Quote from: The Worid;334095Yet a skill-based system usually conforms to a genre as well. The design choices made as to what skills are important affect what sort of list you get; so a game with a combat focus gets separate skills for each type of sword (in an extreme example) and then might only have one skill for socializing.

It really depends on the scope for a socializing skill.  Broadly enough, it may be appropriate.  Too narrow, and it will not find enough use at the table.  What you would really have to decide is whether skills provide abilities, or modify extant abilities.  You can have both in the same list, but it would be best to have some way to identify the differences.  Weapon skills don't really provide a new ability, they just extend the combat ability, and negate penalties for using an unfamiliar weapon, or provide a bonus for the weapon another character without the skill lacks.

QuoteMy point is that having classes be only for certain genres is an assumption borne of most games being built that way. I'm not saying that their isn't logic to it (skills usually make multi-genre systems easier) but it's wrong to say that such a thing is when it's barely been tried.

There is probably a good reason it hasn't been tried very often.  Namely, genre emulation is what class based systems are really good at.  It's easy to deny Oriental Adventures classes in your quasi-European game to keep players from bringing in their ninjas and samurai if you don't want those.  It's harder to stop someone from building a ninja with skills.  Sometimes, you just don't want a ninja in your game.

QuoteMy thought in making this thread was, what if you have a system that didn't use extremely generic classes? Like a class-based counterpart to GURPS, that uses fairly-specific classes that one took in combinations. For example, a Paladin that was a Fighter 1/Cleric 1. I'm curious as to whether or not it's a pipe dream, and I was wondering if any games like this existed. Thanks for the responses so far; I have d20 Modern, and I was looking back at it again because of the suggestions.

Well, that is just multi-classing really.  The more generic you make the classes, the more they resemble discount skill packages that you would just have to customize anyway, hence, the closer you get to a skill based game.

You can make something of a hybrid system, like D&D has been since 3.0, but those are of varying effectiveness as well.  For starters, it would work best if you figured out all the skills a class would have even if you 'encapsulate' those into a class rather than allow them into the general skill list.  You can still have skills that modify abilities or even class abilities, but it can be tricky.  A skill that modifies combat abilities, for example, will be far more useful for warrior classes than arcane classes.  For arcane classes, in fact, it would be of varying detriment to take those skills.  On the one hand, it is unlikely to really boost their combat abilities significantly, and at the same time, it takes up a slot they could use for arcane skills to boost their class effectiveness.  

Not that a wizard that wants to be a fighter (and by extension, not very good at either) isn't a valid characterization to pursue.  But the pitfall is for the player that wants to be a good wizard and a decent combatant finding out they are neither after taking a few combat related skills.  And vice versa; the fighter that wants a few magical boosts may discover they are less effective than their fighter peers, and start to fall behind the rest of the party, too.  As I recall, the 3.0 authours mentioned there were a number of skills and feats that laid a similar trap in D&D.

Quote from: The Worid;334095Yet a skill-based system usually conforms to a genre as well. The design choices made as to what skills are important affect what sort of list you get; so a game with a combat focus gets separate skills for each type of sword (in an extreme example) and then might only have one skill for socializing.

It really depends on the scope for a socializing skill.  Broadly enough, it may be appropriate.  Too narrow, and it will not find enough use at the table.  What you would really have to decide is whether skills provide abilities, or modify extant abilities.  You can have both in the same list, but it would be best to have some way to identify the differences.  Weapon skills don't really provide a new ability, they just extend the combat ability, and negate penalties for using an unfamiliar weapon, or provide a bonus for the weapon another character without the skill lacks.

QuoteMy point is that having classes be only for certain genres is an assumption borne of most games being built that way. I'm not saying that their isn't logic to it (skills usually make multi-genre systems easier) but it's wrong to say that such a thing is when it's barely been tried.

There is probably a good reason it hasn't been tried very often.  Namely, genre emulation is what class based systems are really good at.  It's easy to deny Oriental Adventures classes in your quasi-European game to keep players from bringing in their ninjas and samurai if you don't want those.  It's harder to stop someone from building a ninja with skills.  Sometimes, you just don't want a ninja in your game.

QuoteMy thought in making this thread was, what if you have a system that didn't use extremely generic classes? Like a class-based counterpart to GURPS, that uses fairly-specific classes that one took in combinations. For example, a Paladin that was a Fighter 1/Cleric 1. I'm curious as to whether or not it's a pipe dream, and I was wondering if any games like this existed. Thanks for the responses so far; I have d20 Modern, and I was looking back at it again because of the suggestions.

