Quote from: RunningLaser;937870One Horse- this just wouldn't be a pre-generated character, but also it would show the progression of that character as it gained levels in it's "class".  So, if one wanted, you could quickly whip up a 1st level Selma, a 3rd level Selma, 7th level Selma- ect, as needed- correct?

I could see the value in that.

Yep. A Pre and Post generated character if you like.

Quote from: One Horse Town;937675So picture the scene if you will. you've just bought the Players Handbook for a new game that you like the look of. It has a few bits on character generation, but instead of character classes, it has characters.

Full chargen rules and a few (or a lot of) sample characters?  Great!  I play classless systems pretty much exclusively, so that's the norm for me.

"If you want to play this game, then you must choose one of these characters"?  Not so much.

Quote from: One Horse Town;937675Is that something that appeals to people, or is that de-protagonising you in a story-game like way?

I don't see it as connected in any way to protagonization, pro or con.  I just want to be able to create my own character.  And, strangely enough, I absolutely love random chargen and having the dice tell me what character to play, but a person doing so (outside of things like pregens for one-shots) really rubs me the wrong way.

Quote from: One Horse Town;937694Point is, would anyone want to play a character whose 'progression' is all laid out in-front of them?

Oh.  Well.  If that's the point, then I'm absolutely not interested.  I prefer for characters to evolve organically through play.  Having all future development plotted out for you before play begins is anathema to me.

Quote from: One Horse Town;937690Well, for a start, it will be unique to each character, rather than a 'class' as a template, and creating a character from that template. So, if you define a singular use of a template as a class, then i guess you're right.

How is this not class but with a character name instead?

"You choose your stats, you do your background, you change the name if you want, but instead of class abilities based on level, you get character abilities unique to each character in the book based on character level."

If I am able to change: stats, background, and name but not skills, equipment, and progression.  How is this not a class?
Even if everything is subject to change except progression, how is that not a class?

I think this is a fantastic idea to get kids started with tabletop role-playing games at a younger age by playing characters and not classes.

When I think about back when I was first given a Monster Manual by one of the neighborhood teenagers, we were still playing pretend in the back yard. I was 7 or 8, and we used the book to determine what sort of monsters we were fighting in the sandbox (our pirate ship).

When I got a little bit older (11 or 12), I started to figure out that the Monster Manual was actually more of a game than simply a book full of pictures and stories. I remember trying to figure things out, and writing up characters to play from Big Trouble In Little China. We didn't have a Player's Handbook at the time, only the MM, the DMG and a handful of Monopoly dice we used to substitute all the funky dice we didn't yet have. So we made Wang, Jack Burton and we fought each other playing the Three Storms, using devils from the MM. Of course, we didn't quite yet grasp that classes were something more important and unique. We continued in this tradition, plucking stuff out of the Monster Manual to construct our favorite characters from movies: Indiana Jones, Arthur from Excalibur and the like.

Granted, I have only been a kid once (and my son is only 7 months old), but playing characters made a lot of sense to me and my friends when we were little because it's the way that I was able to understand how the game worked before getting our hands on the Player's Handbook.

Quote from: Sommerjon;937886How is this not class but with a character name instead?

"You choose your stats, you do your background, you change the name if you want, but instead of class abilities based on level, you get character abilities unique to each character in the book based on character level."

If I am able to change: stats, background, and name but not skills, equipment, and progression.  How is this not a class?
Even if everything is subject to change except progression, how is that not a class?

If it makes you happy, yes it's a class. Now go away.

Quote from: ZWEIHÄNDER;937891I think this is a fantastic idea to get kids started with tabletop role-playing games at a younger age by playing characters and not classes.

When I think about back when I was first given a Monster Manual by one of the neighborhood teenagers, we were still playing pretend in the back yard. I was 7 or 8, and we used the book to determine what sort of monsters we were fighting in the sandbox (our pirate ship).

When I got a little bit older (11 or 12), I started to figure out that the Monster Manual was actually more of a game than simply a book full of pictures and stories. I remember trying to figure things out, and writing up characters to play from Big Trouble In Little China. We didn't have a Player's Handbook at the time, only the MM, the DMG and a handful of Monopoly dice we used to substitute all the funky dice we didn't yet have. So we made Wang, Jack Burton and we fought each other playing the Three Storms, using devils from the MM. Of course, we didn't quite yet grasp that classes were something more important and unique. We continued in this tradition, plucking stuff out of the Monster Manual to construct our favorite characters from movies: Indiana Jones, Arthur from Excalibur and the like.

