QuoteSo do you and your players prefer lots of class options?  Or keeping things simple?

If there are classes with levels I prefer complex built systems. This is very gamey system, so let's make game interesting. And many moving pieces are for me forte of such style.
Especially since I consider putting player skill over character skill to be something utterly anti-immersionist, so I prefer if specifics of character flows from character itself.

Now of course some classes are bit redundant - like oriental classes - samurai and ninja are fighter/knight/cavalier and rogue/assassin (depends of your rote). They do not need unique set of skills because of their nationality.

QuoteAnd what about races?  Are you for lots?  Or human-centric? Or somewhere in between?

Personally, I go with the classic AD&D races of human, elf, dwarf, gnome, halfling, half-elf, and half-orc and that's pretty much it.  No drow or duergar PCs.  You kill those bastards on sight.

I like to play with various options. Generally avoid evil-only humanoid races. It's good for abberations and outsiders. I want my mortals to be mortal-ey. Team FreeWill!

QuoteIt seems to me that each area of concentration deserves its own class, so it makes sense to have a class for fighting, magic, stealth, social interaction, leadership, wilderness survival, and probably a few others

I think good element of modern design is generally splitting class as something that describes your power as hero in military, wargame sense, from utlity skill sets.
Like both thief, warrior, mage and cleric can be good leader generally, each may be train in ways of wilderness, and so on and so on.

Pinnacle of this thought is 4e which totally dropped simulationist pretense from classes presenting them strictly as gaming mechanism and allowing players to fill non-combat roles in more RP-y ways.

QuoteFor anti-wokeness reasons.  Tolkien is basically a woke "diversity is our strength" allegory where the Hobbits can't even take a ring to a volcano and drop it in without a bunch of other races joining to help, so "diversity is our strength." I'd prefer a game where simply humans alone can be heroes or player characters and all non-humans are monsters who exist only to be killed.  Anything less is wokeness.  And no this is not a joke.  More and more all the drama proves this point.  If you let people play elves and hobbits then they want to play orcs, and if you let them want to play orcs then they want to play Beholders, and then they agitate to remove any description of Beholders as evil from the monster manual.  So its a slippery slope that all started with allowing non-humans to be heroes.

See that's why anti-wokeness as your main motivation is a disease that will lead you to utter insanity, just to show the wokes. Literally you so much tried not to be a beholder you turned into grimlock or smth. Virtue is narrow path and abyss of depravity waits in both directions from it.

QuoteCleric makes a really crappy core, because it's such a weird and specific class with the mix of Catholic priest, odd prohibitions, and vampire hunting. Thief is also a little weak, because there are rogues and charlatans and nerds in fantasy and legend, but not a ton of pickpockets or burglars.

But you can generally get away with a spellcaster, a warrior, and a skill-based class.

Cleric should definitely be a) brought down to cloistered cleric as per Conan standards, you may have gish templar later or paladin but that's it - this class demands utter de-gygaxiation/de-arnessisation because their original concepts were just weird mix of unfitting bullshit. b) had powerset very dependent of deity worshipped without any guaranteed miracles for all clerics. And different set of mundane skills depending on religion.

QuoteI disagree.  The clerics have the healer role, which is unique, distinctive, and important.  The rest is there just so the player doesn't get bored with only doing healing.  I think that's a pretty good basis for a class.

Make healing during fight extremely hard, and see your clerics anathemising your enemies with axiomatic acid storms.

QuoteOne to fight directly, one who's a clever/sneaky fighter, and one caster for each type of magic in the world feels about right. If you had only one type of magic in the world it's basically your Fighter/Mage/Thief split.

Even with different types of magic I guess you could boil down Casters into Caster, and then choose of type of magic, would determine details of it's actions.

QuotePaladin: Warrior/priest
Ranger: Warrior/druid/rogue
Monk: warrior/Rogue/ with some personal priestly resistance and healing
Dex Based fighters like archers/ swashbucklers, two weapon dudes, assassins, gunslingers
Warlock: cheezy spam-attack wizard
Artificer/Alchemist: Wizards who make stuff.
Sorcerers: dumb wizards who just wanna blow shit up.

I'd disagree. Those archetypes while often build in game using given combinations are all quite old and existing in their own right.
Paladins are based on Crusaders, knights of chivalry period, but also myths of magical power of royal blood and divine calling. Think Charlemagne. Think Aragorn. Think Templar.
Monks are straight from Asia - as martial artists with mystical power gained by enlightement, from wuxia movies.
Ranger is pre-king Aragorn.
Warlock started this way - but both 4e and 5e did better and used it's general concept to evoke aspect of cultist, someone using forbidden pact magic with dangerous creature. Faustian figure in overal scheme (though later they realised archonts would be just as pain-in-the-ass patrons if not more than devils, so hey).
Alchemists and Artificiers are based on Reneissance Era magicians/natural philosophers.
and Sorcerer is just Wizard made by someone who hated very specific rare type of magic by Jack Vance.

QuoteI still think that templated skill-based systems that tie into the traditional class lore is the best approach though.

Basically Warhammer without playable farmers. Which is a shame, because they are awesome.

Quote from: Mishihari on December 22, 2021, 04:05:01 AM

Quote from: Pat on December 21, 2021, 10:45:32 PM
Cleric makes a really crappy core, because it's such a weird and specific class with the mix of Catholic priest, odd prohibitions, and vampire hunting. Thief is also a little weak, because there are rogues and charlatans and nerds in fantasy and legend, but not a ton of pickpockets or burglars.

