Originally (or actually not originally, I've had approximately a billon different ideas how to handle this before this last way) I was thinking of handling character creation by use of an AD&D-esque character class mechanism.

Now the names don't quite do the classes justice, they weren't meant as the final ones.
Anyway, they were taowarrior, warrior, hunter, sorcerer, trader, mystic and bard. Or something like that. Don't focus on the names right now, they're quick translations from Swedish where they were more thought through.

Now this differed from AD&D only in the sense that the classes were wider and different from the AD&D counterparts. To take an example, the "Hunter" class would be used for making "wilderness scout"-kind of character as well as a military bowman or a Robin Hood-style rogue.

Basically each group had their special talents. Taowarriors used tao-powers to fight barehanded or close to that with little armour, warriors were faceless as ever, hunters were rangers and masters with the bow. The trader had extreme skills of persuation and a whole slew of skills AD&D traditionally assigned to the "thief" category. The mystic is the shaman or with witchpeople and dwarves or trolls - the one expert in using their special type of innate magical abilities. The magician is self-explanatory. Finally the bard is pretty much of what the traditional bards were, namely wise keepers of lore. They have talents related to that.

Of course in my game you jump among the different classes as you wished, but there was no getting away from the fact that this was like AD&D and thus carried some of the AD&D character class benefits and disadvantages.

A clear ADVANTAGE of AD&Ds classes was that every character was clearly defined with weaknesses and strengths. Compare that to games which has archetypes but relies on free skill selection for creation like Shadowrun. I don't know about you, but many times my characters suffered from trying to be good at everything at once. Or there was this skill everyone took no matter what kind of character they did because not to have it was a big advantage.

I'm not gonna get into the details of this, I think you all know advantages and disadvantages well enough (if this is interesting for a discussion we could start one in the RPG Theory forum).

Anyway, I just had an interesting insight.

I was thinking of Advanced Heroquest (pretty much the only pleasant fantasy experience I had. Too bad it isn't an rpg but a boardgame) and how it handled the issue of character classes.

Actually it handles it by not having any. Or that is not strictly true. You can do a magician and then you are limited to certain weapons. So, ok. AHQ has 2 classes. But the fact that nothing much changes between them means you still have the feeling of everyone pretty much being a fighter.

Why is that interesting? Well, because I believe that in many games there is a struggle to balance character classes to be equally useful. In AD&D it is very obvious with different THAC0 improvements and hitpoint gains per level, it just gets harder and more subtle in other games.

Usually the fighter is taken as the norm. How can the thief be as useful? Well give the thief backstab and special abilities. You know what I'm talking about.

Now AHQ solves this problem by making every character a fighter. Ars Magica comes from the other end and solves the problem of balancing the most important class in that game, the magician, by making every character a magician.

Not many games have taken this route, but I feel that has to do with two things: Tolkien and AD&D.

I could go on about this, but in essence my idea is:

Why not do it the AHQ way and make everyone a fighter? So the tao-warrior is the figher with martial arts type of unarmed combat. The warrior is the fighter with martial arts type of armed combat. The hunter is obviously the fighter who specializes on the bow. The magician the fighter who knows magic. The trader quickly becomes more of a tomb raiding Indiana Jones figure. The mystic is that otherwordly warrior on his spiritual quest, Obi-Wan or whatever. The Bard might become the swashbuckler.

You see what I'm getting at?

Everyone gets the FIGHTER PACKAGE. And then on top their specialties.

Now how does that solve the problem? And what IS the problem really?

First out, this problem doesn't necessarily occur in all fantasy RPGs. It DOES occur however when conflict is a major part of the game. If so, it is desireable to have all character types being able to contribute an equal share to solving the conflict. A conflict, as has been pointed out before, does not necessarily mean physical combat.

The problem is therefore a general one. If conflict-solving is a major part in adventures, it is necessary for all characters to have roughly equal ability to do so. All games are not about conflict-solving though. Consider a typical fantasy world where a Simulationist campaign is run which is mainly about character exploration. In this case the problem would not occur as conflict solving in form of combat and intrigue isn't the most important thing. Or to take a concrete example: it's ok to play someone's Goblin sidekick who get's slapped around by everyone as long as the game is about running around in a fantasy world and not about killing monsters.

Now back to the problem.

Let's pick an example. Envision an dungeoncrawling AD&D-type campaign. The fighter is there, the cleric, the wizard, the thief. All ready to take battle whatever stands between them and getting that precious loot.

Enter my peaceful Hobbit trader who makes his living by selling tobacco to far away places.

