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One of the more annoying parts of elf-games in my opinion is that they tend to be fairly limited in their class options. After reading the Spheres of X books (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/) I can't imagine playing vanilla elf-games.

There are so many topics I could discuss: the Christmas tree effect, linear warriors quadratic wizards, weaboo fighting magic, yadda yadda. But I'll limit myself.

There are about four aspects of class design that I think could be used to inform customization options for games in the future: roles, spheres, traditions and power sources. I've synthesized these concepts from a variety of sources like D&D, PF, and the Spheres of X books (mostly the latter).

A role is the basic role that a character serves in a party. In early editions this was something like fighting-man, thief, magic-user and priest. In 4e it was called striker, defender, leader and controller. In Spheres of X these are called spherecasters and practioners classes.

A sphere is the capabilities that a character specializes in. In other words this is your spell list/school, martial maneuver list, class feature list, talent trees, etc. For example: healing, conjuring, fencing, beastmastery, etc. (The Spheres of X mechanics divide spheres into magic and martial. In contrast to traditional magic-user classes, spherecasters have to specialize in order to develop competence. Martial spheres include physics-defying effects, but these are segregated with a "legendary" tag in case the DM wants to arbitrarily gimp them compared to magic-users.)

A tradition is a layer of customization that gives the character additional flavor. For example: traditional classes/kits/archetypes/etc like wizard, barbarian, cavalier, etc would be examples of traditions. Traditions may be placed under the umbrella of power sources (see below).

A power source (or maybe "essence") is more fluff than crunch, but essentially explains where a character's capabilities come from. For example: martial arts, arcane magic, divine magic, psionics, primal spirits, phantasmal/shadow magic, etc. While the other aspects are more or less mandatory, this one is optional and arbitrarily defined.

I welcome any questions, criticism or advice.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1087825One of the more annoying parts of elf-games in my opinion is that they tend to be fairly limited in their class options. After reading the Spheres of X books (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/) I can't imagine playing vanilla elf-games.
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I'll give my opinion, which is worth exactly what you are paying for it...

When you start to get into Multi-classing or adding lots of layers onto a Class/Level based system, like role, traditions etc..

Why are you playing a game with a strict class system?

Play a different fantasy RPG.

Lots of Skill based systems out there that are not pure point buy.

Sounds more like it reflects one author's view of a fantasy setting then something of general utility.

My view is that a class is no different than a Hero System package, or a GURPS Template. A collection of ability along with a structure of advancement that reflect how something works within a setting. The main difference between a class versus package and template is that the latter two are built from a toolkit of mechanics while a class is written for the most part as a standalone element.

The criteria for how good a class is how well does it reflect an element of a setting or genre.  It benefit is clarity. "Oh this what a Thothian Mage is and what they learn over time." The downside that hybrids are more difficult to come with it than it with packages and templates. It take more design work to allow somebody to make a character that was a Thothian mage for a few years but since became a warrior mercenary.

For example these are some of the classes I came with for my Majestic Wilderlands

Berserkers
Berserkers are infused with the divine power of the god Thor and sent against the monsters inhabiting the world.

Fighter
Fighters are trained in battle and the use of armor and weapons.

Knight
Armored warriors trained in fighting from horseback.

Soldier
Soldiers excels at teamwork in battle.

Paladin of Mitra
Paladins are called by the Goddess of Honor and Justice to be her divine champion

Magic User
The mysterious lone practitioner of arcane powers and spells.

Mages of the Order of Thoth
Mages are practitioners of arcane spells and have a singular advantage over the other orders of magic, the Shield of Magic. The Order of Thoth organize themselves into conclaves for mutual support and protection.

Wizards of the Order of Trehaen
Wizards have the ability to cast arcane spells without memorization. This results from a deep understanding of magic as taught by the Elves. The prices is that the number of spells at their disposal is limited compared to the other Orders.

Rune-casters of the Order of Thor
Rune-casters can only cast spells through long rituals or runes created by a process similar to creating scrolls. This form of magic originated among the Dwarves who pioneered their own form of magic separate from the Elves.

Burglar
Burglars are trained in abilities used by secret societies, thieves' guild, and gangs. They learn those abilities at the expense of combat expertise.

Thug
Thugs are the rank and file of secret societies, thieves' guild, and gangs. Thugs are chosen mainly for their strength.

Mountebank
Mountebanks are trained in a combination of magic and various skills. Most Mountebanks specialize in anti-divination spells, illusions, and other forms of magic to allow Burglars and Thugs to operate without fear of detection. A common slang term for them is Fogger.

Merchant Adventurer
Merchant Adventurers deal with illegal or dangerous trade. They are somewhat adept at fighting and know several skills useful to commerce. Merchant Adventurers are found as smugglers, black marketers, caravan masters, pirate lords, treasure hunters, and ship captains. They often organize expeditions into unknown lands.
 
Clerics
Clerics represents the militant arm of the deity's religion.

Dannu
Dannu is the goddess of mercy, love, home, and fields. Dannu is worshipped by agricultural societies throughout the world. The church of Dannu works to bring aid and relief to farmers and the poor. The church of Dannu often co-exists alongside several churches including those of Veritas, Thor, and Silvanus.

Mitra
Mitra is the goddess of justice, and honor. Mitra defends the helpless, and protects the weak form those who prey on them. There is great enmity between the church of Mitra and the church of Set.

Nephthys
She is the goddess of fate, wealth and pleasure. Her religion originated in the desert and spread through the trade routes to other regions. Now she is widely worshipped by merchants and others involved in trade and commerce. The hedonistic element of her ceremonies helps with her popularity.

Silvanus
Silvanus is the good of dreams, magic, and the forest, revered by the Elves. His worship involves mysticism, complex meditation, and magic. Silvanus' Clerics are known as Rangers in Human cultures.

Thor
Thor is a battle god of lightning and storms. He is popular in the hearts of many for his heroic deeds in saving worshippers from the depredations of monsters and giants. He rewards any follower who is willing to undertake similar quests. His shrines and temples are used as bases in quests against the monsters of the wild.

Thoth
Thoth is the god of knowledge. He is charged by Veritas with the keeping of the Covenant between the Gods and the recording of all that transpires in the world. His religion is mainly organized into monasteries which engage in the collection of lore. Often these monasteries are bases for expeditions to recover lost artifacts or explore an unknown region.

Veritas
Veritas is the god of creation, craftsmen, and truth. He is revered by the Dwarves. He is the eldest of the god and the first to arrive after the creation of the world. He is known as the High Lord among the elves. In lands influenced by Elven culture he forms a trinity with Dannu, and Silvanus.

Quote from: estar;1087834Sounds more like it reflects one author's view of a fantasy setting then something of general utility.

My view is that a class is no different than a Hero System package, or a GURPS Template. A collection of ability along with a structure of advancement that reflect how something works within a setting. The main difference between a class versus package and template is that the latter two are built from a toolkit of mechanics while a class is written for the most part as a standalone element.
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While I think that non class based systems that do use a Package/Template/archetype system at PC creation to be superior to pure point buy.

I view the Package/Template as I have seen them implemented to be a bit different beast than the d20 Class/Level based system.


Packages/Templates, are a PC starting point at character generation. Yes those initial beginning point allocations on your Package/Template influence character advancement, but you are not explicitly tied to them once actual play starts.

The d20 Class/Level based systems  - advancement is tied to your Class for the entire game.

Depending on your preferences the standard Class/Level dynamic is either a feature or a bug.

I think that ONCE you start down the multi-class/customizing classes rabbit hole, it is a sign that the restrictions brought on by class/level based systems are not for you.

Much easier to go to a different system, i.e. one where you pick a than to write lengthy house-rules for what you are currently using.

I think the class-as-template metaphor is a reasonably good one. While systems that use templates ostensibly are more open with regard to development, my experience is that people will min-max the crap out of that to the point where they might as well be playing a class and level game anyway.

Quote from: Jaeger;1087839Depending on your preferences the standard Class/Level dynamic is either a feature or a bug.

I argue that is solely about preference. My response is about how Class & level can work just as well a GURPS style toolkit RPG in representing a setting or genre.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1087825One of the more annoying parts of elf-games in my opinion is that they tend to be fairly limited in their class options. After reading the Spheres of X books (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/) I can't imagine playing vanilla elf-games.

There are so many topics I could discuss: the Christmas tree effect, linear warriors quadratic wizards, weaboo fighting magic, yadda yadda. But I'll limit myself.

There are about four aspects of class design that I think could be used to inform customization options for games in the future: roles, spheres, traditions and power sources. I've synthesized these concepts from a variety of sources like D&D, PF, and the Spheres of X books (mostly the latter).

A role is the basic role that a character serves in a party. In early editions this was something like fighting-man, thief, magic-user and priest. In 4e it was called striker, defender, leader and controller. In Spheres of X these are called spherecasters and practioners classes.

A sphere is the capabilities that a character specializes in. In other words this is your spell list/school, martial maneuver list, class feature list, talent trees, etc. For example: healing, conjuring, fencing, beastmastery, etc. (The Spheres of X mechanics divide spheres into magic and martial. In contrast to traditional magic-user classes, spherecasters have to specialize in order to develop competence. Martial spheres include physics-defying effects, but these are segregated with a "legendary" tag in case the DM wants to arbitrarily gimp them compared to magic-users.)

A tradition is a layer of customization that gives the character additional flavor. For example: traditional classes/kits/archetypes/etc like wizard, barbarian, cavalier, etc would be examples of traditions. Traditions may be placed under the umbrella of power sources (see below).

A power source (or maybe "essence") is more fluff than crunch, but essentially explains where a character's capabilities come from. For example: martial arts, arcane magic, divine magic, psionics, primal spirits, phantasmal/shadow magic, etc. While the other aspects are more or less mandatory, this one is optional and arbitrarily defined.

I welcome any questions, criticism or advice.

Sounds like you should be using this Spheres of Power system for your RPGs.

Quote from: SavageSchemer;1087856I think the class-as-template metaphor is a reasonably good one. While systems that use templates ostensibly are more open with regard to development, my experience is that people will min-max the crap out of that to the point where they might as well be playing a class and level game anyway.

So what if they min-max. As long everything make sense in terms of the setting and the referee is willing to follow up on the social and metaphysical complications that are built in, then it just how works.

For example the Elves are a superior choice in terms of mechanics in my Majestic Wilderlands supplements. When asked why doesn't everybody play an elf, my reply is "Well, if they do I guess the campaign is about a group of Elves".

The reason I don't have players playing elves in campaign after campaign is because I fleshed out the rest of the setting to the point where are a number of equally interesting possibilities for adventure even though the character mechanics are not as optimal.

I wasn't implying that min-maxing is necessarily a bad thing, only that doing so tends to lead to a certain consistency in character design choices that don't differ meaningfully from what a class would look like in a class and level system.

Quote from: SavageSchemer;1087865I wasn't implying that min-maxing is necessarily a bad thing, only that doing so tends to lead to a certain consistency in character design choices that don't differ meaningfully from what a class would look like in a class and level system.

I'll +1 this.

In a reasonably high optimization group, point-buy systems often have fewer real options in practice than class systems.

In the same way that even semi-competitive CCG players tend to have one of only a few viable decks with (maybe) minor variations despite having nearly infinite theoretical decks. Most are just terrible. The only reason that MtG has as many viable decks as it does is the five different colors - which are really just the CCG version of classes.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1087825One of the more annoying parts of elf-games in my opinion is that they tend to be fairly limited in their class options. After reading the Spheres of X books (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/) I can't imagine playing vanilla elf-games.

That's why people play GURPS...so everyone can be a Fighter Mage! :)

The concept of classes is a tight archetype. It's a shorthand for "WTF does your PC do in this party?"

There are plenty of good systems with open character development. True20 did a good job. GURPS and Fantasy Hero have their audiences.

Warrior, Rogue and Mage is a heavily supported FREE RPG that allows quick and superflexible chargen.
http://www.stargazergames.eu/games/warrior-rogue-mage/

If you prefer more open chargen with classes in OSR-ish framework, I suggest the also FRE RPG Exemplars & Eidolons.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/144651/Exemplars--Eidolons

Quote from: SavageSchemer;1087865I wasn't implying that min-maxing is necessarily a bad thing, only that doing so tends to lead to a certain consistency in character design choices that don't differ meaningfully from what a class would look like in a class and level system.

Interestingly I said the nearly the same thing in a gaming conversation the other day. I was talking to A about R and his incessant habit of min maxing, D&D 5e kitchen sink in this case. My comment was, "You know it gets old, granted he comes up with interesting combat tactics but his characters are all variations of the same note. It like hearing somebody playing jingle bells with one finger over and over again. A different key, but the same plink, plink,plink, plinking all the damn time."

