Quote from: Ravenswing;795427In gaming terms, that's exactly what the Thing is.  If you reduce both their powers to the terms found in your favorite supers game, they'll pretty much have the same stuff: superhuman strength, superhuman resistance, great leaping ability, monstrous appearance, and a susceptibility to radiation.

Truth be told, supers should be at least as amenable to character classes as any other genre.  "Individualistic" has nothing to do with it.  A class system functions around readily identifiable pigeonholes, and it is no less limiting and accurate to clump Conan, Boromir, Fafhrd, d'Artagnan, Geronimo and Perrin together as "Fighters" than it is to clump Cyclops, Storm, Lightning Lad, Starfire, Black Bolt and the Wasp together as "Blasters."

Thing and Hulk are lot more similar to each other than for instance Spider-man and Nightcrawler are to any large category. Mr. Fantastic is pretty well defined  by Stretching and Scientific Genius, vs. Plastic Man's Stretching and Detective: basically a power and a skill that don't necessarily go together or with anything else.

Quote from: Phillip;797947Steve Ditko did a superhero strip that really was Ayn Randian, but I think that was back in the '70s or '80s.

Mr.A or something to that effect? Yeah , Ditko is a hardcore-Objectivist. Rorshach from Watchmen was based on one of his characters, and his personal worldview.

I'll concede: there may be a couple of genres where class-based systems are not the ideal.  Superheroes is probably the one that springs strongest to mind.

Depends on the world and story being told.

Class systems represent a nice way to invisage a character and watch them advance and grow more powerful.  As a result its also easier to judge when an enemy is appropriate for an x level group because hey - they're level x as well.

This works well when the game is about the accumulation of power.  When its not (Call of Cthulhu springs instantly to mind) classes become silly.  Cthulhu doesn't care if you're a level 12 investigator or a level 20 dilettante.  Your soul is still toast.  I'd also say any game where players can learn new skills and powers depending on their interest tends to begin to strain the class system.

Oh - and lastly I'd argue Classes do a horrible job in situations when they have to immitate fictional settings.  If I run a game of (say) lord of the rings with a class based system its going to feel very different from the books.  While bilbo or frodo or strider certainly changed over the course of the novels I couldn't really say they became noticeably better at what they did.  They accumulate weapons and titles, meet new people and confront big things but rarely in fiction does a character go 'hey! I just killed that balrog! I feel like maybe I could dual wield now!'.  They usually start as they mean to go on - with the heroic farmboys and girls who discover they're heirs to magical traditions being probably the only exception.

Quote from: Awsyme;799557Class systems represent a nice way to invisage a character and watch them advance and grow more powerful.  As a result its also easier to judge when an enemy is appropriate for an x level group because hey - they're level x as well.

This is probably the main thing I find attractive about class systems.

QuoteOh - and lastly I'd argue Classes do a horrible job in situations when they have to immitate fictional settings.  If I run a game of (say) lord of the rings with a class based system its going to feel very different from the books.  While bilbo or frodo or strider certainly changed over the course of the novels I couldn't really say they became noticeably better at what they did.  They accumulate weapons and titles, meet new people and confront big things but rarely in fiction does a character go 'hey! I just killed that balrog! I feel like maybe I could dual wield now!'.  They usually start as they mean to go on - with the heroic farmboys and girls who discover they're heirs to magical traditions being probably the only exception.

The point may be true of some fictional settings, but LOTR is in particular a poor example.  "Hey, I just killed that balrog and I feel like maybe I could take Saruman now!"  Pippin and Merry decidedly improve, and all of the characters in the Fellowship grow (well, except Boromir); Aragorn just happens to already be rather high level.  I have more difficulty is assigning classes to the various hobbits than observing them improving levels: e.g., Bilbo's fight with the spiders led him to level up; Sam's dealing with the events at Cirth Ungol probably also.

Quote from: rawma;799640I have more difficulty is assigning classes to the various hobbits than observing them improving levels

They're obviously Halfling-classed. I don't say that flippantly, either. Halflings in D&D and B/X are straight out of LotR.

Quote from: Awsyme;799557Depends on the world and story being told.

Class systems represent a nice way to invisage a character and watch them advance and grow more powerful.  As a result its also easier to judge when an enemy is appropriate for an x level group because hey - they're level x as well.

This works well when the game is about the accumulation of power.  When its not (Call of Cthulhu springs instantly to mind) classes become silly.  Cthulhu doesn't care if you're a level 12 investigator or a level 20 dilettante.  Your soul is still toast.  I'd also say any game where players can learn new skills and powers depending on their interest tends to begin to strain the class system.