WHERE THE HECK does he fit in? He can't fight worth anything. Oh, he's a nice and interesting character alright, but I'm going to work overtime if I'm gonna get to do much more than run away every time we see a monster.

Sure, it's funny and realistic and stuff. But what if people genuinely wants to run a dungeon crawl campaign?

Out of the dungeon he'll have the same or probably even more impact and spotlight in the game than the other characters, but if the games never really go there, what then?

It's like playing a hacker in Shadowrun when all adventures are set in the wilderness or focused on violent firefights.

Or to put it simply: the character class can't contribute enough.

The usual way to solve this is to identify the main type of adventures and then give all characters approximately the same amount of things to do in those adventures.

Other ways frequently encountered include forgetting about it entirely leaving a bunch of useless character classes in the game or relying on the players to design the right characters.

Another way of course, is to make the fighter suck almost as badly as the rest. Essentially making the characters classes little different from each other except for in name.

In BRP-style games, anyone can develop combat skills, and in fact I've observed that frequently the only difference between the fighter and the trader in such games is that the trader starts out less battle savy than the fighter, but in the long run they tend to even out. Or looking it from a different angle: characters start out with very specific skill profiles but these skills are kind of "washed out" the longer one plays.

AD&D enforces character class skill profiles in the system, so there you don't have the issue.

Again, what's the problem really? My examples are a little extreme, you can still have fun with that hobbit trader even though it's making everyone less efficient.

Well, there's a problem on the other side of the GM screen as well. What about the GM deciding on what foes to dish out? If the characters easily disposes of the GM's foes, he/she probably is inclined to step up the difficulty a little. But what if we have two Conans and then one guy who is a miniature version of Mr. Bean? As long as the dragon attack the Conans, there's not much of a problem. But what if Mr. Bean gets in the way? Needless to say is Mr. Bean is the least bit unlucky he's gonna be dragon chow.

For a few adventures, this is not a problem. But consider a long term campaign. Suddenly the initial charm of playing Mr. Bean might wear off.

Now what if 50% of the character classes are like that and the rest is as efficient as the fighters? What will people play?

It all boils down to genre expectations I guess. The problem is that many game mixes genres to cater to every taste. Here AD&D actually does something right. Vanilla AD&D only gives us adventurers. A lot of other RPGs out there gives us The Fighter, The Thief, The Magician and... drumroll please... The Peasant.

To me this seems like an attempt to cover the situation of "well all the characters start out as peasants to battle evil". And that's all well and nice to help people like that. But does it help?

I'd argue it doesn't.

I'm getting the feeling that any FRPG with a lot of combat ought to use characters who basically know how to dish out pain in a fight. They don't have to be GREAT at it, they just have to have a basic knowledge. You know, the pointy end goes into the other guy. But they're still fighters.

I seem to remember that a lot of monsters in AD&D had saving throws and stuff which defaulted to Fighter saving throws. The feeling is that in AD&D the real basic thing to be is a fighter. Take a peasant and put him into an adventure. WHAM! He's a Fighter. In AD&D at least. Level 0 maybe, but still.

Why? Well every other profession in AD&D has special skills. Except, of course, the fighter. He just kills things. With his cudgel or his sword or his axe. Anyone can be a fighter. Just be willing to fight for your life.

Look at Lord of the Rings. What AD&D character class would you put Merry, Pippin and Sam in? They're not bards, nor REALLY thieves (although they have that hobby, I don't see them picking locks or disarming traps like the AD&D thief. The backstab could be argued for an against though) and obviously not magic users nor clerics. I don't see them as paladins nor rangers nor any other standard AD&D 2nd ed class. Hell no, they're fighters.

They might truly SUCK as fighters, but they still try to fend off opponents with their swords (actually short swords). Bilbo might have been hired as a thief, but he still feels short of the AD&D archetype.

Why isn't Bilbo an AD&D thief then? Because his abilities aren't balanced as such. His lack of fighting skills aren't balanced by supreme thieving skills. He might be able to sneak better than the dwarves, but it's not the backstab which he excels at.

Basically, to be anything other than a fighter in AD&D you have to do something else better than fighting. Clerics turns undead and heals, that's their main trait. Thieves backstab and pick locks, that's their main thing. And so on. But Bilbo? Well he doesn't have any special main trait which is better than his fighting skill. All he has is his wits and his bravery.

Considering that the native american indian warriors were called "braves" I don't think it's very far-fetched to even label him as such.

So do we really need the class of characters who can't fight AS DEFINED BY THE GAME ITSELF? AD&D for example uses the THAC0 to make sure wizards will suck at fighting.