Quote from: Jaeger;1087829I'll give my opinion, which is worth exactly what you are paying for it...

When you start to get into Multi-classing or adding lots of layers onto a Class/Level based system, like role, traditions etc..

Why are you playing a game with a strict class system?

Play a different fantasy RPG.

Lots of Skill based systems out there that are not pure point buy.

Thank you for your concern. I have considered skill-based and point buy systems. In fact, I think using point buy to generate the classes is probably the best way to adjudicate.

For the purpose of this discussion, I decided to focus on class-based systems. Customization isn't the only reason, I think. All long-running class-based systems eventually suffer from class bloat, and explicit design axes like I suggested would go a long way to preventing that. Or at least make it more manageable.

As always, Your mileage may vary.

You may be able to get some useful ideas from ACKS (the Adventurer, Conqueror, King System) and, specifically, the ACKS Player's Companion, which includes a system for designing custom classes for a B/X-D&D-style game.  The resulting classes, in general, seem reasonably balanced and the class design rules were used to create all of the "official" classes in published products.

However, I doubt you'd want to use the ACKS rules directly, as they're based in the B/X D&D mindset rather than the 4e/5e D&D mindset, which means no lists of quasi-magical abilities for fighter types, so I suspect you would view non-caster classes as "arbitrarily gimp[ed] compared to magic-users" by default.  (Never mind that it's actually designed to make the various types balanced relative to each other without depending on every class having "no, really, it's not a spell" spell lists.)

Quote from: Jaeger;1087829When you start to get into Multi-classing or adding lots of layers onto a Class/Level based system, like role, traditions etc..

Why are you playing a game with a strict class system?

I tend to agree, but, then, I'm not a fan of class-and-level systems in the first place.  There is a difference, though, between something like the ACKS custom class rules and a GURPS-style point-buy system, in that the ACKS rules front-load all of the customization and then you just follow that path from level 1 to level 14, while GURPS allows you to change direction at any point.  (IMO, this is a weakness of strict class-and-level systems, but YMMV and all that.)

Quote from: estar;1087834It benefit is clarity. "Oh this what a Thothian Mage is and what they learn over time."

Of course, that's a purely subjective benefit.  Personally, I consider it a huge drawback when you can say "this character is a 5th level Thothian Mage" and that's sufficient to tell me everything there is to know about the character in terms of game mechanics.  Various things have been tried over the years to provide more mechanical variety between characters of the same class and level (multiple versions of multiclassing, feats, proficiencies, skill systems...) but they generally strike me as ineffective, over-complicated, or both in comparison to using a non-class-based system from the start.

(For the record, the one class-and-level system I've seen which didn't strike me as having this "problem" is RoleMaster, but that's basically a skill-based system for all practical purposes.  Your class functions primarily to determine which skills you can improve at higher or lower development point costs and level is just a mechanism to regulate how often you get a pile of development points to spend.)

I think classes have to mean something simple and archetypal and setting oriented.

I'm not sure having classes just represent role within the part or combat role really works.  And mix and matching these things feels just two complicated.

3.0 D&D really bears the legacy of being written at a time when class level systems were generally perceived as backward and it took a lot from point buy design.  As a result some of its class design lacks a good clear sense of identity (Fighters and Rogues especially and the way multi-classing works) and this still haunts 5E to some extent.

I think it's interesting that we see what are basically class systems without levels, but not the opposite, levels without classes.  I think this is probably because a clear sense of classes helps make a game more immediately marketable.  But I think it's a shame because I think a lot of the benefits of levels, such as in particular being able tier character abilities, guard against the tendency toward over-extreme specialisation and incommensurate niches, and have some clear sense of character power and ability to handle threats over the long run, would be really beneficial even for systems that don't wont to encode classes in their systems.

I also don't see the point in trying to make class systems more flexible when you can just play classless RPGs.

I can see a point to making class systems broader rather than more flexible.

There's an argument to made for just falling back onto the more basic archetypes eg. Warrior, Rogue, Wizard, and keeping everything else as just are way of customising within those classes.

Quote from: nDervish;1087925Of course, that's a purely subjective benefit.  Personally, I consider it a huge drawback when you can say "this character is a 5th level Thothian Mage" and that's sufficient to tell me everything there is to know about the character in terms of game mechanics.

Does it however? Does it tell you about the character's selection of spells? What magic item he or she possesses? Motivations, tactics, allies? RPGs are not about moving defined game pieces around.

Quote from: nDervish;1087925comparison to using a non-class-based system from the start.

What people forget about non class based system that characters are not random hodge-podges of abilities. That there are logical patterns arising out of how the system works or how it relates to a genre or setting. Patterns that in terms of mechanics make the freeform character creation system as predictable as a class based system.

Something that I learned when I played RPGs like the Hero System since the mid 80s and GURPS since the late 80s.

Quote from: Rhedyn;1087936I also don't see the point in trying to make class systems more flexible when you can just play classless RPGs.

Because character creation options are not the only factor that govern the appeal of an RPG system. There the combat system and other elements that players may want to want to retain.

One reason D&D 3.0 worked so well is that its team of authors figured how to inject character customization that was consistent with the older class system and still retained much of how combat and the rest of D&D worked.

What I wish most class based systems did better was allow for more natural evolution of characters based on experience in game (rather than mechanical development based on the pure fact of experience - rather than it's specific nature).

Even 3.0 which introduce ways to mechanically represent this ran into scaling problems and then buried it under the immense need for forward planning in order to qualify for prestige classes and keep "builds" functional.

Quote from: nDervish;1087925You may be able to get some useful ideas from ACKS (the Adventurer, Conqueror, King System) and, specifically, the ACKS Player's Companion, which includes a system for designing custom classes for a B/X-D&D-style game.  The resulting classes, in general, seem reasonably balanced and the class design rules were used to create all of the "official" classes in published products.

However, I doubt you'd want to use the ACKS rules directly, as they're based in the B/X D&D mindset rather than the 4e/5e D&D mindset, which means no lists of quasi-magical abilities for fighter types, so I suspect you would view non-caster classes as "arbitrarily gimp[ed] compared to magic-users" by default.  (Never mind that it's actually designed to make the various types balanced relative to each other without depending on every class having "no, really, it's not a spell" spell lists.)

Without getting into a full discussion on the "linear warriors quadratic wizards" thing, I think the desire to limit martial characters to real physics is both arbitrary and hypocritical.

It is arbitrary because in a magical world it makes sense that everything could be magical, including mundane martial arts and thus characters could train themselves so hard they become comic book superheroes. This sort of thing commonly happens in myths, legends and fairy tales. Although commonly derided as being Asian-derived, Asian mythology only differs in that it codified the feats of heroes into martial arts that others could learn as opposed to leaving those feats undefined as in European mythology. (We discussed this in a martial arts thread a ways back.)

It is hypocritical because by the rules as written martial characters become one-man armies as they level up due to how leveling systems work. It makes no sense to claim that weaboo fighting magic is unrealistic but being able to tank armies is realistic. The character is superhuman either way, and this is an argument used by E6 advocates.

Quote from: TJS;1087935I think classes have to mean something simple and archetypal and setting oriented.

I'm not sure having classes just represent role within the part or combat role really works.  And mix and matching these things feels just two complicated.

3.0 D&D really bears the legacy of being written at a time when class level systems were generally perceived as backward and it took a lot from point buy design.  As a result some of its class design lacks a good clear sense of identity (Fighters and Rogues especially) and this still haunts 5E to some extent.

I think it's interesting that we see what are basically class systems without levels, but not the opposite, levels without classes.  I think this is probably because a clear sense of classes helps make a game more immediately marketable.  But I think it's a shame because I think a lot of the benefits of levels, such as in particular being able tier character abilities, guard against the tendency toward over-extreme specialisation and incommensurate niches, and have some clear sense of character power and ability to handle threats over the long run, would be really beneficial even for systems that don't wont to encode classes in their systems.

While leveling systems may have advantages in particular areas, they also introduce their own problems. Like the mechanics for epic levels and mythic ranks, which were generally bad and quickly discarded by the creators. 5e engages in a bit of this with its "legendary" monsters, whose shtick is that they break the Challenge Rating system.

A problem I find with the the CR/leveling system is that it arbitrarily places monsters behind a level-based paywall, for lack of better terminology. As a side effect, this results in designers creating variations of the same monster for different CRs because it is difficult to keep monsters relevant outside of their CR bracket.

Another problem with leveling systems is that they affect a character's combat ability regardless of their backstory. This is particularly prevalent in Pathfinder's NPC compendiums, where the kings of countries are 10th level aristocrats and as such have CR ~9 durability even though in real life any king could die of a simple stab wound or poisoned chalice. The only way around this is to design NPCs differently than PCs, so that they can have high skills in their desired area of competence while still having low CR (called the 0th-level NPC in pre-3e editions).

A leveling system works for abstraction purposes, but it breaks down when you start trying to simulate a world that isn't a comedy where the D&D rules are literally the laws of physics (like the Order of the Stick comic) or a satire that explores how leveling systems aren't realistic (like the Overlord anime).

Quote from: Rhedyn;1087936I also don't see the point in trying to make class systems more flexible when you can just play classless RPGs.

I did check out Mythras Classic Fantasy. By default, it is intended to replicate an OSR D&D experience, so rules for spherecasters and martial artists need to be homebrewed if an analogue doesn't already exist under the BRP/d100 umbrella.

Quote from: TJS;1087937I can see a point to making class systems broader rather than more flexible.

There's an argument to made for just falling back onto the more basic archetypes eg. Warrior, Rogue, Wizard, and keeping everything else as just are way of customising within those classes.

That's essentially what the "roles" I mentioned are for. Say what you will about the execution of 4e, but the concept of roles and power sources as a way to inform class design isn't a bad idea.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1087859Sounds like you should be using this Spheres of Power system for your RPGs.

That is exactly what I want to do. Well, not exactly. The basic idea, sure, but the not the exact implementation.

Quote from: TJS;1087937I can see a point to making class systems broader rather than more flexible.

There's an argument to made for just falling back onto the more basic archetypes eg. Warrior, Rogue, Wizard, and keeping everything else as just are way of customising within those classes.

It preference with it roots in what one likes and does it work well with how one things about a genre a setting.

The best example of this in operation is Adventures in Middle Earth versus The One Ring. AiME is derived from D&D 5th edition, and ToR it is own system. Yet they both have the same presentation of Middle Earth, describe the same elements with different mechanics, and use the same supplements and adventures.

The only thing different are the mechanics. For me AiME work great, I get where they are going with it and have used it successfully. ToR I never got. But I know people who don't get AiME but really like ToR.

So which is "better"? I say both and it depends on the individual. For me AiME is better, while for 'A' ToR is better. Because the Cubicle7 team did a hell of a job in doing their homework on both the two of us enjoy the same supplements in the same way.

Quote from: TJS;1087941What I wish most class based systems did better was allow for more natural evolution of characters based on experience in game (rather than mechanical development based on the pure fact of experience - rather than it's specific nature).

So what do you mean by "Natural Evolution".

Quote from: estar;1087946So what do you mean by "Natural Evolution".

Not feeling like you needed a character build to do cool things.

Or you know, play GURPS and get exactly that. Especially in campaigns where advancement is skill improvement.

Ars Magica is another one.

Etc.

I feel like if you want classes, you want the thematic strength and niche protection that comes with it. 3.5 did well because people want flexibility but refuse to play not-D&D. As soon as you get over "not-D&D", you have no reason to cling to both classes and flexible character builds.

Quote from: Rhedyn;1087948Not feeling like you needed a character build to do cool things.

 I view that as a referee or setting design issue. Mechanics are there when a procedure or dice roll are needed to resolve an element of the setting. Like caster successfully completing a ritual or a warrior attacking with a weapon.

Quote from: Rhedyn;1087948Or you know, play GURPS and get exactly that. Especially in campaigns where advancement is skill improvement.

Having refereed GURPS for two decades, it well designed and has the detail and flexibility but there are consequences it has that classic D&D doesn't. And vice versa.

Quote from: Rhedyn;1087948Ars Magica is another one.

Well a little known detail is that the whole magic section of my Majestic Wilderlands is started with a GURPS campaign where everybody played a Thothian Mage and much of the detail was adapted from Ars Magica. That campaign in the early 90s laid the foundation for how magic worked in the Majestic Wilderlands ever since due to all the extra details I came up with as result. There is also a side of Harn's Shek P'var as well predates Ars Magica.

