Quote from: estar;981277That your intrepetation. Try ruling that all characters can do any skills (with no penalty or bonus other than what an attribute confers) but some are better at certain skills than other.

A mage can pick a lock. A cleric can sneak around. A fighter can climb. But a thief will be better at all three.

Sounds like a class-based no-skills system, ie what I like! I dropped skills from my 5e online game, works great. In my 5e tabletop we use skills but I often say 'trained only' so eg only the Wizard rolls Arcana. I could just say "Wizard only".

Quote from: S'mon;981325Sounds like a class-based no-skills system, ie what I like! I dropped skills from my 5e online game, works great. In my 5e tabletop we use skills but I often say 'trained only' so eg only the Wizard rolls Arcana. I could just say "Wizard only".

Yep, I like to say, e.g., "Wizards only", and then explain the rule by way of exclusive required training.

Quote from: S'mon;981325Sounds like a class-based no-skills system, ie what I like! I dropped skills from my 5e online game, works great. In my 5e tabletop we use skills but I often say 'trained only' so eg only the Wizard rolls Arcana. I could just say "Wizard only".

I didn't say what you should like. I was addressing your assertion that skills system have to be exclusionary and define what a character can't do. The fact you prefer classes in your D&D 5e campaign is not germane to the assertion you made in that sentence

Quote from: S'mon;981258Indeed. All skills do is tell you what a character can't do.

Quote from: S'mon;981325I often say 'trained only' so eg only the Wizard rolls Arcana. I could just say "Wizard only".

You managed to do your ruling on the character classes the very thing you criticize with skills. In RAW D&D 5e a fighter can do arcana and a wizard can do athletics. Although it likely a Wizard will be better at Arcana and vice versa a fighter will be better at Athletic.

The alternative view that OD&D has is that characters can  do the same things except for a small number of specific abilities.

Quote from: estar;981332You managed to do your ruling on the character classes the very thing you criticize with skills.

Er, yes - I like class defining what a PC can do, it's much simpler than most skill systems. And no problem of "Oops, your Fighter didn't take Athletics/Your Thief didn't take Open Locks".

Quote from: Baulderstone;981285As long as you have clear, archetypal name for your classes (as opposed to classes like Asmolian Arbiter), even if you have 20 of them, I can pick one quickly and start playing. The build is made for me and buying equipment is the only thing that takes time.

No, choosing the class will take time, too - and for the same reason buying equipment takes time. "What's best? What do I feel like doing?" Making choices takes time. That's why character generation takes forever in games like GURPS.

How do you distinguish 20 types of fighter? They must each be different in some way other than their name. So each will have special abilities that others don't - like an AD&D1e's ranger with tracking vs a paladin with healing ability. This is the beginnings of a skill system, it's simply that the skill is restricted by class and entirely binary, either you have it or you don't, a paladin can't track at all, a ranger can't lay on hands and heal.

With just 3 types of fighters - fighter, paladin and ranger - half a dozen special abilities is sufficient to distinguish them. But if you have 20 different fighters, then you'll need 20-60 different special abilities. And then people will say, "if I give up power X from this class, can I have power Y from that class?"

And this is why every game with lots of character classes eventually develops a skill system, of one kind or another. But if every class can take any skill, you may as well just do away with classes and just have skills alone.

Of course you may respond, "yeah but we want the player to be focused, more or less." And this is why Rolemaster had it that you chose a class, and this affected how much skills cost. So a fighter could do weapons for 1 point or magic for 20 points, and a wizard vice versa. That does work but it's complicated and means a lot of charts (50 classes x 200 skills is a lot of entries on the chart).

What's simpler is just to have skills alone. If you're really keen on focus then you can put the skills in categories and say that you can only take skills from 3 different categories, or whatever. But even if you don't, what you find in practice is that players will tend to go broad if they're making a character on their own, and narrow if they're making a character in a group. On their own players think, "my guy has to be able to do everything." In a group they say, "oh, you're doing all combat skills? great, I'll be the sneaky scout, then." In a group most players will try to fill some niche.