Well, that is just multi-classing really.  The more generic you make the classes, the more they resemble discount skill packages that you would just have to customize anyway, hence, the closer you get to a skill based game.

You can make something of a hybrid system, like D&D has been since 3.0, but those are of varying effectiveness as well.  For starters, it would work best if you figured out all the skills a class would have even if you 'encapsulate' those into a class rather than allow them into the general skill list.  You can still have skills that modify abilities or even class abilities, but it can be tricky.  A skill that modifies combat abilities, for example, will be far more useful for warrior classes than arcane classes.  For arcane classes, in fact, it would be of varying detriment to take those skills.  On the one hand, it is unlikely to really boost their combat abilities significantly, and at the same time, it takes up a slot they could use for arcane skills to boost their class effectiveness.  

Not that a wizard that wants to be a fighter (and by extension, not very good at either) isn't a valid characterization to pursue.  But the pitfall is for the player that wants to be a good wizard and a decent combatant finding out they are neither after taking a few combat related skills.  And vice versa; the fighter that wants a few magical boosts may discover they are less effective than their fighter peers, and start to fall behind the rest of the party, too.  As I recall, the 3.0 authours mentioned there were a number of skills and feats that laid a similar trap in D&D.

In d20 Modern's case, it clearly emulates a genre. We could call it archetypal, or comic-like, where you have some characters that are clearly good at "something".

The Strong Hero, the Smart Hero, etc. Multiclassing is strongly encouraged in d20 Modern. It's mostly a matter of specialization, of finding a particular "schtick" for your Strong Hero, say, like Martial Arts or Paramilaty experience. It's not only a matter of Skills there, but most importantly of selections of Talents and Feats that represent what your character is really good at.

d20 Modern will emulate TV series like the A Team really well, for instance.

Quote from: Benoist;334100In d20 Modern's case, it clearly emulates a genre. We could call it archetypal, or comic-like, where you have some characters that are clearly good at "something".

How well one defines that 'something' depends largely on what genre one is trying to emulate.

QuoteThe Strong Hero, the Smart Hero, etc. Multiclassing is strongly encouraged in d20 Modern. It's mostly a matter of specialization, of finding a particular "schtick" for your Strong Hero, say, like Martial Arts or Paramilaty experience. It's not only a matter of Skills there, but most importantly of selections of Talents and Feats that represent what your character is really good at.

Talents and Feats are really skills by another name.  So, you pick a somewhat siloed package of skills, then customize it with skills available to all.  But again, the Smart Hero won't benefit as much from skills that help the Strong Hero, and may take a penalty for doing so.

Multiclassing, in the case of 'generic' classes, is almost a requirement, since the classes themselves will generally not be specific enough to emulate any particular genre.

Quoted20 Modern will emulate TV series like the A Team really well, for instance.

I would propose aligning the classes with the tropes of that particular show would work better.

Quote from: StormBringer;334103Talents and Feats are really skills by another name.  So, you pick a somewhat siloed package of skills, then customize it with skills available to all.  But again, the Smart Hero won't benefit as much from skills that help the Strong Hero, and may take a penalty for doing so.

If by this you mean to say there are sub-optimal choices for character creation and progression, there are, for sure.

Quote from: StormBringer;334103Multiclassing, in the case of 'generic' classes, is almost a requirement, since the classes themselves will generally not be specific enough to emulate any particular genre.

Absolutely. You do that with d20 Modern by selecting the Advanced Classes (aka Prestige Classes by another name) available in your game. Which really should also be the case with PrCs and D&D, in the sense that PrCs emulate the style, feel and particulars of the setting by the type of groups, organizations and various specialties characters may choose to be linked to in the campaign.

In d20 Modern, if you want to have an X-File game with Psychic characters, you allow Psychic Advanced Classes of some types. If you want to have more of a Buffy type of game play, you go with Arcane Spellcasting and such. And so on, so forth.

Quote from: StormBringer;334103I would propose aligning the classes with the tropes of that particular show would work better.

You do that with the selection of Advanced Classes you put into play. See above.