Prior to the fall Mage campaign, I had a Guild of Arcane Lore in the City State of the Invincible Overlord inspired by the Harn's Shek P'var. Then came along Ars Magic in the late 80s which I mined for adventure ideas. The all Mage campaign needed to have the culture of mages fleshed out so I liberally borrowed many of the concepts from Ars Magica. The main difference is that mages are more of a part of the Majestic Wilderlands than they are in Mythic Europe or Harn. My level of fantasy is set a notch higher than those two settings.

The whole section on magic and magic user a class in the Majestic Wilderlands supplement is a conversion of the templates and notes I made from above using D&D spell system as a foundation rather than the list of spells in GURPS Magic.

So I am familiar with the issues and trade off involved. The key is to not end with a design but further develop the concept through multiple campaigns and see where actual play takes you. What I started with from GURPS was not just my ideas but my ideas afters they been mangled, beaten, and mutilated by the hands of players. :)


 

Etc.

Quote from: Rhedyn;1087948I feel like if you want classes, you want the thematic strength and niche protection that comes with it.

Yeah that logic doesn't track.  The point I been trying to get across is that niche protection and thematic strength are not a consequences of class. It a choice by the author to write them that way. Another author, like myself, may and can choose to present classes differently. Both, as well as other approaches, work equally well.

To put it plainly D&D 3.5, Pathfinder, D&D 5e, opted to designed their classes for niche protection and thematic strength. My Majestic Wilderlands and Adventures in Middle Earth did not. Instead we both opted to use classes as packages to represent common character types in our respective settings.

AiME has skills, class options, and virtues to further mechanically differentiate characters even when they are the same class, and culture. All of these have background that are ties them to Middle Earth.

I have abilities and stress the use of natural English descriptions for everything else. For example I don't have a "rank" feat/virtue/advantage. I just explain what the rank are, and how one achieves them. And if the players obtains the rank then they note it on their character sheet that they are a captain, guildmaster or a baron.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1087825One of the more annoying parts of elf-games in my opinion is that they tend to be fairly limited in their class options. After reading the Spheres of X books (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/) I can't imagine playing vanilla elf-games.

There are so many topics I could discuss: the Christmas tree effect, linear warriors quadratic wizards, weaboo fighting magic, yadda yadda. But I'll limit myself.

There are about four aspects of class design that I think could be used to inform customization options for games in the future: roles, spheres, traditions and power sources. I've synthesized these concepts from a variety of sources like D&D, PF, and the Spheres of X books (mostly the latter).

A role is the basic role that a character serves in a party. In early editions this was something like fighting-man, thief, magic-user and priest. In 4e it was called striker, defender, leader and controller. In Spheres of X these are called spherecasters and practioners classes.

A sphere is the capabilities that a character specializes in. In other words this is your spell list/school, martial maneuver list, class feature list, talent trees, etc. For example: healing, conjuring, fencing, beastmastery, etc. (The Spheres of X mechanics divide spheres into magic and martial. In contrast to traditional magic-user classes, spherecasters have to specialize in order to develop competence. Martial spheres include physics-defying effects, but these are segregated with a "legendary" tag in case the DM wants to arbitrarily gimp them compared to magic-users.)

A tradition is a layer of customization that gives the character additional flavor. For example: traditional classes/kits/archetypes/etc like wizard, barbarian, cavalier, etc would be examples of traditions. Traditions may be placed under the umbrella of power sources (see below).

A power source (or maybe "essence") is more fluff than crunch, but essentially explains where a character's capabilities come from. For example: martial arts, arcane magic, divine magic, psionics, primal spirits, phantasmal/shadow magic, etc. While the other aspects are more or less mandatory, this one is optional and arbitrarily defined.

I welcome any questions, criticism or advice.

I use templates instead of classes myself.

Quote from: SavageSchemer;1087856I think the class-as-template metaphor is a reasonably good one. While systems that use templates ostensibly are more open with regard to development, my experience is that people will min-max the crap out of that to the point where they might as well be playing a class and level game anyway.

Your experience is different from mine. I find my players do a little focusing at first, but they quickly branch out into other skill sets that have little to nothing to do with the original character 'template'.

Quote from: estar;1087858I argue that is solely about preference. My response is about how Class & level can work just as well a GURPS style toolkit RPG in representing a setting or genre.

I would argue that is also a matter of preference. Or rather, a sort of lack thereof.

To me system matters. Different systems give a different feel at the table and one plays characters differently, because the mechanics do tend to enforce certain styles of play. Certain genre's can have an effect on this.

But most importantly: For system to matter, first you have to actually care about the game system.

And the reality is that most players don't. They just need 'good enough' to play in their favorite genre.

That's why you can jump from GURPS to OSR D&D and only a few players may actually care. (although the genre effect helps in this case.)

I have found that the majority of player want to stick to something familiar or "Just tell me what I need to roll to hit him." So we get the proliferation of d20 (due to D&D's market dominance), and the guy who will happily play the Majectic Wilderlands in Gurps, Hero, or D&D etc. So long as the system switch isn't too jarring, and they can be told what to roll easily - they just don't care.

Me, I would care. Although I wouldn't willingly inflict Gurps or Hero on anyone...

In theory, there is a happy medium between typical D&D-style classes and GURPS/Hero-style individual ability customization, that doesn't go the template route.  Something like Dragon Quest, where it has some abilities that are stand-alone (e.g. "Stealth", weapons), some that are gated behind sub systems that a character has to qualify for (e.g. "Spell Colleges") and then some that are packages of related skills (e.g. "Ranger", "Astrologer").  In DQ, "Ranger" is a "skill" that provides several related sub skills that can "level" only as a package, and are all about core "Ranger" stuff, but add nothing about spells or weapons.  

In practice, such a middle ground solution is extremely difficult to do well, and DQ is certainly not an example of it being done coherently (however well one thinks DQ works otherwise).  Whatever is wrong with DQ, it does support characters that start with some direction, and then evolve as the character gains experience.  But the various "gates" and costs of the packages tends to get a character to focus on a few things to do well, and then branch out slightly for rounding the character out.  

I have very slowly come around to the position that a class-based game can either do archetypes well or it can do multi-classing well, but not both.  The system needs to be designed for one or the other, and radically favor it.  Otherwise, you start throwing away much of the richness of the archetypes or the flexibility of the multi-classing.  To square that circle in a game similar to D&D (but probably not D&D, where I think it would be too confusing compared to the traditions of the game), it might work to:

1. Design the base classes more narrowly.  Something like "Magic User" gives wizard spells, but no combat ability, no skills, etc.  
2. Design the system to have clean multi-classing, with the expectation that every character will have a handful of classes.  Working out the kinks in the leveling system would be key.
3. Then build optional archetypes as templates.  For example, "Wizard" has a plan very similar to a typical D&D class that shows how a character can combine levels of "Magic User" with other classes that give lore and some minimal fighting ability.

In such a game, classes are about rules, and the archetype templates are about setting.  You'll note that this still doesn't get you something like AiME 5E without writing new classes, though.  Like I said, in practice, it's about difficult compromises.

Quote from: estar;1087946So what do you mean by "Natural Evolution".

Some way to mechanically reflect the specific things that have happened to a character.

At a simple level: the party has been spending a lot of time trekking through the wilderness so I feel my character should learn survival and navigation.

But also character development, such as when my Deadlands gunslinger decided he had found god and became preacher.

Quote from: Jaeger;1088030Your experience is different from mine. I find my players do a little focusing at first, but they quickly branch out into other skill sets that have little to nothing to do with the original character 'template'.
.

The big issue is when some do one and others do the other.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1087942While leveling systems may have advantages in particular areas, they also introduce their own problems. Like the mechanics for epic levels and mythic ranks, which were generally bad and quickly discarded by the creators. 5e engages in a bit of this with its "legendary" monsters, whose shtick is that they break the Challenge Rating system.

A problem I find with the the CR/leveling system is that it arbitrarily places monsters behind a level-based paywall, for lack of better terminology. As a side effect, this results in designers creating variations of the same monster for different CRs because it is difficult to keep monsters relevant outside of their CR bracket.

Another problem with leveling systems is that they affect a character's combat ability regardless of their backstory. This is particularly prevalent in Pathfinder's NPC compendiums, where the kings of countries are 10th level aristocrats and as such have CR ~9 durability even though in real life any king could die of a simple stab wound or poisoned chalice. The only way around this is to design NPCs differently than PCs, so that they can have high skills in their desired area of competence while still having low CR (called the 0th-level NPC in pre-3e editions).

A leveling system works for abstraction purposes, but it breaks down when you start trying to simulate a world that isn't a comedy where the D&D rules are literally the laws of physics (like the Order of the Stick comic) or a satire that explores how leveling systems aren't realistic (like the Overlord anime).

You're thinking about how levels work in D&D rather than thinking of what could be done with them.  In particular in regard to epic levels (apart from D&D do you really need them - do you really need them for D&D?)

I've been running the Swedish game Symbaroum for a year now.  It's classless and levelless - but is clearly influenced by D&D.  And I've been acutely conscious of how much it needs some kind of tiering over the long run (particularly as it's a fantasy game with escalating threats).

At it's most basic a level/tier system could work something like this.  Until you have earned 50 xp total your max skill rank is 3.  From 50 -100 Xp it's 7.  From 100-150 it's 9.   You could also link exception based powers to tiers.  Symbaroum has powers that come at Novice/Adept/Master level.  If I was running the game again I'd specifically make sure I tiered access to those powers to a certain point, so you couldn't just spend all your xp and go straight to master but had wait until your total xp reached a certain level before you could get a level in adept etc.

As for combat power based on level - again that depends on how you build all the other elements of the system around it.  There's no reason to necessitate level automatically increases combat power (In Earthdawn going up a circle opens up new abilities for purchase but you have to decide to raise your existing abilities with XP).  The most important function of levels is to cap power.

But yes, overall I'll concede levels are probably always going to be less inherently simulationist than a pure point buy system.  But of course there's a lot of conceptual room in between D&D and GURPS at all ends of the spectrum.  It depends what you care about.

Quote from: Jaeger;1088030Your experience is different from mine. I find my players do a little focusing at first, but they quickly branch out into other skill sets that have little to nothing to do with the original character 'template'.

I do have some players that care little for a "build" and basically just wing it. That can be refreshing and fun and matches what I like to do when I (rarely) get to be a player. On the flip side I have the munchkins. I have one player in particular that will find the most optimal way to essentially build batman, regardless of genre or system. Every game. Years ago I found that annoying, but now I've long since just come to accept it as who he is / what he enjoys.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1087942While leveling systems may have advantages in particular areas, they also introduce their own problems. Like the mechanics for epic levels and mythic ranks, which were generally bad and quickly discarded by the creators. 5e engages in a bit of this with its "legendary" monsters, whose shtick is that they break the Challenge Rating system.

A problem I find with the the CR/leveling system is that it arbitrarily places monsters behind a level-based paywall, for lack of better terminology. As a side effect, this results in designers creating variations of the same monster for different CRs because it is difficult to keep monsters relevant outside of their CR bracket.

How do you make a monster that is equally relevant at all tiers of play?  Having different levels of Dragons makes more sense then having one type of Dragon that is always challenging to fight at all character levels.

Quote from: TJS;1087935I think it's interesting that we see what are basically class systems without levels, but not the opposite, levels without classes.  I think this is probably because a clear sense of classes helps make a game more immediately marketable.  But I think it's a shame because I think a lot of the benefits of levels, such as in particular being able tier character abilities, guard against the tendency toward over-extreme specialisation and incommensurate niches, and have some clear sense of character power and ability to handle threats over the long run, would be really beneficial even for systems that don't wont to encode classes in their systems.

They exist, at least for some definitions of "levels".  Savage Worlds, for example, has characters progress through the tiers of "Novice", "Seasoned", "Veteran", "Heroic", and, finally, "Legendary" based on the number of ability improvements the character has gained.  Some (but not all) special abilities also have minimum tier requirements, so, for example, a character can't start with the Block ability, they have to reach Seasoned first, and then progress to Veteran before taking Improved Block.

Straight point-based games such as Hero and GURPS can also do tiering based on character point totals, but they generally don't have any kind of tier requirements for gating abilities, so I don't think that really fits what you're talking about here.

Quote from: estar;1087939RPGs are not about moving defined game pieces around.

Yes, exactly.  And, to me, classes and levels make things feel a lot more like "moving defined game pieces around" than a more freeform, customizable method of character development.

