I wanted to start a new thread on classes, since it is way off topic for the character suicide thread. The branch started I think with
Will's Comment,

Quote from: Will;794783I had an interesting revelation a while back, that class systems do a nice job evoking the mood of a fantasy game while point systems are more evocative of a modern (or scifi) mindset.

Jungian archetypes and functional 'he's John the Smith' elements of identity in older societies, people ARE what they do. We can quibble about whether that's really what's going on, I don't think it matters. What matters is that a fantasy culture is likely to conflate identity/job/birth/etc.

On the other hand, the modern mindset is more about freedom to grow in any way. You might have advantages (or disadvantages) due to upbringing or folks' attitudes toward you or some starting talents, but after that? Learn Nuclear Engineering! Or Basket-weaving! And then Zero-G fighting and Capoeira! WEEE!


One problem I see with D&D is that I think at times the Devs haven't had a strong grasp of what the underlying principle is with classes. D20 Modern did poorly, I think, because it treated classes as 'point bundles' almost -- they would have done better, IMO, by sticking to archetypes or moving to some actual d20-compatible point system. (Like M&M or something)

Multiclassing is another tricky one. It's appealing but it moves in a more modernist viewpoint, and can ruin the conceptual integrity (and consistency) of the core system.
Better, IMO, is the move toward wiggle room within a class, and well-staked-out subclasses (like some of Pathfinder and 5e's approach).


When a fantasy game uses a point system, I'm naturally inclined to view it as a modern-minded gritty fantasy, where everyone is ultimately an adventurer in a tavern hoping to knife someone for cash. This is obviously not always the case, but that's the direction that feels most natural to me, and I THINK it might be a more common skew (though I am TOTALLY speculating here)

When a modern/scifi game uses a class system, I'm inclined to think the reverse -- space opera or pulp.

I'll comment more in a following post, including my earlier reply.

My original reply:

Quote from: jhkim;794946While there is a sense that social class is fixed in historical societies, I don't think this corresponds well to professional class like fighter vs. ranger, or rogue vs. fighter. A historical class is who you are, not what you do for a living.

Actually, I think professions are more modern than historical. In historical societies, there was generally less job specialization. Most people were farmers and weavers and brewers and soldiers and more, based on what was needed at the time.

When I run historical or pseudo-historical games, I tend to prefer something like RuneQuest that has different backgrounds but doesn't have professional classes. Often, the party isn't one of each profession (like one fighter, one cleric, one burglar), but rather a group of similar people with different distinctive features (like five knights - a strong knight and a holy knight and a well-spoken knight etc.).

Two replies were:

Quote from: rawma;795001But that's much less true where there's significant knowledge needed for a profession; then you'd likely need an apprenticeship and a certain measure of "wax on, wax off"" drudgery while the master decides if you're talented enough or trustworthy enough to learn his secrets.

I can see the boundaries between fighter and rogue being more fluid, especially if you're in a period without professional soldiers; but magic and church ritual and scholarship and artisanry aren't going to be something that anyone can turn to.

Quote from: Vargold;795014In rural communities in Europe, yes. But you've got emerging merchant guilds by the 1200s and craft guilds being regulated into existence after the Black Death as a means of controlling labor. The clergy had their own longstanding specializations, something the wizards would probably replicate if they were public entities as opposed to esoteric secret societies.

The point about farmers wasn't that there should be no specialization. In all of (1) reality, (2) class-based systems, and (3) skill-based systems - not everyone is an expert in everything. The difference is that in skill-based systems your expertise is more fluid, as opposed to class-based systems. There were certainly skilled professions in historical times, but I'm arguing the professions didn't correspond well to typical classes like Fighter, Thief, etc.

All systems and periods have specialized professions, but comparatively, a modern or sci-fi game is going to have more specialization than a historical or fantasy game.

It seems to me that classes work well for D&D-style fantasy... but knowing full well that Runequest and other systems do various other styles of fantasy quite well I don't see how it can be said D&D has a blanket lock on all of them.
Most fantasy RPG campaigns I've played have felt a whole lot more like gunless Westerns anyway... moreso than quasi-accurate historical Europe, lots more mobility available for everyone... geographically and economically... and my picture of  Western characters are changeable fellows like Wyatt Earp, who passed through a variety of different professions and likely had a wide retinue of skills.

My revelation of class/fantasy, points/modern was not an entirely serious observation that they seem to reflect modes of thinking.

That is, that in historic times you WERE your job/role. This is John the Smith, this is Mary the Chandler.

Modernism casts aside limits and apprenticeships and shut up and do your job, you are an individual capable of ANYTHING...

Class systems seemed reflective of aristocracy and society being prominent, point systems of democracy/socialism/egalitarianism and personal agency.


Personally, when I've played point system Fantasy games, it seems most in synch with 'realism,' while class systems seem more diffuse and symbolic, relying on iconic ideas we then build characters around.


It wasn't meant to be anything approaching absolute.

As someone suggested (in a horribly obnoxious way, but such is the internet), perhaps this is based on exposure to games.

A lot of more point-based system fantasy games has tended toward some sense of 'realism,' while class-based fantasy and scifi have tended toward cinematic or pulp.

Is that because of natural synergy or just happenstance? Dunno for sure.

Quote from: jhkim;795142There were certainly skilled professions in historical times, but I'm arguing the professions didn't correspond well to typical classes like Fighter, Thief, etc. .

