Classes and archetypes

[Raleel]

We’ve been talking a bit about classes and archetypes in my local group. There are some in my group who really like them and have said they straight up like the Skinner box feel if it (their words). And it got me to thinking how much I hate the Skinner Box feel of it. It makes me rebel almost instantly.

I’m honestly less concerned if you like it or hate it, but curious if you’ve ever thought about why you dislike or like classes/archetypes.

 

[TJS]

It's not so much that I like classes.

It's just I find them better them some of the alternatives. I find that a lot of the point buy systems offer more the illusion of flexibility - you spend hours fiddling with numbers but often end up with rules systems which encourage specialisation and as a result players tend to pick different specialisations and so you end up with something that looks like classes in the end anyway.

And I really don't have the patience these days for adding up points and flicking through books and weighing up different options.

I think the best form of character creation is probably a life path system - but these do have both the advantage and disadvantage that they tend to be more heavily tied to setting, so need a lot of tweaking if you want to do something else with a system.

 

[TristramEvans]

I like customizeable templates for new players to jump right in and start playing.

And, well, obviously I see the utility of Archetypes expressed as classes for instant buy-in. Of course, I think ever since third edition, D&D has moved away from the "Archetype" aspect of classes - especially in 4th edition, when Archetypes were thrown out the window entirely. The biggest issue I have is the rules implementation in regards to classes, which are chock full of "because game" dscordant rationales and arbitrary restrictions in the name of "balance", a concpt I've always been skeptical of. Combined with a level system and you have such a divergence from any sort of identifiable reality that after a short time gaming I simply no longer could abide it, especially after encountering much more sensical/representative alternatives.

 

[Silverlion]

I like customizeable templates for new players to jump right in and start playing.

And, well, obviously I see the utility of Archetypes expressed as classes for instant buy-in. Of course, I think ever since third edition, D&D has moved away from the "Archetype" aspect of classes - especially in 4th edition, when Archetypes were thrown out the window entirely. The biggest issue I have is the rules implementation in regards to classes, which are chock full of "because game" dscordant rationales and arbitrary restrictions in the name of "balance", a concpt I've always been skeptical of. Combined with a level system and you have such a divergence from any sort of identifiable reality that after a short time gaming I simply no longer could abide it, especially after encountering much more sensical/representative alternatives.

One of the reasons I've enjoyed Shadowrun, and similar systems where they give you an example archetype, but rules and tools to build your own character entirely different than those--but (if they do it right) you have instant easy grab characters for a one-shot or new players who don't want to spent that much time on character creation.

 

[AsenRG]

I hate them because of the Skinner Box feeling and the (usually going in tandem) inability to represent the events of the campaign.

Also...

I like customizeable templates for new players to jump right in and start playing.

And, well, obviously I see the utility of Archetypes expressed as classes for instant buy-in. Of course, I think ever since third edition, D&D has moved away from the "Archetype" aspect of classes - especially in 4th edition, when Archetypes were thrown out the window entirely. The biggest issue I have is the rules implementation in regards to classes, which are chock full of "because game" dscordant rationales and arbitrary restrictions in the name of "balance", a concpt I've always been skeptical of. Combined with a level system and you have such a divergence from any sort of identifiable reality that after a short time gaming I simply no longer could abide it, especially after encountering much more sensical/representative alternatives.

...this.

I can see them as much more useful for games with a narrative bend where you might want to play, say, horror movie archetypes or PA survivors archetypes, or, you know, Hong Kong movies archetypes!
But the question then becomes, what's a roleplaying game to you?

1) Is it a game where you can engage in the same hijinks as the characters of a movie/novel? Then you'd require mechanics that facilitate this, I guess. Archetypes/classes would be useful for that.

2) Is it a game where you can, instead of shouting at the screen "don't do that, it's stupid", get in the same situation and show what the characters really should have been doing? Then the above mechanics wouldn't cut it, archetypes included!

 

[PolarBlues]

Character classes are very efficient at communicating what the game and its is about. It helps players communicate their characters to each other, ensure a minimum of niche protection and helps gets things started quickly. So for instance, I created this little diagram for Bounty Hunters of the Atomic Wastelands. It quickly tells you everything you need to know about the game, including whether it's the sort of thing you'd want to play (no.. no.. don't answer that, please!).

But I agree with the previous posters, that customisable templates is a great way forward, hence the "Waster" origin in the above diagram, which is effectively the "build the character as you like" option.

As an aside, part of the genius of WEG Star Wars was the customisable template approach. In many cases the actually difference between some templates was just a +1 pip here an there, but it doesn't matter because the sheer name of the template carried so much authority.