Quote from: estar;1087939What people forget about non class based system that characters are not random hodge-podges of abilities. That there are logical patterns arising out of how the system works or how it relates to a genre or setting. Patterns that in terms of mechanics make the freeform character creation system as predictable as a class based system.

There are logical patterns, sure, and they arise in the real world, too, but I don't see that making things as predictable as a class based system.  You could define real-world-me as a dual-classed Sysadmin/Programmer, both of which are pretty well-defined packages of related skills and abilities, but neither of those classes includes skills in teaching ballroom dance.  Classes and levels are enough to handle "defined game pieces", but you need something which goes beyond that (which may be a system that's skill-based from the start, or may be something added on top of a class-and-level-based core) if you want to model the complexity of an actual person.

Quote from: estar;1087939Something that I learned when I played RPGs like the Hero System since the mid 80s and GURPS since the late 80s.

Perhaps our experiences with those systems differed, then.  If I went through one of the published books of Champions characters and picked out five Bricks or five Energy Projectors with a given point total at random, I would expect to see more variety between them than I would if I took five random same-level D&D Fighters because Hero has so many more knobs to adjust.  The general resulting patterns may be similar, but the details are another matter entirely.

Quote from: Shasarak;1088067How do you make a monster that is equally relevant at all tiers of play?  Having different levels of Dragons makes more sense then having one type of Dragon that is always challenging to fight at all character levels.

That's why I'm listing this a flaw inherent to leveling systems.

D&D and its derivatives suffer from a severe case of monster bloat due to imposed quotas, both those imposed by the leveling system itself and by a desire to have as many monsters as possible. When monsters are being written to fill quotas rather than as labors of love, the quality suffers. Creative and inspiring bestiaries like the Creature Collection series are few and far between (given the expense in making them), while first party bestiaries and monster manuals often feel like shovelware.

While you can create multiple versions of the same dragon for different CR brackets, the problem is that all too often they feel homogeneous and uninspired (Pathfinder's mythic monsters suffer this problem in spades). However, this approach is actually quite rare for monsters other than dragons because other monsters generally don't have age categories or some other easy means of representing advancement (hence the name Dungeons & Dragons). A more common approach is to write the other versions as being different monsters with different backstories to make them feel fresh, but this generally results in the monsters being redundant due to the imposed quota (e.g. humanoids like goblinoids and beastmen originally being created to fulfill a hit dice quota).

I think the key to more flexible class design is to break them down into more discrete chunks. A good chunk of multi-classing is just that the classes in D&D are too course-grained to allow players to always fully realize what they want to play. If you break down the classes a bit though you can eliminate a lot of the need to multi-class.

My system deals with what would in D&D be a single class by breaking it up into three parts; archetype (superset), class (subset) and background (anything non-combat related).

Archetype provides very basic features that set the feel. Class provides specific abilities that move the archetype towards a specific expression. Background, as mentioned above provides skills and non-combat abilities.

So, for example, there is the "Skilled" (or in OD&D terms a "Fighting Man") archetype. This archetype provides a number of basic weapon and armor proficiencies and provides you with combat stances and specialization options. It also asks you to pick a specific combat style (Strong, Swift or Berserker) and combat focus (Daring, Tactical or Wary) that provide additional elements to refine your basic "Fighting Man" style (Tactical makes your use of "Aid Other" more effective for example).

Then class is a specific set of abilities that define how you use those basic features. The Brigand, for example gets "clever tricks" they can use to gain advantages for themselves in a battle. The Ravager gians abilities to let it rapidly close with its chosen opponent. The Defender gains abilities that make them a virtual wall between opponents and their allies while Sentinels protect their allies using cover fire. The Sentinel The Sharpshooter gains abilities to disable and hinder their foes using ranged attacks, etc.

Finally, the background provides non-combat traits to round it out. So you might be an Arcanist who supplements their martial prowess with utility spells, a Barbarian with special abilities for wilderness survival, Military with more tactical options (ex. Combat Engineering lets you coordinate your allies to dig trenches and errect fortifications more quickly, Forced March lets your group travel further in a day), an Outlaw (gain abilities related to infiltration, deception and other criminal endeavors) or Religious (abilities related to both swaying the faithful and performing non-combat miracles).

So putting the elements together you might go Strong Tactical Military Defender for a classic D&D Fighter or Swift Daring Outlaw Brigand for a D&D Rogue, or Berserker Wary Barbarian Ravager for a stereotypical D&D Barbarian rage machine. But you could also mix it up with a Swift Wary Religious Defender who fights with a polearm in light armor (or with the right options; unarmed and unarmored and you a Monk who specializes in protecting his allies.

Or the Barbarian might instead be a Strong Daring Captain and be more like Conan in the books or a Swift Wary Skirmisher with a beast companion like the D&D Ranger.

Between just the Skilled Archetype/classes and Backgrounds;

- Style: Strong, Swift, Berserker.
- Focus: Daring, Tactical, Wary.
- Class: Brigand, Captain, Defender, Disabler, Ravager, Sentinel, Sharpshooter, Sidekick, Skirmisher.
- Background: Arcanist, Aristocrat, Artisan, Barbarian, Commoner, Entertainer, Military, Outlaw, Religious, Traveler.

... you've got hundreds of possible combinations to express a Fighting Man that are mechanically distinctive from each other even without a multi-classing system.

ETA: The other archetype is "Spellcaster" with a choice of spellcasting path (and subpath); Astral (faithful, militant, zealous), Gadgeteering (big lug, mad genius, monkeywrencher, troubleshooter), Primal (covenant, sorcery - with a secondary choice for both of a clever, insightful, potent or swift patron spirit) or Wizardry (lore, social, war) and the class options of Abjurer, Benedictor, Empowered, Interdictor, Maledictor and Summoner.

Taken together you can go anywhere on the spectrum between pure fighting man (of multiple varieties) to fighting man who uses utility magic (astral, gadgeteering, primal or wizardry), to spellcaster who's good at fighting to pure spellcaster with no multi-classing needed to get you there.

TL;DR the problem with classes is they're often more all encompassing than they need to be.

Quote from: nDervish;1088147Yes, exactly.  And, to me, classes and levels make things feel a lot more like "moving defined game pieces around" than a more freeform, customizable method of character development.

The point raised by the OP is that class/level has flaws which I countered not if you think of it like X.

Also I raised in my previous posts is that a system has to work with the way one thinks or it feels off or it is disliked. Nothing wrong with that but it doesn't make a class/level design flawed from a design standpoint. And I have no problem with folks continuing to like alternatives to class/level like points because of preference.

Quote from: nDervish;1088147There are logical patterns, sure, and they arise in the real world, too, but I don't see that making things as predictable as a class based system.

Come on, you need to be more specific. D&D 3.X, and D&D 5e have plenty of customization feature and both support enough freeform character generation that you can't assume a character is just X on the basis of class alone.

Quote from: nDervish;1088147You could define real-world-me as a dual-classed Sysadmin/Programmer, both of which are pretty well-defined packages of related skills and abilities, but neither of those classes includes skills in teaching ballroom dance.

And class based design have long since accommodated the player who wants his character to have ballroom dances.

Quote from: nDervish;1088147Classes and levels are enough to handle "defined game pieces", but you need something which goes beyond that (which may be a system that's skill-based from the start, or may be something added on top of a class-and-level-based core) if you want to model the complexity of an actual person.

Perhaps our experiences with those systems differed, then.  If I went through one of the published books of Champions characters and picked out five Bricks or five Energy Projectors with a given point total at random, I would expect to see more variety between them than I would if I took five random same-level D&D Fighters because Hero has so many more knobs to adjust.  The general resulting patterns may be similar, but the details are another matter entirely.

That argument only work if you view characters in a RPG campaign to defined by mechanics alone. A view I don't share or use as an assumption in my points. I been quite clear that I view RPG character to be defined by their description aspects of which may defined by mechanics like a 10 strength. But other aspects are description only.

When I make rulings irregardless whether it is GURPS or OD&D 3 LBB I look at the entire description of the character. Of course the ruling is more straight forward in GURPS if the character has Dancing (Ballroom) - 14 i.e. roll 3d6 if you roll 14 or lower you succeed, while in OD&D 3 LBB I would make a decision based on level and attributes. OK you described your character having experience in ballroom dancing, your character has a Dexterity of 15, and is level 2, so roll 15 or better on a d20 and add +2 for dex, and +2 for level.

Again a system has to work with the way you think in order to be fun. If class/level makes character feel like game pieces to you then not liking class/level is understandable. And why a skill based or point based design would work better for you.

Quote from: Chris24601;1088163I think the key to more flexible class design is to break them down into more discrete chunks.

This assumes people want to get into that level of detail in their mechanics. Other are fine in just making a Fighter with a higher dexterity and saying they are swashbuckling fencer while another opts for a higher strength and describes their character as a brute smashing their opponent.

The only issue if the referee ignores the description when it would be a factor. Or the player wants to describe their character in a way that doesn't make sense with the mechanics that does exist.

Quote from: Chris24601;1088163I think the key to more flexible class design is to break them down into more discrete chunks. A good chunk of multi-classing is just that the classes in D&D are too course-grained to allow players to always fully realize what they want to play. If you break down the classes a bit though you can eliminate a lot of the need to multi-class.

My system deals with what would in D&D be a single class by breaking it up into three parts; archetype (superset), class (subset) and background (anything non-combat related).

Archetype provides very basic features that set the feel. Class provides specific abilities that move the archetype towards a specific expression. Background, as mentioned above provides skills and non-combat abilities.

So, for example, there is the "Skilled" (or in OD&D terms a "Fighting Man") archetype. This archetype provides a number of basic weapon and armor proficiencies and provides you with combat stances and specialization options. It also asks you to pick a specific combat style (Strong, Swift or Berserker) and combat focus (Daring, Tactical or Wary) that provide additional elements to refine your basic "Fighting Man" style (Tactical makes your use of "Aid Other" more effective for example).

Then class is a specific set of abilities that define how you use those basic features. The Brigand, for example gets "clever tricks" they can use to gain advantages for themselves in a battle. The Ravager gians abilities to let it rapidly close with its chosen opponent. The Defender gains abilities that make them a virtual wall between opponents and their allies while Sentinels protect their allies using cover fire. The Sentinel The Sharpshooter gains abilities to disable and hinder their foes using ranged attacks, etc.

Finally, the background provides non-combat traits to round it out. So you might be an Arcanist who supplements their martial prowess with utility spells, a Barbarian with special abilities for wilderness survival, Military with more tactical options (ex. Combat Engineering lets you coordinate your allies to dig trenches and errect fortifications more quickly, Forced March lets your group travel further in a day), an Outlaw (gain abilities related to infiltration, deception and other criminal endeavors) or Religious (abilities related to both swaying the faithful and performing non-combat miracles).

So putting the elements together you might go Strong Tactical Military Defender for a classic D&D Fighter or Swift Daring Outlaw Brigand for a D&D Rogue, or Berserker Wary Barbarian Ravager for a stereotypical D&D Barbarian rage machine. But you could also mix it up with a Swift Wary Religious Defender who fights with a polearm in light armor (or with the right options; unarmed and unarmored and you a Monk who specializes in protecting his allies.

Or the Barbarian might instead be a Strong Daring Captain and be more like Conan in the books or a Swift Wary Skirmisher with a beast companion like the D&D Ranger.

Between just the Skilled Archetype/classes and Backgrounds;

- Style: Strong, Swift, Berserker.
- Focus: Daring, Tactical, Wary.
- Class: Brigand, Captain, Defender, Disabler, Ravager, Sentinel, Sharpshooter, Sidekick, Skirmisher.
- Background: Arcanist, Aristocrat, Artisan, Barbarian, Commoner, Entertainer, Military, Outlaw, Religious, Traveler.

... you've got hundreds of possible combinations to express a Fighting Man that are mechanically distinctive from each other even without a multi-classing system.

ETA: The other archetype is "Spellcaster" with a choice of spellcasting path (and subpath); Astral (faithful, militant, zealous), Gadgeteering (big lug, mad genius, monkeywrencher, troubleshooter), Primal (covenant, sorcery - with a secondary choice for both of a clever, insightful, potent or swift patron spirit) or Wizardry (lore, social, war) and the class options of Abjurer, Benedictor, Empowered, Interdictor, Maledictor and Summoner.

Taken together you can go anywhere on the spectrum between pure fighting man (of multiple varieties) to fighting man who uses utility magic (astral, gadgeteering, primal or wizardry), to spellcaster who's good at fighting to pure spellcaster with no multi-classing needed to get you there.

