have screwed up his magic every time he put on armor, Lancelot could have healed himself after Arthur struck him down, and Raamo D'ok would have been carrying around a pet rock in the folds of his shuba.
Archetypes are all well and good, but isn't breaking outside one's own place in society an integral part of a great deal of heroic fantasy? The downtrodden whelp who miraculously reveals some innate and previously hidden talent, which winds up saving the world? With the class system, however, this can never happen, because a whelp (1st level commoner), has only one feat, no special powers, and a pretty pathetic skill list.
Basically, from what you have said, for D&D to be capable of telling a story with anything other than fairly generic archetypical main characters, you have to start changing the system.
And if you have to change the system, then what's the point of having it to begin with? Why not use something that can reflect the archetypical characters, as well as anything else you might possibly come up with? Personally, I'd rather play a system that does a genre well, but also allows one to challenge it, rather than one that drives you into following the conventions, and falls apart when you try to resist them.
1. Balance among characters
2. Ease of Adventure Design
3. Clearly delineated character design
4. Genre Adherance
Well, here's the problems:
1. Balance among characters: D&D is hardly balanced. Archers are almost universally more powerful than melee combatants. Clerics have WAY more advantages than wizards. The sorcerer, unless they specialize at blasting things, generally sucks. A 17th level wizard vs. a 17th level fighter will almost always rock the fighter's world. Not only can he time stop, and then horrid wilting and meteor swarm him into kibble, but also dominate his mind, switch bodies with him if the mage wants better physical stats, and has contingencies set to go off if the fighter so much as looks at him wrong. It seems classes do a poor job of ensuring balance among characters, and ensuring that characters don't step on each other's toes. In many high level parties, the mage and the cleric are the only ones who wind up doing anything effective. Everyone else's main features can be replicated with spell power.
2. Ease of Adventure Design: I guess if your party is a generic bunch of hack and slashers, this is true. However, I have yet to see any published module for D&D 3e where a party of diplomatic and sneaky types have a chance of victory. Almost univerally, adventures are designed with the plot being nothing more than a backdrop that leads the characters from one fight to another. Even those that aren't so combat intensive, still necessitate a level of brute force for their resolution. The system is designed that way. Look in the PHB. How many spells are there for combat purposes? Most. How many of the classes have combat as the primary focus of their class abilities? Most. How much of the book is dedicated to butt-kicking? Most. D&D is a game about fighting. It's written for people who want to kick butt. Where are the rules for detailed intimidation and interrogation attempts? Nowhere. Where are the rules for getting better at what you do by finding and hiring a qualified teacher? Nowhere. According to D&D, unless you're out sniffing out traps, butchering monsters, and ransacking bastions of evil for loot, you can't learn anything.
So, of course adventure design is easy in D&D. Just come up with a couple of fights, a goal, and a loose plot thread tying them together, and you have an adventure. It's the system and game focus that make adventure easy. Classes really have nothing to do with it.
3. Clearly delineated character generation: Well, it does do that quite well. If you, as a player, prefer to have your character ideas crammed into predetermined types, which give you a pile of abilities that probably make no sense for your background, and prevent you from aquiring any real degree of proficiency in any skills that deviate from the very stringent norms of your class without hamstringing your character by multiclassing, yes, it works quite well. If you, as a GM, don't trust your players to make characters that are more than a collection of stats and death dealing, and are so insecure in your abilities as a teller of stories that you must institute iron-clad regulations to prevent the game from getting out of hand, then it's great.
If, on the other hand, you want to play a game, have fun with it regardless of 'power level', and are versitile and dynamic enough that you can run with whatever the players want to do, then you have a problem.
4. Genre Adherance: The class system in D&D does this quite well too, provided the genre is D&D. It's most certainly NOT generic fantasy. If it were, Gandalf have fireballed the orcs, Li Mu Bai would have been immune to the poison in the dart, Ged would have been toting around a spellbook, Belgarion would have screwed up his magic every time he put on armor, Lancelot could have healed himself after Arthur struck him down, and Raamo D'ok would have been carrying around a pet rock in the folds of his shuba.
Archetypes are all well and good, but isn't breaking outside one's own place in society an integral part of a great deal of heroic fantasy? The downtrodden whelp who miraculously reveals some innate and previously hidden talent, which winds up saving the world? With the class system, however, this can never happen, because a whelp (1st level commoner), has only one feat, no special powers, and a pretty pathetic skill list.
