This is a site for discussing roleplaying games. Have fun doing so, but there is one major rule: do not discuss political issues that aren't directly and uniquely related to the subject of the thread and about gaming. While this site is dedicated to free speech, the following will not be tolerated: devolving a thread into unrelated political discussion, sockpuppeting (using multiple and/or bogus accounts), disrupting topics without contributing to them, and posting images that could get someone fired in the workplace (an external link is OK, but clearly mark it as Not Safe For Work, or NSFW). If you receive a warning, please take it seriously and either move on to another topic or steer the discussion back to its original RPG-related theme.

Author Topic: Broad generic classes vs skill-based  (Read 7386 times)

Naburimannu

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • N
  • Posts: 301
Re: Broad generic classes vs skill-based
« Reply #30 on: February 05, 2023, 06:32:42 AM »
I don't get why they call them skill based when its really point buy.

Point buy has its own flaws in the form of min-maxing and complicated points structures.

It's not clear to me from you message who you're responding to here, but I don't see this for most skill-based games I'm familiar with that aren't explicitly point-buy.
Traveller + derivatives? Random generation of your stats & skills.
Harnmaster? Random generation of stats & skills.
Mythras/Runequest? You have some choice of skills, and depending on the edition/GM you might have choice of culture & background, have to roll for them, or have them dictated by the initial premise, but it doesn't feel like point buy to me.

I'd say Rolemaster is a hybrid class/skill system, and can get incredibly points-based (particularly if you're doing custom class design), but I'm not sure where min-maxing happens.

So, yes, GURPS & Champions are skill-based point-buy games that can run into min-maxing issues.

What skill-based non point-buy games were you thinking of in this conversation?

Chris24601

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • C
  • Posts: 3326
Re: Broad generic classes vs skill-based
« Reply #31 on: February 05, 2023, 08:08:24 AM »
I don't get why they call them skill based when its really point buy.

Point buy has its own flaws in the form of min-maxing and complicated points structures.

It's not clear to me from you message who you're responding to here, but I don't see this for most skill-based games I'm familiar with that aren't explicitly point-buy.
Traveller + derivatives? Random generation of your stats & skills.
Harnmaster? Random generation of stats & skills.
Mythras/Runequest? You have some choice of skills, and depending on the edition/GM you might have choice of culture & background, have to roll for them, or have them dictated by the initial premise, but it doesn't feel like point buy to me.

I'd say Rolemaster is a hybrid class/skill system, and can get incredibly points-based (particularly if you're doing custom class design), but I'm not sure where min-maxing happens.

So, yes, GURPS & Champions are skill-based point-buy games that can run into min-maxing issues.

What skill-based non point-buy games were you thinking of in this conversation?
One obvious example would be the World of Darkness catalogue where you have various pools of points you assign as you will (13 points across a category of 9 skills, up to 3 from that and then later in creation you can spend points from another pool to get them up to max of 5 right out of creation).

XP gained is spent directly on various skills and abilities (magic powers) to improve them as the player dictates.

WEG Star Wars/the d6 system is similar. You assign dice to your skills and spend your XP as desired to improve them.

Savage Worlds also lets you pick exactly where your skill points go.

Let’s throw in Shadowrun, Mekton, Mutants & Masterminds and, as mentioned, GURPS and HERO.

That’s eight not exactly obscure games right off the top of my head.

Eric Diaz

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1115
    • http://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com.br/
Re: Broad generic classes vs skill-based
« Reply #32 on: February 05, 2023, 12:23:05 PM »
Class-based games are great when your group is a "Fellowship of the Ring", where everyone has different abilities that are clearly defined by their archetypes: the warrior, the mage, the ranger, and even the elf, the hobbit, etc.

Skill-based games excel in a "Knights of the Round Table"* scenario. Everyone has similar abilities**, but some are more skilled than others. It is also perfect for teams of detectives, soldiers, criminals ***, etc.

* I've found a similar comparison reading "Of Dice and Men", which inspired this post.

** Notice that Arthurian knights are also archetypes - but maybe these archetypes are less obvious, and also maybe not as strong as the "knight" archetype that includes all of them.

*** And elves! If you have an "elf" class, a band of elves can become too uniform; it would be better if they had different classes or skills. If you have a single elf in the party, however, it can be an archetype in itself.

Skill-based games seem suited for realistic games - because in real life, archetypes are vague and abstract, while in myth they are much stronger. In any case, archetypes are incredibly useful to create characters - even in skill-based games, it is good to have some archetypes to play with (which justifies hybrid approaches).