TL;DR the problem with classes is they're often more all encompassing than they need to be.

Agreed. This is no more obvious than in the class bloat that afflicts every D&D derivative. 2e had a bazillion kits. 3e (including Pathfinder) had a bazillion classes, prestige classes, archetypes, class features, feats, etc. Even ignoring supplements, every edition of D&D has gradually increased the number of core classes. 3e added the barbarian, monk and sorcerer. 5e added the warlock. Presumably inspired by Pathfinder, 5e went to the trouble of giving every class unique specialization trees.

There's a series of 3pp for Pathfinder 1e, The Genius Guide to the Talented [Insert Class] series of books, that breaks down all the class bloat that accumulated over the years into modular class features or "talents" that players can pick and choose to build their PC. It borders on a point buy system without really being one. Of course, it only solves the class bloat by converting it into class feature bloat.

Class bloat goes hand in hand with niche protection. A lot of class bloat can be traced back to developers trying to create new niches.

Another problem I have with the all-encompassing style of design is that it is ironically restrictive. Some character concepts are simply impossible to implement without resorting to homebrew or 3pp, such as a divine spellcaster whose primary casting attribute is intelligence (e.g. Heroes of Horror's archivist) or charisma (e.g. Pathfinder's oracle, Kobold Press' shaman) or an arcane caster who relies on wisdom. Even when they did get published, they suffered from bloat because writers usually tried to invent a niche for them.

So long as the default classes aren't flexible enough, class bloat will forever remain a problem. 4e addressed this problem by using universal guidelines for inventing class features rather than every class running on its own logic. 5e throwing out the baby with the bathwater frustrates me to no end.

Quote from: estar;1088168This assumes people want to get into that level of detail in their mechanics. Other are fine in just making a Fighter with a higher dexterity and saying they are swashbuckling fencer while another opts for a higher strength and describes their character as a brute smashing their opponent.

The only issue if the referee ignores the description when it would be a factor. Or the player wants to describe their character in a way that doesn't make sense with the mechanics that does exist.

I don't have a problem with the idea of classes having flavored talent trees like sorcerer bloodlines or monk arts or witch hexes or whatever they're called. The problem comes in when you have to write loads and loads of unique exception-based powers to populate those lists, which inevitably leads to power creep. This is why I like Risus' cliche mechanic and any similar mechanics in other systems.

Subtraction by addition.

I would argue that any Pathfinder, 3.5, 4e, or 5e fighter is less Versatile than a DCCRPG Warrior with his mighty deed die.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1088172I don't have a problem with the idea of classes having flavored talent trees like sorcerer bloodlines or monk arts or witch hexes or whatever they're called. The problem comes in when you have to write loads and loads of unique exception-based powers to populate those lists, which inevitably leads to power creep. This is why I like Risus' cliche mechanic and any similar mechanics in other systems.

My observation while nearly all design choices can be made to work, but there are consequences.  

You can represent Middle Earth like ToR does, or AiME, or use a 4th edition exception based design. But if you go the 4e route, you now have to write all the exceptions. With a further consequence is that now becomes harder to house rule your system. It easy to come up with a single new exception mechanics, not as easy when you have to come with dozens to make some high level element of the system like a class.

And then there are sentiments like yours. Some folks will think it the greatest thing ever and others will think "really!? why do I have to do all this?"

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1088172Class bloat goes hand in hand with niche protection. A lot of class bloat can be traced back to developers trying to create new niches.

So what do you mean by niches?

If a setting has a thousand professions each represented by a classes, I argue the problem isn't the design of the system but rather that the author thought there were a thousand elements that players would be interested in playing as a character. The problem lies with the design of the setting or the author's view of a genre.

Now I am going to assume that niche in this case is more of a wargaming element than roleplaying because that the usual context for a criticism of niche. You have your tank, healer, controller, damage dealer, and so on. All things that make since in terms of the wargame that the mechanics of an RPG create but often have little to do with how the genre or setting works.

In which case, my criticism is why there are niches at all? I will be looking to see if the "niches" match anything in how the author view the genre or setting. Or it is an artifact of treating an RPG as a wargame and the campaign as a combat scenario generator.

If it is latter then I would say the author needs to get their head out of their ass and focus more on having the mechanics reflect how they think the genre or setting works. If that makes for something boring or uninteresting then they need to rethink their approach and design something that is exciting enough that hobbyist would want to spend their time experiencing as their characters.

Finally my view that this issue afflict all system designs.

Quote from: Rhedyn;1088175Subtraction by addition.

I would argue that any Pathfinder, 3.5, 4e, or 5e fighter is less Versatile than a DCCRPG Warrior with his mighty deed die.

This isn't without consequences either. Because there nothing for the player to reference for specifics. Because without such a reference, some players feel like they are just throwing darts in the darkness at a target. Playing an elaborate game of "Mother may I" with the referee.

As a result for the above the work for a broad spectrum of hobbyists, the referee has to be aware enough and skilled enough as a teacher and coach to explain how Mighty Deeds works. Then work at establishing trust with the players that they are fair and impartial in their decisions on what constitute a specific kind of mighty deed.

It not as complex as it sounds me writing it. But it is something one needs to be aware of if you want to be successful referee in system with minimalist mechanics.

Quote from: estar;1088168This assumes people want to get into that level of detail in their mechanics. Other are fine in just making a Fighter with a higher dexterity and saying they are swashbuckling fencer while another opts for a higher strength and describes their character as a brute smashing their opponent.

The only issue if the referee ignores the description when it would be a factor. Or the player wants to describe their character in a way that doesn't make sense with the mechanics that does exist.

And that latter one is precisely the problem with most editions of D&D. The high Dex fighter gets gimped by the mechanics.

I was never able to get a satisfying swashbuckler prior to 4E (even the 2e kits were lackluster, the 3e classes were abysmal) because mechanics were always geared around physical armor (particularly when enchanted) being exponentially superior a high DEX (particularly the TSR-era versions were the Dex bonus to AC was always a straight add whether you were in padded or full plate). 4E was the first edition to let AC just scale with level and let light armor with high Dex be even in the ballpark of heavy armor. Similarly, 4E was the first edition where Strength wasn't the only determinator of weapon damage bonuses (3e had finesse, but it applied only to attack rolls, not damage) so you were always gimping yourself as a warrior to not prioritize strength and the heaviest armor you could get.

Now, this is certainly realistic. Real world plate is categorically superior to a gambeson or brigandine vest/coat even if the guy in gambeson is a lot more agile and with a lot of melee weapons striking power is as important as accuracy for bringing down a foe.

But the agile hero being a match for the guy in heavy armor is absolutely a fantasy trope, so if your world is intended to be a fantastic one (replete with dragons, elves, gods and wizards) and not a medieval simulator then there needs to be sufficient room in the mechanics to enable these tropes.

And that's where; short of "all warriors have the same capabilities and appearance is just fluff"; that having some finer grained mechanics for the classes can come in handy. Because I wouldn't want the light and agile warrior to feel like the heavy and strong warrior even if I want them to be about as useful in a party. They can do it in different ways.

So the strong warrior gets better AC from their heavy armor, but the quick warrior gets better mobility and less fatigue outside of combat. The strong warrior has an easier time battering through armor, the quick warrior has an easier time hitting small and quick targets.

It doesn't have to be an extreme advantage; it might be a point or two of AC for the strong warrior in their full armor and an extra pace of movement for the quick warrior; just enough to let them feel different.

It all comes down to how fine grained you like your mechanics. The Mighty Deeds from DCC was mentioned. We could go a step further and just replace every class with single feature of "roll a d6 vs. TN 2 (very easy), 3 (easy), 4 (moderate), 5 (hard), 6 (very hard). If you succeed, you narrate what happens. If you fail, the GM narrates what happens."

But I don't think that would be very satisfying to many people.

There's something to be said for the concept of "Adventure as Problem-Solving Exercise" where your particular bag of race/class/background/gear is your toolkit. For players who enjoy that, a more specific list is a benefit to their creativity rather than a hindrance.

My brother-in-law is a chef. He has a much easier time coming up with a meal when he's got a list of specific ingredients on hand (i.e. specific list of abilities the PC has) than if you told him "come up with something and we'll see if we can get you the ingredients." (i.e. "GM, can I do this with my Mighty Deeds?")

My ideal game falls in the "problem-solving toolkit" level of detail so my comments reflect this line of thinking. As I explained above, I found every edition of D&D prior to 4E woefully inadequate for playing the types of PCs I was interested in (prior to 4E, Palladium Fantasy 1e was my go-to for fantasy precisely because physical prowess and/or enough levels in weapon proficiencies and/or kobold/dwarven crafted weapons that gave bonuses to parry DID let you play a light armor warrior without unduly gimping yourself).

It's probably why I've never had the slightest interest in OSR games. My experience with the genuine article was that its an utter failure at emulating anything I gave a crap about (i.e. light-armored heroes, non-vancian casters and priests who behave like priests not mace-wielding pagan sorcerers in plate armor)... i.e. stuff you see in just about every non-D&D inspired presentation of the fantasy genre)... so why bother with games attempting to emulate that feel?

Quote from: estar;1088187This isn't without consequences either. Because there nothing for the player to reference for specifics. Because without such a reference, some players feel like they are just throwing darts in the darkness at a target. Playing an elaborate game of "Mother may I" with the referee.

As a result for the above the work for a broad spectrum of hobbyists, the referee has to be aware enough and skilled enough as a teacher and coach to explain how Mighty Deeds works. Then work at establishing trust with the players that they are fair and impartial in their decisions on what constitute a specific kind of mighty deed.

It not as complex as it sounds me writing it. But it is something one needs to be aware of if you want to be successful referee in system with minimalist mechanics.

In practice, you are much more likely to get a satisfactory martial via DCCRPG than D&D3.5.

Yeah you run into the "mother may I" approach but in these "flexible class design games" the paradigm is often "father says no" instead which is worse.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1088158That's why I'm listing this a flaw inherent to leveling systems.

D&D and its derivatives suffer from a severe case of monster bloat due to imposed quotas, both those imposed by the leveling system itself and by a desire to have as many monsters as possible. When monsters are being written to fill quotas rather than as labors of love, the quality suffers. Creative and inspiring bestiaries like the Creature Collection series are few and far between (given the expense in making them), while first party bestiaries and monster manuals often feel like shovelware.

While you can create multiple versions of the same dragon for different CR brackets, the problem is that all too often they feel homogeneous and uninspired (Pathfinder's mythic monsters suffer this problem in spades). However, this approach is actually quite rare for monsters other than dragons because other monsters generally don't have age categories or some other easy means of representing advancement (hence the name Dungeons & Dragons). A more common approach is to write the other versions as being different monsters with different backstories to make them feel fresh, but this generally results in the monsters being redundant due to the imposed quota (e.g. humanoids like goblinoids and beastmen originally being created to fulfill a hit dice quota).

So you just have one Dragon that only high level characters can fight?  And other monsters mechanically like Dragons but called something different for low level characters to fight.

Or Goblins for low level, Orcs for low to medium level, Bugbears and Ogres for medium level, Hill Giants for medium to high level and Giants for high level.

Quote from: Shasarak;1088230So you just have one Dragon that only high level characters can fight?  And other monsters mechanically like Dragons but called something different for low level characters to fight.

Or Goblins for low level, Orcs for low to medium level, Bugbears and Ogres for medium level, Hill Giants for medium to high level and Giants for high level.

As estar succinctly explained, this is a relic of D&D descending from wargames and being more of a combat scenario generator than a role-playing game.

Although D&D takes inspiration from the works listed in Appendix N, it's more of its own thing than a game that can replicate the experience of role-playing a character in one of those stories. (Not that this prevents most players from thinking that D&D does replicate those experiences because of its advertising as the world's premier fantasy role-playing game.)

Myths, fairy tales, and fantasy fiction not influenced by D&D generally don't operate on the logic that characters and monsters have clearly defined power levels. There may be disparities in capabilities, but there isn't some ten or twenty point scale that neatly ranks all characters and monsters.

But I'm digressing. This topic is about how typical class design is needlessly inflexible and this leads to class bloat, power creep, etc. Criticizing leveling systems is a whole other can of worms.

Quote from: Chris24601;1088190And that latter one is precisely the problem with most editions of D&D. The high Dex fighter gets gimped by the mechanics.

In a RPG campaign why are you limiting yourself to the mechanics? If a fighter has a high dexterity and you think it effects a situation then rule accordingly irregardless whether the rules are silent or contradict what you think on the issue.