 

[AsenRG]

Character classes are very efficient at communicating what the game and its is about. It helps players communicate their characters to each other, ensure a minimum of niche protection and helps gets things started quickly. So for instance, I created this little diagram for Bounty Hunters of the Atomic Wastelands. It quickly tells you everything you need to know about the game, including whether it's the sort of thing you'd want to play (no.. no.. don't answer that, please!).

But I agree with the previous posters, that customisable templates is a great way forward, hence the "Waster" origin in the above diagram, which is effectively the "build the character as you like" option.

As an aside, part of the genius of WEG Star Wars was the customisable template approach. In many cases the actually difference between some templates was just a +1 pip here an there, but it doesn't matter because the sheer name of the template carried so much authority.

Yeah, customizable templates are a great compromise, and a much better option than classes. As a bonus, they allow you to also create a character "from scratch", so you get the best of both worlds (the two worlds here being the two approaches I mentioned in my post).

 

[Toadmaster]

I don't like to play stereotypes and I lean towards jack of all trade types of PCs so I don't like being constrained by classes. I don't mind broad classes, or classes in games where you can pick and choose skills, and push around the edges adding non class skills at a cost.

I just don't like when its like hey you are a thief, go pick that guys pocket, like no question you have the skill because your are a thief. Maybe I'd like to play a fighter who has sticky fingers.

 

[robertsconley]

We’ve been talking a bit about classes and archetypes in my local group. There are some in my group who really like them and have said they straight up like the Skinner box feel if it (their words). And it got me to thinking how much I hate the Skinner Box feel of it. It makes me rebel almost instantly.

I’m honestly less concerned if you like it or hate it, but curious if you’ve ever thought about why you dislike or like classes/archetypes.

I neither like them or dislike them. It depends on how the system uses them. In my Majestic Fantasy RPG I view them in the same way that GURPS views templates and Fantasy Hero view packages. A bundle of skills and abilities that make sense in terms of the setting of the campaign. Similarly I view levels as a measure of experience. Similar to how one would view a 75 point GURPS/Hero System Character versus a 100 point GURPS/Hero System character.

The main difference in using Sword & Wizardry as the foundation is that for the most part characters generally stay in their lane so to speak. Similar to if a GURPS or Hero System player just picks items from the template or package as they advance rather than switching things up. In the MW Supplement I had very limited customization in terms of mechanics. In the Majestic Fantasy RPG, half of former fixed bonuses to abilities (skills) have been switched over to a free bonus that that player can distribute among the abilities of their choice. No more than half to any one ability.

In the 5e version I plan to use the feat system to lift various class abilities as options for other classes to take. Nothing crazy but enough so that if a wizards want to learn a bit of swordplay or a fighter a bit of magic can do so without using multi-classing.

There are other interpretations this happens to be the one I adopted for myself.

 

[Ladybird]

I like archetypes or readymade characters - I think they're incredibly useful for "pool of points" systems, to show you how everything comes together, and to give you example characters if you're short on time (Or inclination) to go through the character gen system.

 

[Dyrnwyn]

I like broad classes with the ability to customize them, and don't like super-specific ones that do the same thing as another class, but in a slightly different way.

An example of an implementation I like would be Cyberpunk 2020's roles. Examples of what I don't include D&D from 3E onward, and some Palladium games.

 

[RunningLaser]

One thing that classes do well is give the player an idea of what the game is going to be about. If you have classes like fighter, cleric, thief and wizard- you have a good idea that the game is going to have fighting, gods, thieving and spells being thrown about.

 

[Nick J]

I like the pickup-and-play nature of TSR-era D&D classes and the way they give new players a succinct description "here's what you are good at and how you fit into the world."

What I dislike is the power curve economy, the constricting of choices and how badly it does at emulating certain conceits of source fiction (unless you throw in multi-classing which is usually a clunky, unsatisfying compromise). But really the worst is the gameplay loop, that has you on a treadmill, cracking open the bones of slain enemies to suck out their sweet, sweet XP to gain more power, or hoovering up gold to get more sweet XP to buy better gear so you can go back out and kill more critters and find more gold to get better stuff. (Not that this wasn't fun for me at one point in my life).