Quote from: StormBringer;334097It really depends on the scope for a socializing skill.  Broadly enough, it may be appropriate.  Too narrow, and it will not find enough use at the table.  What you would really have to decide is whether skills provide abilities, or modify extant abilities.  You can have both in the same list, but it would be best to have some way to identify the differences.  Weapon skills don't really provide a new ability, they just extend the combat ability, and negate penalties for using an unfamiliar weapon, or provide a bonus for the weapon another character without the skill lacks.

All of that is true of any game. However, a universal game has the responsibility to minimize the problem as much as possible. The purpose of the example was to show that both classes and skills fall into the trap of emulating a certain genre, rather than being wholly universal.

Quote from: StormBringer;334097Well, that is just multi-classing really.  The more generic you make the classes, the more they resemble discount skill packages that you would just have to customize anyway, hence, the closer you get to a skill based game.

What I'm suggesting here is to not make classes more generic, just make enough classes to cover anything you might want. Yes, that could be problematic if you made too many, but I'm not convinced that it's impossible.

Quote from: StormBringer;334097You can make something of a hybrid system, like D&D has been since 3.0, but those are of varying effectiveness as well.  For starters, it would work best if you figured out all the skills a class would have even if you 'encapsulate' those into a class rather than allow them into the general skill list.  You can still have skills that modify abilities or even class abilities, but it can be tricky.  A skill that modifies combat abilities, for example, will be far more useful for warrior classes than arcane classes.  For arcane classes, in fact, it would be of varying detriment to take those skills.  On the one hand, it is unlikely to really boost their combat abilities significantly, and at the same time, it takes up a slot they could use for arcane skills to boost their class effectiveness.

I'm not suggesting a hybrid system here, at least not with ranked skills (a 4E/Saga-style skill feat system might be acceptable). That defeats the point.

Quote from: Benoist;334105If by this you mean to say there are sub-optimal choices for character creation and progression, there are, for sure.

Not precisely.  More accurately, what I am saying is, 'generic' classes still need additional support in the form of skills, whether they are called that, or they are called Talents or Feats.  The Smart Hero may be good at 'smart things', but those still need to be defined somehow, and that is with skills.  Same with the Strong Hero.  They should be good at 'brick' or 'fighter-y' things, but those still need to be defined.  Being good at 'weapons' is a bit powerful, as the same character can pick up a club, a sword, or a 15 watt heavy MASER and have the same results.  Additionally, it rather freezes others out from having weapon skills if you don't list them.  If you simply assume they are simply not as good at weapons as the Strong Hero, not only do you negate the niche for Strong Heroes, simultaneously, you transform everyone into the 'Less Capable Fighter' class by default, with a package of skills for a different class added in.

QuoteAbsolutely. You do that with d20 Modern by selecting the Advanced Classes (aka Prestige Classes by another name) available in your game. Which really should also be the case with PrCs and D&D, in the sense that PrCs emulate the style, feel and particulars of the setting by the type of groups, organizations and various specialties characters may choose to be linked to in the campaign.

I was never super jazzed with Prestige Classes.  Except for a few bonus Feats, they never seemed to do much more than add some descriptive fluff to a base class, and there are other ways to do that.  Essentially, you are simply adding some additional skill package choices to the base class with a number of prerequisites.

QuoteIn d20 Modern, if you want to have an X-File game with Psychic characters, you allow Psychic Advanced Classes of some types. If you want to have more of a Buffy type of game play, you go with Arcane Spellcasting and such. And so on, so forth.

The ability to limit class choices to support genre emulation is one of the strengths of a class based system, and that is really what you are talking about here.  Specifically designed classes to support a genre, like X-Files or Buffy.  The base classes, the 'generic' ones, don't support a particular genre, so other classes have to be added in to support those.  That is the exact reason a 'generic' class based system is very difficult to implement.

As you have demonstrated, working against the strengths of a class based system - genre emulation - is an uphill battle.

With True20, the system gives you the tools to create your own classes. it's extremely easy to do and makes it very easy to mold the game to the particular setting/ genre you are going for.

Quote from: The Worid;334107All of that is true of any game. However, a universal game has the responsibility to minimize the problem as much as possible. The purpose of the example was to show that both classes and skills fall into the trap of emulating a certain genre, rather than being wholly universal.

Except that anyone can add skills to emulate a genre, where making a class is quite difficult.  Especially if the underlying 'skills' for a class are opaque, as they are prior to D&D 3.x.

QuoteWhat I'm suggesting here is to not make classes more generic, just make enough classes to cover anything you might want. Yes, that could be problematic if you made too many, but I'm not convinced that it's impossible.

