Quote from: Exploderwizard;920837There is a fundamental difference between class based and classless systems. A class represents who your character is in a neat capsule. A classless system requires you to fully provide who your character is yourself.

For example, if you play a D&D magic user, then the archetype does most of the work of character identity for you. If you play a character in a classless system who learns some magic then that doesn't make you a "magic user" per se.

Classes provide instant identities and a classless system requires you to construct one. Neither method is superior, everything depends on personal taste.

It might just be this simple. I guess if you go classless you need to put more work I to character backgrounds and motivations. With classes, you can more easily imagine how a character fits into the world.

I play exclusively classless systems and have designed a few. I do sometimes use templates, but there is no "Warriors can never learn backstab." In decades of play testing I disliked how there was so much overlap in important skills. No one ever made medics because their characters would just pick up the needed skills.

A very simple rules change made a big difference. Some skills were made to cost more (double and on rare cases triple) to buy and advance in. These were usually highly technical skills that you usually can't learn just by practice (surgery?). This made players less likely to pick these skills if it wasn't their specialty since they could get more bang for their buck on other skills. However, if a player was a medic, they'd invest because it was their job to invest in that ability.

My thought then is, in the character creation process, a player can pick x regular skills and one primary skill (the one that defines what they do). Primary skills cost a lot to buy and more than normal to advance, while regular skills cost less. This little bit of inertia keeps the players from cross training so much, but allows the player with a warrior to learn backstab if they really want to.

Quote from: Skarg;920880What makes a classless system "work" depends on what each player responds well or poorly to.

Some players really like archetypes. To have a classless system work for them, you may need to work in archetypes, for example via what GURPS calls Templates, and the GM/game may need to describe them a lot more like classes are described in class-based games.

Some players really don't want to have many choices for character creation and improvement. A classless game can use low/no-choice based systems for character generation and development.

This is what I like about HERO System.  At least the low-level campaigns that lend themselves to such specialization.  The example I use is in Fantasy HERO, if somebody wants to make a Legolas clone, I would take the Elf Racial Package, add those points to the Ranger Package, and say, "Your basic character would look something like THIS."

JG

Ok, that's a lot of ideas about classes as they pertain to skill systems, combat, magic, etc. But what about backgrounds and motivations? There's no mechanical reason why disarming traps and love of gold corelate, but it makes sense when you play a D&D dwarf (yeah yeah, a race not a class but same difference). Or a monk's prowess and the need to challenge oneself - not mechanically necessary. Yet these associations work. They stick. They form expectations for how the character functions in the game world.

So we've got ideas about how characters function in combat. Cool. But I've played my fair share of games where everyone has a unique combat function but it's a whole team of brooding, solitary outsiders.

What are folks ideas in niche protection (in a classless game) for how characters function in the game world? I know that's broad, but it's the best I can frame it for now.

Quote from: Ashakyre;921027Ok, that's a lot of ideas about classes as they pertain to skill systems, combat, magic, etc. But what about backgrounds and motivations? There's no mechanical reason why disarming traps and love of gold corelate, but it makes sense when you play a D&D dwarf (yeah yeah, a race not a class but same difference). Or a monk's prowess and the need to challenge oneself - not mechanically necessary. Yet these associations work. They stick. They form expectations for how the character functions in the game world.

I'm not sure what you're asking, or where you're coming from, as I don't relate to a need to have stereotypes defined. Even in classless games, I tend to dislike when characters seem too cliched and predictable, as then I feel like I'm in an annoying cliched TV/film universe, and not a game about real people. Or, a game about real people who deeply embody cliches. I don't like having words than mean something in the real world but are a class name that means some hero package. Monk? Most actual monks don't have combat skills at all. Even a Shaolin (is that the seed for D&D Monks?) doesn't have "featherfall" or whatever... (apologies for getting details wrong but I tend to flee from such details).

So it's a bit hard for me to say how to get what I think you're asking for in a classless game. I'm not sure what you really want.

QuoteSo we've got ideas about how characters function in combat. Cool. But I've played my fair share of games where everyone has a unique combat function but it's a whole team of brooding, solitary outsiders.

And I assume you aren't trying to play a Spaghetti Western campaign, so you don't want that? Again, I probably am not getting what you want. It sounds to me like you think classes provide descriptions of outgoing people so you get outgoing pro-social PCs, which you want? I'm probably not reading you right. Just because a game is classless doesn't mean the GM can't specify what sorts of characters to make or not make for a campaign. Again, they will just need to understand what they want and express it to the players at character generation.

e.g. "This is a campaign about a group of people who get along and are not brooding loners, who are all motivated to care about and do certain things together in a cooperative way. Here are some examples of character concepts which would be good, which you can either use or copy, or ignore as long as you invent ones that will work with the group. Otherwise the other PCs and their patron may have no use for you, and such PCs may be dismissed and become NPCs since the game is going to follow this group and its adventures."

QuoteWhat are folks ideas in niche protection (in a classless game) for how characters function in the game world? I know that's broad, but it's the best I can frame it for now.