Quote from: Chris24601;1088190And that latter one is precisely the problem with most editions of D&D. The high Dex fighter gets gimped by the mechanics.

So now the rhetorical you thinks that classic D&D RAW doesn't represent high dexterity fighter accurately?  What can one do about this.

I am going to assume that we are going to stick with the D&D system. Of course you can write a new system like Perrin did with Runequest or St Andre did with Tunnels & Trolls. But for this exercise we are not interesting having to write an entire new system.

The first place is to start is why D&D works the way it does in regard to high dex fighters?

The interplay of a combat round is represented by a pair of dice roll that doesn't represent either side making contact with a weapon but whether either side kills one another*.

So right out of the gate D&D doesn't address the question "Do I hit the target". Only the question whether I kill the target. With this abstraction it was decided that Strength was more important to determining whether a target was killed in melee. That Dexterity was more important for ranged combat.

The key sticking point is the assertion that Strength is always the primary modifier when it comes to determining the target is killed or not in melee. Does this make sense for say a dagger, a shortsword, or a rapier. I think the case can be made that for these weapons dexterity is a more important factor on whether you kill somebody with one of these weapons in a round of melee.

In fact in later editions, the designer thought this way and added the idea of finesse weapons.

So what about the other aspect of a high dexterity fighter? Like being able to hit specific things.  Well we know that in D&D, you are given a 50/50 chance of killing a person with no armor and average dexterity. So that your starting point.

We also know that the pair of rolls that make a combat round between two opponents abstracts the tactics, experience, and techniques of each. That it represent their "best". So anything else would have to be not as good.

Think about it, why in fencing disarms not a primary attack? Because it difficult to deliberately disarm an opponent. Not only that when the opponent counters your disarm attempt they can still focus on attacking you. So over the long run, you will wind up losing as the opponent get more attack opportunities**.

A way I found that is elegant is to allow combatants to specify a result other than to kill (i.e hit point damage) and allow the target a saving throw. If the save fails the adverse result takes hold***.  Another commonly used technique is to impose a penalty. Of course then you can allow dexterity be used as a modifier.

In either case the normal combat procedure is clearly the "best" way to kill the opponent but now you have a consistent procedure for when disarm attempt is called for despite the difficulty.

Wrapping it up
So what does the above has to with the OP and the inflexibility of class and level. Because the same process of reasoning applies to class as it does combat. In the original campaigns 1st level represented the normal experienced individuals. A Hero was worth 4 combatants and thus became 4th level.  

The original campaign had fighter and wizards at first. Not because they are niches to be filled but rather they were recurring character types in the novels, and films that inspired the campaign.

The cleric got added because one of the bad guy players managed to get himself turn into a Dracula style vampire and started kicking ass. The question got raised "Why isn't there a Van Helsing". Add in a few other bits like Bishop Turpin from Charlemagne's Paladins and you get the D&D cleric. And so on with the other classes. Some distinct character type from fiction served as inspiration.

However it didn't results in dozens and dozens of classes during the original campaigns because as it turned out you got a lot of flexibility from having certain attribute score, picking certain weapons, having different tactics, and different magic items.

Then this leads to "Where are the rules for this?" Well the rule is that the players described what they were doing as their character and Gygax or Arneson ruled accordingly. Because both were experienced wargamers, they knew the difference between using a pike and a longsword. Attacking a group of monster from the flank, versus the front. And so on. They ruled accordingly.

For example using OD&D, if the party attacks a group of orcs from the flank they are going to suffer a negative modifier to their morale roll. Since I know from my reading of history that 25% casualties  is when morale start to become significant. It far more likely that the orcs will break and run sooner if attacked from the flank as opposed from the front.

Hence if you want to "fix" classes then the starting point is to go back to do what the original campaigns did. Look at the setting and ask yourself whether the classes represent how it works within the campaign. If not then change them to suit.


* One hit = 1 kill was found to be uninteresting so 1 hit was expanded to 1d6 damage and 1 hit to kill was expanded to 1d6 hit points. I am opting for kills to illustrate the kind of abstraction D&D combat represents.

** What I found from my own experiences and listening to other is that more spectacular maneuvers like disarms are generally result of an opportunity rather than something that is deliberately forced.  The opponent makes a mistake, has a misstep or whatever and now you have a shot at knocking the weapon out of their hand. So it may work better if you use critical tables (hit or miss) to add in some of the nuances to a campaign using the D&D system.

***Saving throws get better with level and higher hit dice. Which fits with the idea that more experienced combatants are less prone to tactics like disarms or being knocked out with a single blow. And saving throws were introduced to give players a chance to escape something really bad happening to them. I think being disarmed qualifies as something really bad so I felt my idea fit with the rest of the system.

So, wall of text that basically invented things I never said.

My OP here was how I tackled class design in the system I'm writing to make it more flexible (you know, the point of the thread).

You replied that going super-simple like OSR D&D could do the same thing by, apparently, just ignoring the mechanics.

I replied to why I found that solution unsatisfactory by giving specific examples of things it didn't emulate well and gave examples of systems I did play that did emulate the feel I was looking for with their mechanics (4E and before that Palladium Fantasy); though not perfectly, hence my own system.

QuoteIn a RPG campaign why are you limiting yourself to the mechanics? If a fighter has a high dexterity and you think it effects a situation then rule accordingly irregardless whether the rules are silent or contradict what you think on the issue.

Maybe you missed the part about "like to play" when describing the archetypes I enjoy? You don't get to make those sort of rulings as a player unless you're playing some story game nonsense. Sure, I suppose I could TRY to tell the GM of that AD&D game I was in once that "my character concept is that he's skilled enough at using his mobility and reflexes to evade and parry attacks, that even though I'm only in leather armor I should be as hard to hit as a guy in plate mail" but do you REALLY think that would fly?

Or I could do what I did and play Palladium Fantasy where my high PP and hand-to-hand skill gave me a high enough parry and dodge bonuses that I could just play the concept I wanted outright because the mechanics weren't fighting me.

4E also didn't fight the concepts I enjoyed; high Dex plus leather armor was right in the defense range range as a guy in scale armor and, as an added bonus, I could make a non-vancian wizard where their cantrips let them do something magical whenever they liked and they didn't need a crossbow once their few spells per day ran out. I wasn't a fan of the more narrative aspects of the system, but that's why I've been writing my own.

Not having to fight the system's mechanics to play what you want is a huge advantage. There's no need to bargain with the DM to play what you want to play, you can just say "I'm playing an XYZ" and be confident the default mechanics will support your choices instead of crossing your fingers that the GM will see things your way.

Quote from: Chris24601;1088323My OP here was how I tackled class design in the system I'm writing to make it more flexible (you know, the point of the thread).

You replied that going super-simple like OSR D&D could do the same thing by, apparently, just ignoring the mechanics.

And the point I been making that not necessary. Which is not the same as saying it stupid, useless, bad-wrong-fun or any number of equally negative view you have on my reply.

Nor giving examples in detail of how I addressed the issues raised by the OP, you and other, make what you like bad-wrong-fun.

It always an option to go the route of making your own system. And this thread started off with radically altering the class level structure to fix issue of flexibility. I have an alternative that I spent years using in actual play. An understanding of why my alternative works and just as important where it doesn't work.

The fact you are designing your own system is great. I hope it works out well.

Quote from: Shasarak;1088067How do you make a monster that is equally relevant at all tiers of play?

Mostly you end up with monsters with varying levels (if nothing else, NPCs with classes and levels like PCs; presumably members of player character races remain relevant at all levels). So orc hunters, orc warriors, orc war leaders, orc chieftains; or hatchling/young/adult/ancient dragons. OD&D wasted a lot of potential monsters just to have essentially the same monster at different levels.

You could have a doppelganger (fights with the same abilities as the character it duplicates) or undead that vary in effectiveness based on the life force of those around it (so automatically scales up against a higher level party). Or better, have opponents that cannot be dealt with in combat; the neutral ruler or noncorporeal spirit can be befriended or outwitted by low level characters as easily as high level characters.

Quote from: Shasarak;1088067How do you make a monster that is equally relevant at all tiers of play?  Having different levels of Dragons makes more sense then having one type of Dragon that is always challenging to fight at all character levels.

One way is to build your game more like Palladium... much flatter combat bonus math with improvement coming in the form of skills, durability from greater hit points and more damage from being able to make additional attacks.

So at 10th level (about 14th in D&D terms) one orc soldier wouldn't be too big a problem, but four or five would probably be able to match your increase in durability and damage from extra attacks.

This is actually the approach I took in my system. Attack bonuses and defense scores go about about 3 (on a d20) over 15 levels, but your hit points and damage dealt scale up steadily with every level. The result is a more linear rate of improvement where a low level monster might need a 12+ instead of a 10+ to hit you, but the damage it deals relative to your hit points goes from 40% to only 10% of your total at max level.* So while one wouldn't be a meaningful threat; 5 would be about the same level of threat to a max level PC as a single one would be for a starting PC. As a result, the low level opponents remain a threat regardless of level.

Conversely, powerful threats are dangerous because they'll take more hits for a lower level party to drop and their hits in return will knock a lot more off a PC with every hit (a level 5 opponent could drop a level 1 PC to zero hit points; and likely rack up a real injury; with a single hit on a crit... a level 7-8 could do it on a normal hit) making the fight a lot more swingy. But significant numbers of low levels foes can be a threat to them too; so they fight accordingly (ex. dragons keep to the air to keep from being swarmed and, if they're going to do something like attack a city or castle, do so at night so the cover of darkness and range of their breath weapons makes them harder to hit). If a low level party wants to go raid a dragon's lair they better plan to hire some additional muscle (which reduced the reward, monetary and XP, along with the risk) or they'll probably get themselves killed.

* It should be noted that "hit points" in this case are entirely non-physical; stamina, morale and luck; and can be recovered very quickly (an hour or less depending on how much you want to push your deep reserves)... actual physical injuries, when they occur, fall under the category of "afflictions" which last for days or weeks (unless magically healed) and may even get worse if left untreated. Thus, the mechanics presume you'll be losing significant amounts of "hit points" in every battle, then either taking periodic rests or burning your limited deep reserves of endurance to refill them before your next battle).

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1087825One of the more annoying parts of elf-games in my opinion is that they tend to be fairly limited in their class options. After reading the Spheres of X books (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/) I can't imagine playing vanilla elf-games.

There are so many topics I could discuss: the Christmas tree effect, linear warriors quadratic wizards, weaboo fighting magic, yadda yadda. But I'll limit myself.

There are about four aspects of class design that I think could be used to inform customization options for games in the future: roles, spheres, traditions and power sources. I've synthesized these concepts from a variety of sources like D&D, PF, and the Spheres of X books (mostly the latter).

A role is the basic role that a character serves in a party. In early editions this was something like fighting-man, thief, magic-user and priest. In 4e it was called striker, defender, leader and controller. In Spheres of X these are called spherecasters and practioners classes.

A sphere is the capabilities that a character specializes in. In other words this is your spell list/school, martial maneuver list, class feature list, talent trees, etc. For example: healing, conjuring, fencing, beastmastery, etc. (The Spheres of X mechanics divide spheres into magic and martial. In contrast to traditional magic-user classes, spherecasters have to specialize in order to develop competence. Martial spheres include physics-defying effects, but these are segregated with a "legendary" tag in case the DM wants to arbitrarily gimp them compared to magic-users.)

A tradition is a layer of customization that gives the character additional flavor. For example: traditional classes/kits/archetypes/etc like wizard, barbarian, cavalier, etc would be examples of traditions. Traditions may be placed under the umbrella of power sources (see below).

A power source (or maybe "essence") is more fluff than crunch, but essentially explains where a character's capabilities come from. For example: martial arts, arcane magic, divine magic, psionics, primal spirits, phantasmal/shadow magic, etc. While the other aspects are more or less mandatory, this one is optional and arbitrarily defined.

I welcome any questions, criticism or advice.

"Role, Sphere, Tradition, ect." are all the same thing: what the character does. Classes, distinctive enough from each other, provide a clear line between what can and can't be done by each PC.

More flexible classes means "sameness". Martial casters and casting martials.

It's like Monopoly/Checkers where, regardless of the token you use, they all do the same thing (move around the board). Contrasted by Chess with its distinct pieces.

A/D&D is more chess like, but you want more customization? More than Pathfinder's legion of classes (https://paizo.com/threads/rzs2qczd?Too-many-classes)? :confused:

At what level of class customization would you be satisfied? Fighters who can pick pockets, cast Fireball and Cure Wounds?

