Quote from: SHARK on December 27, 2024, 01:48:07 PM

Quote from: Exploderwizard on December 26, 2024, 02:49:39 PMThe way to avoid class bloat is to simply not create new classes for every little niche and specialty under the sun. Is your character a soldier?,a gladiator?,a berserker?,a knight? Great! Your character is a FIGHTER. All of those other descriptors can be done as different background packages or something. A special class isn't needed for every character concept.   

Greetings!

Excellent stuff my friend! I suppose there *is* a certain allure to embracing yet another specialized Character Class. I think there is a strong argument for the traditional "Generalist"--the classic FIGHTER. However, having said that, just having a generic FIGHTER that somehow embraces a whole host of archetypal Fighting Men, Warriors, Soldiers, and various Martial Champions is somehow not viewed as being very sexy or attractive. I admit, I am something of two minds about this, so at the risk of dancing along the line of hypocrisy, I rebuke it. There *are* merits and attraction points to having all kinds of uber specialized Character Classes. There are. However, to see the greater wisdom requires some measure of sacrifice. Embracing a generic FIGHTER is at the end of the day, mostly sufficient. Beyond such considerations of sufficiency, for the "Greater Good"--it steadfastly blocks off the otherwise inevitable growth and profusion of class bloat, and a kind of endless death-spiral of ever-increasing Character Powers, all of which are instituted to engage Player interest, but also the design demand to differentiate from whatever Character Classes established previously.

This is where I think there is merit to having skills, talents, background packages, feats, whatever. Most of the archetypal warriors are flavoured differently by their culture, armour, weapons, and to some extent, weapon and fighting techniques, style, and tactics. All of which can be modelled through such elements as skills, feats, talents, background packages, cultural lores, and so on. Vikings, Legionnares, Samurai, Imperial Chinese Soldiers, Mongolian Horsemen, Byzantine Cataphracts, are after all, all FIGHTERS. As an philosophical aside, yes, they are all Fighters, but they aren't all each other. So, there are some differentiation required and desirable. That differentiation can be accomplished through the previously noted elements, instead of making up yet another specialized Character Class. "All Vikings are FIGHTERS, but not all FIGHTERS are Vikings." That nice philosophical tidbit is useful here I think, and appropriate.

I agree though, the solution to that is not creating more and more specialized Character Classes.

Having "Class Bloat" blows the doors open in the campaign for a cascading effect of increasingly difficult problems and dynamics that really are a mess. I think that additional Character Classes can be fine, but they need to be carefully considered and carefully designed, and have legitimate distinctions from other classes. A kind of corollary to this is that by actually *limiting* how many Character Classes you create, there is actually more "Design Space" present in which to make an effective and interesting new Character Class, without constantly blurring the distinctions with other Character Classes.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

A decision needs to be made when constructing and designing classes. Will there be a plethora of class to represent many niche concepts, or will there be limited archetypes to keep the game fairly simple? Often a game will be designed with a handful of core classes and more and more classes are tacked on as supplemental material. Some additional classes are not bad but quite often the issue with these additions is that they are somewhat similar to existing classes but superior in performance creating imbalances all over the place. 5E is a great example. In 5E the power creep bloat was presented as subclasses. The newer options are so much more powerful than the original options that the older options are rarely played.

Players these days no longer want to play a broad archetype and then make that character unique through play. They want particular mechanical power ups. The original argument for wanting all these feats, and menus of a la
carte abilities was to make unique characters. The problem is that all the optimal choices become apparent fairly quick and everyone selects these "must haves". So much for unique characters. The reality is that players have to want to develop unique characters themselves rather than picking mechanical tidbits from a rulebook to do so.

I prefer the broad archetype approach. The background concept can add a lot of flavor in the form of fighting styles, starting equipment packages, social advantages/disadvantages and so on. There can be dozens of these without having to engineer and entire class around it.

Of course a bunch of classes, if well designed, can be fun if the group isn't concerned at all with class bloat or mind how long it takes to look through dozens of classes to decide what to play.

I prefer classes in many ways, but looking at my shelf most of the games probably have some form of class system so it's probably just ingrained.

Even templates are a form of class, or roles, or archetypes, or..

I've found it helps with some new players for sure to help them understand the basics.

Regarding class bloat, it's never been an issue for me. I like the idea of different classes for different things, but do agree that the issue of balance can be a problem if there isn't some class design rules involved. 

I've been pleased with what I've seen in ACKS for classes, but I can't speak to the new version.

I like the approach of making things skill-based but presenting "classes" at a pre-selected set of skills.

Nothing. They don't do anything a classless system can't do better.

Quote from: Domina on December 27, 2024, 10:24:35 PMNothing. They don't do anything a classless system can't do better.

Nothing like a universal statement with no explanation or justification to add value to a discussion.  Oh, wait!  You've never added any value to a discussion.  In fact, I had forgotten you had ever posted here during your absence.  Guess that might serve as a indicator...

Quote from: Domina on December 27, 2024, 10:24:35 PMNothing. They don't do anything a classless system can't do better.

I don't necessarily disagree, but they can often get there faster if not better. For gamers that want to have things quick and easy, classes help.