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Message: <blockquote data-quote="WizarDru" data-source="post: 65708" data-attributes="member: 151">Buzzard is correct.  Just because those who arguing against Psion may be more vocal, that doesn't translate into everyone who reads the thread not being able to comprehend his points.At one point, this was a reasonable discussion concerning the merits of a classless system.  It has since degenerated into an advocacy argument charged with invective, which is a pity, since it seems to have lost the focus on the core issues being discussed.Classless systems require a great deal more GM intervention during the character creation process.  Having run GURPS games for fifteen years, I can attest to this.  Neither classless or classed systems are more or less prone to min/maxing, this is an issue more concerned with players than with systems.  A classed system allows more fine control, but often at the cost of flexibility in character design.  Whether you view that as a problem or not is a matter of taste.A game designed for a specific setting will always outperform a Generic setting game in that setting, without question.  D&D will not model the King Arthur setting better than Pendragon, IMHO.  Pendragon's core rules reinforce conventions of the setting much better than either D&D or GURPS Camelot do.  Does that mean you can't run an equally compelling game in each?  No, it doesn't.  What it does mean is that Pendragon, from a metagame rules standpoint, will have better rules representation for that setting than an adaption by another system.The appeal of GURPS is NOT just in it's classless based system.    GURPS ease of adaption to multiple settings was always the main attraction to my players.  GURPS faults are many, but that's not the point of this thread.  The question was raised, 'what's so great about classless systems?'  The answer, to me, is that classless systems allow you a level of flexibility that classed systems may not.  There are many ups and downs to the approach, which seems to have dominated the thread and lost the central issue.  Yes, purchase-based skill-systems can make it much more difficult to create adventures, particularly published ones.  There's a reason there are so few GURPS adventure supplements, and so many worldbooks.A classless system removes the certainty that both players and DMs have about their environment, and that is appealing to some.  In a classed system, if you encounter a street cop, you know he will have a fixed set of abilities, regardless of what customization may have occured.  In a classless system, that certainly is no longer as concrete.The example of a member of the armed services was given.  Having worked alongside former members of three of the four major branches of those organizations, my experience has been (and based on their input) that while they gain skills, basic training is NOT the same thing as a class package.  They do not all come out of basic with a +1 to firearms attack, +2 to wilderness survival, etc.  Over extended service, they do gain skills....but they can be fairly diverse. None of which is to say that classes are a bad idea.  They are an excellent metagame tool, and provide a large amount of benefits.  Balancing is a slippery slope, but classes allow a certain estimation of abilities that classless systems cannot.  For example, take the police offer example given above.  In a classed campaign, I can assume that every officer has at least one skill rank in firearms, the ability to recieve backup on a radio call once per day, etc.  In a classless system, that same character might be a forensic technician, with no firearm ability, and no ability to arrest criminals beyond that of a standard citizen.  Writing an adventure for the later is possible, but if writing for more than the individual party, this becomes problematic.   In metagame terms, both characters might be built on the same points, but that doesn't mean that they have the same abilities, and that leads to problems.Ultimately, we come back to what I said earlier.  To wit: we all benefit from having the opportunity to access both systems.  Both systems have their appeal, and both have their weaknesses.  Blind advocacy of either approach is just folly, IMHO.</blockquote>

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