I feel like the outward similarity of characters isn't so obvious a division, as you underscore with your exceptions about a team of elves, as well as how Arthurian knights are archetypes. I'd add to these exceptions how Blades in the Dark handles teams of criminals. I haven't seen class-based Arthurian knights, but then there aren't many Arthurian RPGs in general. Sagas of the Icelanders does a similar genre where many of the playbooks are outwardly viking warriors.

Conversely, there are many cases where the characters have very different abilities - but class-based games haven't been very successful. Superhero games are a classic case of this - where there are class-based superhero RPGs, but many of the most successful superhero RPGs are skill-based. Space opera like Star Wars and Star Trek also often have a lot of differentiation, but class-based isn't clearly more successful.

To my mind, a vital point is how unique individual instantiations of the archetypes are. I think classes have worked better in fantasy because it has been an older, more repeated and structured genre. I've also been partial to the classes in Monster of the Week -- as I think long television series are more apt to have repetitive structures for classes, though not always.

Good points. I certainly think "nerd", "jock", "cheerleader", etc. to be strong archetypes for monster movies. And most RPGs about superheroes I've played use skills and "build your powers", although I certainly think classes would make it easier to see the archetypes behing the heroes... M&M, for example, has archetypes you can customize IIRC.
Chaos Factory Books  - Dark fantasy RPGs and more!

Methods & Madness - my  D&D 5e / Old School / Game design blog.

Eric Diaz

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1115
    • http://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com.br/
Re: Broad generic classes vs skill-based
« Reply #33 on: February 05, 2023, 12:25:37 PM »
I don't get why they call them skill based when its really point buy.

Point buy has its own flaws in the form of min-maxing and complicated points structures.

You could have skill-based without point buy - not only in theory but that is how my own game works, although I call it an "hybrid approach" - classes are mostly collections of skills, and anyone can take any skills, but skills aren't bought with points (instead, the bonus is equal to level, or a fraction of level in some cases). You can create a PC without a class (or, as I call it, the "hopeless" class - which has no special feats or skills at all), but not without skills.
Chaos Factory Books  - Dark fantasy RPGs and more!

Methods & Madness - my  D&D 5e / Old School / Game design blog.

Steven Mitchell

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • S
  • Posts: 3770
Re: Broad generic classes vs skill-based
« Reply #34 on: February 05, 2023, 04:39:33 PM »
What do you call it when you play a skills-based game and everyone builds archetypes so tight that they might as well be classes?   ;D

~

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • ?
  • Posts: 173
Re: Broad generic classes vs skill-based
« Reply #35 on: February 05, 2023, 05:39:38 PM »
Sorry to disappoint you. I've never been involved in a podcast. I'm open to doing one. …

Well shucks, I guess you just have one of those styles…


Quote
Pretty sure you're just goofing around here, …

I’m pretty sure you’re talking out loud to the walls of this alleyway all by your lonesome!


Quote
… mixing editions was part of the old school experience. In fact, when 2E came out, that became my main PHB with the 1E PHB as a backup. …

… in the days of 1E, for example, 2E didn't exist yet. We had no idea that one would exist or what would even be in it. … Obviously at least some of the stuff that ended up in 2E was drawn from the wish list of 1E gamers. So it stands to reason a lot of that stuff was already being done in actual 1E play even if it doesn't appear in any of the 1E books, belying the differences between the two editions as found in the actual texts.

In hindsight, that habit of mixing things up makes a lot of sense: the B/X and BECMI lines really were advertised as introductory sets to the main AD&D game. These beginner sets should have given that away with their rules light structures—and, *ahem* the character sheet conversion guides….

But when some newer editions happen to come along with interesting concepts that don’t always rely on any inter-editional statistical fiddling, you might find it *bloody* difficult to resist breaking that *fourth wall,* pilfering them for your own use with your favourite edition. Steal just the right ideas, and you can make a party of characters and quick backdrop setting in far less than 30 minutes!


Quote
… the core of the game, is it's about pitting players against the fantasy world armed only with their imagination.

… it's your wits, not the game functions, that should be your first go-to.

Lots of referee’s are frustrated with their players trying as hard as possible to game the system rather than play the game, and I reckon you can see that from miles away just by their choices of alternative systems altogether; at least Neo was trying to break out of the Matrix, these guys just want all that gold just to have it but let the machinery of the game do all of the thinking for them… Seems like a lot of work to get somewhere with a fancy rule’s lawryn’ certificate, just to ignore all of the interesting shortcuts where the real fun is, and most of those don’t seem much at all that secret.
 

