Is "race as class" only favored for nostalgic people/hipsters, or are there actual merits to the concept?

I think it works well in cases where the race in question is really powerful. For example, if someone wanted to be a werewolf or something, then you could tie all those shapeshifting, combat abilities, and damage immunities into the framework of a race/class.

It does have merits but only in cases where the concept can't fit as easily when the race and class are separate.

If you were to do it for base races, I think you'd have to make it so there were some options for paths to follow within it. All elves might be spellblades of some variety, but there should at least be the option of going more rogue or fighter with their combat prowess, and going either arcane or druidic with their spells. Ideally, you would have enough variety within a single race that you could have an entire party of elves and still fill distinct roles without too much overlap.

Classes back then were just a bare template for players to work with on their own anyway. Rangers were fighters with bow proficiency. Paladins were Law fighters with high Charisma. A vampire hunter could be a cleric with good Strength and Con. A magic user with the right skill flavor could be a wizard, necromancer, shaman, druid, after magician, and so on. You could do basically anything with the basic Fighter Magic User, Cleric triangle. The only basic classes I feel would fit well in the triangle would be Bard if it as based on non-magical support.
Other races as class gave you interesting options but I admit they could have been handled differently to make them more interesting than what pretty much equals multiclassing.

It's just a fun thing to do.

I feel like it's a good way to have specialty classes and have good emersion in the world. It puts weight on being something other than human, which currently feels token and hollow.

Also, having you pick both a race and a class is a sure fire way to make everyone seem plain even though they all try to stand out.

>Oh, you're an elf wizard? That's cool, I'm a special kind of underground elf thats a blade wind spell slinger and that guy is a demon person from another dimension who pade a pact with a fae from a third dimention to cast spells from another plane. Who that guy? oh he's half red dragon, which lets him breath fire. The other half? Green dragon. That's how he casts spells.

No min-maxing.

I think race-multiclassing is great, it should just have had sort of race specific classes.

I really like how Legend did it with its racial tracks (although I think usual fantasy player races didn't get any). You could be just a Wizard who happens to be an elf, but you could instead switch out some of your wizardness to be the elfiest elf who ever elf'd.

I think the idea has a lot of merit if you do it like say, 5e's class archetypes; so Elf will have a specific playstyle but you can decide to be a Wizard Elf (who specializes in all the weird utility magic), Fighter Elf (who does all the pseudo-weaboo katana fighting) or Rogue Elf (who is E L E G A N T). It works if you want to put a lot of emphasis on culture and racial traditions, but I don't think it's such a good idea in a standard DnD game.

I run race as a class for all my games, but I also have my players gestalt race with their actual class or have them "multi-class" without any penalty.

it dose if you want to play bog-standard fantasy. If you want the play a game where the dwarf will always be a dwarf fighter and the elf will always be a ranger than go for it, if you want to add somewhat of a "new" spin on the races than do not do this. So this might be a nice thing in just a dungeon crawl, but if you want to add anything that requaiers a bit more RP than "im a warrior i hit shit with a ax" or "im a druid i summon storms and hit shit with a sicle" dont go for it

i dont really like the implication that there are no elven bards, dwarven clerics, or halfling fighters

even if the race as a whole leans towards a specific class, its hard to imagine their society entire society is cookie-cuttered into a single role

its also less fun for the player if they like trying to play some characters they imagined since their choice of elf is just elf

that's more or less what i said

It has some merit.

Imagine it like (to bring up WFRP2E) like the Estalian Diestro; sure, you could play an Estalian character who isn't this career, and with a lenient GM and a cool story behind it you could play a non-Estalian who gets into it. But generally speaking, the class represents a style and set of characteristics common to Estalian adventurers.

I think many games could handle racial classes like this. The Elf class represents a blend of features common to elves so that you can get a blend of ranger, wizard and dex fighter qualities. An elf who's deliberately different from his kin might not take any levels in this class, meanwhile a human from a village which has developed a close relationship to some elves and adopted a lot of their ways might spawn an adventurer capable of taking a level or two in it.

That said, a question for Veeky Forums: If your fantasy setting had race-classes in it, what would the Human class entail?

Yeah, but then you're adding another layer of complexity which can screw with balance. It depends on whether you value parsimony in your design (hint: I do).

>or are there actual merits to the concept?
It ekes out a niché specifically for those races that paradoxically make them more unique through mechanics.