 

[Caesar Slaad]

I like classes (or archetypes) when done right. This primarily means 2 things:
1) Fairly flexible. I don't like systems with dozens of classes which are more or less variants of the same thing. I prefer classes that have lots of knobs you can tweak to build a variety of characters within the archetype.
2) Game-activity focused. What makes early D&D classes work IMO is that they are keyed to what the game is fundamentally about. One shortfall of systems with more freeform character generation is that they let you make characters that really don't fit the activity that the game is about. This requires the GM to step in to see that characters fit the intended activity of the game or the player to recognize and act on the core activity of the game.

 

[xanther]

We’ve been talking a bit about classes and archetypes in my local group. There are some in my group who really like them and have said they straight up like the Skinner box feel if it (their words). And it got me to thinking how much I hate the Skinner Box feel of it. It makes me rebel almost instantly.

I’m honestly less concerned if you like it or hate it, but curious if you’ve ever thought about why you dislike or like classes/archetypes.

I love them when done well (in my view of well)...which is very rare, and really dislike them otherwise...which I shall rant at length about below

I also don't see them as separate from point buy or skill based systems necessarily, a light class overlay on top of a simple point buy skill system is the best. To me, TFT is the most fundamental "class" system I like, you can be a Wizard or Warrior...it encourages specialization by making certain skills cost more if you choose one over the other, but that is it. Warrior is a bit of a misnomer as you could be a thief with few if any combat talents (skills).

I also love class based systems when they are broad, and flexible so can map any NPC into a class. In my view these would be true archetypes, as I've seen it used, "Archetypes" to me is just a post-hoc justification for class based systems used to gloss over their serious issues, i.e., you can't map most of the NPCs into them nor readily create a character from fantasy literature without contortion, and try to persuade people to accept that the game designers vision of a genre is complete and consistent with it...bollucks.

(A REAL RANTY BIT) It's like living in the world of the novel "Divergent," you have 5 factions which "clearly" represent human archetypes...wait, where is the faction for people who are creatives, musicians, etc...or just any other type in the world? Oh they are all factionless and as they cannot be defined they cannot level up so they are all poor and on the margins. After much player protest of how people can be more than one of the games factions (and certainly are in all the genre literature), the GM relents and goes with the multi-class rules for creating divergent characters, which now everyone wants to play...which breaks the original setting ...so first the GM tries to push the players to a faction (at least try one) with the threat divergents are hunted down in this world so that is why they don't exist, but alas when it gets too much the GM has to retcon the whole setting...now divergents are the norm and they have a whole city, which you didn't see because...ahhhh....furious hand waving....of holograms, stealth technology, mind control, memory wipes, ...technology that is way more advance than yours because of.....yada, yada. (END REAL RANTY BIT)

So why I dislike them is as rules they normally (1) do not support a setting that has verisimilitude to me, (2) even if I like the concepts and feel they cover the possibilities of the setting, I tend to disagree with the exact skills and character improvement progression that is hard wired into them..so they lack flexibility, (3) worse they can create a map of how people are that I completely disagree with (and I have happily ignored certain classes in the past, but it is a work around) and find just wonky, (4) even worse is a class system divorced of skills (or even more chaotic when some classes have "skills" and others do not) and the flexibility problem is solved by introducing more classes, and then you end up having more classes than skill based systems can have skills...which defeats a lot the purposes for classes in the first place, and (5) last the very worse if you add on feats/perks on top of a prolix of class to jazz them up, allow your system to do heroic (because your resolution mechanics have a hard time at it) you end up with far, far more moving parts than a skill based system with less flexibility and seriously chaotic world definitional mapping system.

Classes can make it easy though for players, you don't have to think just pick and go. However, for those players I've found just have templates/pre-mades under any system and let them know can easily tweak.

And as long as your character conception falls within the class you are fine, but even for players who liked classes at least 3 times out of 4 in my experience they want to tweak them, add a little of this, trade this for that. Also, there is always one player in my experience (when you have more than 2) who is not down with any of the classes, not out of being difficult but for love of genre and this person is often new to RPGs and has not been conditioned to accept class based character definition as the norm or best way to do it. So in my experience, players like the ease of classes and rails it puts on play if they don't know how to play to genre.

A fiddly point buy skill system in my view is no that only answer to class based systems, in fact to me the class systems I like have skills and a simplified buy system. For example, simplified in the sense you have few points, the absolute number of points is low double digits, costs are single digits, the number of skills you would buy to make a viable character are a handful, less than 10, preferably 6 or less. This makes deciding easy and lends itself to good template/pre-made characters (a class) and/or simple menus, choose 1 skill from list A, two from B and three form list C for example. Simplified and guided point buy for me.