Basically, from what you have said, for D&D to be capable of telling a story with anything other than fairly generic archetypical main characters, you have to start changing the system.
And if you have to change the system, then what's the point of having it to begin with? Why not use something that can reflect the archetypical characters, as well as anything else you might possibly come up with? Personally, I'd rather play a system that does a genre well, but also allows one to challenge it, rather than one that drives you into following the conventions, and falls apart when you try to resist them.
Psion said:
Yes, but the different emphasis is important. You are saying that a person should be able to create a custom class for their character. I am saying that you should be able to completely custom build your character level by level (I retain levels because I honestly think that it's the *ultimate* sacred cow of D&D and can not be disposed of - although you might be able to create a system that works both ways, with and without levels, depending on how you designed the character building concept). Whereas you still advocate a set of pre-built classes for characters I am saying that each and every character is it's own unique class, which means that the system is effectively classless.
The only "class" mechanism in my example is something that would say: If you want an effective fighter, here is a suggestion for how you can spend your points level by level:
1. Buy d10, +1 BaB, +2 fort, simple weapon prof, martial weapon prof, light armor prof, medium armor prof, heavy armor prof, shielf prof, and an extra feat from this list: combat reflexes, expertise, etc...
2. Buy d10, +1 BaB, +1 fort, and an extra feat from this list: combat reflexes, expertise, etc...
However, a character could decide that at first level he'd rather have no heavy armor or shield prof, a high reflex instead fort and pick up an extra dodge feat because he wants a more mobile fighter. Then at second level he could take d6 hit points, 1d6 sneak attack, track, and wilderness lore, because the story has forced him down a different path and he's going to become a bounty hunter. By the way, this is just a rough example for the purpose of illustration and it's not meant to be balanced.
It's the same rule system but with a different end user application. The thing is, I see your argument as actually in favor of a classless system. You just prefer to choose how the characters spend their character building points for them instead of letting them make the choice on their own. Let's seperate these two arguments. Use a classless system and you as the DM have a right to apply classes if you choose - or not to. You, Psion, can choose to prebuild character paths and call them classes (as you could very easily do right now in a system like GURPS) and I, Kenji, can choose not to. However, still calling this a classed system is very misleading, because it's not - the classes are just a framework/limitation imposed by the DM, not the system. You could create classes just like this using the GURPS rules as they stand without any rules changes other than saying that the characters can't control point expenditure, but it does not make the underlying GURPS game a classed system.
In a sense, I think that the distinction is mostly of the "half full" versus "half empty" variety, but I think that it is important in this case because it underlies an important point: With my example you can have one system that is effectively both classed AND classless and retain all of the advantages of both. There needs to be no taking sides regarding which one is better beyond how it impacts your own individual campaign. The DM can choose how to implement the system in the way that best serves his purposes. However, in order to do this, the framework of such a system at it's most basic "assembly language" level must be fundamentally classless.
Sure a point system can be abusable but I'm sure that you've seen Mr. Ginsu and some of the other Sultans of Smack. Class systems seem just as abusable to me if they are made to be flexible and expandible like D&D is. You can disallow some of these class based abuses, but by the same token you can disallow classless based abuses.
Regarding character concepts not being well themed (i.e. having d12 hit points but poor BaB and fort save), that's why I suggested a system of synergy incentives for related things.
I'm not a game designer so I can't make an elegant example, but here's a rough one - If you buy at least one of the following, the others are purchasable at 1 point less than cost: +BaB, +fort save, +d10 hp, +d12 hp. This would encourage a character to bundle related abilities since it is more efficient for him to do so. This exact mechanic might not work, but I'm sure one of the pros could think of a more elegant system to achieve similar results.
The bottom line is that you can have your cake and eat it too. Oh, happy day!
