Quote from: Sacrosanct;577621If you're changing class not based on anything actually happening in the campaign but instead, "well, now I got this feat, so I'm switching over to this completely unrelated class so I can get this other feat."?  That's a significant difference.  It completely divorces actual campaign character growth out of the advancement, and instead just makes your character a list of hand picked powers that might not even make any logical sense as to how you got there.

But this is true whether you're multiclassing or not.  In general, D&D doesn't actually link the powers gained to what's going on in role-play - like many if not most other RPGs.  So if I'm a 2nd level Barbarian and I level up, I get "Trap sense" regardless of whether I've actually been dealing with traps.  If I'm a 3rd level Ranger and level up, I get spell ability even if I haven't been doing magical study.  Likewise for every other ability.  

There are some systems that tie advancement to in-game stuff - like Call of Cthulhu / BRP where you advance the skills you use; or Traveller where you can only advance by programs of study.  However, D&D isn't one of them.  

I can see the argument that you'd prefer to only get abilities from in-character logic.  i.e. A paladin shouldn't just get a mount because she kills some monsters at 4th level.  There should be a quest or somesuch.  However, that doesn't happen in D&D - and it's not the player's fault.

Quote from: jhkim;577634But this is true whether you're multiclassing or not.  In general, D&D doesn't actually link the powers gained to what's going on in role-play - like many if not most other RPGs.  So if I'm a 2nd level Barbarian and I level up, I get "Trap sense" regardless of whether I've actually been dealing with traps.  If I'm a 3rd level Ranger and level up, I get spell ability even if I haven't been doing magical study.  Likewise for every other ability.  

There are some systems that tie advancement to in-game stuff - like Call of Cthulhu / BRP where you advance the skills you use; or Traveller where you can only advance by programs of study.  However, D&D isn't one of them.  

I can see the argument that you'd prefer to only get abilities from in-character logic.  i.e. A paladin shouldn't just get a mount because she kills some monsters at 4th level.  There should be a quest or somesuch.  However, that doesn't happen in D&D - and it's not the player's fault.

There is a difference between a class having abilities attached that you are stuck with, and willfully selecting a multiclass combination that makes no logical sense whatsoever.

Quote from: beejazz;577598Maybe I just filter things differently, but I see that as being as close to diversity as I'm interested in.

I'd like to see more interest in system design for major games other than D&D myself and that's something that's very thin on this site. I don't really expect it to change however.

Quote from: gleichman;577692I'd like to see more interest in system design for major games other than D&D myself and that's something that's very thin on this site. I don't really expect it to change however.

Hate to drag this further on the tangent, but are you referring more to homebrewing or houseruling?

I don't really care if a player optimizes there PC or not, it's his/her's in the game to play, if that's what they want to do so be it, it's just one character.  On the other hand as a GM I optimize all my NPC baddies...lol.


Optimized GM character vs. PC!

Quote from: beejazz;577693Hate to drag this further on the tangent, but are you referring more to homebrewing or houseruling?

Home-brewing isn't of much interest to me. All the examples I've seen have been basically the same, little more than the designing of a resolution mechanic that other than resolution- offers nothing.

System Analysis and House-ruling are more interesting. I hate to use it as an example, but my thread on Firearms and HERO System works.

Quote from: Bill;577677There is a difference between a class having abilities attached that you are stuck with, and willfully selecting a multiclass combination that makes no logical sense whatsoever.

Obviously there is a difference between single-class progression and multiclass progression.  However, I don't think that single-class progression is necessarily any more sensible -- and it definitely doesn't respond to the nuances of what is happening in the campaign any more.  Someone who plans a single-class progression is just as locked-in as someone who plans a multiclass progression.  

I find that the collection of capabilities in most multiclass progressions wouldn't be noteworthy in a skill-based game like Savage Worlds or GURPS.  The order they get them in is sometimes odd, but that's forced by the level and class system.  

For example, in my first game of D&D3.0, my GM gave me grief because my Sorcerer took one level of Fighter for his level-up.  He basically said that it didn't make sense for my Sorcerer to suddenly get a ton of weapon+armor proficiencies - and implied that I was munchkin for doing so.  Now, I did do so because of the benefit it gave me.  However, the idea of a sorcerer who can also fight is a perfectly reasonable fantasy trope, and I thought I role-played it fine.  The class-and-level system didn't let me smoothly get a mix of the different abilities.

Quote from: gleichman;577699Home-brewing isn't of much interest to me. All the examples I've seen have been basically the same, little more than the designing of a resolution mechanic that other than resolution- offers nothing.

In truth that's most of what people want out of a game: a way to make a character, a way to resolve typical actions, and a way to fight. Not sure what else you'd want besides more subsystems (like for domain management, stealthy stuff, chase scenes, etc), which I've also seen plenty of.

