[DF] Dragonlance

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Opellulo

It is beyond my ability to understand human mind why one would use obsolete, abusable, fictional and nonsensical concepts like "classes", "allignment" and "levels" in a system that left them in the dust decades ago.. (see also Cyberpunk 2077).

Those are the most atrocius ways to arrange and balance gameplay and party dynamics.

While I totally agree, "classes" and "levels" are an easy way to get people into the game. Various MMOs have tried open skills system like GURPS and they tend to feature on the Youtube Death of a game series.

The problem is it creates the situation of why don't high level character to go low level are and just one shot all the things causing issues for the locals?

For example, in WOW I took a Draenei Death Knight back to the Draenei starting zone when the Death Knight first appeared to level up the secondary skills (First aid, herbs, and potions). The DK was OP back then and having a Draenei as one just cranked up the OP factor to 11 even at level. In a low level zone it was like shooting fish in a barrel.

"For King and Country" explained that "alignment" was a quick way to address the issue of why players were killing what often as not were thinking creatures - if your character didn't 'put them down' odds are it would "wreak whatever havoc it possibly could on society until it was destroyed."

"In the real world, good and evil are invented concepts. Societies label their own values as good, and those of the enemy (or the threatening or the unknown) as evil."

Threads like gamegrene's When The Moral Compass Goes Haywire show how the very concept of alignment breaks down in anything resembling a "realistic" campaign.

Even the most "Evil" villains in of history generally did not set out to be the opposite of what they knew was right and good. They were the "heroes" of their own "story".

Traits such those used in GURPS give both the players and DM a better idea of what a character's behavior might be. In GURPS terms Vlad Tepes Dracula had Bloodlust (Turks, Boyars, 'Criminals'); Code of Honor (Pirate); Honesty; Intolerance, Turks; Sadism (9); Sense of Duty (to 'honest' people of Walachia); Vow (Uphold the faith/protect Walachia). Doesn't that give you a much better picture of how to handle him than simply saying CE or perhaps LE?