But you can generally get away with a spellcaster, a warrior, and a skill-based class.

I disagree.  The clerics have the healer role, which is unique, distinctive, and important.  The rest is there just so the player doesn't get bored with only doing healing.  I think that's a pretty good basis for a class.

A non-issue that can easily be fixed by giving  MUs access to healing magic like they have in most fantasy fiction

We can also remove need for Magic-Use by allowing access to all magic to Fighters.

Quote from: Wrath of God on December 22, 2021, 01:17:26 PM
We can also remove need for Magic-Use by allowing access to all magic to Fighters.

We can also remove all need for thieves, but by allowing one class to have all abilities.

But that completely defeats the purpose of core classes.

We can remove all the classes and make characters different by allowing choices of builds through picking skills and abilities Ala Carte.
Personally, I like having a certain number of classes.  Pick one and you get a pre-made package you can just grab and run with. It also establishes that in your game, certain basic types of people exist, and they act/perform roughly a certain way.

QuoteWe can also remove all need for thieves, but by allowing one class to have all abilities.

But that completely defeats the purpose of core classes.

The question is - do they really have a purpose, or is it just nostalgia.
If anything I think 4E cracked the puzzle with their roles as something more basic than classes.

QuoteWe can remove all the classes and make characters different by allowing choices of builds through picking skills and abilities Ala Carte.
Personally, I like having a certain number of classes.  Pick one and you get a pre-made package you can just grab and run with. It also establishes that in your game, certain basic types of people exist, and they act/perform roughly a certain way.

TBH you can have class-less game and still use such packages as you know character creation-light option.

RuneQuest has the system of improving skills as you go rather than based on a particular class...

Quote from: DM_Curt on December 22, 2021, 01:47:28 PM
We can remove all the classes and make characters different by allowing choices of builds through picking skills and abilities Ala Carte.

We can also keep classes and make characters different through gameplay, a method I much prefer personally. Events and DM/Player collaborations have always provided me with a better experience than game widgets and builds for differentiating members of the same adventuring class.

To the OP: Nope. To wit, I've never in my life met a "generic fighter." Every character I've played with has a name, along with a distinct history, personality, and set of capabilities.

Quote from: Palleon on December 22, 2021, 06:54:51 AM
It's a slippery slope.  You need enough variety to offer differences in niche and mechanics.  Remove too many and you fall out into a skill-based system to allow enough customization to make the choice interesting for players.

This has been the issue I've always had with classes even though I like them. Too few classes, and you'll need a skill system to distinguish between different characters of the same class. OTOH, if you have too many classes, then each character will be their own unique class and, at that point, you might as well just let players designed their own custom classes (which ends up being almost identical to the skill system from above).

Bushido does a great job being a hybrid class and skill-based game. Any character can learn any skill but each class has their own list of skills where that class gets a bonus. Plus each individual character picks a small number of skills they specialize in so even two characters of the same class will have different skill lists. This helps distinguish characters with the same class from each other, thus reducing the need for extra specialty classes.

QuoteWe can also keep classes and make characters different through gameplay, a method I much prefer personally.

Why even have classes if builds does not matter, and you can do anything through gameplay

Quote
Bushido does a great job being a hybrid class and skill-based game. Any character can learn any skill but each class has their own list of skills where that class gets a bonus. Plus each individual character picks a small number of skills they specialize in so even two characters of the same class will have different skill lists.

I like Warhammer 4e in this regard. Rather than class/level you get profession which a) estabilishes your basic position in the world b) make certain advanced bought by XP cheaper if they are on profession list c) gives you mechanics how to earn your food, because it turns out orc cheftains are so badass they fight with shittest weapons possible

Quote from: Wrath of God on December 22, 2021, 01:58:45 PM

QuoteWe can also remove all need for thieves, but by allowing one class to have all abilities.

But that completely defeats the purpose of core classes.

The question is - do they really have a purpose, or is it just nostalgia.
If anything I think 4E cracked the puzzle with their roles as something more basic than classes.

I'm not familiar with 4e, but aren't roles just what you do in combat? That doesn't fit the class structure in old school D&D at all.

QuoteI'm not familiar with 4e, but aren't roles just what you do in combat? That doesn't fit the class structure in old school D&D at all.

Yes. Because they correctly recognize social role and fighting role are not strictly tied together.
So class is strictly war-engine, all the other elements exploration, skill, social position, building Temples, Guilds and Citadels are now decided generally outside of class.

Quote from: Wrath of God on December 22, 2021, 02:49:25 PM

QuoteI'm not familiar with 4e, but aren't roles just what you do in combat? That doesn't fit the class structure in old school D&D at all.

Yes. Because they correctly recognize social role and fighting role are not strictly tied together.
So class is strictly war-engine, all the other elements exploration, skill, social position, building Temples, Guilds and Citadels are now decided generally outside of class.

So they're terrible at what classes do, which is define a role that includes more than combat.

I agree. But if class is meant to include even more, then it's even more unnecessary shackle.
At least in RPGs born from storygames archetypes are meant to be genre defining elements, working in fiction along rules of specific concept.

Here it's hodge podge of gamist war-engine with some thin-ass archetypisation. No wonder later itterations dropped it.

Kill class, and let profession be born

Quote from: Pat on December 22, 2021, 03:16:56 PMSo they're terrible at what classes do, which is define a role that includes more than combat.

The problem is that is generally terrible. Because 'I hit stuff' will generally not match up to 'I hit stuff, shapeshift, make towers of glass and make it rain figuratively and literally'.

D&D classes are extremly unbalanced and not in a good way.