Quote from: Bren;922100I'd really like to disagree....

Shut up and scratch your ass, Bren! :-)

Quote from: Ashakyre;920740When I was a young little Ashakyre, I remember reading the rules for Dungeons & Dragons and hating the class restrictions. "Please, Daddy? Can't the wizard wear some armor? It would be so coooooool... And can't the barbarian just have one spell? Just one little itty bitty fireball when he gets surrounded by goblins? Pleeeeeassseee?"

So of course over the years I always worked on a system that was fluid. I didn't have classes, and armor and spells were based on your stats or you skills or whatever. There were many shades of gray between and pure wizard and a pure warrior, and you could pick where you wanted your character to be. It was cool.

And yet... about 6 years ago I was playing with a friend and solicited his feedback, and he just didn't like his character. For the most part, he wanted more bits and bobs to differentiate his character. And I can agree, at the time things in the game felt kind of samey. Granted, this particular version of the game was focused almost entirely on balance and had almost no color/fluff.

Now, in the last year I've added a lot of color to the game and I'm happy with the setting and how it inspires adventure ideas. And yet I'm not sure I've overcome the problem. And I would have thought it was just a matter of adding more stuff to the game and giving that stuff some color. But I'm not so sure now. Reading the rulebooks to Stars Without Number and Swords & Wizardry, I get the sense that each player is going to feel a real difference of their unique class having at least one thing it can do better than the others. And there's no chance no matter how the characters develop over the game that someone is going to come into your niche. I suppose that's what they mean by niche protection.

My first question is this: what psychology is at play here? When distinct classes feel good, why do they feel good? I feel like I can almost imagine an answer, but I can't articulate it. If any character can evolve into any other, then it feels like mush. But if there's at least one thing unique about your class then your feel grounded. What's going on here? In Divinity: Original Sin, it's classless and it works. At least it does to me. Any character can evolve into any other character. But my game is mush. And yet when I imagine the basic archetypes in my game, it feels crisper when I imagine them being in seperate silos.

Second question: how much of this might have to do with explaining your game and gameworld to new players? Do you suppose a game that's very grounded into standard tropes can get away from more shades of gray between archetypes?

The answer to your first question is "Archetypes".  Myth is largely based on "Archetype", and more modern storytelling than literature majors want to pretend to admit.
Human beings are either inherently made (I would say) or if not deeply ingrained through thousands of years of cultural development to understand and appreciate the symbolic value of archetypes.

Quote from: RPGPundit;922618The answer to your first question is "Archetypes".  Myth is largely based on "Archetype", and more modern storytelling than literature majors want to pretend to admit.
Human beings are either inherently made (I would say) or if not deeply ingrained through thousands of years of cultural development to understand and appreciate the symbolic value of archetypes.

I can sense those archetypes and I'm sure I can Google them. But how do I connect them to a game? I guess I'd have to start by knowing what they explicitly are. Thoughts, anyone?

Quote from: Ashakyre;922838I can sense those archetypes and I'm sure I can Google them. But how do I connect them to a game? I guess I'd have to start by knowing what they explicitly are. Thoughts, anyone?

Substitute "character types that are recognized by almost anyone" for "archetypes", and then trim to ones that your players want to play. Though D&D has colored what those are, for D&D-familiar gamers. Reading some oral tradition stories can help - folk tales. The characters tend to be described in a few words, such as the young prince, the youth/adventurer, a few types of kings and queens and princesses, the witch, the wise man, the trickster.

Archetypes are powerful because they're universally recognized, so the audience will already know them if you communicate that that's what they are (as opposed to "WTF is a bugbear?" or "why is a Monk(tm) able to fall 100' and not be hurt?"), and because they are connected to our psyche. Try checking out some Carl Jung.

That being said, while archetypes bring familiar resonant chords, they're also somewhat reductionist and dehumanizing. No actual human is just an archetype - archetypes are just core ideas that resonate.

Also, there is a related idea, which is just how distinctly a game represents differences between things in the game. Just because archetypes are only ideas and people are more complex, doesn't mean that real people can (or PCs should be able to) just learn the specialized super-powers of all types of people without the personal nature/genius and lifetime specialized background that would lead to them. Having it be about choosing a class is dead easy as a game mechanic, while figuring out how to create (or even just learn) rules that allow freedom of character design and aren't abusable, is far more difficult/complex/involved.