Granted, I have only been a kid once (and my son is only 7 months old), but playing characters made a lot of sense to me and my friends when we were little because it's the way that I was able to understand how the game worked before getting our hands on the Player's Handbook.

Good point. I think this is also a case where the artwork will matter more than most other cases. A striking (and most importantly individual) piece of artwork for each character will draw the eye and maybe the rest will take care of itself.

Quote from: One Horse Town;937892If it makes you happy, yes it's a class. Now go away.

Makes my other post rather poignant.

Quote from: SommerjonAround here they have no desire for discussion, they want agreement.

Maybe what you should be asking yourself there Skippy, if I, Sommerjon, had posted.

"So picture the scene if you will. you've just bought the Players Handbook for a new game that you like the look of. It has a few bits on character generation, but instead of character classes, it has characters.

No Druid. But it does have Selma the Herbalist, Davith, Moon Master and Scillia Vulture-Borne. No Fighters, but it does have Sir Reginald of Hagwich, Peregrin Whipsnap, and Hannah from Montana *.

You choose your stats, you do your background, you change the name if you want, but instead of class abilities based on level, you get character abilities unique to each character in the book based on character level.

Effectively a living Players Handbook - maybe some bright spark releases half a dozen new characters every month or so at an online outlet.

Is that something that appeals to people, or is that de-protagonising you in a story-game like way?

Have at it!"

If you think the responses would be the same you are seriously deluding yourself.

Lunamancer lays out the "why" very ably. Nicely done. As for the central question:

Not the system of choice here, by far, I'm sure, but the Class Warfare supplement from Dungeon World allows for modular construction for its system. I've been fiddling with it since breaking down and purchasing it and put together a Wood Elf (Ranger/Sharpshooter) as well as a couple of Cleric classes -- a War Priest, using Destroyer/Gorgon/Impervious, and a "Knowledge Cleric" (Devotion/Embodiment/Sage, with access to Revelation and Wisdom spheres). Plus, you can tack on classes based on what the character experiences in play, i.e., you can gain, say, Mastermind as follows:

"Once you have successfully planned and executed a daring heist, you may consider the mastermind specialty an available compendium class. The next time you level up, you may add this specialty to your character instead of choosing a move from your class."

The character really CAN evolve through play, though the base classes in the game are no entirely generic. I would think you could make a generic base, then go from there, which I think you can do with the DCC knockoff, Funnel World.

Anyhoo, it would seem to me you could do the same thing by taking chunks of a system and balancing the selections against each other, though the difficulty in doing so for something like, say, 5E, I cannot vouch for. I know that, with 2E, the delineation of spells into spheres and schools allowed for some easy construction of various profiles or "sub-classes," but having a straight "classless" system, to me, requires a basic skills and attribute list, with power purchases, which is what SW and other systems do already.

(On a final note, the aforementioned DW supplement I mentioned has an "Adventurer" archetype, with such things as Wayfarer, Sage, Shopkeeper and such on it, meaning one could develop a plain ol' "person" who decided to go adventuring for whatever reason--but DW leaves a lot of stuff to player/GM interplay, so, again, easier to do, depending on the system involved.).

Quote from: One Horse Town;937675So picture the scene if you will. you've just bought the Players Handbook for a new game that you like the look of. It has a few bits on character generation, but instead of character classes, it has characters.

No Druid. But it does have Selma the Herbalist, Davith, Moon Master and Scillia Vulture-Borne. No Fighters, but it does have Sir Reginald of Hagwich, Peregrin Whipsnap, and Hannah from Montana *.

You choose your stats, you do your background, you change the name if you want, but instead of class abilities based on level, you get character abilities unique to each character in the book based on character level.

Effectively a living Players Handbook - maybe some bright spark releases half a dozen new characters every month or so at an online outlet.

Is that something that appeals to people, or is that de-protagonising you in a story-game like way?

Have at it!


* Not really

And as for the OP's idea, it sounds like a nice time saver. I'm not sure whether we would actually use it or not. All my players seem to have their own ideas for PCs, and many of them. I guess I'd need to see an example?

I could see something like this being super useful to GM's as well.

Quote from: Sommerjon;937896Makes my other post rather poignant.

Maybe what you should be asking yourself there Skippy, if I, Sommerjon, had posted.

"So picture the scene if you will. you've just bought the Players Handbook for a new game that you like the look of. It has a few bits on character generation, but instead of character classes, it has characters.