QuoteSystem Analysis and House-ruling are more interesting. I hate to use it as an example, but my thread on Firearms and HERO System works.

Would statistical analysis qualify? Was it beeber that was running the numbers on various editions of D&D? Tried looking it up and all I got was bieber-related results I'm afraid.

Quote from: Bill;577624I tend to agree. But, in a group of characters that adventure together, I could see a fighter learning thief skills form his thief buddy, and taking up the faith of his cleric buddy, etc...

It's not impossible, but sadly, it is usually 'build first' with 'roleplay excuse tacked on'

I just wanted to point out that not only can you do all of the above without changing your class, actually doing it would pretty much be the opposite of good party design.

This is kind of silly.  Literally any character concept that isn't covered by one of the D&D classes in any edition results in a 'build first' and 'roleplay excuse tacked on' situation.

I've never seen anything but a class in play from the PHB in 2e, and I'm sure 1e isn't much difference.  People certainly aren't rolling up CoC characters with perfectly average professions.  There is no D&D equivalent to Kinko's Supervisor that is represented by the skillset of any class.

If you are restricting yourself to the published classes you are by default tacking on roleplay excuses in order to fit within those boundaries.

Quote from: jhkim;577708The class-and-level system didn't let me smoothly get a mix of the different abilities.

I think this is the root of the problem right here.  There are tons of typical  character concepts from fantasy media that can't be done simply or at all with D&D class and level system.

At the end of the day I think multi-classing is itself a problem.  If you're going to have classes at all, either don't allow multi-classing or have some way of constructing classes that's somewhat balanced, and reserve that for the GM to cover holes in the campaign setting.

Quote from: beejazz;577714In truth that's most of what people want out of a game: a way to make a character, a way to resolve typical actions, and a way to fight. Not sure what else you'd want besides more subsystems (like for domain management, stealthy stuff, chase scenes, etc), which I've also seen plenty of.

This is difficult to explain, but let me try.

What I'm saying is that today most system design start at the resolution mechanic (typically just a dice mechanic) and mostly ends there. I'm interested in System Design that starts at the desired play result and works back to the game mechanics that allows you to attain it.

To use the D&D threads as an example, a designer may decide that he wants his players to be given choices in character creation that will be meaningful in play. From that desired goal you work backwards and decide upon feat selection. And really, that major element of D&D 3.x has nothing to do with the resolution mechanic.

Quote from: beejazz;577714Would statistical analysis qualify?

I would think so. For example (picking say a Shadowrun 4th edition) knowing the common disabling wound chances for the various Firearms (at various skill levels) against various armors would be useful information. Information that the system makes difficult to determine.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;577621To continue my analogy above, who actually does the following:

I'm going to join the army until I learn how to break down and fire an M2.  Then I'm going to quit, regardless of where I'm at or my team is at and start learning brain surgery.  But I'm only going to learn up until the point where I can perform this specific type of surgery, and then quit immediately and start being a computer programmer.  Once I learn how to program in Java, I will quit again and become an artist until I learn how to do charcoal drawings.

Okay - it's a bad analogy, but I'll take a stab at it.  

It's decided that we're playing a modern game set in an alternate world after the Soviet Union invaded Western Europe.  A major portion of the campaign will be centered on a D-Day style invasion to reoccupy the NATO powers from the Soviet Union.  And of course, most characters are Americans (but that's not a requirement).  

An important part of the invasion is going to be related to propaganda.  I create a character that is primarily a combat-film maker.  Of course, I'm going to be expected to be in combat some of the time, but I'm going to qualify for basic proficiency and not much else.  Since I'm going to be holding a camera most of the time, I don't need to be the world's best sniper.  The art classes are to help me learn to frame shots, understand composition, and charcoal is a medium that I'm drawn to to show 'grittiness' in war.  Since I'm not primarily a front-liner, but I do want to contribute to my unit's success, I take some battlefield medic classes - again, we want the sniper to be hiding in a tree taking on targets, so we don't want him helping the wounded.  Basic triage allows me to contribute in a secondary role without interfering terribly with my primary role (because clearly, if we're getting shot to shit, it won't do to put that on the 6 o'clock news).  Since this is a roughly modern world (set in an alternate cold war with the Soviet Union still extant) being able to do a little coding might be helpful to upload my film to satellite.  

How's that?  

Basically, once you decide on a role for your character, you might have some pretty disparate skill needs to accomplish that character.  I wouldn't expect 'combat film-maker' to be a 'base class', but it's something that people might really do, so I see it as a valid character type.  Sure, it might look weird when you look at the mechanics behind it, but if you're doing it right, the character looks like a normal part of the world and fits right in.  

jhkim is right that the only time it REALLY seems strange is when you're taking your first level of a new class - you previously had no experience doing something and now you can do it.  When you're a Fighter and you take your first level of Sorcerer, it's hard to explain HOW you suddenly learned spells, since you BY DEFINITION could not cast them before.  