Again, I'm not sure I get what you mean. What it sounds like you mean, is that you anticipate players to want niche protection for... the style and types of actions PCs use? Examples? Like, "my guy is a bookworm researcher geek, who knows a lot and knows how to find out info - I hope no one else wants to do that kind of thing, because I want to be the only one in the group that does that sort of stuff"? I usually think of the "niche protection" aspect as somewhat pathological, but in moderation I can sympathize a bit, if I am guessing what you mean accurately. That is, I can see that if someone is enjoying being different from the other PCs in doing things a certain way and being good at that, that if someone else starts acting the same way, it can feel like a competition... I think it depends on the specifics, but I think what I'd say is I try to still treat them as individuals with differences, which again I think classlessness helps rather than hinders. Two Rangers(tm) defined the same way as classes will be more alike than two characters who have some of the same skills (at different levels and with different related scores) and aren't defined the same way... to me the problem is when a cliche or archetype starts to de-individualize a character, so they're just being cliche rather than being a specific person. It seems to me that in the real world, too, when people start behaving like a cliche, that that tends to be inauthentic, and when they run into someone acting like the same cliche, it can often create a jealousy situation, and expose the cliche... and that's actually interesting to me... and I like how in a classless game such characters will have different descriptions and nothing on their sheet telling them they're the same basic thing.

For me, the key to making interesting characters that the players identify with in a classless system is spending plenty of time developing character concept and being sure to pick a few things that make the character unique within the setting and/or party.  Background and goals can do this as well as powers and abilities.  Also, it's best to to create characters as a group so they can develop some sense of niche/role without stepping on each others toes too much. It helps to have a system that has enough mechanical diversity to work out conceptual differences in tangible game terms.  Most generic-y classless games, BRP (and its kin), GURPS, FATE, and Savage Worlds for example, have plenty of mechanical widgets to accommodate a staggering variety of character types and concepts.  It just takes a little more work on the front end to develop a cohesive party of somewhat special flowers than it does with a class based system where this differentiation is pre-packaged.

I prefer class based systems when I want fast character generation or when working with players who get overwhelmed by unlimited options.  It is easier to crystallize a vision of a character with the labels and assigned abilities of classes.  

Classless systems, as a generalization, require more work to get the same kind of clarity about defining a character.  Theoretically, a classless system should give you more power to customize, but I am not sure that is true.  With D&D for example, you can always bend or break the rules, add classes, races, alignments, powers and magic in weird combos to create unique characters - so I don't think class based systems are inherently less customizable, just more structured.  

So why bother with classless systems? For me, when a player has to work a little harder at conceptualizing the character he is forced to invest some additional imagination into it which I think brings out the best in some players.  Also, in my experience, classless systems tend to produce more "believable" "rounded" or "human" characters - really just a different perspective on the "mush" you describe - but that works really well for certain types of gritty, human power-level sorts of contexts and less well for comic book cinematic types of play.

My 2 cents

As other people have said, people certainly do have different tastes. There is no one size fits all. That said, there are some general issues to think about with classless systems.

If every capability is bought from scratch, then a potential pitfall is all characters taking a common set of only the most-used skills. For example, in a hypothetical percentile system, every player buys at least 50% in one weapon skill along with Sneak, Perceive, and Dodge. This can get to the extreme of a warrior with a 90% in Sword skill, who has no skill in any other weapon, because instead of spending 90 points to buy up a secondary weapon skill that will be rarely used, it's far more effective to take 90% in Dodge.

One way to guard against this is how attributes affect skills and other advantages. Core attributes or advantages that change the cost of skills become a sort of smoothly-varying class. For example, in GURPS, there is DX and IQ that are the base for most skills. So characters arrange into DX-specialized, IQ-specialized, or balanced. (The other attributes, ST and HT, can be bought by anyone but don't have many skills or advantages based on them, so they're less core.)

Another tack on this is to force a distribution of skills. This is the approach of FATE, which requires you to take a pyramid shape of skills - and the skills are quite broad.

Quote from: Skarg;921056Monk? Most actual monks don't have combat skills at all. Even a Shaolin (is that the seed for D&D Monks?) doesn't have "featherfall" or whatever... (apologies for getting details wrong but I tend to flee from such details).

Given the time frame I suspect this guy was the seed.
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Quotee.g. "This is a campaign about a group of people who get along and are not brooding loners, who are all motivated to care about and do certain things together in a cooperative way. Here are some examples of character concepts which would be good, which you can either use or copy, or ignore as long as you invent ones that will work with the group. Otherwise the other PCs and their patron may have no use for you, and such PCs may be dismissed and become NPCs since the game is going to follow this group and its adventures."

Actually, clearly, and succinctly laying out expectations ahead of time? That’s just crazy talk. Crazy talk that would eliminate 90% of the behavior that is responsible for most of the whining and bitching after the fact.

QuoteAgain, I'm not sure I get what you mean. What it sounds like you mean, is that you anticipate players to want niche protection for... the style and types of actions PCs use? Examples? Like, "my guy is a bookworm researcher geek, who knows a lot and knows how to find out info - I hope no one else wants to do that kind of thing, because I want to be the only one in the group that does that sort of stuff"? I usually think of the "niche protection" aspect as somewhat pathological, but in moderation I can sympathize a bit…

As Madproffessor already said, creating characters as a group, where someone can say, something like your quote above helps avoid too much overlap.

