Classes

[dataweaver]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

Historical usage, and the connotation of the term to most gamers. We're not inventing terminology de novo. So it's the other way around -- if we're going to invent the jargon "template", it should mean something other than "class" (as popularized by the terminological elephant in the room, D&D).

Do that, and you pretty much guarantee that “class” will never be used as anything but a pejorative. Which is fine in casual conversation, but not so good when you’re trying to talk about the pros and cons of a thing in an unbiased way.

As I see it, most of the advice in Template Toolkit 1 applies to classes every bit as much as templates; the only parts that apply to templates exclusively is the advice pertaining to point costs.

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

I'd say classes generally encourage you not to think of concept at all, but rather simply adopt a concept someone else already thought of, and pre-packaged for you. In most class-based systems, it's a struggle to get out of the intended rut. (That's the point of having classes, after all.)

That’s hardly the purpose. True, it can be used that way, though when it happens it’s more likely an unintended consequence: I doubt that the creators of D&D sat down and said “let’s design a bunch of ruts for characters to struggle to get out of”.

Rather, the intended purpose is to serve as a starting point for a concept. Rigid classes don’t have much room to move beyond that starting point; but that’s an effect of rigidity, not of classes.

[Figleaf23]

Characters having classes was the number 2 thing that drove me away from that Other Game. Number 1 was alignments.

[Otaku]

Originally Posted by dataweaver

I know that you disagree with this notion; but I’m using “class” and “template” interchangeably — so a class system “that hasn’t all but become a template system” is a concept that I’m not grasping.

Wait a minute... you don't get it, and yet you correctly identified how I am using the term. So is it a matter of "not grasping"... or simple disagreement? I do not use the term "class" and "template" interchangeably, and I gave my reasoning why: "character class" (or something similar) was a term coined by early RPGs (I never played first edition D&D; let me know if it did not originate there). "Templates" are a general term that GURPS assigned extra meaning to... and we are in the GURPS section of the Steve Jackson Games Forum.

Can one insist on using them as synonyms? Certainly! However instead of making it easier to communicate, we gain a little variety in saying the same thing and when we wish to draw differences between the two, we must now use additional words and phrases in order to do so, instead of focusing on the established, different terminology.

Originally Posted by dataweaver

Part of it is that if you narrowly define “class-based” as “only the worst possible interpretation of what classes can be”, then of course classes are going to come off looking bad. But that’s a problem with your choice of definitions, rather than being a problem with “packages of traits” systems, per se.

First, my "definition" isn't really mine. I did not originate it, I merely share it. I have outlined how I got there and why I support using it. If it is "my definition" then congrats... we're even. You have your definition. I have mine. I have explained why "my definition" is a useful thing to have; it allows one to easily draw a distinction between two similar but not identical things. Treating "Character Class" and "Template" does not. If you can demonstrate why that is untrue or another reason why not to use the terms in such a matter, feel free to do so.

Second... you kind of lost me. I define Character Classes as I understand them to have initially functioned and largely continue to function. The fact that in some systems, "Character Class" may be an optional collection of game traits that one can (for the most part) freely elect to take or ignore doesn't erase how they have (and often still work): I can insist on calling a cat a dog. but it doesn't change its biology and it would make more sense to consider me as using the term "dog" incorrectly.

Third, it only paints "classes" unfavorably if you prefer the constraints of a "point buy" system over rules fiat dictating directly what you can and cannot assign your character; I obviously prefer the point buy system, but if someone legitimately does not, then no it does not paint them unfavorably.

Originally Posted by dataweaver

You’ve said that this is essentially a player/GM understanding issue, independent of the character system. This is largely true; but to the extent that it is true, there’s no point in talking about the system at all.

As a reminder, I brought this up only to counter the assertions that a particular problem was inherent to "point buy" systems. If you don't feel it is worth talking about... then stop talking about. If one wishes to argue that a particular system encourages or discourages a particular problem with character or setting design, or with some other aspect of game play, go ahead... but if I believe that the relationship between the two is being incorrectly portrayed, such as claims that player's "optimizing" character builds at the expense of traits useful for actual, fleshed out characters and potentially better role-playing being a problem in "point buy" systems but no other... I will likely still attempt to refute such claims.

Originally Posted by dataweaver

Once you’ve got a GM and players who know the game well enough, you arguably don’t need formal character creation systems of any sort, be they point-buy, class-based, some sort of hybrid of the two, or even something completely different: just have everyone select the traits that fit their desired character concept, and start running the game. (This is, in fact, my preferred way of handling it; but it demands a lot from the players; even veteran players sometimes have trouble living up to the necessary standards for this to work.)