Quote
... But this means a couple of things for DMing style. It may require the DM to ere on the side of permissiveness. And it's probably going to mean being called upon to adjudicate more often. …  It's just a matter of being comfortable with it.

Wait--you’re saying these books (even, er, Original-AD&D), are… more like guidelines, than actual rules?

Shiver me timbers, that sounds all too human! I can get on board with that!


Quote
[Once you view it this way, you realize there's always plenty for the magic-user to do throughout the adventure.

… As a baseline, all characters are identical as far as that goes. Where they differ is how they handle when things go bad.]

I’m listening carefully now…


Quote
[Though again my intent was to illustrate the differences between classes and monomyth archetypes. As for Fighter/Wizard balance, there's a lot more to discuss than what I wrote there.] …

… Both magic-user and thief have class functions that can solve "miscellaneous" challenges. It's just that the magic-user gets limited uses that always work, where the thief has no limit but theirs only sometimes works. Kind of like how a magic user's attack spell compares with a fighter's weapon attack.

Even when looking strictly at combat, the thief has the backstab. Now there's not a literal limit in daily use. But you're usually only going to get to do it once per combat. So compared to ordinary combat, it is more of limited use bomb drop. It's not as powerful or as certain as fireball. But it's definitely more than a few steps down that road between fighter and mage.

Indeed, it can be a rather *slippery slope* to be all too confident with your thief skills… you might need some *sheer* luck to get out of some sticky situations! But, I think I’m starting to see how much of this problem can be resolved by unshackling yourself and your players from the monomyth framework:

Lots of parties think you need just one of EACH of the core classes, and find it “problematic” to be the same class as somebody else. Although, it would be much easier for one thief to go for a backstab against a goblin shaman, after another thief has drawn the attention that nearby goblin gaggle held in reserve, all while the three fighters take on the two bugbear mercenaries trying to guard the goblin’s stolen treasure.

When the time is right, the wizard finishes his casting time, sings a quick lullaby, and they all join the first bugbear that was felled when the wizard snapped everyone awake with a magic missile aimed straight for his noggin’. 

(There definitely is NOT a third thief making his way silently to the chest, looking to get first pick of the magic items with the excuse of looking for cover to attack with his bow…)

Honestly, the monomyth doesn’t quite serve much of the same purpose as the class system, anyway…

We’re all just in it for the gold and glory!

… Right?


Quote
… I know some people have created this cute triangle where fighter, magic-user, and thief make up the corners and everything else is in between. But I think of it more like the thief is co-linear between the fighter and magic-user. Closer to the fighter end because you get the repeated uncertain use.

There’s another class who’s colinear with the fighter and magic user, and I’d be tempted to appraise him as leaning towards the wizard with the intent of his design. He isn’t exactly the center point of the triangle, given that his purpose is also as specific as the fighter, so he doesn’t quite approach the miscellaneous functions that the wizard and the thief, for the most part.

Everyone desperately wants this cleric in their party, but for all of the thanks he gets for putting himself in the hotspot for all of them, some want to kick him out of the game altogether!

I mean, don’t get me wrong, he’s a little stiff, but what gives? Why do people want to excommunicate such an all-around nice guy? But, if they are right, why wasn’t he the optional class in the Greyhawk supplement, and the thief placed gloriously amongst the Men & Monsters of the original game?

~

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • ?
  • Posts: 173
Re: Broad generic classes vs skill-based
« Reply #36 on: February 05, 2023, 06:04:57 PM »
What do you call it when you play a skills-based game and everyone builds archetypes so tight that they might as well be classes?   ;D

Tome skewed?

Lunamancer

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1293
Re: Broad generic classes vs skill-based
« Reply #37 on: February 06, 2023, 01:30:37 PM »
Normally, I'm entirely in agreement that classes and skills don't mix.  Yet, my class/skill game is working a whole lot better than my all skill game.

Well, I would say you're not in bad company. The most popular RPG ever that wasn't D&D or a D&D knock-off was Vampire: the Masquerade which I would describe as a class/skill hybrid system. Yeah, you can play games with definitions, saying the clans are really more like races or backgrounds. They feel like classes to me. If you go down the list of things I think makes a class system work, V:tM checks all the boxes.


In hindsight, that habit of mixing things up makes a lot of sense: the B/X and BECMI lines really were advertised as introductory sets to the main AD&D game.

Yes, exactly. That's a great point.