While Call of Cthulhu doesn't have classes, it does have professions and a set of skill points for the skills listed under the professions.  I have had good luck with players who have strong character concepts in the campaigns I have run, so it works out well in that way, I think.  Less so with the players who just want to smack things around (always a poor idea in CoC, as things can smack back.)

I can see how what I wrote is confusing. I wanted to switch the discussion over to the aspect of character generation that has nothing to do with skills or abilities. The more fluff part. The backgrounds and motivations or whatever. At that point I just wanted to see what people had to say. Classes can also have a fluff component, and so far I've overlooked that in my classless game, and want to see what people could add.

As has been said, group character creation can be helpful. On several levels.

• Avoiding too much overlap. How much is too much is subjective and ranges from any is too much to you can never have too much overlap.

• Having players discuss/agree why their PCs are together or why their PCs would make sense to be together if they aren't already together. Someone already mentioned the templates in WEG Star Wars D6 as a way of bundling skills in a class-less system. One other nice thing that WEG did with their templates was to provide a few suggestions for how one template might connect to another template or templates e.g. the Smuggler might see the Kid or the Brash Pilot as the kid brother or sister he never had, the Failed Jedi might be mentoring the Young Jedi, the Bounty Hunter and Smuggler might have worked together in the past, the Wookiee Co-pilot and the Smuggler are shipmates, etc.

Quote from: Madprofessor;921057So why bother with classless systems? For me, when a player has to work a little harder at conceptualizing the character he is forced to invest some additional imagination into it which I think brings out the best in some players.  Also, in my experience, classless systems tend to produce more "believable" "rounded" or "human" characters - really just a different perspective on the "mush" you describe - but that works really well for certain types of gritty, human power-level sorts of contexts and less well for comic book cinematic types of play.

That's interesting. My experience has to some degree been the opposite. Particularly for comic-book superheroes, I've generally preferred non-class-based systems. The few class-based superhero games that I've seen have come across as very clunky. (Only Heroes Unlimited comes to mind, though I feel like I've seen others.)

In my mind, classes work well for certain genres. It's good for D&D, and in one of my favorites, Monster of the Week. In a lot of other genres, though, I feel like classes are clunky and out of place (Heroes Unlimited or Star Wars D20, say).

I think classless has worked pretty well for most superhero games and many other cinematic games like Star Wars D6, for example. I also think templates like in D6 and Shadowrun work very well for quickstart.

Quote from: jhkim;921093The few class-based superhero games that I've seen have come across as very clunky. (Only Heroes Unlimited comes to mind, though I feel like I've seen others.)

Although there aren't many explicitly class-based superhero RPGs, most superhero RPGs that have a point buy system often have a list of alleged superhero character "archetypes" (that don't really stand up to scrutiny) that kid of count.

QuoteIn my mind, classes work well for certain genres [...] one of my favorites, Monster of the Week.

How so?  In my experience, the source material really isn't stocked with archetypical characters.

There've been a bunch of answers, from a lot of people I know have great experience with classless systems.  I won't repeat, or secondguess, their point-by-point responses.

But really, how a classless system works best?  For the players and the GM to let go.  Too many people freak out, flailing around in a frantic quest to replicate d20, if only in their heads.  Too many are bewildered at the thought of there being no neat one-word pigeonholes, and too many insist on assigning them anyway: well, what IS your character?  A fighter?  A thief?  Oh, he must be a multi-class fighter-mage, okay!  No, wait, you're patterning after that character?  But they describe him as a thief on page 138!  He must be a thief then!

If the players can't function without the crutch of defined character classes, alright, so be it.  It happens.  (Granted, to me it's like a poker player being unable to wrap his head around blackjack or bridge, but eh.)  Too many such discussions, unfortunately, boil down to "How can we make a classless system LOOK like a class-based system so the players won't have to stretch their minds?"

Otherwise, they need to let go.  Stop thinking in terms of what skills make a "fighter" or a "magic-user," and what ones can't.  Don't try to figure out what Jon Snow's class is, or Tyrion Lannister's, or Arya Stark's -- think of how you'd replicate the skills they seem to possess with what's on offer, or if you're looking at a NPC or a fellow PC, try to figure out by inference instead of by a glance at the top of the character sheet.  (I expect that most people, as happens in GOT, seeing a skinny teensy black-haired girl with a teensy smallsword would regard her much as Arya Stark's regarded: as a silly little chit who's playacting at best.  Spiffy, fair enough.)

Thanks for the answers everyone. A lot to think about, absorb, and experiment with. Part of my questions has to do with tropes and expectations... what we do to ensure that everyone is imagining the game in a similar enough way that it jives and feels real.

If there's stories written about your game world, cool, people draw on that and theres common expectations at the game table.

My setting uses some tropes, maybe colors outside the lines a little. I'll have to think of ways to vividly introduce the game world to people quickly and accurately. Part of my assumptions is that classes help that process - they tie skills to tropes. But I have a classless game, so I'm looking to do it another way.

But it appears those answers are embedded in the replies here.