Very "arguably": I believe this to be a pretty rare condition, but if you and your group enjoy it, that is wonderful! I would draw the comparison to how some people can happily and effectively live in a commune, but even those of us that appreciate those that have both the willingness and capacity to do so don't consider ourselves especially deficient for lacking those two traits ourselves.

Originally Posted by dataweaver

You’ve mentioned that one way to avoid the problems of a point-buy system is to ignore the point costs; but the same logic applies to class-based systems.

If I worded it that way I apologize; I should have said "ignore character point totals": I always believe in at least attempting to track the point values. They are far from a perfect measure of character capacity, but they are better than nothing. If Player One wants to run a demigod and Player 2 wants to run a bumbling, incompetent comedy relief sidekick and the GM has a campaign where those two make sense (actually that doesn't seem like much of a stretch), go for it!

It does help to know if the demigod is really that high in value or if the sidekick is as incompetent as appearances indicate: in many a story you can have a divine being that is severely constrained while the comic relief is magically empowered to explain its survival... but typically the former will be more like a 1000 point character while the latter 25-50, and knowing this makes it easier to prepare challenges for them.

The difference is that without specifying a required point total for the characters, the demigod isn't forced to be constrained (I believe RAW is that you can always play a character worth less than the starting point total). There is also the fact that sometimes there is a middle step: a "target range" for points, or a vague target in general, because point values matter, but the GM doesn't want you being forced to take maximum Disadvantages (including those that don't suit the character) just because you needed a few more points to come close to the build you intended... but at the same time having no boundaries doesn't suit the campaign.

Originally Posted by dataweaver

You got tired of giving up on character concepts in D&D because they didn’t match the confines of the classes? Why didn’t you just ignore the confines of the classes and add in the necessary traits for your desired concept by fiat?

The DM wouldn't let me, probably because the game wasn't designed well enough for that to be an option, and if we had done that... we could have just played GURPS with the previously mentioned alternate rules.

[Otaku]

Originally Posted by dataweaver

And how is that any different than ignoring points in a point accounting system? If you’re willing to play fast and loose in the one case, you shouldn’t insist on slavish adherence to the rules in the other case.

...I didn't say that I played that way; I presented it as an option for others, primarily to be used if they really felt overly constrained by the point values in GURPS. You know, every time I get down on myself for writing such lengthy posts, I am blessed by someone that needed me to go into greater detail to remind me why I do it. ;)

Still, there is also the fact that in a point buy system, when you ignore character point totals while building (again, I don't believe it wise to disregard points entirely) the rules still work. Doesn't work too well for systems where your "class" is essentially a mandatory Template choice that bundles things together.

Originally Posted by dataweaver

As for how a class system can be better than a point-buy system in fleshing out a character: since a class system doesn’t put the traits that a class provides in competition with each other, you don’t have to worry about a player passing up a “flesh out my character” option because taking it would force him to pass up a “be effective in the game” option — something that happens in point-buy systems.

Please demonstrate this, while also maintaining the freedom to pick roughly equivalent options not included in the Character Class system. "There is no fighting over food because we have none!" isn't especially appealing, but that is how I understand your point. Given the rest of the discussion, I realize that is not what you meant, and need clarification.

Character Class Systems do indeed put traits in competition with each other... but at the Class level instead of the individual. Most have at least a few options (instead of just "Play as X, get Y"), and those can indeed compete. Again, no one is forced to choose to eschew "flesh out my character options" for "be effective in game"... it is always the player's choice. If the player believes that "flesh out my character" is a bad choice, s/he may need more help in designing characters or may simply not be suited to actual role-playing (...and that isn't a bad thing either). Oh, or the GM may simply need to supply more points to the players... but I'm repeating myself again.

Originally Posted by dataweaver

As well, a class system can be used to give an overview of what the game is intended to be like. A game whose set of classes is “fighter, thief, cleric, and wizard” is going to be very different from one where the classes are “aristocrat, entertainer, investigator, scholar, scoundrel, and warrior”.

The latter is not exclusive to Character Class systems, so I do not believe it warrants highlighting at a "benefit"... especially because it isn't universally true. Character Class systems can also misrepresent the game world because the game system requires the classes be fully developed for game balance, even if the GM has an adventure in mind for which less than all the character classes are suited. Templates on the other hand can have both the same benefit and the same risk... which is why once again I wouldn't bother mentioning them in this little back-and-forth.

[dataweaver]

First, I’m glad to know that my guess as to your meaning was apparently on the mark. It was, however, just a guess.

