Too many games seem to pick classes based on what other games have done...

Too many games seem to pick classes based on what other games have done. Others make classes to fit character archetypes.

Fuck that, gaming's an interactive medium. Let's design some generic classes based around a specific PLAYSTYLE.

>Fighter
A fighter or "fighting man" is first and foremost a combat character. Primary playstyle is to get stuck into combat with either a favoured weapon or anything that they can find. Secondary features stem from the character's combat experience.

>Play a fighter if...
...you want to be able to cross blades with your enemies and consistently win. In social encounters you'll probably trade on your reputation.

>Wizard
Students of magic, wizards have usually Seen Some Shit. They have access to incredibly powerful magic but must prepare wands, spell components, scrolls and incantations to use it.Expect to have to frantically scribe an incantation or perform a ritual while your party defends you at one point.

>Play a wizard if...
...you like to be prepared, and treat encounters as puzzles to be solved.

>Missionary
An impassionate preacher and student of faith, Missionary will turn many souls to true light. His main playstyle is diplomatically solving situations and gaining followers to help perform diplomacy by other means.

>Play a missionary if...
...you want to talk a lot and bring light to the darkness.

>classes
Is it the early 2000s again?

At first I was like, "Why would you choose to do a fighter? Fighter as a class is an abortion". Then I was like, well, as a playstyle it might work. Then I realized it actually doesn't and here's why: It's still not specific enough, because it's again a generic fighting guy.
Like, what would a berserker/barbarian be? A dude that fights and.... sometimes loses and sometimes wins? Because he can't be as consistent as the fighter, because consistency is the fighters niche, right? And he couldn't fight with improvised weapons, because that's also the fighters thing, right?
So even under this assumption, the fighter fucking blows as a concept, because by being generic he steps on all other classes toes.

>Warlock
Power comes at a price. For a warlock, the price can be anything from blood, to memory, to their very identity. Warlocks can always compensate to a situation at a cost.

>Play a Warlock if...
...you like heavy risk-reward elements in your games, or if you enjoy being able to cut loose with powerful spells and damn the consequences.

>classes

For example, works, because it sets up a clearly confined niche and constraint - it's based around preperation and time management. This leaves it open for other spellcasters that perform magic in different ways and that are based on different concepts like maybe high risk/high reward or randomness or speed.
The fighter just... fights I guess? And he is pigeonholed into fighting? That really blows as a concept, unless you really want to catch the type of players that only want to bash skulls in and not want to deal with the whole roleplaying thing

>Let's go into this thread about classes
>wtf the fuck this thread has classes in it better complaint-bump

I mean the fighter just fights anyway. I'm just using it as an example, but hey let's get more granular.


>Legionary
Trained in the fantasy equivalent of combined-arms warfare, soldiers excel at coordinating, logistics, squad tactics and basic strategy. Mostly proficient with 'field weapons' such as pikes or halberds, as well as shields, javelins, and crossbows.

>Play a Legionary if...
...you enjoy leading from the front and coordinating your allies in battle.

>Ranger
Independent operators, rangers are used to working alone. They tend to specialise in stealth, tracking, hunting and fieldcraft. When in combat, they'll often use any weapon they can find and have a soft spot for improvised traps.

>Play a Ranger if...
...you enjoy mobility and versatility in combat, even at a cost of raw power. Rangers are all about waiting for the right moment.

>I mean the fighter just fights anyway
But that's the problem, that's not even a playstyle and it's a terrible example. Fighter is nothing but cancer in RPG design
Also you fell for something you critized yourself: You added the fighter solely because it's something that other systems have done and then managed to fuck it up even more by actually not giving it a distinct playstyle

Furthermore, I just noticed it, but your writeups are the wrong way around. It should be all about the part "Play a X if ..." and not the other way around, but they're the shorter descriptions.
Like, what does it tell me about playstyle that I can use field weapons? Do they give me superior reach, do they deal more damage? What can I expect from that?
You and the other anons actually described an archetype first and then assign it a playstyle. Isn't that the wrong way around? If I wanted to decide based upon playstyle preference I'd always have to use the second one

>Tamer
Tamers specialize in taming wild creatures and using them in battle.
>Play a Tamer if...
You like varied combat experiences at the expense of uncertainty and out of combat management

>Saint
A Saint commands divine powers of the God how choose them.
>Play a Saint if...
You want to command great power at the expense of limiting the variety of your powers and out of combat limits and obligations.