Quote from: Skarg;921056Monk? Most actual monks don't have combat skills at all.

The earliest surviving (though probably not the earliest, period) Western swordfighting manual was written by a Medieval monk who, it seems, was giving lessons to his clients:).

QuoteEven a Shaolin (is that the seed for D&D Monks?) doesn't have "featherfall" or whatever... (apologies for getting details wrong but I tend to flee from such details).

Quite the opposite, Shaolin monks train in "lightness techniques" which are supposed to teach them the equivalent of "featherfall" (though that's a gross oversimplification). In practice, maybe they just give them more mundane benefits, but attempting to learn them is good enough for D&D, where magic spells are also supposed to work;).

Though I actually agree with Bren. The "Kung-fu" series was most likely the inspiration for the class:D! Unless Gronan appears and tells us that it was actually something else entirely, I guess we can assume that, and most probably would be far off the mark.

Quote from: AsenRG;922939The earliest surviving (though probably not the earliest, period) Western swordfighting manual was written by a Medieval monk who, it seems, was giving lessons to his clients:).

There were many European fighters who became monks later, but it wasn't the "monk" part of their experience that contributed to their combat skills. The monk part more likely gave him literacy and spare time to write the manual you mention. So again, it's not part of the Christian monk archetype to include combat skills.

QuoteQuite the opposite, Shaolin monks train in "lightness techniques" which are supposed to teach them the equivalent of "featherfall" (though that's a gross oversimplification). In practice, maybe they just give them more mundane benefits, but attempting to learn them is good enough for D&D, where magic spells are also supposed to work;).

Though I actually agree with Bren. The "Kung-fu" series was most likely the inspiration for the class:D! Unless Gronan appears and tells us that it was actually something else entirely, I guess we can assume that, and most probably would be far off the mark.

If you accept that classes are about choosing which adventurer classes to give which of all the superpowers you can think of, then sure, but it starts to stray from both the archetype and the reality, especially when the abilities become ubiquitous to everyone in the class or available to all of them, or "hey I've leveled up - which perk shall I get? - huh at this level may as well get featherfall cuz it seems less useless than the other options" (not that I know the D&D details - I fail my morale check and flee long before I get into all the class details).

I generally agree about archetypes. As for what works - I think D&D and a number of variants work well. I've stated before that I like Monster of the Week and to a lesser degree some of the other Apocalypse-World based games, and some of the World of Darkness class setups (vampire clans, werewolf tribes, etc.) aren't terrible. I don't think it's worked well for science fiction - but an exception occurred to me:  Cyberpunk's split of Rockerboy/ Solo/ Netrunner/ Techie/ Media/ Cop/ Corporate/ Fixer/ Nomad.

I haven't seen a superhero class system that works well. There are some very broad, generic classes like True20 (warrior, adept and expert) or Call of Cthulhu D20 (offensive vs defensive). I don't think those work very well either. I haven't thought much about most science fiction classes as well, which the exception of Cyberpunk as noted.

Quote from: Skarg;922843That being said, while archetypes bring familiar resonant chords, they're also somewhat reductionist and dehumanizing. No actual human is just an archetype - archetypes are just core ideas that resonate.

Also, there is a related idea, which is just how distinctly a game represents differences between things in the game. Just because archetypes are only ideas and people are more complex, doesn't mean that real people can (or PCs should be able to) just learn the specialized super-powers of all types of people without the personal nature/genius and lifetime specialized background that would lead to them. Having it be about choosing a class is dead easy as a game mechanic, while figuring out how to create (or even just learn) rules that allow freedom of character design and aren't abusable, is far more difficult/complex/involved.

I disagree about the latter. For example, choosing a template in a non-class-based system like Star Wars D6 is way way simpler than building a character in Pathfinder. I also disagree about balancing. In most non-class-based systems, all characters have access to all abilities, so there is some sense that things balance by characters taking the good options. For example, if DEX is a little too good in Champions, it just means that all characters have fairly good DEX - but they vary in other stats. In a class system, this would be more of a problem, because there is the expectation that all classes need to be balanced against each other.

