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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Andor" data-source="post: 7652843" data-attributes="member: 1879">That's an interesting world. Although the axis of conflict that springs to my mind in that setting is individualism vs society. A group of rugged individualists who have to negotiate everything seperately internally and externally is much less efficient in many, many ways than a more structured society where social contracts allow fewer individuals to control numerous followers. E.G: Corporations vs Artisans. Soldiers vs Warriors. Rather off topic for the thread though.On Topic, as K.M notes there is an inherant conflict between setting or even campaign specific classes, and ones broad enough to be useful in any campaign. Or rather this conflict exists if you tie the mechanics to the classes role in the story. It's perfectly possible to bake conflict into a setting while using generic classes or even a classless system. HeroQuest for example could easily capture either of the above conflicts just by noting which keywords the two groups favor. Although even with generic classes it's extremely easy to run into problems based on player expectations. D&D (and it's not the only sinner to be sure) has traditionally depicted Knights and Samurai very differently with distinct classes, and associated baggage. In point of fact both were feudal lords in a militaristic society with similar concerns, skill sets and tactics. The differences that did exist arise largely from climate and culture. Do they need different classes? Maybe. If the mechanical refllections of Christian Virtue are distinct enough from those of Shinto Purity then perhaps the mystical concerns do warrent distinct classes. OTOH if you're using generic fantasy world #41Q and not actually putting Jesus and Amaterasu into your game world then probably not. Classes, in the end, are like everything else in the rules, tools to allow a gaming group to run a game they all enjoy. Some groups are perfectly happy conceding that a Katana is just a style of bastard sword and lumping the Knight and Samurai together, others want different classes for every martial art from Pankration to Savate to Wing-Chun to Kalaripayat to Fencing (E.G: Ninjas and Superspies or Iron Heroes.)</blockquote>

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