I know when I was a kid, I didn't read the entire books first, play second. I read just enough so that I could play first, fully read the book second. Some gamers, probably most, never assimilate every last rule of an RPG. So what we bring to the table matters. That's just about any RPG. With AD&D in particular, you have a primer in B/X, so in this case you can expect a great degree of commonality in what players and DMs are bringing to the table. And, yeah, that needs to be accounted for when you're trying to get an authentic picture of how a 1E game went in the old school days.

Quote
But when some newer editions happen to come along with interesting concepts that don’t always rely on any inter-editional statistical fiddling, you might find it *bloody* difficult to resist breaking that *fourth wall,* pilfering them for your own use with your favourite edition. Steal just the right ideas, and you can make a party of characters and quick backdrop setting in far less than 30 minutes!

Sure. But my main point was that the play pre-dates the print. The mission statement of 2E in particular aims to refine and streamline and present how people were already playing. Now I don't believe that 100%. And that might just be because before the world wide web gamers were less connected, and how we played here in the Northeast probably varied a lot more from how they played in the Midwest compared to the differences today. So a lot of 2E didn't reflect how I was actually playing, and I personally reject a lot of it. But if you take the authors at their word, there is virtually no original material in the 2E core books. It's all stuff that was out there in 1E regardless of whether or not you can find it in print prior to 1989.

Quote
Lots of referee’s are frustrated with their players trying as hard as possible to game the system rather than play the game, and I reckon you can see that from miles away just by their choices of alternative systems altogether; at least Neo was trying to break out of the Matrix, these guys just want all that gold just to have it but let the machinery of the game do all of the thinking for them… Seems like a lot of work to get somewhere with a fancy rule’s lawryn’ certificate, just to ignore all of the interesting shortcuts where the real fun is, and most of those don’t seem much at all that secret.

You've definitely said a mouthful there, and there are three separate points on how I address a lot of this stuff.

1) My way of handling rules lawyers is to out rules-lawyer them. I'm not saying that's for everyone. I'm a specialist. I'll give almost any RPG a shot as a player, but as a GM, I run a very small number of systems and make sure I know them better than anyone else. That's how I handle rules lawyers. It's definitely not the best way of handling them, but it's my way.

2) Players who want to game the system rather than play the game has a lot to do with why in that other thread I responded to you in, I raised the point of why the person who decides how the world works cannot be separated from the referee function. It's because I prioritize fidelity to the game world over the rules themselves. And that means if a player is out there trying to "win" at RPGs, the way I run them, your best strategy is going to be to get in character and pay attention. If your primary focus is the rules and min-maxing, you're actually not going to attain optimal results in my games.

3) I think players who don't want to break free from the matrix is just an example of a broader problem. It's bigger than just rules-playing. It's bigger than the matrix itself. To put it in monomyth terms, players too often refuse to take up the hero's journey. In decades of running RPGs, I can also say it's a relatively new problem. You barely even needed a plot hook in the old days. Players had more of a thirst for adventure. I can only speculate why this has changed. I don't know that I have any good answers.

Quote
Wait--you’re saying these books (even, er, Original-AD&D), are… more like guidelines, than actual rules?

Shiver me timbers, that sounds all too human! I can get on board with that!

I look at it like this: There's rules. Then there's rules. And then there's rulings.

The rules establish the language and basic procedures of the game. Imagine having to explain what it means every time you say, "Make a hit roll," "Roll for damage," "Make a save," "Roll initiative," etc. The game would grind to a halt. It would be impractical and unplayable. So my feeling is that these are things that should never be changed. Unfortunately some DMs do tinker with this stuff. Even more unfortunate is some of this stuff has changed from edition to edition. These things don't tell you how to play, how to rule, how to have fun, etc. There's no good reason they ever need to be changed, and a lot of reasons why it's bad to change them.

Then there's rules refer to rules of thumb. These are the guidelines. Things like magic-users can't wear armor. It's a suggested weakness for the magic-user class, one that reinforces the visual of the wizard in robes, one that's gotten a lot of mileage and works fairly well. These are the rules of game that tie to the setting, makes possible a lot of the strategic elements of the game, and quantifies things. If you have a specific vision for your rules that would require this to be different in your world, go for it. You'd be advised to do so carefully. Make sure you think it through, maybe test it out.

And then there's rulings. If you've ever flipped through the 1E DMG, you might notice it kind of looks like an assortment of oddly specific things. That's a tell-tale sign that the majority of what's in there are not rules at all, not even guidelines. They are solutions to tricky situations that have arisen in games. The rulings in this book I find to be very insightful and work well, and so I tend to use them all. But it's important to point out that the real rules of the game explicitly assigns the duty of adjudicator to the DM. You're not actually running a BtB game if you're derelict in that duty, even if you're abandoning that duty for the sake of executing the rulings exactly as written. The DM is expected to make sensible rulings.