Second, I’m not talking about equating cats and dogs. If we’re going to use taxonomy analogies, I’m objecting to using “dog” to mean “chihuahua” when it can also mean “beagle”, “doberman”, “sheepdog”, or “bulldog”; “dog” vs. “cat” would be more like “class-based” vs. “point-buy”. If you want to insist on using “class” in the restrictive sense of D&D-style classes that you’ve been advocating, please present a broader term that can also be used to describe the various “class-like” design options out there that aren’t as restrictive as the rigid and character-comprehensive version of D&D-style classes. “Template” doesn’t work, because it also represents a special case of this broader definition: namely, a template is a (whatever the broader thing is) that conforms to the restrictions of a point-accounting system.

Some examples of other kinds of “class-like” approaches to character creation that don’t conform to the version of “class” that the likes of D&D and Rifts use:

• In Nomine’s Choirs/Bands and Superiors form a class system every bit as rigid as D&D, but nowhere near as character-comprehensive in that they only define a portion of the character. Its Roles define another possible kind of class — excuse me; “class-like thing” — that matches GURPS’ concept of the template. Finally, In Nomine also defines an array of “races” that offer various benefits and drawbacks that form yet another kind of “class”.
• Rolemaster has been pointed out as featuring another take on “class-like things”.
• Fate Core uses a “pyramid structure” for assigning Skills that’s “class-like”. A spin-off of it, Atomic Robo, instead defines a set of four Modes that are “class-like things”.
• Marvel Heroic Roleplaying uses a sort of “meta-template” in that character creation proceeds down a check-list where you prioritize your attribute-equivalents (I forget what it calls them), select three Distinctions, pick out a couple of Powers and define their special effects, and choose a personal set of Milestones that will be used for character advancement. Other Cortex Plus games have various alternatives to point-buy.
• The various iterations of the Storyteller System use what they call “templates”, but which amount to a kind of “class-like things”. The various “splats” form a second tier of class-like things within the proader context of the primary templates (vampire, werewolf, mage, etc.). It also uses a hybrid of priority-setting and a very basic and limited point allocation approach to set attributes.

…and so on. “Class” is a perfectly valid term to use for what I’ve been terming “class-like things” in the above section as long as one is willing to look past the connotations of D&D-style classes. Aside from digging out a Thesaurus and looking up a synonym for “class”, I can’t readily think of a “better” term for it — and even then, we’d be drawing an arbitrary distinction between words that are traditionally synonyms strictly in order to facilitate continuing to use “class” in an artificially restrictive sense.

On point-buy: tossing out the point budget effectively ignores the point-accounting system. Even if you continue to track the point totals, you’re no longer dealing with a point-accounting system so much as a “pick whatever you want” system along with a rating system. And as rating systems go, it’s a fairly clunky one: certainly better than nothing, but arguably only better than nothing. A rating system that’s designed from the ground up as a rating system can easily outperform a point-accounting system repurposed as a rating system.

Your impression of what I’m saying as “nobody competes for food because there is no food” is based on thinking of “class” as “D&D-style class”. “Class-like things” (what I’ve been calling “classes”) needn’t be so restrictive. For instance, consider the following hypothetical class-like thing:

A Profession is defined by three tiers of skills: the upper tier consists of those skills that are central to the profession; the middle tier consists of those skills that support the profession, but are not central to it. The lower tier consists of “elective” skills that someone in that profession might logically pick up, but are not actually part of the profession itself. When you pick a profession for your character, you assign a level to the profession (details TBD; this is, after all, a hypothetical case and not a rigorously worked out system). You get the core skills at the assigned level and the supporting skills at a few levels lower (enough to clearly distinguish them in terms of capability, but not so much as to render them mostly worthless compared to the core skills), and you get the right to pick from the elective skills (again, details TBD) to further flesh out your character.

The key to Professions is that you don’t assign skills to the various tiers by means of a point-accounting system; you assign them strictly based on suitability to its underlying concept. In practice, you will probably have a few core skills and a larger set of supporting skills; but there are no limits placed on how many or few skills can go in each tier. Even if everything else was to be done through point accounting, the fact that skills don’t have to compete for space on the various tiers of a Profession frees you at least partially from the restrictions imposed by point accounting. This concept of “profession” is light-weight enough in terms of rules that players who don’t like any of the pre-existing Professions (selected by the GM to give the players a sense of what sort of game he intends to run) could reasonably come up with a new Profession of his own (subject to GM review, of course*), without resorting to any sort of elaborate design system to do so.