I don't think anyone has claimed it is impossible.  But you have already hit on the major problem.  Making new classes.  The new classes to 'cover anything you might want' are, by definition, not generic.  The most transparent system for this is CyberPunk 2020, with pseudo-classes representing skill packages and one class specific skill.  

The game supplies a number of defined packages (Solo, Media, Netrunner) but encourages players to come up with their own.  The pseudo-class packaging reasonably protects a niche, with the single 'class skill' bearing most of the load for niche protection.  A Netrunner can forgo computer skills and concentrate on gun skills, possibly having scores in line with a Solo.  But they will be very ineffective as Netrunners, and the Solo's Combat Sense will trump equal weapons skills, as the Solo will generally go first in any combat.  Conversely, the Solo can neglect their weapon skills in favour of computer and netrunning skills, but they will be a poor Solo, and much like the previous example, an actual Netrunner will get the jump on them every time with the Interface skill.

QuoteI'm not suggesting a hybrid system here, at least not with ranked skills (a 4E/Saga-style skill feat system might be acceptable). That defeats the point.

But again, whether they are ranked or not, Feats are still a form of skills.  They very well could be binary, either you have the feat or you can't do it.  But that tends to penalize everyone equally.  In other words, if you can't even swing a sword without the Feat, you are crippling everyone that isn't a Fighter, unless you give them additional selections for weapons, in which case you don't need them as Feats.

I know what you aren't talking about, the question is, what are you talking about?  What are some examples of this system you envision?

Quote from: Aos;334115With True20, the system gives you the tools to create your own classes. it's extremely easy to do and makes it very easy to mold the game to the particular setting/ genre you are going for.

I'm not familiar with True20.  How are classes created?

Quote from: StormBringer;334116But again, whether they are ranked or not, Feats are still a form of skills.  They very well could be binary, either you have the feat or you can't do it.  But that tends to penalize everyone equally.  In other words, if you can't even swing a sword without the Feat, you are crippling everyone that isn't a Fighter, unless you give them additional selections for weapons, in which case you don't need them as Feats.

I know what you aren't talking about, the question is, what are you talking about?  What are some examples of this system you envision?

When I say skill, I mean a ranked bonus given to a certain type of action. I do not mean anything that could be called a feat, for the purposes of this discussion.

I'm not certain why this thread is evoking such a vehement response from you. I like skill-based systems as much as you apparently do; my favorite games are Traveller, GURPS, WHFRP, and Mutants and Masterminds. I generally avoid class-based systems. All I'm wondering is if there are any, or could be any, class systems that work well outside of a single genre.

I thought of an example, though. Barbarians of Lemuria. Essentially class-based: take levels of various professions. It isn't perfect (the way they hand attack bonuses makes no sense to me; how come Soldier doesn't let me hit?) but it's moving in the direction that I'm talking about.

Honestly, Stormbringer's ranting is pretty well disproven by the existence of *gasp* exactly the generic class systems he claims are "impossible".  I suspect this is just a lot of smokescreen for another "3e sucks" rant, probably triggered by the mention of D20 Modern.

Alternity, True 20, D20 Modern, hell, I think Traveller pretty well counts in my book as well.  It's essentially 4 background classes, with an additional "catch-all" class, that are just groups of possible random results.

Quote from: StormBringer;334111Not precisely.  More accurately, what I am saying is, 'generic' classes still need additional support in the form of skills, whether they are called that, or they are called Talents or Feats.  The Smart Hero may be good at 'smart things', but those still need to be defined somehow, and that is with skills.  Same with the Strong Hero.  They should be good at 'brick' or 'fighter-y' things, but those still need to be defined.  Being good at 'weapons' is a bit powerful, as the same character can pick up a club, a sword, or a 15 watt heavy MASER and have the same results.  Additionally, it rather freezes others out from having weapon skills if you don't list them.  If you simply assume they are simply not as good at weapons as the Strong Hero, not only do you negate the niche for Strong Heroes, simultaneously, you transform everyone into the 'Less Capable Fighter' class by default, with a package of skills for a different class added in.

Sure, but I don't quite see how this plays against genre emulation, unless you really frame your game experience into a very specific pigeon hole, like say playing a game of military guys surviving in the Vietnamese jungle, where a Strong Hero/Survival-type character clearly would have a upper hand.