Quote
Lots of parties think you need just one of EACH of the core classes, and find it “problematic” to be the same class as somebody else. Although, it would be much easier for one thief to go for a backstab against a goblin shaman, after another thief has drawn the attention that nearby goblin gaggle held in reserve, all while the three fighters take on the two bugbear mercenaries trying to guard the goblin’s stolen treasure.

One cool thing I give props for in the 2E splat books is that they propose doing things like all-fighters campaigns, all-thieves campaigns and so on.

In old-school, magic-users could be rendered useless in close quarters. You get in striking distance, you can interrupt their spells. So having a front line blocking enemies from getting to the magic-user was absolutely essential. Before WotC went with standard 5' squares, it was generally 3 abreast that could operate in the standard 10' wide corridor. So you needed a front line of 3. If you didn't have at least that, you didn't have a functional mage in a fight.

And that's fine. If you can look at your party makeup and realize it's going to be difficult for wizards to drop bombs in fights, then you memorize more of the miscellaneous spells rather than the combat spells. And then understand as a party you have to operate in such a way that you avoid most fights. Fighters should leave their heavy armor at home, because movement rate is going to be more useful.

It can be a problem if the game has different feats or subclasses for light armor fighters vs heavy armor fighters. Or magic-users that specialize in individual spells and to a lesser extent a school of spells. Anytime the mechanics get in the way of individuals being flexible enough to adapt to the situation and party makeup. If the game mechanics over-step that boundary, then yeah, then I can see the case for these idealized party makeups.

A lot of skill-based systems do have this problem. Defining the character more precisely than broad-based classes is exactly one of those things that can potentially be a barrier to flexibility. A lot of it hinges on just how good the game's skill list is.

Quote
Honestly, the monomyth doesn’t quite serve much of the same purpose as the class system, anyway…

We’re all just in it for the gold and glory!

… Right?

I'm fine with gold and glory as the motive and find it works with the monomyth.

In some sense, I view an adventuring party as entrepreneurs. They operate in realms of radical uncertainty with no guarantees of gain but the potential to out-earn whatever salary might have otherwise been justified by their abilities and experience.

Radical uncertainty fits the bill of the extraordinary world, the chaos, the underworld. Gold, or profit, is a fine fit for the ultimate goal, the treasure, the reward, the magical elixir.

A lot of "gamers these days" including the oldies who just feel themselves to have outgrown their former munchkin selves, poo poo money as a motive. I think they're wrong. Like objectively wrong. One of my all time favorite movie quotes puts this in perspective. The late great James Caan as Joe Sarno in The Way of the Gun:

"Fifteen million dollars is not money. It's a motive with a universal adaptor on it."

Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. But the way Sarno puts it is exactly what the goal, the gold, the elixir, the treasure in the hero's journey is supposed to be. It's supposed to be the ultimate goal. The thing everyone wants. The holy grail. It needs to be something with a universal adapter, indifferent to however you designed your specific character. And if your character is unmoved by it, you're not actually joining in the playing of the game. Sure. It's possible the GM can choose too weak an elixir. GMs aren't perfect. But if they're putting in an effort and trying, so should the players. And if it still just doesn't work for your character, you should make a new one.

Quote
There’s another class who’s colinear with the fighter and magic user, and I’d be tempted to appraise him as leaning towards the wizard with the intent of his design. He isn’t exactly the center point of the triangle, given that his purpose is also as specific as the fighter, so he doesn’t quite approach the miscellaneous functions that the wizard and the thief, for the most part.

Everyone desperately wants this cleric in their party, but for all of the thanks he gets for putting himself in the hotspot for all of them, some want to kick him out of the game altogether!

I think the core problem with the cleric can be summed up as: Too many players view the cleric as nothing more than a heal bitch. And perhaps this problem is exacerbated by attempting to ignore the religions connotations of the class in favor of it's function as a healer. Part of the problem is also the "meat shield" archetype. You get these barbarians with massive numbers of hit points. And they value each one of those hit points far less than, say, the magic-user who cherishes every last one of their hit points. So they blow through them more quickly, and that is really taxing for the cleric's healing ability.

