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

[Skywalker]

Psion:

As I am not familiar with Unknown, I cannot comment.

That's cool. Actually Silhouette is also a classless system and its is also reasonably balanced. Tribe does add Outlooks and Tribes to the system but these only influence the Synthesis use. In JC and HG Silhouette is classless. Again it is also low powered and realistic so it may be harder to break for reasons I have also set out

That's my position. If you don't want to talk about that, that's fine, but you can't really shoehorn me into defending something I don't beleive in.

That's also cool. I think we already agreed to disagree on this point

Right... well powerful, and more importantly, illogical. Beleive me, there is no such thing as a Cthulhu character built by the rules who is impossible to challenge. It would bother me more that the character is a blatant metagame cosntruct. But again, this is using the referred to supplement (which I have never used... sorry, Cthulhu is a static game for me) which seems like it would send it over the brink into that ugly GURPSish realm.

Actually the standard CoC rules allow you create your own careers with whatever 6-8 skills you think appropriate. The ones in the book are just suggestions for careers. So it is open and even encouraged for players to make whatever PC careers they wish provided the GM approves the rationale for the skills.

Again this is why I see D&D and CoC as different. CoC is designed for the players to make thier own classes where D&D is centred around the existing classes (though I recognise you can alter them the focus is different...but I digress )

The Investigator's Handbook provides further suggested classes with an occassional additional small modifer.

It would bother me more that the character is a blatant metagame cosntruct.

I agree. Oh to have trustworthy players Luckily mine are for the most part.

 

[Psion]

I apologize for my hostile tone. I don't like being lectured, and some of your posts seemed to convey that impression. I find myself in error on that assumption, and for that I am sorry.

Fair enough. I was probably more than willing to retort as well, especially considering your timing. After extensive re-clarifying my position, just when I finally seem to be coming to an understanding with LostSoul, Joshua, and Skyknight about where I stand, you come in here and give me a four point analysis one why I am wrong based on positions I don't hold. I hope you can understand why I found that a little jarring.

In any case, do agree that class based systems do have several benefits. Ease of character generation, hands-free character growth, and other inherently balancing factors.

That's all I am trying to say. As always, YMMV, but I would like people who think classes are without value to consider the values that they do have before discarding them.

 

[Skywalker]

Just to stick up for Psion who has been put to the wolves

I do think that classes are an extremely useful tool for RPGs. We can't just assume that every RPG and every RPGer has the same needs and wants.

A character is at its very basic a collection of numbers. The idea of a class system is not to influence the concepts that players can come up but to influence the unavoidable and artificial rule component that underlies them.

Many games use some form of class structure for a number of useful reasons and for the most part any RPGer with experience can look to modify these underlying structure if it is believed that it interferes with the players concepts. What people do need to remeber though is that when a game uses classes it will incorporate an idea of the setting. Good class systems are appropriate to the game itself e.g. D&D has suitable classes for an epic high powered fantasy game.

d20 has shown that D&D is not the universal fantasy game that some believed it was. However it has shown that by some modification to the rules (inc classes) it can accomodate any game. I think that any game could.

I find that where a game is epic and highpowered then classes become even more useful. Trying to distill all parts of the game down to points is a risky business even for game designers. Essentially an impossible task to quantify substantive elements. D&D for example is full of powers that are not quantifiable and its use of classes is relatively smooth and easy (its been a success for many years). Again if any small tinkering is required this shouldn't be too difficult (especially where guidelines are provided) and if large tinkering is required perhaps you should look to see whether the game is really supporting the style you want to play.

Finally even classless systems are not universal. GURPS is a great example in that is does incorporate a style of play into the PCs. Classes are just an attempt to recognise the game's setting and provide ease of use.

Finally classes are extremely useful for beginners. I recently ran some RPG as a school project with 10 year olds. Classless systems failed to capture their imaginations or control the base human urge to outshine others. Classes helped promote cooperation, role identification and concept building. All of these are important RPG skills that should be learned and sometimes never are.

 

[Psion]

If I've done so, it's only because you make posts that very strongly imply one opinion, and then when I try to pin you down on it, you back away from it.

Sorry to throw this back in your face again, but NO. What you did do was take what I was stating, assumed the converse statement was true, and try to pin that on my.

Whenever you assume... you know the rest.

Still, you come across as very inconsistent as the thread has progressed.

BS. You assumed I had a certain stance instead of taking the time to undertand what I was saying. I challenge you to go back and find a contradictory statement. Actually, you have made such allegations earlier in the thread, and every time I have been able to show you why your version of my opinion does not match what I said.

Because MY position does not match YOUR version of what you expect it to be as someone defending classes doesn't make me inconsistent.

Stop making assumptions and it will all be clear.

Your position seems no more firm or clear than Bill Clinton's position on anything, so this "rephrasing and strawman construction" you accuse me (us) of is more related to your own apparent wishy-washyness throughout the thread than it is to my (our) inability to construct cogent arguments against your position.

You are pointing the finger at me. I am pointing the finger right back at you, buddy.

So we'll do this objectively. Show me two statements by me that are contradictory in this thread. You won't find it, because its not like my position on the subject has changed in recent years, much less recent days. But I invite you to try if my arguments are so damn wishy-washy.

 

[Desdichado]

Sorry to throw this back in your face again, but NO. What you did do was take what I was stating, assumed the converse statement was true, and try to pin that on my.

Whenever you assume... you know the rest.

I certainly never assumed the converse of what you said. Instead, I assumed --at most-- the next logical step from what you said. That's when you typically back down from your apparent stance and assert that it hasn't been your stance at all.