Quote from: Skarg;922960There were many European fighters who became monks later, but it wasn't the "monk" part of their experience that contributed to their combat skills. The monk part more likely gave him literacy and spare time to write the manual you mention. So again, it's not part of the Christian monk archetype to include combat skills.

Not unless you think that training with swords is part of being a monk. I'm just pointing out that it was probably much more common than people seem to think.
Even outside of knightly orders, combine the retired fighters in a monastery with young boys and men, full of energy, and the need of protection of the monastery's riches. You might well get the notion that quite a few of the monks would be quite handy in a fight:).

QuoteIf you accept that classes are about choosing which adventurer classes to give which of all the superpowers you can think of, then sure, but it starts to stray from both the archetype and the reality, especially when the abilities become ubiquitous to everyone in the class or available to all of them, or "hey I've leveled up - which perk shall I get? - huh at this level may as well get featherfall cuz it seems less useless than the other options" (not that I know the D&D details - I fail my morale check and flee long before I get into all the class details).

I seem to remember that the featherfall-like ability in 3+ was "unlocked" at quite a high level, so it's not quite the same as "everyone has them". Also, it fits the archetype of the "monastic kung-fu master" way better than Fireball fits the hermetic mages;).

Quote from: jhkim;922966I disagree about the latter. For example, choosing a template in a non-class-based system like Star Wars D6 is way way simpler than building a character in Pathfinder. I also disagree about balancing. In most non-class-based systems, all characters have access to all abilities, so there is some sense that things balance by characters taking the good options. For example, if DEX is a little too good in Champions, it just means that all characters have fairly good DEX - but they vary in other stats. In a class system, this would be more of a problem, because there is the expectation that all classes need to be balanced against each other.

I think I wasn't clear enough about what I meant about difficulty and complexity, as I don't disagree with your examples, they just seem to me to be about other things than I meant.

(And then I typed a bunch of thoughtful stuff and Firefux crashed on me, losing it. grr.)

Yes, there are examples of dumping piles of complexity onto class-based games, and struggling in complex ways to enable multi-classing or niche protection or other desperate attempts to have everything and please everyone.

Yes, there are examples of pretty simple and elegant classless games, where it's entirely possible to have characters as archetypal as you like, and examples of groups of players who don't whine about niche protection or fuzziness in those games.

I was trying to say, perhaps overstating or being unclear in doing so, that there is a huge difference in complexity and difficulty between two different game design (or GM) modes I was thinking of, which were:

Class Design Mode A) Have a limited number of archetypal classes, and say what's true about each one. This can be done simply and gets you archetypal definitions and appropriate abilities and niche protection very directly.

Classless Design Mode B) Have no classes, and want freedom to start with, and improve, pretty much any ability with the right background. But try to get it right so that there can still be characters who represent strong archetypal alignment, specialized training and expertise, and appropriate relevant genetic/type/gender/cultural differences and yet who could possibly sometimes learn other things, without having it be too easy, not make mushy-feeling characters, remain balanced, retain weaknesses and challenges for characters, have everything feel like it's in the right proportion and make sense, etc.

CDM B is the mode I generally am in as GM, playing GURPS with house rules, and frequently reviewing my systems for chargen and character development to try to get them to feel right without just doing everything by GM discretion. It seems challenging to me, but maybe it's mainly that my goals are very different from what I think of as CDM A and was crudely lumping under the label of class-based RPGs. Clearly there are crazy-complex class-based RPGs too (which I generally flee after at most tapping them with a 10-foot pole).

Quote from: AsenRG;922968Not unless you think that training with swords is part of being a monk. I'm just pointing out that it was probably much more common than people seem to think.
Even outside of knightly orders, combine the retired fighters in a monastery with young boys and men, full of energy, and the need of protection of the monastery's riches. You might well get the notion that quite a few of the monks would be quite handy in a fight:).

I seem to remember that the featherfall-like ability in 3+ was "unlocked" at quite a high level, so it's not quite the same as "everyone has them". Also, it fits the archetype of the "monastic kung-fu master" way better than Fireball fits the hermetic mages;).