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Henry
Autoexreginated
Skywalker said:Psion:
Again this has something to do with power level as well (though its moving off topic). In Unknown Armies all PCs are relatively the same power no matter how you try and rig it. A gun will kill you, gibbering monsters make you go insane and your human. There is still plenty of room to move and have interesting PCs but you don't get fantastical powers that are difficult to balance (or if you do they are meant to be unbalancing)
The balance in Call of Cthulhu and in Unknown Armies is supplied by the fact that the PC's will have very little mechanical game effect on their enemies that they will typically face. (I know more about Chaosium's CoC than Unknown armies, but I know it's true with CoC). Balance is maintained by the fact that PC's are outshadowed, powerwise, by their opposition, so even though you have interesting PC's, they do not shine through one PC compared to another, the way they do in another game system where the PC's are more evenly power-balanced against the good guys. Want to take on a Shoggoth or a Gug in Call of Cthulhu, or frankly anything more powerful than a deep one)? Tear your character sheet up. You must defeat them with something other than force of arms or superpowers.
In D&D, GURPS, d6 Star Wars, etc. care must be taken so that one player does not attain a capability that makes all his or her challenges easy, and reduce all other PC's to the status of henchmen, or not getting their 15 minutes of fame. You don't have that problem in CoC, because everybody is just as pathetic versus the true evils of the world.
I prefer a game system that doesn't need me to to statistical analysis for ever ability a PC gets. By and large, most of the d20 released stuff doesn't give outrageous levels of power, unlike so many things I saw in 2nd edition.
Psion
Adventurer
Mortaneus said:
Okay EVERYONE, if you wish to refute my position, then don't do the incorrect rephrasing and strawman construction that first Joshua and (now) Mortaneus are doing.
Now, Mortaneus, that is not my position, except #3, which is more of a solution to a problem than an inherent value.
First off #1. I have said character logic is more imprortant than balance. That said, I think your analysis is cracked. It's not just because I think your argument about lack of balance in D&D is flawed (and it pretty much is. Missile more powerful than melee? Well maybe if it weren't for AoO and the encounter environment in D&D, BID.) More to the point, because there is no comparison there. Skill based sysetms are just as bad or worse.
As I have said before, balance is an inexact and highly situation dependant topic, but it doesn't mean that you shouldn't strive for it.
I disagree. It "seems"? You have shown nothing. This is all just gut feel, and guess what: my experience shows the contrary. My characters party is in the teens, and I have seen no glaring balance problems. Can the wizard cast knock as much as the thief can pick locks? No, I don't think so. Would I send a party of two wizards and two clerics into an adventure designed for a nominally "balanced" party? No. They would be toast. Likewise, find traps will not compensate for a theif finding traps. Niche protection is there (like it or no... I could really live without it, but players seem to like it).
This wasn't my point, which should show how much you are paying attention to what I am saying; inasmuch as I did comment on it, I stated that it was a symptom of the D&D standard party, and not the class system itself.
If that is all D&D is to you, why the hell are you on this list? Unless you LIKE hack-n-slash. But I'll guarantee you that every game I run has intrigue in it.
But yes, that assumption is based around the standard D&Dish party layout.
At any rate, I consider this all quite tangential.
Gee, are you going to build your argument on entirely personal characterizations?
Sorry if you don't like it and feel like you are being crammed, but the simlpe fact is that it is the right thing to do. IMNSHO. The skill sets assigned to classes are consistent and logical; in skill based games it is "anything goes."
Of course I am guessing you are one of those players who, when the system limits you from giving your fighter the full-on abilities of a thief, you are being "crammed". Sorry, if forcing you to play a character with a logical set of skills cramps your style, you are not going to be happy in my game.
Come back when you have a valid argument vice rabid attacks.
Ah, yet more sniping, with no logic.
Sorry, my players seem to think I am a great GM and I am very secure in my abilities. My proficiecny as a GM has taught me that you acheive the same thing with classes as handholding but with much more effort. I'd rather spend my time doing other tasks that micromanaging character creation thankyouverymuch.
Again not my point. I care about encouraging concepts that fit in my world, which is not the same as general D&D despite your protestations to the contrary. But genre itself is not my point.
So, of 4 points against me, you have one that is even close to a claim that I have made... and your refutation of that point consistend entirely of of emotive snipes vice any meaningful argument.
Well done.
Psion
Adventurer
kenjib said:
Multiclassing.
Okay, I get what you are saying, and as should be obvious, no I don't like that idea. Characters and "career" paths develop core competancies. Changing them willy-nilly from level to level shatters all SOD. Further, it sounds like it would bring a new anal level to character management on the order or Rolemaster, which I will happily live without.
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