But let's take a look at the example thrown around:
Fighter 2/Rogue 3/Cleric 6/Sorcerer 9

For the same of argument, let's assume that we took one level in each class before we started advancing the rest of them so we got the 'basic' concept out of the way.  And because I'm thinking about this, let's say we took Rogue first.  What does this character say to me at 20th level?  

I'm saying this is a religious James Bond.  He probably only should have taken 8 levels of Sorcerer if the game is ending at 20th, but maybe he's planning on going Epic.  In any case, our levels of Rogue give us quite a lot of skill points (48 before Int bonus, and let's say we're human so that's another 6.  If Rogue was also our last level, we can max Hide and Move Silently to +23 ranks and +10 on Disguise.  We'll take Trickery as a domain so we'll bump that up some more later.  We have the ability to use basically every weapon we pick up (Fighter levels) and we're able to cast up to 4th level arcane spells (enhancing our ability to sneak, infiltrate, and escape).  We take spells that work with these abilities - dimension door, alter self, etc.  We don't take a lot of 'damage spells' or 'save or suck' - if it comes time to kill someone we're going to count on using weapon attacks (good weapon damage, +2d6 sneak, probably +2d6 or more for appropriate bonuses like holy or possibly elemental).  

Anyways, that seems like a pretty interesting concept, and I'd probably allow it.  I'd reduce the Sorcerer level by one and increase the Cleric level by one.  That would give me 4th level spells for both classes, which would give me Divine Power.  With that spell, if I need to fight, I can increase my BAB to +20 (instead of +2 Ftr, +2 Rogue, +5 Cleric, +4 Sorcerer = +13)

Now, do I know that it'd be an effective character?  Not sure.  It might be, it might not be.  But it has some thematic room if you do it right.  It's possible to envision an interesting character at high level, and if it would STILL be interesting at lower levels, it's not a problem to work towards it.  So I have my 'religious James Bond infiltrator/spy concept' and if I have fun with it at low levels and it's generally effective, it shouldn't matter that I planned ahead to avoid gimping myself and becoming completely useless at high levels.

Quote from: gleichman;577745What I'm saying is that today most system design start at the resolution mechanic (typically just a dice mechanic) and mostly ends there. I'm interested in System Design that starts at the desired play result and works back to the game mechanics that allows you to attain it.

The tail has been wagging the dog for quite some time on this, which is why this even has to be pointed out.

Quote from: deadDMwalking;577779Okay - it's a bad analogy, but I'll take a stab at it.  

It's decided that we're playing a modern game set in an alternate world after the Soviet Union invaded Western Europe.  A major portion of the campaign will be centered on a D-Day style invasion to reoccupy the NATO powers from the Soviet Union.  And of course, most characters are Americans (but that's not a requirement).  

An important part of the invasion is going to be related to propaganda.  I create a character that is primarily a combat-film maker.  Of course, I'm going to be expected to be in combat some of the time, but I'm going to qualify for basic proficiency and not much else.  Since I'm going to be holding a camera most of the time, I don't need to be the world's best sniper.  The art classes are to help me learn to frame shots, understand composition, and charcoal is a medium that I'm drawn to to show 'grittiness' in war.  Since I'm not primarily a front-liner, but I do want to contribute to my unit's success, I take some battlefield medic classes - again, we want the sniper to be hiding in a tree taking on targets, so we don't want him helping the wounded.  Basic triage allows me to contribute in a secondary role without interfering terribly with my primary role (because clearly, if we're getting shot to shit, it won't do to put that on the 6 o'clock news).  Since this is a roughly modern world (set in an alternate cold war with the Soviet Union still extant) being able to do a little coding might be helpful to upload my film to satellite.  

How's that?  
.

Honestly, not very good.  Here's why.  Everything above you just described is training before you actually do any real experience.  If you wanted the analogy to fit with how the D&D build goes, you start out as infantry.  You land on the beaches and build your experience up.  As soon as get the ability to be proficient with a bazooka, you quit infantry and start learning how to be a camera man on the fly.  You really don't get any better at fighting, but hell, you have your bazooka so you're ready to go.  After doing more missions, you can take macro shots.  So you quit being a cameraman and decide you want to be a medical corpsman.  Sure, what the hell!  You aren't going back to school for any of this stuff, and you are only getting marginally better at the bazooka and camera, but now you're starting to learn first aid.  As soon as you complete a few more missions and learn how to apply a tourniquet, you quite once again and decide to start learning how to code.

You didn't keep quitting your career because it made sense in the campaign world or how the missions went.  Most likely, your squad still needed you to get better with weapons, or at the very least stick with being a medic.  Nope, you kept quitting because you know that if you quit at very specific points, as soon as you reached the appropriate level of developing code, you could fire a bow in each hand and blow up tanks.

That makes no sense.