Someone already hit the mark: PLAY GURPS.

It sounds clear-cut but you need to address if these 4 aspects are orthogonal (they dont influence each other). For if they aren't, the picture becomes much more muddy. Example: Is a particular sphere tied to a particular tradition (kung-fu sphere tied to monk tradition)? If they are related, it means you can't select one without impacting your choice in another aspect - and then what's the point to the categorization?

Quote from: Theory of Games;1088959"Role, Sphere, Tradition, ect." are all the same thing: what the character does. Classes, distinctive enough from each other, provide a clear line between what can and can't be done by each PC.

More flexible classes means "sameness". Martial casters and casting martials.

It's like Monopoly/Checkers where, regardless of the token you use, they all do the same thing (move around the board). Contrasted by Chess with its distinct pieces.

A/D&D is more chess like, but you want more customization? More than Pathfinder's legion of classes (https://paizo.com/threads/rzs2qczd?Too-many-classes)? :confused:

At what level of class customization would you be satisfied? Fighters who can pick pockets, cast Fireball and Cure Wounds?

Someone already hit the mark: PLAY GURPS.

Most of the PF classes are basically variations on each other. They don't need to be separate classes. There's an entire series of 3pp books which condense all those classes into custom selected class features for a single class (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/6101/Rogue-Genius-Games?keywords=genius+guide+to+the+talented).

I tried to explain the distinction, but clearly you think my explanation isn't sufficient. If you want another example of how these things are distinct, then here's an overview for 4e's roles and power sources (http://www.highprogrammer.com/alan/gaming/dnd/4e/role-source.html) and here's the spheres of X rules for perusal (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/).

I prefer not to deal with rules heavy games. That turned me off of Pathfinder long ago.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1088965It sounds clear-cut but you need to address if these 4 aspects are orthogonal (they dont influence each other). For if they aren't, the picture becomes much more muddy. Example: Is a particular sphere tied to a particular tradition (kung-fu sphere tied to monk tradition)? If they are related, it means you can't select one without impacting your choice in another aspect - and then what's the point to the categorization?

The meat of the sphere mechanics are the classes and the spheres. Traditions (and by extension power sources, which don't really exist in the spheres mechanics) are optional rules secondary to those, which exist simply for the GM to customize how things work in their setting or to enable character concepts.

Classes in the sphere rules are generic and role-focused in different ways than typical D&D classes. Approximating typical D&D magic limitations would involve taking a casting tradition like "wizardry" or "divine petitioner." Martial traditions, by contrast, provide some starting bonuses and enable character concepts.

I tried to recycle the concept in system agnostic terms, but it's better if you just read those rules for an explanation. Here's the spheres of X rules for perusal (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/). Here's an overview for 4e's roles and power sources (http://www.highprogrammer.com/alan/gaming/dnd/4e/role-source.html).

If the 4e system doesn't make sense, then there's someone trying to fix it (https://overpreparedgm.com/2018/05/04/power-sources-1-polishing-a-half-baked-4e-idea/). One of the points raised, that I heartily agree with and think applies outside 4e, is that some classes' power source isn't well-defined. What exactly is the difference between a druid and a cleric of a nature god, or between a cleric of an archfiend or evil god and a warlock who made a pact with an archfiend or evil god, or between a druid and a warlock who made a pact with a nature god?

The fluff distinction between druids and clerics (and warlocks, etc) only makes sense with a more coherent theology than D&D settings typically have. Scarred Lands made sense by having druids venerate the titans versus clerics venerating the gods (much like Eberron, it was a setting made with D&D tropes in mind rather than a generic fantasy setting bolted onto the D&D rules). A similar distinction (perhaps echoing the old gods versus new gods distinction in proto-indo-european mythology (https://waincraft.org/essays/the-vanir-theory/)) is the only thing that makes sense elsewhere but it has theology baggage that typical D&D fantasy kitchen sink settings can't really do justice.

But I digress.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1088965It sounds clear-cut but you need to address if these 4 aspects are orthogonal (they dont influence each other). For if they aren't, the picture becomes much more muddy. Example: Is a particular sphere tied to a particular tradition (kung-fu sphere tied to monk tradition)? If they are related, it means you can't select one without impacting your choice in another aspect - and then what's the point to the categorization?

In the case of my design;

Backgrounds are entirely orthogonal. Any background can work with any archetype/class. A prime example of this would be an Arcanist Ravager. They have studied magic for utility purposes, but trust the reliability of steel and skill when his life is on the line. In the opposite direction would be the Military Interdictor. They rely on magic to win battles, but know you need a foundation of strategy and military discipline to win wars.

The Archetypes do limit you to selections within them; but once you've chosen Skilled or Spellcasting everything within the archetype is orthogonal. Any combat style can be used with any combat focus and any class. Likewise attack spells or weapon specializations can be used by any of the classes in their respective archetype.

For that matter, Species/Races are orthogonal to background and archetype/class as well. Sure, dwarves are better at the strong combat style and gadgeteering spellcasting path, but a swift warrior or primal spellcasting dwarf is only behind by 5% or so (or not behind in some aspects, but 10% behind in others) a species ideally suited to swift and primal selections... so you benefit from playing to a species' strengths, but not so much that playing against type is impossible or even hard.

Basically, if you follow the extremely basic guideline of "put best score in archetype attack stat and the next best in its focus stat" (or if you're randomly generating stats in order... choose the archetype and subtype options that line up best with your ability scores) you're all but guaranteed to end up with a playable character regardless of what you pick (or roll; I have a table for random species/background/class selections for those who want one or more of those to be determined randomly).

You really have to work to make a gimped character (ex. using your lowest score for your spellcasting stat, next lowest in your focus stat and putting the two highest and two lowest in the same "defense groups" and picking skill proficiencies that key off your lowest stats); it's almost impossible to do by accident.

Quote from: Shasarak;1088230So you just have one Dragon that only high level characters can fight?  And other monsters mechanically like Dragons but called something different for low level characters to fight.

Or Goblins for low level, Orcs for low to medium level, Bugbears and Ogres for medium level, Hill Giants for medium to high level and Giants for high level.

See Fantasycraft.

You can reduce a monster down to a pile of modifiers, and slide it up and down a scaler that allows you add numerically weighted abilities *on the fly* that you can re-skin as needed.

You can literally challenge 15th lvl PC's with 1st level Goblins. You can invent a description of a new kind of goblin using goblin base stats and with zero-effort, turn it into something totally unexpected to challenge your PC's with.

This can only happen if your system is balanced by ability not just by class-assumptions. All sub-systems have to support this design concept at inception.

Quote from: tenbones;1089044See Fantasycraft.

You can reduce a monster down to a pile of modifiers, and slide it up and down a scaler that allows you add numerically weighted abilities *on the fly* that you can re-skin as needed.

You can literally challenge 15th lvl PC's with 1st level Goblins. You can invent a description of a new kind of goblin using goblin base stats and with zero-effort, turn it into something totally unexpected to challenge your PC's with.

This can only happen if your system is balanced by ability not just by class-assumptions. All sub-systems have to support this design concept at inception.

It's so frustrating that a design philosophy which feels like it should be a key foundation in elf-games only shows up in fairly obscure retroclones.

Also, Fantasycraft lets you play as a literal dragon (and not some pansy dragon furbait) starting from level one, so it's automatically awesome.

Quote from: tenbones;1089044See Fantasycraft.

You can reduce a monster down to a pile of modifiers, and slide it up and down a scaler that allows you add numerically weighted abilities *on the fly* that you can re-skin as needed.

You can literally challenge 15th lvl PC's with 1st level Goblins. You can invent a description of a new kind of goblin using goblin base stats and with zero-effort, turn it into something totally unexpected to challenge your PC's with.

This can only happen if your system is balanced by ability not just by class-assumptions. All sub-systems have to support this design concept at inception.

I thought sliding scale monsters were exactly what BoxCrayonTales did not want to do.

To be honest I have not seen a situation where 1st level Goblins can challenge a 15th level Party that did not hinge on triggering a lava trap or some such idea.

Quote from: Shasarak;1089079I thought sliding scale monsters were exactly what BoxCrayonTales did not want to do.

To be honest I have not seen a situation where 1st level Goblins can challenge a 15th level Party that did not hinge on triggering a lava trap or some such idea.

That's not exactly what I said. I said there was a choice between two unpleasant options forced by the limitations of a leveling system. Either 1) design the monsters to scale with level, or 2) create new monsters for every challenge rating. Option 1 has the benefit of reducing monster bloat, since basically every monster can be reduced to sets of recurring archetypes, but it has the downside of potentially going in the other direction and being too homogenous; but by the same token it keeps monster families like goblinoids and beastmen relevant at all levels. Option 2 ultimately results in absurd degrees of monster bloat, but in the short term it means you have more options. Basically two ends of a sliding scale, with no correct point on the scale because every point has benefits and drawbacks.

In real life there's no such thing as levels. The world's strongest body builder could die from a simple snake or spider bite. This generally remains true even in most fiction about monster slayers. A fairytale hero could kill a giant with one arrow yet still be stung to death by a mundane scorpion. Obviously that doesn't happen in D&D. Probably my favorite exploration of this is a D&D/Harry Potter crossover fanfic where a D&D character speculates that Earthlings don't have Will saves.

And I'm starting to digress into martial/caster disparity again. Next I'm going to start arguing that martials should be allowed to train their pneuma/orgones/other Western equivalent of ki/qi. I'm stopping now.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1089109That's not exactly what I said. I said there was a choice between two unpleasant options forced by the limitations of a leveling system. Either 1) design the monsters to scale with level, or 2) create new monsters for every challenge rating. Option 1 has the benefit of reducing monster bloat, since basically every monster can be reduced to sets of recurring archetypes, but it has the downside of potentially going in the other direction and being too homogenous; but by the same token it keeps monster families like goblinoids and beastmen relevant at all levels. Option 2 ultimately results in absurd degrees of monster bloat, but in the short term it means you have more options. Basically two ends of a sliding scale, with no correct point on the scale because every point has benefits and drawbacks.

I dont see those two things as being at ends of a sliding scale at all.  Take Dragons for example, you can have weak and strong Dragons and at the same time you can have thousands of different types of Dragon.

QuoteIn real life there's no such thing as levels. The world's strongest body builder could die from a simple snake or spider bite. This generally remains true even in most fiction about monster slayers. A fairytale hero could kill a giant with one arrow yet still be stung to death by a mundane scorpion. Obviously that doesn't happen in D&D. Probably my favorite exploration of this is a D&D/Harry Potter crossover fanfic where a D&D character speculates that Earthlings don't have Will saves.

And I'm starting to digress into martial/caster disparity again. Next I'm going to start arguing that martials should be allowed to train their pneuma/orgones/other Western equivalent of ki/qi. I'm stopping now.

The only non level based games that I can think of are super hero genre games where you have set level heroes and really no way to improve your character and you have to think of various implausible ways to explain why Thor and Black Widow are fighting the same people.

Weird, by definition, is judging the very first tabletop RPG by what's come since.

It's judging Monopoly by what Settlers of Catan is.

"Cops & Robbers" was a fine LARP until other more sophisticated LARPs came along.

D&D was good for what it did - but since the game was taken from the creator(s) and changed into something different from that initial design --- yeah?

The list of similar rule sets is expansive.

People have posted forever regarding the "Martial Disparity" that was addressed over thirty years ago: Magic-users were nerfed at low level because Gygax & Company KNEW casters would eventually outclass Fighters.

You're discussing history. Even with GURPS or HERO Fantasy, casters are the demi-gods in waiting that they are. It's Magic, after all.

Read Dragonlance? My issue isn't how powerful casters become but rather how Martials got nerfed in order to demonstrate caster superiority.

The big issue with combat roles is how inflexible the characters end up being as a result.

The Defender, for example can be fun when it in it's element, but horribly ineffective when not.  A significant number of their powers could do nothing when they didn't have anyone to defend, so the badass fighters weren't much good at fighting a duel should it be called for.  Even worse when you have to adapt to circumstances and use things like Ranged Attacks.

This ends up limiting the kind of natural intuitive tactics the part can adopt.  You think it would be a good idea to ambush the enemy at range and make them advance toward you up a slope? - no sorry the party's mostly melee based and has no real capacity to adapt.

Natural tactics fall by the wayside.  When you're forced to be a hammer, encountering anything that's not a nail becomes an annoyance.

It seems to me that roles work better when they're largely a product of the tools you choose to use - the weapons and armour you pick or the spells you have memorised - and that you are not forced to specialise to the extent that actually switching things around by circumstance is inherently disincentivised.