No Druid. But it does have Selma the Herbalist, Davith, Moon Master and Scillia Vulture-Borne. No Fighters, but it does have Sir Reginald of Hagwich, Peregrin Whipsnap, and Hannah from Montana *.

You choose your stats, you do your background, you change the name if you want, but instead of class abilities based on level, you get character abilities unique to each character in the book based on character level.

Effectively a living Players Handbook - maybe some bright spark releases half a dozen new characters every month or so at an online outlet.

Is that something that appeals to people, or is that de-protagonising you in a story-game like way?

Have at it!"

If you think the responses would be the same you are seriously deluding yourself.

I don't care what it's called! It's just an idea posted to a message board! I'm not trying to score points here - you are. It's a shame, because you actually used to post about games rather than people. Go back to doing that.

Quote from: cranebump;937898Lunamancer lays out the "why" very ably. Nicely done. As for the central question:

Not the system of choice here, by far, I'm sure, but the Class Warfare supplement from Dungeon World allows for modular construction for its system. I've been fiddling with it since breaking down and purchasing it and put together a Wood Elf (Ranger/Sharpshooter) as well as a couple of Cleric classes -- a War Priest, using Destroyer/Gorgon/Impervious, and a "Knowledge Cleric" (Devotion/Embodiment/Sage, with access to Revelation and Wisdom spheres). Plus, you can tack on classes based on what the character experiences in play, i.e., you can gain, say, Mastermind as follows:

"Once you have successfully planned and executed a daring heist, you may consider the mastermind specialty an available compendium class. The next time you level up, you may add this specialty to your character instead of choosing a move from your class."

The character really CAN evolve through play, though the base classes in the game are no entirely generic. I would think you could make a generic base, then go from there, which I think you can do with the DCC knockoff, Funnel World.

Anyhoo, it would seem to me you could do the same thing by taking chunks of a system and balancing the selections against each other, though the difficulty in doing so for something like, say, 5E, I cannot vouch for. I know that, with 2E, the delineation of spells into spheres and schools allowed for some easy construction of various profiles or "sub-classes," but having a straight "classless" system, to me, requires a basic skills and attribute list, with power purchases, which is what SW and other systems do already.

(On a final note, the aforementioned DW supplement I mentioned has an "Adventurer" archetype, with such things as Wayfarer, Sage, Shopkeeper and such on it, meaning one could develop a plain ol' "person" who decided to go adventuring for whatever reason--but DW leaves a lot of stuff to player/GM interplay, so, again, easier to do, depending on the system involved.).

I think someone has already mentioned Beyond the Wall as a similar kind of thing.

Maybe i should have just called the thread - 'Pre/Post Gens, not Classes'

Quote from: One Horse Town;937892If it makes you happy, yes it's a class. Now go away.

Give the troll some credit. SJ's actually making an attempt to engage with a forum topic instead of his standard rile up the grogs and contribute nothing but personal bile approaches. I'm surprised; I didn't think he had it in him.

Quote from: K Peterson;937903Give the troll some credit. SJ's actually making an attempt to engage with a forum topic instead of his standard rile up the grogs and contribute nothing but personal bile approaches. I'm surprised; I didn't think he had it in him.

Would you play a pre-gen with the usual 'class' stuff already planned out for you?

Quote from: One Horse Town;937675... instead of character classes, it has characters.

No Druid. But it does have Selma the Herbalist, Davith, Moon Master and Scillia Vulture-Borne. No Fighters, but it does have Sir Reginald of Hagwich, Peregrin Whipsnap, and Hannah from Montana *.

You choose your stats, you do your background, you change the name if you want, but instead of class abilities based on level, you get character abilities unique to each character in the book based on character level.

It sounds interesting as a character template / iconic character / primer-for-roleplaying approach. Something that would work well for an introductory product, playable out of the 'box'. You've could have predefined relationships between your characters, defining why they're adventuring together; a story arc to explain their advancement options.

I'm not sure I see the utility for experienced gamers. Where predefined characters might just be an obstruction for their own character concepts.

EDIT: Sorry, One Horse Town, I didn't see your question before posting this. To answer: it probably wouldn't be that beneficial to me, since I don't play class/level systems. But if you took the same approach; applied it to BRP, or a derivative; gave suggestions on how the characters' advancement would occur based on how earned skill points were applied at stages in their life; or how they'd focus training on specific skills; then, I'd have some interest.