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<blockquote data-quote="abirdcall" data-source="post: 7923830" data-attributes="member: 6748898">This is something that gets said over and over again. The implication here is that it is more imaginative to play a weird character or one with a gimmick or what have you than one of a strong classic archetype.Make a memorable Wood Elf Ranger. That takes imagination and skill.Improv actors show their creativity by working within the rules given to them. It's not creative for them to just come up with random things and change the rules because they can't think of anything within them.Putting Noble and Barbarian together is not a flex of someone's imagination. That doesn't take much creativity. Picking Barbarian because they want the Rage mechanic isn't a player being creative.Playing a Kenku or a Thri-Kreen or an anthropomorphic rhinoceros is not more imaginative than playing an Elf or a Human even if they aren't seen as often.I've seen it all before. It's not clever.Make a memorable character not just a gimmick.But back to the 'mush'. No, it isn't good game design. If the rules represent everything then they represent nothing. Math in service of nothing isn't good design in an RPG. There are built in features in the game which do blur the classes. Backgrounds are core which can do that a little. Feats do it more. Multiclassing blows it all away.But many players want to go even further. They create houserules to make many thematic options which all have the same result. So those themes don't really mean anything as they aren't differentiated by the game itself. Classes need to have identity. Otherwise what's the point?</blockquote>

[QUOTE="abirdcall, post: 7923830, member: 6748898"] This is something that gets said over and over again. The implication here is that it is more imaginative to play a weird character or one with a gimmick or what have you than one of a strong classic archetype. Make a memorable Wood Elf Ranger. That takes imagination and skill. Improv actors show their creativity by working within the rules given to them. It's not creative for them to just come up with random things and change the rules because they can't think of anything within them. Putting Noble and Barbarian together is not a flex of someone's imagination. That doesn't take much creativity. Picking Barbarian because they want the Rage mechanic isn't a player being creative. Playing a Kenku or a Thri-Kreen or an anthropomorphic rhinoceros is not more imaginative than playing an Elf or a Human even if they aren't seen as often. I've seen it all before. It's not clever. Make a memorable character not just a gimmick. But back to the 'mush'. No, it isn't good game design. If the rules represent everything then they represent nothing. Math in service of nothing isn't good design in an RPG. There are built in features in the game which do blur the classes. Backgrounds are core which can do that a little. Feats do it more. Multiclassing blows it all away. But many players want to go even further. They create houserules to make many thematic options which all have the same result. So those themes don't really mean anything as they aren't differentiated by the game itself. Classes need to have identity. Otherwise what's the point? [/QUOTE]

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