All games emulate a genre, in the end, be it some genre out of some other medium, or its own genre, as is the case with D&D for instance, or d20 Modern, in this instance.

What I'm trying to say is: purely generic games don't exist. They always emulate something. GURPS for instance does emulate a genre of its own with its brakets of character powers with a given number of points and so on. Classes in the instance of d20 Modern are just a way to have pre-spent character points in the way the class is built, when you think about it.

Quote from: StormBringer;334111I was never super jazzed with Prestige Classes.  Except for a few bonus Feats, they never seemed to do much more than add some descriptive fluff to a base class, and there are other ways to do that.  Essentially, you are simply adding some additional skill package choices to the base class with a number of prerequisites.

That's when Prestige Classes are used the wrong way, though. The purpose of PrCs is to link the characters to the game world by giving them mechanical ways to be part of it. You belong to a group or organization, and there's a PrC to reflect the specificities of that group or organization. At their worse, PrCs are what you describe, and there's been a bad trend of this going on with all sorts of 3PP game materials and WotC sourcebooks, that's for sure.

Now, I'm not making this up. That's something I got from Monte Cook. That's the way they thought of Prestige Classes when designing them for third edition. As a tool to flesh out the game world mechanically and link the PCs to it. We all know that's not what ended up happening in further game designs, but there's still a personal choice a DM can make to use PrCs as they were intended to be used.  

Quote from: StormBringer;334111The ability to limit class choices to support genre emulation is one of the strengths of a class based system, and that is really what you are talking about here.  Specifically designed classes to support a genre, like X-Files or Buffy.  The base classes, the 'generic' ones, don't support a particular genre, so other classes have to be added in to support those.  That is the exact reason a 'generic' class based system is very difficult to implement.

As you have demonstrated, working against the strengths of a class based system - genre emulation - is an uphill battle.

I disagree, in the sense that you can have a relatively generic class-based system, along with the tools provided for you to carve the specific genre emulation you are searching for out of it. It's not a paradox to me, but a process that starts with the system, goes through the GM's intent and campaign designs, to end up as the genre emulation GM and players were searching for, specifically.

Quote from: J Arcane;334125Honestly, Stormbringer's ranting is pretty well disproven by the existence of *gasp* exactly the generic class systems he claims are "impossible".  I suspect this is just a lot of smokescreen for another "3e sucks" rant, probably triggered by the mention of D20 Modern.

Alternity, True 20, D20 Modern, hell, I think Traveller pretty well counts in my book as well.  It's essentially 4 background classes, with an additional "catch-all" class, that are just groups of possible random results.

It seems to me that Alternity only has a veneer of classes, as they don't really determine all that much about your character's abilities, and is for the most part skill based. Of course, I've only ever really skimmed the book, so I may be in error.
Traveller only uses anything like a class during character creation, so I don't think it counts.

Quote from: The Worid;334123When I say skill, I mean a ranked bonus given to a certain type of action. I do not mean anything that could be called a feat, for the purposes of this discussion.

Ok, I can understand that, but for mechanical purposes, skills and Feats serve much the same purpose.

QuoteI'm not certain why this thread is evoking such a vehement response from you. I like skill-based systems as much as you apparently do; my favorite games are Traveller, GURPS, WHFRP, and Mutants and Masterminds. I generally avoid class-based systems. All I'm wondering is if there are any, or could be any, class systems that work well outside of a single genre.

It's not vehemence, it just takes a good deal to explain.  I could simply say "No, class based systems don't work well outside of a genre", but then I would have to explain what that meant.  Which is what I am doing.  It's simply a complex topic that can't be distilled to 'yes' or 'no'.

You are wondering, I am responding.  What were you expecting?

QuoteI thought of an example, though. Barbarians of Lemuria. Essentially class-based: take levels of various professions. It isn't perfect (the way they hand attack bonuses makes no sense to me; how come Soldier doesn't let me hit?) but it's moving in the direction that I'm talking about.

If the Soldier profession doesn't provide bonuses in combat, I would say there is a fundamental problem with the profession.  But again, usually 'professions' are discount skill packages, so we are back around to a more or less skill based system.  I'm not familiar with Barbarians of Lemuria being described as a 'generic system', either.  The entire introduction, in fact, drives the game into being a very solid class based system.  The professions aren't really useful as skills per se; they offer knowledge of almost anything related to the profession.  They are more similar to secondary skills in 2e AD&D, which are there to provide some background information for the character more than add anything really useful mechanically.