D&D classes used to be vague enough that they could cover lots of different concepts at once.

The Fighter could be a knight in armor, a swashbuckler, a huntsman, a samurai, barbarian, etc.

The Magic User could be a witch doctor, a wizard, a witch, etc.

They gave you a working base to start from.

And from experience, many a player need this foundation to build from, otherwise they either get lost in choices, or try to min-max sooner or later.

I think of it as you get trained and have spent a certain amount time in a particular trade.
Plumbers good at plumbing might not be so good at carpentry and the other way around.
You can cross train but you may never get to that proficiency level of someone whom stays with one craft if you are practicing many crafts.

Well the way I see classes they do several things.
1: Give direction and premise to work from.
2: Help players and game masters with what ability sets and arc types are expected in the settings.
3: Provide easy ability and skill sets for a player to work from.
4: Set a baseline of expectation to work from.
5: Make generation faster and easier (not all ways intended or archived)
A number of other things that tend to crop up.
A good example is that the classes on show do a lot to set tone and expactation I'm actually thinking of Elmage Gothic here but in that game the peasant is a herbalist healer and it can actually be hard to have a standed priest healer in some respects.

To create a defined structure for the game that the players can plug into thus creating the need to buy content to provide that structure.

Quote from: Ombre29 on December 07, 2024, 02:57:00 AMI think character classes are a relic from the past (wargame heritage)
Later rpgs abandoned this concept
Modern ones took it back because it's easier (all previous comments explain why brillantly) and maybe millenial players are a bit lazy

Sorry, but you're wrong.
They're not a relic from the past. It all depends on what type of system the game mechanics are based upon: skill based or class based. Some games like CoC make a hybrid of this with "professions" that have certain skills attributed to them.
Skill based systems have been around almost as long as class based. Take Runequest for example. A classic RPG that is skill based and is almost as old as D&D.
Class based RPGs a relic of the past? No, they're not.

You're completely right.
Personnaly, I find skill-based system more realistic.
I think that actualy, I'm a relic from the past...

It makes the world more realistic.

Generic Adventurer is at the same time Unique. Everybody knows Generic Adventurer, but nobody knows any of the individuals, not at first glance, you'd have to hang out with them to get to know them or listen to the hearsay and reputation of that individual, which also takes time and has a lot of prejudice depending on who you ask.

Or, archetypes. One look and you know what you're dealing with. Their clothes give it away, instantly. It's realistic because we have the same ting in real life where our clothes give it away, perhaps not to the same extent because real life character classes are not quite so extreme as fantasy worlds. The average nobody probably counts as a Generic anybody.

I would argue that 80% of character classes are about making the game easy for the game designer to design by putting player characters in neat little design boxes, and another 10% are about making it easier to roleplay when you drop a player who has no idea what a roleplaying game is into a game and the GM rolls up a barbarian and says, "here, be Conan."

And yes, that is not exactly right, but it's usually close enough for the player to fit into the group and play the game long enough to figure out the differences on their own.

Then the last 10% is usually about worldbuilding by loosely suggesting the kinds of adventurers in the world and what kinds of abilities they have.


I don't really think classes serve much purpose for a group of experienced players. I consistently find that the only thing which is relevant to experienced players is the worldbuilding angle, and that because the worldbuilding angle of classes tend to be underbaked, the fact that classes also conflict with player freedom and choice also means they are usually a poor trade.

I always liked Warhammer with its careers that branched into new careers. It was like you had a job and once you mastered the skills it offered, you went on to the next one. I loved that over the course of the game you might have been a rabble-rouser, a rat-catcher, and maybe a town guard. It really contributed to the storytelling in my view. "Where did you learn to do that?" "In my early days digging graves."

Quote from: Captain_Pazuzu on December 09, 2024, 01:04:57 AMTo create a defined structure for the game that the players can plug into thus creating the need to buy content to provide that structure.

Nice try. But false.

I like them as memes.

Or summaries, condensed information, whatever.

I need classes for NPCs more than I need them for PCs. A PC can have lots of stats (although I prefer some minimalism), but I find immensely useful when I can say the baron is a "Fighter 5" and be done with it.

I believe the top priority of classes is to provide an implementation (in the mechanics) of a specific concept from the game world.  This has the added advantage of actually making game balance a conceivable concept in the first place.

To use OP's example, I believe a ninja shouldn't just get the tools to be a ninja, I believe that these should be considered from the rest of the game design such that the kit a ninja gets is unique to them.  If the game has ninja, samurai, shaman, and wu-jen as its only classes, then those classes should not be as good at sneaking around as the ninja.  If the ninja gets elemental spells to cast, they should not be as powerful as those of the wu-jen, and the ninja's combat ability in a stand-up fight should not be as powerful as the samurai.  If the classes also include thief, ranger, fighter, and wizard, then you have to actually decide what things a thief gets that a ninja does not, and vice versa.  This kind of decision is informed by both the lore and the mechanics you have already laid out.

I think classes are indispensable.  I also agree with the other posters who brought up that it has the effect of increasing replayability of the system; done correctly, a game played as a long-and-short wielding samurai should feel mechanically different, in JUST the combat domain, from a game played as a dual wielding fighter; and of course, your class distinction isn't limited to combat mechanics, the actual roleplay can be aided by class distinctions as well.

Lot of good things have been said - But i'll add in that I believe it helps player immersion in the game mechanics and world. It streamlines who the avatar is and what he should be doing in the whole game interaction (of course you can break that). In the same sense, it streamlines what the referee/DM would expect to be preparing in order to entertain everyone.

I can't help but make a comparison between character classes and naval ship/space ship classes.  You might have differences between individual characters or ships, but one character of a class is similar in many ways to another character of the same class, and will be able to roughly perform the same tasks.

I think its a useful way to pre-define the powers/abilities and performance progress of characters.  I don't care very much about "balance" per say, like.. if level 1 characters want to raid a dragon's lair they're free to take a shot. Or if level 20 characters are fine steamrolling over level 3-5 bad guys then they're free to do that while other events that maybe they should be paying attention to will happen in the world.

I think its useful for keeping a game/system simple, and if you're going to bog down the game with too many options then maybe offering different training improvements for XP&Gold cost might just be better to flesh out, especially if you get 3rd/5th edition munchkining where people have very specific level plans and cross class level plans for choosing the optimal build for their concept.

Quote from: ForgottenF on December 06, 2024, 11:49:24 PMA question inspired by a couple of threads going on. I'm curious how people would answer this; because I think how you answer the question says a lot about how you approach RPG design. As a note, this question would also apply to professions, archetypes etc., any system where you take your character's primary skills/abilities as a package instead of picking them a la carte.

My own answer is that "a class is there to make it easy to play an archetype". So if a game has a class called "ninja", then that class should provide a player with whatever skills you could reasonably expect a ninja to have. In simplest terms: a class needs to do what it says on the tin. 

There are many other possible answers, though. To list a few:

--to delineate mechanical roles (damage dealer, healer, skill-monkey, etc.)
--to provide game balance
--to encourage teamwork by making it so that no one can do everything
--to reinforce world-building (i.e., these are the occupations prevalent in this world)
--to add tactical depth

and so on.

I imagine for many people the answer will be some combination of the above. For me, there are certainly secondary requirements: a class needs to be engaging to play and not useless. But I'm curious what others regard as the primary purpose or sine qua non of character classes.

I've debated this with another player and I always saw the purpose of classes in agreement to the first three points. However, multi-classing seems to have taken away that concentrated role of designation that made a PC relevant by having more jacks-of-all-trades. With more modern games, it's easier to do that and I'm not too keen on it tbh.