Also there are the player's expectation of the game, if they coming at it from the perceived quality of that is what it is about, such as from D&D, then it is what it is, pretty much. Some abstractions are just there, and it is best to deal with them and move on.

This is one of those "what colour is a piece of string" questions.

Personally, if I'm doing a light game, or a cinematic game, or some dungeon crawl, I think I want classes. Bright, basic blocks with room for fiddly details.

"I'm the Knight, he's the Bard, she's the Wizard, let's blow up some orcs!"


If I'm doing some dark back-alley game of princes and thieves and getting shivved in the mud, something like GURPS or whatnot might seem more appropriate.

I think one factor is the amount of information present n a fantasy world versus a modern world.

For example when you say medieval / fantasy farmer you kind of get a specific image in mind however a modern farmer is much more specialized, in my mind.

Or say a Blacksmith versus a metal worker in modern.

I think skill based systems work better the more specialized the skills sets within the society becomes.

Mathematics in a fantasy world is not the same as Mathematics in a modern world.



I think the only other factor is as Will has said the grittiness or level of realism one wants. Skill based systems tend to more realism even outside the skill system itself.

Just my thoughts.

Quote from: Will;795160Personally, if I'm doing a light game, or a cinematic game, or some dungeon crawl, I think I want classes. Bright, basic blocks with room for fiddly details.

"I'm the Knight, he's the Bard, she's the Wizard, let's blow up some orcs!"

If I'm doing some dark back-alley game of princes and thieves and getting shivved in the mud, something like GURPS or whatnot might seem more appropriate.

OK, this fits more with my preferences too. I'm just starting up a GURPS Fantasy game, and I think it's good for the style.

For me, this isn't different between modern and fantasy. I'm fond of the classes in modern systems like Cyberpunk and the Apocalypse World variants (I don't like AW, but I like Monster of the Week a lot).

Silliness.
My personal opinion is that class-based is better for simpler games.  Heroic fantasy is often a somewhat linear genre. I am pretty much with Will.  

I have a class based d20 variant I wrote a while ago for my simpler games.  I used skill based rules for my longer-term games with lots of politics and intrigue and social interaction.

QuoteIs class-based better for fantasy?

No it is not.

Runequest, Stormbringer, Pendragon, BRP, The Fantasy Trip, GURPs, HERO, all do fantasy quite well. WEG's Star Wars D6 (and the open D6 games based on it) do fantasy (I class Star Wars as space fantasy not science fiction). D6 has templates but (a) they are a short cut not a requirement, (b) all characters get the same 7D in skills adds regardless of their templateand, and (c) the template (if used) only effects which skills the starting character can add their 7D to. It has no effect on the character's further development or what skills they can learn in play. Therefore D6 is really a point buy system with a handy set of templates to speed up character generation and to illustrate the types of characters that fit the setting.

I like how normative terms like "better" are used, as if there is some objective measure by which to judge roleplaying games. The answer, of course, is whether or not you like class-based systems for fantasy more than something else.

Somewhat relevant to this idiotic discussion.

I think classes work well for certain games, like D&D, but for historical games or fantasy games I could honestly go for any number of approaches. I think it is good to have different games taking different approaches to this question. Classes in my opinion are not better or worse when it comes to fantasy. What they do give you is an easy way of packaging advancement that a lot of people find enjoyable. But it isn't the only way to do things for fantasy games.

Quote from: Bren;795174Runequest, Stormbringer, Pendragon, BRP, The Fantasy Trip, GURPs, HERO, all do fantasy quite well. WEG's Star Wars D6 (and the open D6 games based on it) do fantasy (I class Star Wars as space fantasy not science fiction). D6 has templates but (a) they are a short cut not a requirement, (b) all characters get the same 7D in skills adds regardless of their templateand, and (c) the template (if used) only effects which skills the starting character can add their 7D to. It has no effect on the character's further development or what skills they can learn in play. Therefore D6 is really a point buy system with a handy set of templates to speed up character generation and to illustrate the types of characters that fit the setting.

Bren - I would agree with you, but I should bring in Kyle's reply on the other thread:

Quote from: Kyle AaronA sufficiently short skill list is in effect a class. Put another way, a class is a collection of related but unlisted skills, eg a "fighter" in AD&D1e is assumed to know about tactics, maintaining weapons and armour, etc.

We discovered this in playtest for GAMERS, which is a skill-based system, a sort of son rather than clone of Traveller.

200+ skills and you get that annoying thing where someone who normally uses a longsword gets a shortsword and the GM says, "no, you have no idea how to use it," or where you assume your chosen skill will cover the situation but there's some skill you never heard of that does it.

I tried a variation with 36 skills, but in any campaign only about half the skills will be useful, and half of them are the ones that come up every session, the other half a few times in the campaign. So in effect only 9 skills really mattered, and another 9 sort of mattered. So it was a class system.

We found the sweet spot was somewhere in the middle, 50-100. This was enough that a skill was narrower in coverage than a class, but broad enough not to cause stupid "but surely that's covered by..." effects.

So Kyle's argument is that only 10-20 skills is effectively a class system (which I think is true of D6 and Savage Worlds).

However, I think the important thing about the class system is that your class continues to guide your development. In a skill system, characters smoothly range between each other, and will change smoothly with experience to overlap with each other.

No, but it is better for beginners and most beginners start with fantasy.