One thing I really like about Jordan Peterson's take on the monomyth (and let's be clear, I don't really care for a lot of JP's politics, but his academic lectures are excellent), is he's got this evolutionary psychology element to it. Evolution being the key word here. Meat shield as a strategy is worthy of winning a Darwin Award. It's dumb and should not be an acceptable archetype. Conan was fast as a jungle cat and wore armor when it was available. He was tough, but tough isn't a first line of defense. And I don't know there was any expectation that berserkers would be healed. They kind of charged in with reckless abandon without thought as to how they were going to live, like kamikaze Vikings. None of the inspirations of the Barbarian had get sliced up then healed as a strategy. It's just goofy game design to do a barbarian this way.
That's my two cents anyway. Carry on, crawler.

Tu ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito.

Eric Diaz

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1115
    • http://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com.br/
Re: Broad generic classes vs skill-based
« Reply #38 on: February 06, 2023, 03:19:35 PM »
For me, the worst part of the cleric is not having a clear archetype. "Healer" is not strong enough for an adventurer, "healer with a mace" even less so. "Religious warrior" or "monster hunter" is better but not what the cleric is about.

As Delta notices, clerics are barely present in the appendix N.

https://deltasdnd.blogspot.com/2010/05/giants-in-earth-index.html

I have considered replacing it for a leader; it feels stronger as an archetype.

https://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2020/06/replacing-cleric-for-leader.html
Chaos Factory Books  - Dark fantasy RPGs and more!

Methods & Madness - my  D&D 5e / Old School / Game design blog.

Lunamancer

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1293
Re: Broad generic classes vs skill-based
« Reply #39 on: February 06, 2023, 04:13:40 PM »
For me, the worst part of the cleric is not having a clear archetype. "Healer" is not strong enough for an adventurer, "healer with a mace" even less so. "Religious warrior" or "monster hunter" is better but not what the cleric is about.

As Delta notices, clerics are barely present in the appendix N.

https://deltasdnd.blogspot.com/2010/05/giants-in-earth-index.html

I have considered replacing it for a leader; it feels stronger as an archetype.

https://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2020/06/replacing-cleric-for-leader.html

Yeah, Clerics are a Gary Gygax thing. I remember on the Lejendary Adventure boards way back, people were talking about fantasy fiction, and Gary came out hard against Tolkien, deriding it as "humanist garbage." In case there was any doubt on how much inspiration Gary drew from Tolkien in the creation of D&D. Incidentally, the person fired back correcting Gary that Tolkien was actually deeply religious personally. The fact that Gary didn't know that I think seals it that Gary was definitely not a Tolkien fan, contrary to the theory that he was only denying being a fan to uphold the story that he wasn't ripping off Tolkien for D&D.

Anyway, obviously historically religious figures have always been vital to society, and yet it is often missing from fantasy. I think the cleric as a front and center hero was his way on correcting an awful error of modern fantasy.

It's been said the cleric is something of a vampire hunter out of hammer horror. There's also this early conception of clerics as crusading knights. Though they were kind of bumped out of that role when the Paladin came along.


I think there's some good insight into their weapon restrictions. People who have geeked out on this may be familiar with something about Bishop Odo not wanting to shed blood. And there are a couple of limp-wristed retorts that call bunk on this. One of them is basically, giggle, snort, you cave someone's skull in with a mace, they're going to bleed. The other is that it's too literal a reading. Obviously when one talks about not wanting to shed blood, it's violence in general they're speaking out against. And obviously D&D clerics are intended to fight. Ergo the two have nothing to do with one another.

And that's not quite right. It is correct that clerics are not supposed to be engaging in violence. But it's also true that using this doctrine was never intended to be an excuse for a cleric to abdicate their duty to defend their flock. So during war time, you can imagine how clerics faced contradictory demands. On the one hand, it would look bad to see a cleric openly carrying weapons. On the other hand, you kind of needed to openly carry weapons. So what's the solution? Weapons like the mace, staff, and morning star were considered symbols of the cleric's office. And so a cleric could openly carry these without raising any eyebrows. Thus the weapon restriction. Later on, when you get into Clerics of specific gods, they are sometimes allowed a weapon outside that list per their deities choice. Because that would likewise be a symbol of their office.


As a player character, clerics fit the hero archetype just perfectly. They're really well-rounded and really well-suited for the role.

As an NPC, they could be argued as the positive feminine (healer), positive masculine (defender), and also the negative positive and feminine for evil clerics. Although one thing Gary did change his mind on over the years was the idea of evil clerics. In his research, he found that all religions were based on a foundation that the followers at least believed the religion was benign and beneficial, never malign. What evil cults did exist never gained widespread traction. And so in later years, he kind of abandoned the idea of evil clerics. You could have necromancers and sorcerers and the like. It just wasn't the same thing. In his Lejendary Adventure RPG, he divided ecclesiastics into two orders: Glorification & Hallowing, and Service & Care. Which again would correspond to positive masculine and positive feminine respectively in terms of monomyth archetypes.