Quote from: S'mon;981356Er, yes - I like class defining what a PC can do, it's much simpler than most skill systems. And no problem of "Oops, your Fighter didn't take Athletics/Your Thief didn't take Open Locks".

1) That fine
2) That not what I replied about
3) In the Majestic Wilderlands and D&D 5e there is no "opps the Fighter didn't take Athletics and the Thief didn't take Open Locks. Everybody can do them, if you do happen to take them you are just better at them. In Fifth edition at 1st level this means a +2 bonus from proficiency. In the Majestic Wilderlands it means you just get your attribute bonus. To me what simpler is not worrying about whether a character can do skill based action or not. The answer is always simple, yes they can make the attempt and the odds are not terrible especially if you have a high score in the relevant attribute.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;981376No, choosing the class will take time, too - and for the same reason buying equipment takes time. "What's best? What do I feel like doing?" Making choices takes time. That's why character generation takes forever in games like GURPS.

A well designed class system will beat out a well-designed skills based system in terms of character creation every time. I played GURPS, Hero System, Fudge, Fate, Runequest, and dozens others of skills based system for nearly 40 years. I also played dozens of class based system as well. When you do everything you can to make character creation easy, class will out over skill every time.

The trick to quick character generation to not to use the rule books but use cards as a reference. Regardless of what characters are based on, you do the following.

1) Start off with a one page summery of the character types explained in english. The player picks one and I hand them the cards corresponding to the character type.
2) Give them one page summary of character background which includes character race if that part of the campaign. They pick one, I hand them the card.
3) Give them a card with general character info like what the attribute means and how to roll them.
4) Give them a equipment card that has the price list along with all in one packs priced out. (Similar to what 5e does). Before 5e I called them load outs  borrowed from GURPS.
5) Each card had step by step procedure listing the choices and the alternatives.

Take about 15 to 20 minutes to get through the cards for a class based system even Pathfinder and Fifth edition which have more choices than OD&D or AD&D.  Take twice as long if it primarily skill based. GURPS, Hero System, Fate, Fudge, doesn't really matter. Once the focus on skills the player take longer.

There is one point that class based character gen hangs up and that buying equipment. Even with packs and load outs, the average player take a little time to weigh the options often coordinating with the other players. With skill based character generation, picking skills AND buying equipment are the parts that take the longest.

I used this dozens at home campaigns, conventions and game stores sessions. It gotten to the point my players are disappointed if I don't everything setup in cards. Which happened in Adventures in Middle Earth. Talk about excess wordage in their rule books.

Quote from: estar;981387A well designed class system will beat out a well-designed skills based system in terms of character creation every time. I played GURPS, Hero System, Fudge, Fate, Runequest, and dozens others of skills based system for nearly 40 years. I also played dozens of class based system as well. When you do everything you can to make character creation easy, class will out over skill every time.

Estar, usually your posts are well thought out and intelligent but that's just a nonsensical assertion.  "This is better than that because my experience" doesn't cut it. Explain  why class-based game keeps adding more and more classes to accommodate different types of characters if they work as well as you claim?

Quote from: Dumarest;981392Estar, usually your posts are well thought out and intelligent but that's just a nonsensical assertion.  "This is better than that because my experience" doesn't cut it. Explain  why class-based game keeps adding more and more classes to accommodate different types of characters if they work as well as you claim?

I understand the confusion as I dropped an important phrase, I was referring to the speed of character creation not overall quality.

As for quality there are well designed class-based character creation system and there are well design skill based character creation. Neither are better than the other but there are consequences. One consequence is that  anytime a players is presented with a list to choose during character creation from that will add time to the process. I personally enjoy GURPS (big skilled based system), the AGE system (a hybrid) and OD&D (pure class). One reason I enjoy because to me they are well designed system in of themselves that work elegantly for what they do.