I don't think this is needed. Simply allow for something like this:

1. Initially skill at fighting is considered a main trait (like in AHQ). Note that low skill often can be offset by raw strength and toughness.

2. No limitations on weapon selection.

3. All characters are considered (in the mind of the game designer) to be fighters with varying special abilities.

4. Cover the case of supporting cast and "the peasant growing up to be a warrior" by interpreting them in a Level 0 fighter (see AD&D) fashion.

This way the task is simply to balance the special abilities, rather than a whole profession.

So as I already wrote, the thief becomes the Tomb Raider, the usual fighter becomes a Weapon Master and so on. Everyone shares a Close Combat Rating and a Ranged Combat Rating.

Instead of having one reference class (Fighter) every class is Fighter+special ability.

So what do we lose this way? Gandalf? No, he kicks ass with that sword. You can do Gandalf? Well maybe Raistlin and the AD&D gang, but actually you can get them too by having a low close combat rating and preference to use daggers rather than swords.

This is not Shadowrun style where everyone selects combat skills although it might not really be appropriate for their character. This is a way to recognize that every person crazy enough to go into the wilderness at least have a basic ability to hold a weapon of some sort.

Of course there are people who don't know how, even in a fantasy world, but think a little, are those really appropriate for a situation exploring game? In some situations it might be fun to play such a character who grows up to be skillful, but in this case just use 0 level characters with low initial weapon skills and case solved. No need to make a new character class out of it.

Or that's what I think anyway.

Mmmm.. long posting.

well, aeon on rpg.net wrote an article on paladins. one of Charlemagne's 12 peers was a powerful demon-summoner. yet, he was also a knight. how about that...
i like this idea,and might help remind players that their characters are adventurers. this is filling the need that creators of "town clerics" and "school mages" have.
to assume that it's everyone's job to fight at some point, if fighting is crucial, is a good idea.
actually, a really good idea just popped into my mind.
consider gauntlet(that video game), in any of its forms.
the characters all have *roughly* the same capabilities. all can use potions, can attack, and can use all the special items.
however(!) Thor makes best use of attack-related stuff, Questor makes greatest use of speed-related stuff, Thyra gets armor, and Merlin gets potions. all the characters are in the ballpark of one another when it comes to playing the game, and the game is the same regardless of what class you are.
imagine having a one-PC rpg adventure that you didn't change despite the class of the PC's character. oh, man. if ONLY wizards weren't automatically weaker than fighters at the beginning.
if the style of the game you're playing involves frays and big dramatic fights, then you definitely want to take a cue from LoTR or Gauntlet. Gandalf didn't rack up kills on the level of Gimli or Legolas, but he wasn't dead weight in a fight, no sir. in a way, i guess, the hobbits were more like a living package than anything else. anyway, i digress.
as far as being the wizard in gauntlet, i doubt the designers would make a "crappy" character to play.
instead, they just changed the tempo/rhythm/consistency of the wizard's fighting ability. he doles out just as much damage as the fighter, but in more concentrated doses (therefore, fewer total doses, but it should balance out.) instead of hacking and hacking and hacking and (yeah..) he just gulps or smashes or shoots a potion and does the equivalent of a few minutes' sword-swinging in a few seconds.
if you see the fighter thump the bad guys in his part of the room with a hammer, and see the archer pincushion foes in his part of the room from a perch, it makes sense that the wizard should be able to zap foe after foe, shouldn't she?
maybe there could be combat and non-combat effectiveness for non-fighters, or for all characters.
everyone CAN advance in combat ability at the same speed, but in their own particular specialty. a fighter and a wizard, both (arbitrarily) level 5, could be just as handy in fighting, approximately. the fighter uses his talents to cut and hack and bash brains out, while the wizard burns, freezes, and shatters the bodies of his foes.
the wizard's best buddy, another wizard, might be better at non-combat magic but as good as a protocol droid when the arquebuses start booming.
the problem would be devising a balance system: is the fighter useless outside of combat? if so, that would be amusing: why be a boring old swordsman and have to spend all that gold on armor when you can shoot fire instead of arrows, swing force-beams instead of spears, and actually DO stuff outside of a fight?
maybe fighters get the "blossom" or "leonardo" or "lead singer" role. they get to be the shiny-toothed hero, the leader of the pack, the class president; not necessarily making decisions for the group, but certainly presenting decisions to outsiders.
think about it: what did leonardo (from TMNT) actually *do* aside from not use his swords on living opponents(the wuss)? he acted as a leader and "organized" the group. donatello got to make gadgets, michaelangelo got to use surfer slang, and raphael got to make fun of people. ok, so not a very skilled bunch outside of combat altogether. probably all fighters, the lot of them.
but anyway, seriously consider this when designing a game around your idea (assuming that i haven't added anything new to the mix. if i have, assuming that you're taking it on as your own): if we made a movie about the archetypal 4-person party. while traversing the dungeon, the thief opens locked doors and hears guards coming. the priest senses the location of the vampire they're looking for, and tends to wounds. the magician reads weird languages and does useful little tricks to traverse complications (like darkened passageways and windswept cliffs). the fighter? oh, he can fight.
but every time a fight breaks out, the thief rolls between the ogre's legs, the priest repels zombies with his cross, and the magician shoots fiery knives at the swordsmen. they can all hold their own when danger comes. the fighter ends every fight scene covered in foes' blood and cleaning his weapons off, but he does little more than talk when they go back to tramping through the tunnels. what should he do??
as an idea, maybe he's the one who performs feats of strength.
thoughts?