The merits of racial classes are the same as any class. Making something a class means it gets to have it's own unique mechanics that make it different from everyone else. If you want races to be big deal, mechanically, then race as class, or classes that are exclusive to specific races, is a way of doing that. You could add big deal race mechanics on top of classes, but then the game becomes much more complicated. So in D&D you either have race as class or race as a tiny thing that barely matters on top of class.

What about culture as a class? I think this could work.

See Degenesis: Rebirth

Furries aren't human.

4e had proven that you can do "not race as class" and still end up with races both being meaningful and a relatively balanced game.

It's a microcosm for the case for class/level systems altogether. It provides simplicity, clarity, and structure for new players. In a beer and pretzels game, you can get through character creation and be playing in no time. A starting GM has less to plan because he knows more or less what people to expect. In an RP-centric game, it gets people off of charop and into character/story design because that's where you can differentiate your PC.

I'm not a fan of class/levels, being a GURPS guy, but they have their place and this is just a more extreme form of the constrained choices most popular RPGs already embrace.

>being a GURPS guy
Being a GURPS guy, how often do you use templates in character creation?

>frenchman
>likes: war
Hohohoho

>he learned history from Simpsons

It helps for quick character generation, which is good for lots of retroclones.

I like how ACKS does it. Races have their own classes. Instead of Elves having rogues, you have Elven nightblades who have a different set of abilities than their human equivalents. Instead of fighters, Dwarves have Dwarven vaultguards who again mechanically and thematically differ than their human equivalent

In Wakfu they quite literally are.

Also Wakfu furries and FF XI Mithra are okay.

What the other guy said, and this, too.

>Muh spesial snoflake boogymens
>Muh minmaxing
Why not just avoid playing with dipshits?

I was planning this for a game I had in mind but players would still have options via archetypes in those classes

You sound like a dipshit.
How many people willingly play with you?

Answer the question, dipshit

Yes, but in doing so it violates the aforementioned parsimony, which I value above balanced complexity.

I was going to direct you to your own response, but I guess introspection is too painful for you.

Sure, but it could be done in a... uh... parsimonious way using the same methods. Thinking about it, Gamma World does it pretty well.

Im not familiar with Gamma world, but having statted races will always add another layer of mechanical complexity, whereas merely having race-locked classes does not.

Personally Im not in favor of class-based systems in general, but thats another discussion.

also, parsimonious IS a word in case you were wondering.

Gamma World stats them as "classes", but you get to pick (or rather, usually randomly roll) two classes. So it's the same "layer". If you pick two "race class", you count as a half and half, if you pick two non-race class, you are human.

Use the same system, and then just make restrictions on combinations as makes sense with your world.

Ah, yeah, thats always a good system.

>I think it works well in cases where the race in question is really powerful
The Basic demihuman classes ARE really powerful. That's why they have level limits. Dwarves are fighters but with better saving throws, infravision and extra languages. Elves are a fighter/wizard multiclass in an edition where multiclassing is otherwise not a thing, plus infravision, extra languages and a basic 2 in 6 chance to find hidden features. Halflings are small fighters with better saving throws who get -2 AC when fighting against large opponents, +1 to hit with missile weapons and a 90% base chance of hiding successfully

>90% base chance of hiding successfully

That's in wilderness, not in the dungeon. On the other hand, the wilderness is where most of the REALLY scary things are in Basic.

It was a more magical time

Ever hear of Napoleon?

Race as class has the upside that it cuts down on red tape, because every elf ends up being the same shit anyway, every dwarf ends up being the same shit anyway. If it's going to happen no matter what, why not just design the system around it?

best variation of the Racial Class concept is the one that Adventurer Conqueror King System uses, so each race can have more than just one class, without losing their race's flavor

ForeverGM here, all the time. For exactly the same reasons. But I like being able to use, change, create, or ignore them as needed. GURPS let's you do that stuff, but doesn't FORCE you to use them, or to use only published templates.

I like the idea of specific, race-restricted classes. SOmething only that race can do, and is semi-known for it.

In my setting, for isntance, one race of desert-dwelling people can take levels in the class, uninspired-ly called "Binder" where, through only half-understood magic, they temporarily bind spirits to their body and gain powers. No other race can do this, and it lets other classes like thief, wizard, and fighter still have room to exist while maintaining their identity as a race

Gamma World does do a pretty good job of race as class with the way they handle origins, though the book does actively encourage consolidating origins. If you get the Hawkoid and Seismic origins, it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to make your character into a gargoyle, for instance.

I don't remember race in 4e being any bigger a deal than usual, but then I never played it. Refresh my memory?