>Commander
Commanders are great strategist, even while capable of fighting themselves they prove their worth commanding others.
>Play a Commander if...
You enjoy managing the battle field and boosting your allies at the expense of fighting prowess for yourself.

Who not how. Sorry, I'm on my phone right now.

>classes

ugh..

Aww did someone assume your Archetype?

>classes

anyone got a bigger picture?

Only non-shit ones in the entire thread. Ranger, Warlock, and Warlord (fuck off with "legionary" bullcrap) could be redeemed with tweaking.

But this is stupid and wrong.

Boys, we need to stop being stupid and approach this the other way. Forgetting classes, forget the mechanics for a moment, and first just figure out what all the archetypes actually are. Then it's MUCH easier to design a class for them.

Why divide character types between magic, physical attributes, and social skills when in play a combat/rollplay focused character will just roll to destroy the obstacle or situation in front of them?

Whether the fluff is that they slung a fireball, hit it with an axe, or bullshitted it into leaving them alone; it doesn't make a real difference. Let's call this playstyle #1 - The Tom.

If you want to be the guy in the group who tells the other characters when to roll their awesome abilities (tells the face who to go schmooze and when, directs the brick or facemelting wizard at the correct victim), now that is a different playstyle from the first one. Let's call it #2 - the Caleb.

If you often go off by your own and generally are treated like an eccentric, madman, or idiot by your fellow players then your playstyle involves making decisions on your own and dealing with/surviving failure. That's #3 - the Aaron.

And if your playstyle involves taking whatever mechanical role and abilities let you roleplay the most, primarily by injecting unwanted singing/alliteration/puns into the game, that's #4 - the David.

The Tom rolls to do the thing and wants to succeed at doing it. He doesn't care about what he is doing as long as he's winning, and will take orders from someone else just fine.

The Caleb wants the team to succeed and doesn't care who does what as long as it gets done right. He doesn't need to be directly responsible for the winning blow to feel like the winner.

The Aaron wants to be able to do whatever he wants and doesn't care if he fails at it, as long as he can go off and do the thing and have an adventure doing it.

The David doesn't want to just roll to do a thing, in fact he'd rather not roll at all if he could get away with it, he wants to act out a radio drama about what he's doing.

...

thanks

Party Role #1: Makes the high risk/high reward rolls.

Party Role #2: Leads the party and keeps the out of character planning on track.

Party Role #3: Ideally, is able to help the party by failing.

Party Role #4: Does the heavy-lifting in terms of in-character roleplaying/description of the fights, social conflicts, and so on.

A wizard, martial character, cyberpunk hacker or what have you could be made to fit into any one of those roles.

Caleb and Aaron should not be encouraged by a system.

Caleb is just shitty and Aaron wouldn't be so bad except it turns a team game into everyone else spending time twiddling their thumbs while Aaron and the GM one on one.

What the fuck is a Ballistician? Is it a dude who makes your bow/arrows/gun pretty?
The left side definitely has some bogus "classes" there

I think the Caleb-style is okay because it's a dude that wants the team to win. It should also include the dude that normally picks his class the last to fill in whatever the party

Fuck Aaron though

>Let's design some generic classes based around a specific PLAYSTYLE.
You seem to think your idea is revolutionary. It is not. It is old. Like "D&D-before-WotC-completely-fucked-it-up" old.

>Guide
The guide is an expert at some aspect of the world, able to take the party places that would be difficult to get to otherwise. The guide is a generally well-rounded character, but most notable for being able to completely avoid a specific type of challenge.

>Play the guide if...
You won't be able to make it to every session. The guide is fundamentally an unreliable character, and their ability to easily bypass certain problems is only truly appreciated if they're sometimes missing.

>Sage
The sage does not join the party on adventures. Instead they consult with the party beforehand, equipment, magical protection, and advice. The sage's part is told in flashbacks, and other players are expected to give you a chance to speak by saying things like, "remember what Gandalf said about orcs." In combat, the sage's player determines the best time for their enchantments and equipment to show their true properties.

>Play the sage if...
You want a unique roleplaying challenge.

>Heir
The heir has great powers, but does not know where they came from or how to control them. Maybe their missing parent was a powerful magic being like a dragon, devil, or angel. Maybe it's something even cheesier than that. Regardless, you have some limited power, but it ramps up greatly in true emergencies.