As for the expanding number of classes, a class is a package or template that represents something within the setting or genre. Change the setting or twist the genre opens up the possibility that by adding new classes or altering existing ones make it easier for players and referee to run campaigns within that setting or genre.

The current good example of this is Adventures in Middle Earth versus D&D 5th edition Core books. The set of AiME classes were designed to work together help players make character that feel like they are part of Middle Earth. D&D 5th edition shoot for the broader fantasy palette.

Skill based RPG are not immune to this. The BRP system originated in Runequest and specific implementation were designed to cover very different genres and settings.

In the end what matters is whether a specific work does it job in presenting a decent framework that saves the referee work in running a campaign.

Sorry for the misunderstanding that was a bit nonsensical without the caveat.

Quote from: estar;981400I understand the confusion as I dropped an important phrase, I was referring to the speed of character creation not overall quality.

Agree - the big benefit of Class-based creation is that if done well, you get to start playing right away. Choose your archetype and go. No-archetype skill-based systems are really bad that way, the initial barrier to entry is terrible (WEG d6 Star Wars with its Template PCs worked well, though).

Edit: Also, class-based systems don't have to keep adding more and more classes. It wasn't a big issue with 4-class Classic D&D, for instance. If there is an obvious gap (no Engineer class in White Star, say) for the kind of game you want then yes, go on and fill it. Still much easier than trying to define all of human activity via skills.

When it comes to D&D Zeb Cook introduced skills as a bit of flavour to indicate your character had some distinctive background beyond generic fighter #3. In that way I don't mind skills in a class-based system.

Quote from: Voros;982212When it comes to D&D Zeb Cook introduced skills as a bit of flavour to indicate your character had some distinctive background beyond generic fighter #3. In that way I don't mind skills in a class-based system.

Heh, this very thing always drove me nuts. As if a professional warrior and adventurer, who is constantly gaining experience and learning new fighting skills -- to the point of eventually becoming the equivalent of a one-person army, somehow also finds time to perfect confectionary decorations on cupcakes, as a skilled Baker ...

That just breaks all verisimilitude for me, based on my real life experience. I find it's possible to maintain skills in multiple fields at a time with some effort, but rapidly gaining skills requires dedicated focus. Sure, people can do two things at once -- in my experience at about half the pace of advancement in each, i.e. "multiclassing".

Meanwhile, there are plenty of ways to distinguish one fighter from another without adding some secondary mundane profession that they are supposedly also moonlighting in, you know, in their "off" time ...

Meh, YMMV. I don't recall skills being something gained at a great rate and gaining them was optional. A wizard improving his scholarly or alchemical skills makes sense to me. The 'mundane profession' is simply to give the character some background before they turned adventurer, so the noble is good with horses and the sailor is good with boats. Seems pretty simple to me but I know people love to find things to complain about.

Quote from: Zalman;982263Meanwhile, there are plenty of ways to distinguish one fighter from another without adding some secondary mundane profession that they are supposedly also moonlighting in, you know, in their "off" time ...

To paraphrase Sir Lawrence Olivier's comment to Dustin Hoffman, "Next time, try role-playing."

http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?29374-How-to-be-a-special-snowflake

Quote from: Zalman;982263Heh, this very thing always drove me nuts. As if a professional warrior and adventurer, who is constantly gaining experience and learning new fighting skills -- to the point of eventually becoming the equivalent of a one-person army, somehow also finds time to perfect confectionary decorations on cupcakes, as a skilled Baker ...

You're a 4th level fighter.  You're a Hero.  You do Hero-type things as well as a Hero would.

How well do you cook?  Well, back in the day the usual would be to ask the referee, "How good a cook am I?"  A dice roll makes you either good, average, or bad.  Then hilarity and mayhem ensues.  "Greatest swordsman in the Duchy, can't boil water without burning it!"  That would lead to awesome role play!