So take from that what you will.
That's my two cents anyway. Carry on, crawler.

Tu ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito.

GeekyBugle

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 7402
  • Now even more Toxic
Re: Broad generic classes vs skill-based
« Reply #40 on: February 06, 2023, 04:37:35 PM »
For me, the worst part of the cleric is not having a clear archetype. "Healer" is not strong enough for an adventurer, "healer with a mace" even less so. "Religious warrior" or "monster hunter" is better but not what the cleric is about.

As Delta notices, clerics are barely present in the appendix N.

https://deltasdnd.blogspot.com/2010/05/giants-in-earth-index.html

I have considered replacing it for a leader; it feels stronger as an archetype.

https://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2020/06/replacing-cleric-for-leader.html

Change it to a Templar Knight, remove the weapon limitations and you have a Paladin.

War Priests wer a thing, the church did set such weapon limitations and they could only fight to protect themselves and the defenseless IIRC,

My problem with it is that it's a Christian thing that just doesn't translate to polytheism.
Quote from: Rhedyn

Here is why this forum tends to be so stupid. Many people here think Joe Biden is "The Left", when he is actually Far Right and every US republican is just an idiot.

“During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.”

― George Orwell

jhkim

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 11749
Re: Broad generic classes vs skill-based
« Reply #41 on: February 06, 2023, 05:29:27 PM »
For me, the worst part of the cleric is not having a clear archetype. "Healer" is not strong enough for an adventurer, "healer with a mace" even less so. "Religious warrior" or "monster hunter" is better but not what the cleric is about.

As Delta notices, clerics are barely present in the appendix N.

https://deltasdnd.blogspot.com/2010/05/giants-in-earth-index.html

I have considered replacing it for a leader; it feels stronger as an archetype.

https://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2020/06/replacing-cleric-for-leader.html

Change it to a Templar Knight, remove the weapon limitations and you have a Paladin.

War Priests wer a thing, the church did set such weapon limitations and they could only fight to protect themselves and the defenseless IIRC,

My problem with it is that it's a Christian thing that just doesn't translate to polytheism.

To Eric Diaz - I'm skeptical about "Leader" as a class, because leader is a social role among the players. Who the leader is varies tremendously in fiction and in RPGs. Even within a single story like the Hobbit -- Gandalf (wizard) was the leader for a while, until it passed to Thorin (fighter) and then to Bilbo (thief).

As far as war priests - Archetypes are useful only if they are still in the minds of modern players. D&D clerics correspond mostly to European Christian images. That's the archetype they are filling, even if they are technically polytheist. I think the most recognizable example of the archetype is Friar Tuck from Robin Hood. He's not very spiritual and not a healer, but I don't think that's the core of the archetype. He's a traditionalist of a sort, and has a similar archetype to Dr. McCoy in Star Trek.

On the other hand, I'm doubtful about Lunamancer's explanation of weapons:

It is correct that clerics are not supposed to be engaging in violence. But it's also true that using this doctrine was never intended to be an excuse for a cleric to abdicate their duty to defend their flock. So during war time, you can imagine how clerics faced contradictory demands. On the one hand, it would look bad to see a cleric openly carrying weapons. On the other hand, you kind of needed to openly carry weapons. So what's the solution? Weapons like the mace, staff, and morning star were considered symbols of the cleric's office. And so a cleric could openly carry these without raising any eyebrows. Thus the weapon restriction.

I think this is *a* solution that some historical clerics may have used. So it's plausible, but it doesn't seem to have been a widespread historical rule. There's lots of evidence that when priests wanted to fight, they just used regular weapons of war, which includes the mace but also the spear, sword, and axe. Friar Tuck used an axe and a staff at points, but he was also fine with a sword. Here's from the Ballad of Durham Field, say,

Quote
Five hundred priests said mass that day
In Durham in the field,
And afterwards, as I hard say,
They bare both spear and shield.

The Bishop orders himselfe to fight,
With his battell-axe in his hand;
He said, ‘This day now I will fight
As long as I can stand!’
Source: https://www.bartleby.com/243/126.html

That's not to say that there wasn't some restriction on clerics fighting or shedding blood, just that it was inconsistent. If they did fight, it wasn't typically with ceremonial weapons. There might be some bias towards preferring ceremonial and/or blunt weapons, but it wasn't a general rule.