>Play the heir if...
You've always wanted to play the character with a mysterious destiny. Or if it would be really handy to this campaign to have someone who can prevent party wipes.

Yeah I think I fucked up. Let me try again.

In most class-based games I've played or seen discussed on here, there always seems to be significant overlap in playstyle between the classes, and not in a good way.

I think part of the problem is that the central archetypes or playstyles the classes were originally designed to emulate have been buried somewhat along the way.

I've found I fall into a trap when designing characters of just saying "he's a warlock" or "he's a paladin" and working from there. Then when I deliberately tried to create a PC without using classes as a framework, I built a completely unviable 5e ranger.


So if we were to come up with some interesting playstyles and identities for possible classes (or redefine existing ones) we might get something interesting out of it.

For an example (and has been mentioned elsewhere in the thread), just scrapping "fighter" as a concept entirely might open a ton of new design space for a whole range of martial classes.


I'm basically just talking d20 here, I realise.
Fair enough.

True, nailing down party roles is a good starting point.

...yeah. If I thought I was being original and revolutionary I'd try to sell my idea, not try and start an anonymous discussion thread.

...

What, the three above you weren't avant-garde enough?

>Create 12 classes using a combination of power source (physical/magical/social) and role ( Tom/Aaron/Caleb/David)
4e did this. Power sources were things like martial/magical/psionic/wild and roles were leader/support/striker/tank.

what if there were 3 kinds of classes that every character had, combat, exploration, and social? It could ensure everyone always has something to do. For example,combat classes would have the typical combat roles of 'melee guy, ranged guy, control guy, flanking guy, healing guy', social classes could have 'mean guy, nice guy, deceptive guy, bribes guy', and exploration could have 'logistics guy, tracking guy, traps guy, lore guy'.

>People coming up with roles like "guy who hits things", as though adventuring parties consist of one guy beating people up and everyone else cheering him on
That just leads to really boring times for the specialized people. Almost everyone I've played with rolls their eyes when the bard starts negotiating with a NPC, because it means we're in for 30 minutes of watching one person play while everyone else twiddles their thumbs.

Every player should have things to do IN combat and OUT of combat. If you're designing classes, I think that's a good place to start.

Maybe give people two classes, a combat class and a life class. Your combat class dictates what you do in battle (weapon maneuvers, fireball-slinging, protective support, sneak attacks, etc.), while your life class covers what you do outside of combat (ritual magic, investigation, being an angry drunk, tracking/wilderness survival, etc.).

Rolled 93 (1d100)

>Oracle
This asshole knows shit you don't. Their brains work like clockwork machines, every piece of information is a cog and once they all have acquired all pertinent parts, they can determine how whatever construct it is that they're analyzing will run for the rest of its life. They're nuts though, they don't care about the present moment and they're not going to have any of your priorities. Their goal is to get to The Point Of Everything and to a lesser extent The Meaning Of Life.

>Play if
You want to know everything but not have the power to do anything about it. Also if you want to be an OP meta-gaming plotbreaker and to piss off your party by not giving a fuck about any of what they're doing.

>Alienist
Something's not right with these folks. They are sort of like the Oracles, they have seen some things they probably shouldn't have. But these things are, most often, alive, and to the alienist, incredibly seductive. They are obsessed with the system that contains all known systems, the world surrounding the world, the universe outside the universe. They love to invoke rules that you didn't know exist or "break" what you thought were rules but never truly were. Expect rambling monologues, insane tentacle creature summons, odd methods of forming friendships, planar jaunts to non-euclidean spaces and the unwanted attention of "men (or tentacle men) in black". Their goal is to become so unhinged that they break away from the world entirely and join the ordinarily horrifying places that they have fallen so deeply in love with.

>play if
You like unconventional truths and surprises, eldritch forces, bizarre divinity, paranoia and breaking set. Often a social class, oddly enough, but you will have to learn an entirely different type of social skills that may prove detrimental to your humanoid ones. Note that your party will not believe any of what you say and they will rationalize all of your "magic" so that it fits their worldview. It's a lonely life.

>illusionist
groovy

If what you mean by playstyle is combat niche you're not designing a roleplaying game.

Or just don't use the outdated mechanic that is classes.