Oh - and lastly I'd argue Classes do a horrible job in situations when they have to immitate fictional settings.  If I run a game of (say) lord of the rings with a class based system its going to feel very different from the books.  While bilbo or frodo or strider certainly changed over the course of the novels I couldn't really say they became noticeably better at what they did.  They accumulate weapons and titles, meet new people and confront big things but rarely in fiction does a character go 'hey! I just killed that balrog! I feel like maybe I could dual wield now!'.  They usually start as they mean to go on - with the heroic farmboys and girls who discover they're heirs to magical traditions being probably the only exception.

You're talking about levels, not classes! Characters get better at what they do in games without classes, too!

Indeed, I've encountered people who said that characters tend to improve too quickly in GURPS (and similar regarding BRP and Hero System). Savage Worlds advertised rapid improvement as a selling point (the "Furious!" part of its motto, iirc).

Observations made about OD&D and other things have me in a design tension between wanting everyone to be able to do whatever floats their boat, and having some sense of 'I'm a Fighter. I fight at things.'

Quote from: Phillip;799759You're talking about levels, not classes! Characters get better at what they do in games without classes, too!

Indeed, I've encountered people who said that characters tend to improve too quickly in GURPS (and similar regarding BRP and Hero System). Savage Worlds advertised rapid improvement as a selling point (the "Furious!" part of its motto, iirc).

Yes, but they get better in different ways, Phillip.
And they are not limited in what they get better in.

Quote from: LordVreeg;799769Yes, but they get better in different ways, Phillip.
And they are not limited in what they get better in.

No kidding - and nada to do with the observations to which you're responding. Also, they do get better in the same ways, and not necessarily in different ones  ("build optimization" tending to produce specialists too, just taking more paperwork to do it).

Do AD&D, Palladium and Rolemaster prohibit Archie the Archer from earning merit badges in knot  tying, woodworking and  juggling?  Nope. Tunnels &  Trolls? Perks  of the high DEX, baby!

Quote from: Brad;799757They're obviously Halfling-classed. I don't say that flippantly, either. Halflings in D&D and B/X are straight out of LotR.

That only works if non-human race equals character class; that went off the table for us as soon as Greyhawk allowed a hobbit to be either a fighter or a thief.

Quote from: Phillip;799782No kidding - and nada to do with the observations to which you're responding. Also, they do get better in the same ways, and not necessarily in different ones  ("build optimization" tending to produce specialists too, just taking more paperwork to do it).

Not always.  Depends on the system.  
I think it pertains.  Often, not always,  in classless system, instead of getting better at their 'archetypical' characters get better at other things.  Enlarging the skill base, instead of the ability of those specific skills.  And many of the class based skills you mention do stop Archie the Archer from picking up Pyromancy or Affecting of Undead.

And your specialists will still vary more.

Not saying class based is bad, there is certainly a place for it, especially in many real genre based games.

Quote from: rawma;799640This is probably the main thing I find attractive about class systems.



The point may be true of some fictional settings, but LOTR is in particular a poor example.  "Hey, I just killed that balrog and I feel like maybe I could take Saruman now!"  Pippin and Merry decidedly improve, and all of the characters in the Fellowship grow (well, except Boromir); Aragorn just happens to already be rather high level.  I have more difficulty is assigning classes to the various hobbits than observing them improving levels: e.g., Bilbo's fight with the spiders led him to level up; Sam's dealing with the events at Cirth Ungol probably also.

Eh... maybe?  I think they definitely get more determined but fictionally you could argue they go from innocence and a focus on pies to realizing sometimes you have to fight to protect the things they love (e.g. much like world war 1 servicemen).  The hobbits don't show off sudden excellent swordsmanship - they fight a bit but it tends to be a small person doing what they can such as biblo stabbing the spider by sticking his sword upright and hoping. Sure they toughen up from all the walking and come home with better gear but I don't get a sense they're suddenly unusually better at killing people.

The warriors of the book (legolas, gimli, gandalf and Aragorn) pretty much stay rock hard from beginning to end.  In a similar way Han Solo begins as a great pilot and marksman and ends as pretty much the same but with a conscience.  Very few fictional characters often change their skill sets - its their personalities that tend to alter over the course of novels as they learn, love and hate.  Hell - in George R R Martin some of the characters actually get worse off physically as they suffer injuries.  

Probably the only exception that matches the usually huge jumps that appears in most level based games are apprentice magicians and protagonist types.  Garion goes from farmboy to world shattering magician because 'prophecy' and Luke similarly goes from farmboy to force god because 'bloodline'.  What's unusual in a way (to me at least) is most virtual and pen and paper rpgs treat those characters as the defacto standard rather than the exceptions.

Quote from: Awsyme;800207What's unusual in a way (to me at least) is most virtual and pen and paper rpgs treat those characters as the defacto standard rather than the exceptions.

A lot of that is the game aspect. Starting relatively weak and getting progressively tougher adds a score keeping aspect that most people enjoy and there is the added benefit that the players can learn more about the system as their character increases in power rather than needing to understand all the spells, bells, and whistles from the get go.