* If the GM-supplied Professions are all types of First Responders — police officers, paramedics, firemen, etc., and a player decides to create a “politician” Profession, the GM is free to veto it — or to change his planned campaign to incorporate it, if it inspires him to do so. And if a player decides that he wants an ill-defined “profession” (e.g., “Samaritan”) specifically to game the system by packing all of the skills he really wants into the upper tier (“a Samaritan is a firefighter, paramedic, and policeman all rolled into one!”), the GM is obligated by common sense to veto it, and to metaphorically slap the player upside the head for trying to game the system.

Another benefit to “professions” is that the profession itself doesn’t require anything of the skill system, other than the basic notion that all skills conform to a single rating system. In particular, the fact that you’re not paying points for skills in the Profession means that a skill can theoretically be as narrow as “quick-draw” or as broad as “Guns!”, and you won’t have to worry about players choosing to select the latter over the former. Mind you, that’s only as far as Professions are concerned; if you supplement Professions with point-buy elements (such as using some sort of “experiences” currency to boost skills from the levels established by the Profession or to select elective skills), establishing a rough parity in the breadth of the available skills becomes an issue again; but that’s a restriction imposed by the point-buy elements, not by the Professions.

The above concept of “Profession” is a “class-like thing”, but not a D&D-style class. It does not in and of itself involve point-accounting (so it isn’t a Template as GURPS uses the term), and lets you do things that point-accounting would prevent. Yes, there is still theoretically competition between the Professions, in that you probably aren’t free to take every Profession at whatever levels you want; but the result still gives you more design freedom than a strict point accounting system would.

I’ve considered using the above notion of “profession” in a heavily hacked version of In Nomine as an enhancement to its concept of Roles; but I haven’t been able to get a group together to try it out.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by dataweaver

Some examples of other kinds of “class-like” approaches to character creation that don’t conform to the version of “class” that the likes of D&D and Rifts use:

"Draker och Demoner", a Swedish licensed derivative of Chaosium's Basic Roleplaying (BRP) uses something else, called Professions. You must choose one, but they limit only your starting skills. After gamestart, you can develop however you want.

My old Multiclass RPG, designed and published in 1998, has each character defined as 3 classes, picked from a list of 12, such as Warrior, Sage, Spy, Thief, Priest, Wizard, Psionicist, Bard, Ranger. You pick one Primary class, one Secondary and one Tertiary, with all others being Quaternary. IIRC for your Tertiary Class you got a +2 bonus to skill defaults, +3 for Secondary and +4 for Tertiary. Then you could buy up from there using the same cost progression regardless of class priority. Warrior class priority also defined base Hit Points and how much it cost to improve them (but it's never possible to have more than something like 3 or 3.5 as many HP as an average person, and you have to be Primary Warrior to get that), and the priority of the 3 caster classes defined base spell points and cost to improve.

For instance, if you wanted to make a druid type character, you'd pikc Priest/Ranger/Sage for primarily divine spellcasting (which could be flavoured, to some extent, to have a "nature magic" theme) with some wilderness abilities and a little knowledge, or Sage/Wizard/Ranger for a more Ärth-type druid, primarily knowledge-based but with some secular/arcane magic, and a little wilderness ability (possibly switching out Ranger for Healer to represent a medical druid).

A wizard classic would be Wizard/Sage/anything. A standard AD&D Thief would be Thief/Warrior/anything, while a non-AD&D rogue could be Thief/Spy/Warrior or Spy/Thief/Warrior, possibly switching out Warrior for Bard to get some social skills instead of combat.

One major regret I had, was that I didn't have a good language system. I could easily add that in now, but I was a much less skilled RPG designer back then. Also there are some other things I'd have done differently, but in particular the lack of language learning ability differentiation, and the absence of formal Spell Levels (as an aid to the whole spell-improvising thingie), made me lose interest in using my own design.

The inspiration for Multiclass RPG was a Star Wars LARP system that I read in 1997, in which you chose a primary and secondary character class from a list of six.

[dataweaver]

A couple nitpicks:

Originally Posted by Otaku

As a reminder, I brought this up only to counter the assertions that a particular problem was inherent to "point buy" systems. If you don't feel it is worth talking about... then stop talking about.

Ironically, that’s my line. What I was pointing out here was that your solution to the problems inherent in a point-buy system amount to tossing out the point-buy system; not that I don’t feel that this is worth talking about.

Originally Posted by Otaku

If one wishes to argue that a particular system encourages or discourages a particular problem with character or setting design, or with some other aspect of game play, go ahead... but if I believe that the relationship between the two is being incorrectly portrayed, such as claims that player's "optimizing" character builds at the expense of traits useful for actual, fleshed out characters and potentially better role-playing being a problem in "point buy" systems but no other... I will likely still attempt to refute such claims.

