Quote from: Domina on February 20, 2025, 06:26:40 PMNope, always.

Classless is faster than OSE.

You just keep spurting out "classless". Give an example of a classless game with faster chargen than OSE.

Quote from: Exploderwizard on December 27, 2024, 03:41:37 PM

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.

Greetings!

Yeah, Exploderwizard! I agree entirely.

I must confess--there was a time when I was a younger gamer and DM that I also really enjoyed new classes, uber feats, and all that. *Laughing* However, I strongly prefer the broader archetype class approach now. It's that basic simplicity and speed of play that really takes top priority for me nowadays. It is not that I can't put in effort for whatever, it is I have less patience. I also think there is something else, though. As you get older, you actually develop and learn and "see" things differently. For example, I can see things now, that were generally meaningless or of little concern for me when I was younger.

I still think that there is room for new classes--and they can be very beneficial--but yes, I agree. I am much more restrained and cautious when designing new classes. It must be done with a clear vision in mind, a clear and powerful "Hole" to be filled that isn't already met well enough by current classes. Even when doing so, however, it must be done so in a restrained manner. As you said, tacking on new uber feats can very quickly make a new class overpower and overshadow an original class. THAT leads to class bloat, and larger campaign problems, for certain!

For my World of Thandor, using the Shadowdark system, I have actually been focusing on developing new, additional Character Classes that fulfill a distinct mission and purpose--that clear vision--and something of a campaign "hole" that needs filling--but ultimately blending these classes with a chasis that makes them just a bit *underpowered* or nerfed from the original, main Character Classes. For example, I have developed the Temple Prostitute, Scholar, Artificer, and Tribal Warrior as somewhat "nerfed" additional classes. For more robust classes, I have added a Merchant Explorer, Shaman, Astrologer, and Witch Hunter.

I also have come to believe that providing a specific, distinct "structure" is important, especially for players. This idea that you can just "leave it up to the Players to make whatever" can be less than helpful. Backgrounds and "flourish" can all help, but providing an actual Title, with formal, distinct class mechanics, details, and abilities does a more powerful job and impact in establishing a Character identity. There is a kind of creative tug of war there, though, between designing something generalist--and thus having broader appeal, and utility in many situations and environments--and on the other, wanting something specific and distinct--which is colourful and dramatic--but also narrower in utility. It is definitely a process that I am cautious with. *Laughing*

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: Exploderwizard on December 27, 2024, 03:41:37 PMA 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?

My own solution to this was to break the concept of a class up into about three distinct chunks. Each type of chunk has a limited number of concepts, but because you're combining three chunks the number of combinations adds up to effectively "many niche concepts."

Specifically, you have your background (all the non-combat traits of a class); Academic, Aristocrat, Artisan, Barbarian, Commoner, Entertainer, Military, Outlaw, Religious, and Traveler.

Then class (broad archetype of the class' fighting style or spellcasting source); Berserker, Ironclad, Mastermind, Skirmisher, Mage, Mechanist, and Mystic.

Lastly their path (the specific focus of their fighting style or spell use), with two sets depending on class; fighting paths of brigand, captain, defender, disabler, ravager, sentinel, and striker; spellcasting paths of abjurer, benedictor, empowered, interdictor, maledictor, manifester, and summoner.

So it's a finite eight, seven, and seven chunks... individually not too overwhelming for a player. But that's 387 potential combinations (not all classes can pick all seven paths which is why it's not 392)... enough that each could be considered an extremely specific niche.

All the D&D classes fall into those combos (some with multiple approaches to the same concept; a D&D Paladin might be a Religious Ironclad Defender or a Military Mystic Abjurer depending on edition) and a whole lot more.

My favorite thing about this approach is how useful it's been in building campaigns around a theme; the party is all members of the same aristocratic family, they're all part of religious order, or outlaws, or members of a barbarian clan. Same background (which do have options for distinguishing from each other) but each can have a different class and path to distinguish from each other. It also works for specific classes too... the "mage school" where they all come from different backgrounds, but are united in learning arcane secrets (and each can take a different path to represent a different specialization).

One thing I've been onboard with for a long time is the concept of using nested choices to reduce option paralysis. A list of 300 specific classes would overwhelm anyone. A list of eight backgrounds is manageable. "Do you want a fighting class or a spellcasting one?" is manageable. Which of three or four classes within those two do you want? Which of seven paths do you want? Most people could make those four decisions between 3-8 things in less time than they could even read the list of 300 specific classes.