BS. You assumed I had a certain stance instead of taking the time to undertand what I was saying. I challenge you to go back and find a contradictory statement. Actually, you have made such allegations earlier in the thread, and every time I have been able to show you why your version of my opinion does not match what I said.

You've certainly been able to say that your opinion does not match what you seemed to have said. I've tried hard to be more gracious than is my wont and assume that I was reading too quickly and jumping to conclusions. However, that only goes so far.

Because MY position does not match YOUR version of what you expect it to be as someone defending classes doesn't make me inconsistent.

Stop making assumptions and it will all be clear.

I doubt it. The assumptions that I've made were logical steps to take from what you wrote.

You are pointing the finger at me. I am pointing the finger right back at you, buddy.

So we'll do this objectively. Show me two statements by me that are contradictory in this thread. You won't find it, because its not like my position on the subject has changed in recent years, much less recent days. But I invite you to try if my arguments are so damn wishy-washy.

I don't have the inclination to comb through 11 pages of thread to do that. How about we do this objectively yet with a slight shortcut? You claim that your position has been clear and precise from the beginning. Almost half a dozen people -- in fact, everyone who's posted on this thread for the last 5 pages or so, has made the same assumptions I have based on what you said. Sure, you've come back and clarified, but I think that's sufficient objective "proof" right there that you have lacked both clarity and consistency in your posts so far.

Now. I've grown fairly tired of this thread as nothing new has been added in several pages. I wouldn't have posted at all if it didn't sit uneasily with me to let stand a number of veiled implications that we're all too stupid to figure out what it is that you're talking about. What? Another assumption based on misrepresentation and convolution of what you said? Yeah, I guess so.

 

[kenjib]

I think if the system was well designed, it would be a net boon, because those who are like me could use the system as a personal toolbox and those who prefer an anything goes approach could open it up to the players.

But then, I have met many players in the course of my career who thought that more options were bad, so YMMV.

Hey cool. It sounds like we have some kind of consensus here then. Now we just need to wait for 4e - or on the off chance that retro-fitting could work a core rulebook IV.

 

[buzzard]

double post

 

[buzzard]

I don't have the inclination to comb through 11 pages of thread to do that. How about we do this objectively yet with a slight shortcut? You claim that your position has been clear and precise from the beginning. Almost half a dozen people -- in fact, everyone who's posted on this thread for the last 5 pages or so, has made the same assumptions I have based on what you said. Sure, you've come back and clarified, but I think that's sufficient objective "proof" right there that you have lacked both clarity and consistency in your posts so far.

Now. I've grown fairly tired of this thread as nothing new has been added in several pages. I wouldn't have posted at all if it didn't sit uneasily with me to let stand a number of veiled implications that we're all too stupid to figure out what it is that you're talking about. What? Another assumption based on misrepresentation and convolution of what you said? Yeah, I guess so.

Ok you're going to accuse someone of being as weasely as Clinton, and yet not back it up with examples? I find that to be a pretty harsh attack to use if you're not going to cite concrete examples.

I consider myself an impartial observer in this (I've use class and non class systems, and don't really have baggage attached to either), but I think if you are going to attack the man, you better put up or shut up when you are called on it. Laziness is not a valid excuse. The above argument that you're right because other people are also arguing with him is mighty weak. That's something akin to "he's wrong because we all said he was wrong". It doesn't take a majority to be factually right.

Buzzard

 

[Desdichado]

Ok you're going to accuse someone of being as weasely as Clinton, and yet not back it up with examples? I find that to be a pretty harsh attack to use if you're not going to cite concrete examples.

I consider myself an impartial observer in this (I've use class and non class systems, and don't really have baggage attached to either), but I think if you are going to attack the man, you better put up or shut up when you are called on it. Laziness is not a valid excuse. The above argument that you're right because other people are also arguing with him is mighty weak. That's something akin to "he's wrong because we all said he was wrong". It doesn't take a majority to be factually right.

My posts in this thread are replete with concrete examples of where I thought he was inconsistent. I'm certainly not going to go back and look for them again just because you want me to. What was that you said about laziness? That laziness is not going back to reread 11 pages of thread to see all the examples in every one of my posts where I quoted a section of his post and then commented on it, and then he came back and said "No, that's not what I meant at all?" Laziness is saying that unless I do that work for you, you have all the excuse you need to make snarky requests at me? No? That's not what you said? Oh, sorry. My bad.

Not only that, your reasoning is faulty. Majority does not make an argument factual, that is true, but when the argument is specififically about the clarity of the posts, then majority opinion is the only type of evidence that can be used. If I merely said I thought they were unclear, but nobody else had a problem, I would be the outlier and everyone could justifiably claim that I was just too dense to figure out what he was saying. Since everyone posting on this thread seemed to have fallen initially into similar assumptions as myself, I can justifiably claim that the assumptions were clearly implied in the posts.

I don't know what stakes you have in this argument, but instead of jumping in at the 11th hour and make statements like this, you ought to consider thinking them through a little bit. I'm not going to restate (again) what my specific points of contention are, because there are pages and pages of just that information on this thread. And your assertion that majority opinion is irrelevant is not applicable given the nature of the argument.

Now. Again. Regardless of what else will say on this thread, I've presented what I think, I've tried to understand what others have been saying with (I think) an open mind, and now I've had to fend off ill-concieved and ignorantly posited insults. I think I've had enough.

 

[Holy Bovine]

Blargh