I came across the same notion with doing some rpg design. Simply put, classes can be crutches to the players that use them. So how's this...


Characters are ADVENTURERS to start off. Adventurers as a class away from normal society. So everyone starts off as an Adventurer class. Then you can break down skills into catergories allowing each character pick and choose what makes them unique. Make the combat skills unique by having them more/less effective against certain enemies.

Aerial enemies can only be hit by those with a RANGED WEAPON skill.
Mounted/Large enemies take more damage from LANCES.
Undead take no damage from BLADED weapons but they can be whooped on by BLUNT ones.
Make some enemies only weakened by magic (to raise the bar for mages & clerics) and vunerable spots (to make use of the rogues). so on...

Mix the combat skills in directly with your healing, thief, magic skills and you come up with Adventurers that band together because they have to rely on each others combat skills as well as their 'archetype' skills. If you want to go farther say that they can only specialize in one type of combat skill.

The guy with the longsword will excel against unarmored foes. The chick with the crossbow will take precedence against the griffon. The other guy with the lance just might save the day against the dark riders. This will spread the spotlight around the party so no one is fighter-mchappy-favorite. Make it clear during character creation that there are no specific classes and that everyone in the party is going to have pull their own weight in combat.

If you wanted reasons behind this, well...not everyone is an adventurer. Most of the world's population is going to be normal. Those that seek adventure become a different lot. That's what you have with the hobbits. They were normal (little) people that got thrust into adventuring, so they became, inadvertantly, adventurers. But they DID become adventurers by their experiences in their travels.

So we can assume that the characters were once normal people that got brought into the world of adventuring. They get their skills from their past and learn new ones along the way. Hopefully, they will one day elevate themselves into heroes. Look at Conan...he was a theif, a fighter, barbarian, ranger, scout, general, corsair, and even a king. These were not his classes but what his adventures led him to be at that time. Just adapt the class types to more of a overall world view of actions taken by characters and less of a mechanical tie and you're ready to go.



Rock n' Roll! I'll use my sword!

-
h

Well, here's the thing about classes, at least in the D&D mileux (is that a word?) Basically, D&D classes are based on combat. the Fighter (or Warrior or whatever word they're using today) has the base combat ability and the other classes trade some of that in for other abilities.

Now, if you're looking to have a group with varied skills that compliment each other, you need to make sure that somehow these other skill have some sort of purpose and are used at least as often during the game. I recall that the Halfing Class in Basic D&D mostly had wilderness skills, not much use if the game takes place exclusively in a dungeon.

I'd like to encourage you to not approach class design from this combat-centric point of view.

I'm working on a longer response but I've been busy enough not to have time to finish it. Just let me throw in a few clarifications:

First it might have been a little confusing to drag in D&D into the discussion. D&D has it's own internal balance, carefully weighted so that each character is about equally useful in combat. If we're discussing badly balanced classes D&D is actually a pretty bad example.