And again, that’s my line, except that I’m of the belief that it’s class-based systems that are being unfairly denigrated, with problems involving one (admittedly most famous) implementation of the concept being treated as an inherent problem of the concept.

Originally Posted by Otaku

It does help to know if the demigod is really that high in value or if the sidekick is as incompetent as appearances indicate: in many a story you can have a divine being that is severely constrained while the comic relief is magically empowered to explain its survival... but typically the former will be more like a 1000 point character while the latter 25-50, and knowing this makes it easier to prepare challenges for them.

Overall point value isn’t particularly useful for this unless the two characters have significant (as in near-total) overlap in terms of the challenges they’re designed to face. If the demigod is built to face and overcome combat challenges but has next to nothing in terms of social engineering, but the sidekick has a way with people, and the campaign features combat and social engineering in equal measures, then the 1000-point demigod and his 25-point “dependent” are balanced despite the massive disparity in point totals. I call this the “Lois and Clark Effect”, after the TV series of the same name where a newspaper reporter held her own alongside a demigod specifically because she had a relative advantage over him in terms of investigation and social engineering challenges.

This is where a rating system built from the ground up as a rating system would come in handy. You could get a better emulation of a proper rating system by applying the Buckets of Points concept from the Alternate GURPS III Pyramid issue with a focus on Thematic buckets built around the various challenges to be featured in your campaign (see Template Toolkit 1 for advice on delineating challenges); but there would still be artifacts of the point-buy mentality embedded in the numbers that would skew the results.

One example of the point-buy origins skewing its usefulness as a rating system is the notion that the values of individual traits are cumulative: e.g., two 10-point traits are as useful as a single 20-point trait. This is largely untrue when it comes to skills: two combat skills are not twice as valuable as one, because their uses overlap so heavily. Conversely sometimes two traits have synergistic effects when taken together than makes the pair of them more effective at meeting a given type of challenge than their cumulative ratings would suggest.

Another example is that a rating system involving skills ought to be based off of the skill rating directly; “cost-saving” issues such as Attribute bases, Talent bonuses, or buying up from a cross-skill default skew the results.

And so on.

[Otaku]

Originally Posted by dataweaver

A couple nitpicks:Ironically, that’s my line. What I was pointing out here was that your solution to the problems inherent in a point-buy system amount to tossing out the point-buy system; not that I don’t feel that this is worth talking about.

Except it isn't a problem limited to point-buy systems.

If you cannot admit that at least some players will be more inclined to focus on options that maximize perceived "performance" in game over those that are there to create a more believable, well rounded character and richer role-playing experience... we are done. Even if you've never personally met such players, you have sufficient evidence to allow that they exist; personally most RPG players I know went through at least a "phase" where that is what they themselves were (myself included).

Originally Posted by dataweaver

And again, that’s my line, except that I’m of the belief that it’s class-based systems that are being unfairly denigrated, with problems involving one (admittedly most famous) implementation of the concept being treated as an inherent problem of the concept.

Then you're reading the wrong script. ;)

There really isn't much more I can say; we have a fundamental disagreement here and a great deal of difficulty communicating. I am aware of your previous post... again, fundamental disagreement means none of your arguments even begin to make sense to me. You disagree with the terminology I favor. If I try to use things like analogies or metaphors, you get hung up on the details not relevant to the comparison.

Your words are not convincing me that my view is in error... in fact it mostly seems to be reinforcing them and negative stereotypes I have about certain game mechanics and the gamers that prefer them. I can't even point out that an incompetent, comedy relief sidekick is incompetent, comedy relief; your "Lois & Clark" example ignores that since Lois wasn't incompetent. Trouble making? Yes. Incompetent - or at least broadly incompetent - no.

As such... I am going to cease responding to this line of comments on this thread. If you want to call that a "victory", go ahead. We are just going around in circles, so I certainly no that I am not convincing you of anything.

[dataweaver]

Not “victory”; abject failure. I’m trying to communicate here, not “win”.

Agreed that Lois wasn’t incompetent. That wasn’t my point in bringing her up; my point is that there’s a vast disparity in point totals between Lois and Superman, but that the characters are “balanced” because Lois has her own area where she shines. That’s not something that you can get just by looking at the point totals.

I acknowledge that the problems I cite concerning point-buy aren’t exclusive to point-buy. I’ve also never claimed that they are. However, they’re issues that are generally not acknowledged by proponents of point-buy.

[Anders]

Did someone say Twerking Elves?