LOL! Mhmm. Seems to me that these are details where the notion that classes are perfect ways to represent archetypes start to break down, unless/until the GM or the rules intervene somehow. Your observation about actual medieval knightly orders or defense-competent monks has me think more of classless game mechanics, or that in a realism-oriented class-based system could be about people with both "monk" and "warrior" classes, where the fighting stuff would all be from the monks also having warrior levels, rather than being benefits of the monk class itself. Otherwise how do you represent the monks who are great at actual monking, but are pacifists, or a Dalai Lama who splats if/when tossed from a high place? Of course actual skilled GMs will fiat or rule appropriately and it may in practice be a non-issue, but that's what I was getting at.

Quote from: Skarg;922972LOL! Mhmm. Seems to me that these are details where the notion that classes are perfect ways to represent archetypes start to break down, unless/until the GM or the rules intervene somehow. Your observation about actual medieval knightly orders or defense-competent monks has me think more of classless game mechanics, or that in a realism-oriented class-based system could be about people with both "monk" and "warrior" classes, where the fighting stuff would all be from the monks also having warrior levels, rather than being benefits of the monk class itself. Otherwise how do you represent the monks who are great at actual monking, but are pacifists, or a Dalai Lama who splats if/when tossed from a high place? Of course actual skilled GMs will fiat or rule appropriately and it may in practice be a non-issue, but that's what I was getting at.

See, that's exactly why I like classless systems:). And, to bring it back on topic, that's why and how they work best, by representing those things the less fine-grained class systems have to omit.
Of course there are ways around that, but said way is clearer in classless systems;).

Quote from: Skarg;922960There were many European fighters who became monks later, but it wasn't the "monk" part of their experience that contributed to their combat skills. The monk part more likely gave him literacy and spare time to write the manual you mention. So again, it's not part of the Christian monk archetype to include combat skills.

The first time I read the Monk in Gygax' Players' Handbook, I saw all this stuff like "slow fall" and "quivering palm" and thought, "What does this have to do with the Benedictine Rule?"

JG

Quote from: Ashakyre;922838I can sense those archetypes and I'm sure I can Google them. But how do I connect them to a game? I guess I'd have to start by knowing what they explicitly are. Thoughts, anyone?

In D&D terms, they're the character classes.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;921960Classes or classless has fuckall to do with backgrounds or motivations.

And you would be entirely wrong.  Having a background in say, siege engineering is not likely to get you very likely to get into something like...  Botany.  Most likely due to lack of interest.

A background or motivation defines what you (again, general not specific) are interested in pursuing in a career.  If you are into trains and engineering is more likely to steer you towards jobs/occupations/careers that involve aspects of those things.  Sometimes it doesn't work out that you get into those types of jobs, granted, but more often than not, because you have an interest (AKA MOTIVATION) and then train/learn said interest with the goal of making it a career (having a BACKGROUND), means at the very least that's where you wanted to go.

To pick on Generic Fantasy Setting 10200340, a man who grew up in a mercenary company around soldiers, or the docks getting into fights is more likely to be a hand to hand fighter type himself, not as likely to learn magic, or lock picking.  It's not a 100% thing, but it's at the very least a 70/30%.

Quote from: estar;922008It been my experience given enough advancement all classless system wind up making polymaths. The trick is how long until that point is reached. What also matter is the relative jump in power that a single character point gives you.

How long does it take to get into the 'Polymath' state?  Ignoring the fact that most people tend to gain a wide breadth of skills, if not much depth (very few people, for example, learn how to drive a car beyond the basics, very few learn defensive driving techniques, or become race car drivers), how many game sessions in that particular classless system do you in which players get to be able to do everything?  That can be two separate issues.  The first is the pacing of the game session or system, which is up to the GM/DM to decide how fast advancement happens, and HOW it happens.  And the second, may be your players wanting to be able to do it all, because they want to dominate the game, rather than play it,  These types of players are also the ones who tend to whine about multiclassing in classed based games.

Quote from: RPGPundit;923610In D&D terms, they're the character classes.

And in everyon else's terms, they're just the memorable characters that you've read about or seen at the screen, which you don't need classes about.