Quote from: Levi KornelsenNothing else need be used.

Oh, I'd add at least one ...

   Man of Mystery

Quote from: TonyLBOh, I'd add at least one ...

   Man of Mystery

:hmm:

But what IS the Man of Mystery?

Quote from: Levi Kornelsen:hmm:

But what IS the Man of Mystery?

Exactly!

When I don't like classes - supers. Too often, I find supers capabilities has nothing to do with skill or training. Classes are a hard sell for me.

When I like classes - pretty much all other times. Using "classes" here loosely, to refer to any mechanical structure that aids in creation, realization of archetypes, communicating capabilities to the GM, and enforcing logical grouping of abilities.

Quote from: Levi KornelsenPshaw.

The pulp classes are:

Man Of Action
Man of Science
Intrepid Investigator
Feisty Dame
Scrappy Kid

Nothing else need be used.

Surely you should distinguish between the ingenue and the adventuress, right?  And where do all the side characters go?  i.e. the comic relief private, the big dumb ox, the drunkard, the helpful but racistly-portrayed types (like the inscrutable chinaman), and so forth.

Quote from: jhkimSurely you should distinguish between the ingenue and the adventuress, right?  And where do all the side characters go?  i.e. the comic relief private, the big dumb ox, the drunkard, the helpful but racistly-portrayed types (like the inscrutable chinaman), and so forth.

In the monster manua....

...Guidebook.

Quote from: jhkimWhere do all the side characters go?  i.e. the comic relief private, the big dumb ox, the drunkard, the helpful but racistly-portrayed types (like the inscrutable chinaman), and so forth.

Dogg, those are 0-level NPCS, beneath the notice of all but the DM.  Don't sweat them.

Scooped horribly by Levi. How I hate him...

Quote from: fonkaygarryScooped horribly by Levi. How I hate him...

Your hate is warm and cozy.

Quote from: fonkaygarryDogg, those are 0-level NPCS, beneath the notice of all but the DM.  Don't sweat them.

Scooped horribly by Levi. How I hate him...

Obviously it varies with the source, but in many pulps the comic relief has a bigger part than the feisty dame does.  (I'm thinking of, say, "Terry and the Pirates" here, among others.)  

Sure, the dame, the comic relief, and so forth all have smaller parts than the heroic leading man; and much less powerful.  The feisty dame can at best annoy the villain, and wait for the hero to rescue her.  However, if you drop all the side characters as ignorable, then you're making an RPG for only one or two players.  

In my pulp games, I've always gone with a more varied cast including all the colorful side characters as PCs.  (See, say, my cast list for The Land Which Time Forgot.)

Quote from: JamesVCould you explain yourself further?

Yeah, man, sure!

I like a class that says, f'r'example, "Okay, you're a fighter.  Fighty-abilities, you get cheap.  The others, regular price.  Oh, and you can do this trick and that trick, which a thief doesn't get but can try at a penalty, maybe, at because he's not a fighter.  Got it?  Okay!  Are you, like, a boxer, a swashbuckler, a ninja...?"  And so on.

Quote from: Mr. AnalyticalAn archetype is a stereotype for pseuds.

The term is an intellectual justification for lazy characterisation unsurprisingly most frequently deployed by the type of hack fantasy writers that gamers adore. "Oh he's not a stereotypical knight... he's an archetype".

The only reason for buying into such terminology is if you believe in Jungian ideas such as the collection unconscious or race memory.  In the real world, an archetype is just a piece of characterisation that's been so utterly overused that you can no longer even remember where it came from.

Put me down as another vote for "archtype" being overblown and overused.  In RPG's, we're usually talking about typical roles in a kind of story.  The degree of specific definition required by game rules precludes archtypes.

Quote from: Dr Rotwang!Yeah, man, sure!

I like a class that says, f'r'example, "Okay, you're a fighter.  Fighty-abilities, you get cheap.  The others, regular price.  Oh, and you can do this trick and that trick, which a thief doesn't get but can try at a penalty, maybe, at because he's not a fighter.  Got it?  Okay!  Are you, like, a boxer, a swashbuckler, a ninja...?"  And so on.

Same for me, Doc!

-clash

Quote from: Mr. AnalyticalNeo-Marxist?!

By Christ I've been called a lot in my time but never anything like that.

If anything my view's the opposite of Marxist-style historicism.  The Marxist argues that there's a pattern and an underlying current to history and hope that by appealing to the common man and declare a communist state then all the nasty capitalist impulses that we have will drift away in the blissful embrace of the unfettered expansion of class consciousness.

Similarly, the idea of there being archetypes is that idea that if you appeal to the lowest common denominator in your characterisation then suddenly, by magic, all the rules of drama and creativity will just drift away and cease to apply to you because you've tapped into an archetype.

Both Marxism and the appeal to archetypes are founded in a belief in spooky magiic stuff that runs counter to common sense and somehow makes really bland and pointless stuff noble.

You're the commie here bub!

Neo-marxist religious historians despise the concept of Jung's Archetypes, or Eliade's theories of underlying human shared religious experiences, because they suggest that there is some kind of common human experience, beyond that of socio-economic byproducts.  It comes too dangerously close, in their eyes, to validating religion.

Even though I find that a very silly argument, even for them, given that you can chalk up the "collective unconscious" to a kind of genetic history, the "shared human experience" can be purely biological.

But one way or the other, Archetypes are very powerful stuff, that have similar effects on all human beings.  They are symbols, and symbols are both the most powerful form of communication and the underlying framework of our civilization.  To brush that off as "the lowest common denominator" betrays a catastrophic lack of awareness.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPunditNeo-marxist religious historians despise the concept of Jung's Archetypes, or Eliade's theories of underlying human shared religious experiences, because they suggest that there is some kind of common human experience, beyond that of socio-economic byproducts.  It comes too dangerously close, in their eyes, to validating religion.

Even though I find that a very silly argument, even for them, given that you can chalk up the "collective unconscious" to a kind of genetic history, the "shared human experience" can be purely biological.

  True, but there's no evidence for the existence of archetypes.  The collective unconscious and race memory once provided a pseudo-scientific whitewash of respectability to the idea of archetypes (besides which, Jung's archetypes didn't feature barbarians or thieves) but since those days both the collective unconscious AND race memory have been shown to be largely bullshit.

  In order for archetypes to mean anything other than stereotype they have to be embedded in something objective and at the moment there's no scientific basis for their existence at all.

  Their continued existence within the literary establishment is on a par with people still deploying psychoanalysis as a tool for interpreting the actions of writers or historical figures; it produces interesting papers and sounds impressive but there's no scientific basis for any of it.  It's postmodernism gone mad I tells ya.

Quote from: Dr Rotwang!Yeah, man, sure!

I like a class that says, f'r'example, "Okay, you're a fighter.  Fighty-abilities, you get cheap.  The others, regular price.  Oh, and you can do this trick and that trick, which a thief doesn't get but can try at a penalty, maybe, at because he's not a fighter.  Got it?  Okay!  Are you, like, a boxer, a swashbuckler, a ninja...?"  And so on.

I can dig it. Even I don't mind some sophistication in my old tried and true methods, and that is trend is popular nowadays for many class based games IMO.