Some roles are more effective than others. I think 4E's major flub in terms of roles was making the Controller and Defender into two separate roles when both are effectively "mess with the enemy's tactics by limiting their options."

Having that as a class role is something that can be broadly applied. They don't just take the hits for allies, when ranged combat or single combat occurs, they win by messing with their opponent's tactics to make it easier for them to win. The duel might take a few rounds longer because they lack the knockout punch of the "deal lots of damage" role, but sometimes humiliating your enemy by repeatedly knocking him down into the mud while mocking his poor combat form as you whittle him down is more fun anyway.

The other two; "deal lots of damage" and "buff allied actions" are also generally applicable elements (the latter can work for solo duels if it's allowed to buff itself) that can be used in just about any tactical situation.

This is all my opinion, take it for what it's worth (0$)

All systems place restrictions on your character building. The way I see it all Classes can be divided on 3 basic Super-Classes:
The Strong (Physical prowess of any type)
The Smart (Mental prowess of any kind)
The Sexy (Personality prowess)

Now your character can have more of one or the other or be more balanced it all depends on you, but all you're doing is building from scratch a pre-existing class.

As for the casters becoming gods, fatigue system and humanity system combined with a magic system that divides magic in white, grey and black. With increasing grades of humanity loss and the fatigue points let you use any spell you have enough power to. But you could fall unconscious after casting it. Or you could turn into a Demon and therefore an NPC.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1088983Most of the PF classes are basically variations on each other. They don't need to be separate classes. There's an entire series of 3pp books which condense all those classes into custom selected class features for a single class (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/6101/Rogue-Genius-Games?keywords=genius+guide+to+the+talented).

I tried to explain the distinction, but clearly you think my explanation isn't sufficient. If you want another example of how these things are distinct, then here's an overview for 4e's roles and power sources (http://www.highprogrammer.com/alan/gaming/dnd/4e/role-source.html) and here's the spheres of X rules for perusal (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/).

Nope. I agree WHOLEHEARTEDLY with your dissertation. FULLY. My point for the OP was, if you want more customized class capability, use a system that does that like GURPS ("I want a spell-casting martial skilled at healing wounds and stealing stuff").

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1088983I prefer not to deal with rules heavy games. That turned me off of Pathfinder long ago.

Preaching to the choir, m'lord.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1088983The meat of the sphere mechanics are the classes and the spheres. Traditions (and by extension power sources, which don't really exist in the spheres mechanics) are optional rules secondary to those, which exist simply for the GM to customize how things work in their setting or to enable character concepts.

Classes in the sphere rules are generic and role-focused in different ways than typical D&D classes. Approximating typical D&D magic limitations would involve taking a casting tradition like "wizardry" or "divine petitioner." Martial traditions, by contrast, provide some starting bonuses and enable character concepts.

When I FIRST experienced "spheres" with Mentzer's Immortal Rules, it seemed like "this is how your high-level PC functions as a deity."

Okay, Frank.

The modern concept of spheres is nice, but needs expansion to include classes other than Mages. Combat can have spheres (unarmed, weapon type and/or terrain), skill mastery can have spheres (persuasion, deception, theft, history, et al.), and divine magic can have spheres (go crazy).

There can be a near-infinite level of class + race + alignment customization for D&D that truly produces UNIQUE characters. Iconic personages, even at low level. I like to imagine a point where what the character IS presents levels of information that guides player decision beyond current limitation. Yes, this is already a thing and has been since forever, just not as I'm suggesting.

Maybe I'm looking at how the "trad-murderhobo" player can step up his/her RP a bit? I'm always pondering a deeper game that's simultaneously easier to play, if possible -

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1088983I tried to recycle the concept in system agnostic terms, but it's better if you just read those rules for an explanation. Here's the spheres of X rules for perusal (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/). Here's an overview for 4e's roles and power sources (http://www.highprogrammer.com/alan/gaming/dnd/4e/role-source.html).

If the 4e system doesn't make sense, then there's someone trying to fix it (https://overpreparedgm.com/2018/05/04/power-sources-1-polishing-a-half-baked-4e-idea/). One of the points raised, that I heartily agree with and think applies outside 4e, is that some classes' power source isn't well-defined. What exactly is the difference between a druid and a cleric of a nature god, or between a cleric of an archfiend or evil god and a warlock who made a pact with an archfiend or evil god, or between a druid and a warlock who made a pact with a nature god?

The fluff distinction between druids and clerics (and warlocks, etc) only makes sense with a more coherent theology than D&D settings typically have. Scarred Lands made sense by having druids venerate the titans versus clerics venerating the gods (much like Eberron, it was a setting made with D&D tropes in mind rather than a generic fantasy setting bolted onto the D&D rules). A similar distinction (perhaps echoing the old gods versus new gods distinction in proto-indo-european mythology (https://waincraft.org/essays/the-vanir-theory/)) is the only thing that makes sense elsewhere but it has theology baggage that typical D&D fantasy kitchen sink settings can't really do justice.

But I digress.

Really liking your redefinition of RPG position. I'll read your work and hopefully have some useful contribution later.

Quote from: Theory of Games;1089124Weird, by definition, is judging the very first tabletop RPG by what's come since. .

So the fundamental mechanic has changed from  the players describing what they do as their character and the referee describe what happens?

A comparison between Monopoly and Settlers of Catan is comparing apples and oranges because both do different things with a board, pieces, and rules.

However with RPGs, players describing what they do as their character and referee describing the result has been a constant. And that advice and commentary on that has proven useful for even the latest RPGs.

This is speaking from having used the same setting, my Majestic Wilderlands, with a half dozen sets of rules for over thirty years. Irregardless whether I am using AD&D, Fantasy Hero, GURPS, Swords & Wizardry, Fantasy AGE, or D&D 5e, I am going to describe the City State of the Invincible Overlord the same to a player with a character standing within the Gates of the God.

The details of what happens when the player picks out a mark to pickpocket will differ between the different system. And those details will effect exactly how they approach the situation.

But in all of the this the high level view is that I described what the players see as their character while standing within the Gate of the Gods, they decided to pickpocket a mark, I in turn describe the result using the mechanics of the rules being used. Boardgames don't share this level of commonality.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1089109In real life there's no such thing as levels. The world's strongest body builder could die from a simple snake or spider bite. This generally remains true even in most fiction about monster slayers. A fairytale hero could kill a giant with one arrow yet still be stung to death by a mundane scorpion. Obviously that doesn't happen in D&D. Probably my favorite exploration of this is a D&D/Harry Potter crossover fanfic where a D&D character speculates that Earthlings don't have Will saves.

That realistic a combat system would not make for a very fun game where the player is invested in one character over the course of a year or more of play. In stories the characters are protected by script immunity if necessary to server the author's purpose; in real life to the extent that we get good stories it comes from selecting only the ones where random outcomes (and exaggeration) led to a good story.

Levels and hit points and so on give players the confidence to risk the character they've invested a lot of time in, not because they can't be killed but because they will probably have a chance to change course or deploy some resource like a potion or scroll before dying.

Quote from: Shasarak;1089117I dont see those two things as being at ends of a sliding scale at all.  Take Dragons for example, you can have weak and strong Dragons and at the same time you can have thousands of different types of Dragon.



The only non level based games that I can think of are super hero genre games where you have set level heroes and really no way to improve your character and you have to think of various implausible ways to explain why Thor and Black Widow are fighting the same people.

Maybe not a sliding scale. In any case, this seems to afflict leveling systems more than it does skill-based systems. I have no idea how to address it. I'm not qualified. Fantasycraft certainly helps with bookkeeping by making it easier to scale monsters (and thus remove some impetus for CR filler), but doesn't change the fact that monsters need to be scaled in the first place. I don't know how else to put it besides saying something along the line of: monster progression can be essentially broken down into small fish, medium fish, big fish, bigger fish, even bigger fish, even bigger fish that can shoot lasers from its eyes, etc.

The point about superheroes lacking progression is spot on. Progressions of increasing threat level seem to be a largely modern phenomenon in fiction. I don't really recall any clear examples from pre-modern periods. Superheroes having largely fixed capabilities is closer to how mythical heroes operated than D&D heroes increasing power with level.

Quote from: Theory of Games;1089248Nope. I agree WHOLEHEARTEDLY with your dissertation. FULLY. My point for the OP was, if you want more customized class capability, use a system that does that like GURPS ("I want a spell-casting martial skilled at healing wounds and stealing stuff").


Preaching to the choir, m'lord.


When I FIRST experienced "spheres" with Mentzer's Immortal Rules, it seemed like "this is how your high-level PC functions as a deity."

Okay, Frank.

The modern concept of spheres is nice, but needs expansion to include classes other than Mages. Combat can have spheres (unarmed, weapon type and/or terrain), skill mastery can have spheres (persuasion, deception, theft, history, et al.), and divine magic can have spheres (go crazy).

There can be a near-infinite level of class + race + alignment customization for D&D that truly produces UNIQUE characters. Iconic personages, even at low level. I like to imagine a point where what the character IS presents levels of information that guides player decision beyond current limitation. Yes, this is already a thing and has been since forever, just not as I'm suggesting.

Maybe I'm looking at how the "trad-murderhobo" player can step up his/her RP a bit? I'm always pondering a deeper game that's simultaneously easier to play, if possible -



Really liking your redefinition of RPG position. I'll read your work and hopefully have some useful contribution later.

I'm not sure if I understand you correctly. I didn't write any of the articles I linked to.

What you said is essentially how Spheres of X deals with things, although not to the same extent as you suggest (I think it would be really cool to expand spheres to cover non-combat skills). I think it is a really interesting concept, but I feel that it is sabotaged by reliance on the PF rules.

I think a purely skill-based system would indeed be better, but I haven't been able to find skill-based systems that really address the divide between mundane and magical sub-systems in games. I prefer a setting where there isn't (necessarily) an arbitrary divide between the magical and the mundane, but rather one of progression (barring situations where a magical skill exists by itself without a mundane basis). In that case, ordinary skills should become increasingly fantastical as they advance. For example, fighters can train so hard they can develop weeaboo fightan magic and healers can train so hard they can heal with touch alone. Something more in line with how pre-modern societies conceptualized the basis for their myths, a basis that is absent in modern times due to our upbringing under science and our projections onto the past. I don't know of any skill-systems that operate in such a way.

Quote from: rawma;1089538That realistic a combat system would not make for a very fun game where the player is invested in one character over the course of a year or more of play. In stories the characters are protected by script immunity if necessary to server the author's purpose; in real life to the extent that we get good stories it comes from selecting only the ones where random outcomes (and exaggeration) led to a good story.

Levels and hit points and so on give players the confidence to risk the character they've invested a lot of time in, not because they can't be killed but because they will probably have a chance to change course or deploy some resource like a potion or scroll before dying.

And that's a whole other can of worms. I'm probably not qualified to address it. Here's some starting points:

• https://theangrygm.com/death-sucks/
  
• https://mythcreants.com/blog/six-ways-roleplaying-games-approach-death/
  
• https://gamedevelopment.tutsplus.com/tutorials/how-to-incorporate-satisfying-death-mechanics-into-your-game--cms-24147
  

I max my OD&D at 10th and use fast and equal advancement and I don't have issues with casters dominating the game; especially as the better spell choices create effects that benefit the entire party (haste, teleport, summon monster, etc). I've never see players of Fighters complain when the Mage nukes a room with a Fireball.

Of course, that changes when you have casters who crank out magic without considering it a major resource to be rationed.  Yes, I know rationing is anathema to today's RPG design, but rationing creates meaningful choices. It's one thing I really like about spell point games. Do I toss low level magic left and right in this battle, or do I hold it for a big casting?  

And scaling encounters means you're always fighting orcs. You don't feel badass if foes are always equals, not challenged if the system creates encounters based on the assumption you will win without casualties.

Quote from: Theory of Games;1089124Weird, by definition, is judging the very first tabletop RPG by what's come since.

Mostly pale imitations?

Quote from: Theory of Games;1089124Weird, by definition, is judging the very first tabletop RPG by what's come since.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1089828Mostly pale imitations?

If 5e had been an available alternative to OD&D, I am quite certain that everyone I played OD&D with would have switched to it; it's not a pale imitation even if there are issues with it. And lots of other games have achieved more for specific genres and styles.

OD&D was such a vague and open-ended mess that you had to build the game you wanted on top of it, but that's more to the credit of successful campaigns than the original game. But it's also a weird criticism of the Wright brothers to observe that subsequent airplane designs are better.