Besides Aquinas' restriction on warfare, there was a specific restriction on the shedding of blood in the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 - which also forbid the practice of surgery within sight of a cleric. So there's some justification for a cleric to use blunt weapons regardless of whether it is ceremonial. I'd note that lots of secular leaders used the mace and club, and had ceremonial maces as badges of office. In the same tapestry where Bishop Odo of Bayeux is shown wielding a mace -- his half-brother William the Conqueror is also shown wielding a mace.

Aglondir

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • A
  • Posts: 1588
Re: Broad generic classes vs skill-based
« Reply #42 on: February 06, 2023, 06:20:20 PM »
To Eric Diaz - I'm skeptical about "Leader" as a class, because leader is a social role among the players. Who the leader is varies tremendously in fiction and in RPGs. Even within a single story like the Hobbit -- Gandalf (wizard) was the leader for a while, until it passed to Thorin (fighter) and then to Bilbo (thief).

I've wrestled with this issue over the years. Your analysis is valid, but there are other examples where the leader is objectively defined. Often this person even has "Captain" in front of their name. Spycraft was one game that hardwired the leadership role with mechanics (Pointman) and some of the Green Ronin D20 games have feats that do it as well.

As for the leader being a social role outside the game mechanics, isn't this a subset of the classic debate about social skills? By now the general agreement is that a character can be adept at seducing barmaids even if the player is not a smooth talker. Often times players will say "Joe's the face guy, because he's playing a bard" even if Joe isn't the most eloquent guy in real life.

Why not have a "leader" class that follows the same concept?

Kyle Aaron

  • high-minded hack
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 9487
  • high-minded hack
    • The Viking Hat GM
Re: Broad generic classes vs skill-based
« Reply #43 on: February 06, 2023, 07:02:54 PM »
A character class in AD&D1e is properly-understood as a very broad skill. The fighter is someone who can lay out ambushes, has tactical sense, can lead men-at-arms and so on; the magic-user cannot do these things, but is more likely to be able to recognise an obscure written language (if not read it), know geography beyond his personal experience, and so on.

From this it follows that a skill is a very narrow character class, but almost everyone is multi-classed.

There have been many games combining these. As an example Rolemaster had character classes, but still had skills. Anyone could choose to acquire or increase any skill, but the choice of class gave the skills different costs. Fighters could learn weapon skills at 1/2 (1 point for the first rank giving +5% initially, 2 points for the second) while magic-users had to spend 10, or something. Magic-users could spend 1* (1 point for each 5% chance) to learn a spell list, fighters had to spend 20 points. Given finite points each level, this meant that character class influenced but did not determine skills. The point cost, or the character class, could be understood as the character's inherent talents - some people found X easy and Y difficult to learn, others vice versa.

There's an argument that this is actually the more realistic approach, compared to the "blank slate" of something like RuneQuest or Cthulhu, where if you use a skill you get a chance to improve it, and the difficulty only changes as the skill gets better. But while perhaps realistic, it's really clunky and involves a lot of charts.
The Viking Hat GM
Conflict, the adventure game of modern warfare
Wastrel Wednesdays, livestream with Dungeondelver

jhkim

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 11749
Re: Broad generic classes vs skill-based
« Reply #44 on: February 06, 2023, 07:28:53 PM »
To Eric Diaz - I'm skeptical about "Leader" as a class, because leader is a social role among the players. Who the leader is varies tremendously in fiction and in RPGs. Even within a single story like the Hobbit -- Gandalf (wizard) was the leader for a while, until it passed to Thorin (fighter) and then to Bilbo (thief).

I've wrestled with this issue over the years. Your analysis is valid, but there are other examples where the leader is objectively defined. Often this person even has "Captain" in front of their name. Spycraft was one game that hardwired the leadership role with mechanics (Pointman) and some of the Green Ronin D20 games have feats that do it as well.

As for the leader being a social role outside the game mechanics, isn't this a subset of the classic debate about social skills? By now the general agreement is that a character can be adept at seducing barmaids even if the player is not a smooth talker. Often times players will say "Joe's the face guy, because he's playing a bard" even if Joe isn't the most eloquent guy in real life.

Why not have a "leader" class that follows the same concept?

True. I was thinking more of the high fantasy genre specifically, and how D&D classes work under existing mechanics. There are a lot of interesting leadership mechanics in other genres and/or games. I like some mechanics similar to the Rogue Mastermind in D&D5E or Leadership/Command in FATE -- where a character can give mechanical benefit to others by organizing a plan.

In the high fantasy genre, I think leadership would be more of a feat or skill rather than an archetype. But, for example, in the heist genre, the planner/mastermind is definitely an archetype.