Secondly: my proposal is only to make characters "adventurers" (meaning characters ready for the hardships of adventuring) to begin with. You can see it two ways. Either like everyone acts like a fighter/xxxxx multiclassed character (to use AD&D terminology) or that there is no fighter class whatsoever.

essentially, the game master should establish a type of conflict. or rather, what the conflict entails. are the characters generals in an army? are they tunnel-crawling adventurers? are they members of the elite in a Victorian-style political intrigue?
once that is determined, the Effectiveness stat of the characters is determined. each player also picks the Style of his character. Style determines not *what* the character does but merely how he does it.
however, some styles, for particular situations, might not be as effective.
FOR EXAMPLE:
you're playing Uusbeth, a priest of Ninib the demon-hunter. you do the following things: fight an insectile demon, determine which of the king's advisors has succumbed to Infernal influence, and fights off a highwayman.
when fighting the demon, you imagine Uusbeth swinging his holy staff, aglow with power and purity, at the monster. the blob of energy he wields through the staff is also used to turn aside both dark magic and the pincers of the beast.
when figuring out the corrupted court official, you tell the GM that Uusbeth would channel divine power into his heart and then walk by each of the advisors, *feeling* to see which one seems somehow wrong.
when beating back the robber, you imagine Uusbeth... swinging his walking stick and punching with his fists. you can't quite imagine him wielding divine force against a mugger with a knife, since your god's quest entails the destruction of Hell's forces.
in game terms, sort of, a penalty would be assigned to Uusbeth's Effectiveness stat in the third example. this is because the character, although versatile, simply wouldn't look right doing ALL three of the activities in question. doubtless, some character concepts will be more versatile, but the advantage of a specialized character is that he has a more focused goal or world view or use. specialization gives the character moments in which he really shines, moments in which highly different or more versatile characters get penalties.
at some point, however, every character runs into a situation that merits a penalty. the circus performer might use throwing knives as his attack form, and tumbling/dodging as his defense form, but what if he's in a cramped tunnel? he can't wind his arm back to throw his blades, and he certainly can't muster more than a wriggling motion in an attempt to defend. a heavily-armed gladiator in the same situation could thrust his gladius and let his armor turn blows away. if anything, situations requiring less movement are better for the "tank" fighter and worse for the acrobat. to balance the characters back out, the performer would have an edge in avoiding the electricity blast from a wizard's fingers, while a metal shield can only make things worse for the warrior.
probably, every conflict or test should call for the announcement of two things: the problem and the character concept. no doubt, long term play will give a more complete view of a PC's capabilites, but the basics are as follows:
consider the Style. consider how it interacts with the problem.
if the result is favorable for the character, add to the character's Effectiveness. if the result is unfavorable, subtract from the Effectiveness. in general, a moderate bonus is awarded if the character comes up with a way for the character to tackle the problem that's strongly in sync with his Style. if anyone in the group says anything approaching "your character is PERFECT for that!", award a big bonus. if you can't think of anything that adequately shows the character's Effectiveness, assign a moderate penalty. if the character's Style actually hinders him in the situation, take a hefty penalty.
if you can come up with a reasonable but not especially awesome way for the character to handle the situation, the Effectiveness is not affected by the situation.
i'm thinking that it'd be better to have dice pools for this "system" rather than bonuses to a single die. at lower Effectiveness ratings, a dice pool system would be less random than, say, the d20 basis.
anyway, i think that this adequately starts off my interpretation of Pale Fire's ideas on class role.
thoughts?

i like this idea,and might help remind players that their characters are adventurers. this is filling the need that creators of "town clerics" and "school mages" have.

actually, a really good idea just popped into my mind.
consider gauntlet(that video game), in any of its forms.

in a way, i guess, the hobbits were more like a living package than anything else. anyway, i digress.

if you see the fighter thump the bad guys in his part of the room with a hammer, and see the archer pincushion foes in his part of the room from a perch, it makes sense that the wizard should be able to zap foe after foe, shouldn't she?
maybe there could be combat and non-combat effectiveness for non-fighters, or for all characters.
everyone CAN advance in combat ability at the same speed, but in their own particular specialty.

Pale Fire, shouldn't your idea be generalized a bit? In games which focus on dungeon-crawling, the relevant ability might be fighting. But in a cloak-and-dagger style game, the relevant ability might be 'intrigue'. And in other genres, the thing everyone should be able to do might again be something else entirely.

Thus, instead of focussing to much on the 'fighter' as something special, I'd focus on a 'genre-required skill'. In your game, this might be fighting.

Victor Gijsbers wrote: Pale Fire, shouldn't your idea be generalized a bit? In games which focus on dungeon-crawling, the relevant ability might be fighting. But in a cloak-and-dagger style game, the relevant ability might be 'intrigue'. And in other genres, the thing everyone should be able to do might again be something else entirely.

Pale Fire wrote:
First out, this problem doesn't necessarily occur in all fantasy RPGs. It DOES occur however when conflict is a major part of the game. If so, it is desireable to have all character types being able to contribute an equal share to solving the conflict. A conflict, as has been pointed out before, does not necessarily mean physical combat.