For me the ur-system in this regards is TFT, you have IQ in points (IQ being almost always single digits) to buy skills (talents). So you have few skills (talents) but that is OK as you don't need skills (talents) to do things, or even get better at doing things. Talents being more like specializations in most games and some like perks (ala Fallout, more than feats ala D&D). As opposed to RQ and related or GURPS, which is a more bottom up skill system and I believe what most people think of as the alternative to class based systems when they think of the alternatives.

 

[Sean W]

As long as they allow characters that make sense within the setting I'm fine with archetypes/classes - the systems I favour tend to lean on backgrounds that help enable this.

 

[TristramEvans]

One of the reasons I've enjoyed Shadowrun, and similar systems where they give you an example archetype, but rules and tools to build your own character entirely different than those--but (if they do it right) you have instant easy grab characters for a one-shot or new players who don't want to spent that much time on character creation.

Shadowrun and Star Wars were the two immediately on my mind when I wrote that. I think it's a great approach.

 

[E-Rocker]

In theory, I hate classes because they feel very constricting. Also, "niche protection" is not a concern of mine.

In practice, eh, they're fine, I guess, at least for D&D-type games.

It's a lot harder for me to see classes as a viable thing in a contemporary setting, since I live in contemporary times and don't see people fitting into classes.

 

[Raleel]

One of the reasons I've enjoyed Shadowrun, and similar systems where they give you an example archetype, but rules and tools to build your own character entirely different than those--but (if they do it right)

unfortunately, SR is very bad about having their pre-gens actually be constructible, but it's an admirable goal I think

Character classes are very efficient at communicating what the game and its is about.

One thing that classes do well is give the player an idea of what the game is going to be about.

Game-activity focused. What makes early D&D classes work IMO is that they are keyed to what the game is fundamentally about. One shortfall of systems with more freeform character generation is that they let you make characters that really don't fit the activity that the game is about. This requires the GM to step in to see that characters fit the intended activity of the game or the player to recognize and act on the core activity of the game.

this is something that I hadn't really thought about a lot until we started talking about it, and something I feel like has been missing from my more freeform games. I think I do need to put some sort of communication about the setting and game activities. Something I've sort of struggled with as I've been working on cyberpunk stuff - I ended up dropping the "nomad" sort of background because I was looking at the game through the lens of shadowrun. Of course, the setting can support these things, but I had mentally pictured urban folks doing jobs for corps.

Caesar Slaad 's comment especially came up recently in my game, as we had a talkie guy and a bunch of brutes and it was very much like playing two different games. you have to change what the game is about at some point.

I don't like to play stereotypes and I lean towards jack of all trade types of PCs so I don't like being constrained by classes. I don't mind broad classes, or classes in games where you can pick and choose skills, and push around the edges adding non class skills at a cost.

this is where I tend to fall, and maybe because the setting is so loose. who knows.

 

[ffilz]

I'm happy with the range from class and level to templates to completely free form.

I like D&D style class and level for the way it simplifies character generation and I like the level based power scaling and the fact that therefore powerups follow a sequence.

I love RuneQuest 1e/2e/Cults of Prax which looks like a free form system, but the cults turn it into archetypes but not heavy handed ones. But it does make certain abilities only available to certain archetypes.

Burning Wheel's life path system is a neat way to use templates but allow a lot of freedom. It feels good when your archetype derives from your character history not just out of the blue.

Of course in free form games, there is a tendency to follow archetypes. Champions bricks and blasters and such... And universal systems soon added packages/templates, with Hero even discounting them (I don't recall if GURPS discounts it's packages).

 

[Black Vulmea]

As long as they allow characters that make sense within the setting I'm fine with archetypes/classes - the systems I favour tend to lean on backgrounds th[a]t help enable this.

Agreed. This is one of the features of Flashing Blades: four broad backgrounds - noble, gentleman, soldier, rogue - with latitude in skill selection.

My favorite treatment of classes is the versatile archetypes of d20 Modern's Strong, Fast, Tough, Smart, Dedicated, and Charismatic Heroes,. I'd love to see a less fiddly version of these with just class abilities and talents which subsume the lengthy skill list and point allocation.

 

[AsenRG]

One thing that classes do well is give the player an idea of what the game is going to be about. If you have classes like fighter, cleric, thief and wizard- you have a good idea that the game is going to have fighting, gods, thieving and spells being thrown about.

If I need mechanics to tell me that when joining a fantasy game, my reading all those books has amounted to nothing but wasted time.

 

[soltakss]

For me, they are too restrictive.

However, I can see how they work in something like 13th Age Glorantha and Classic Fantasy and they do seem to work really well. A friend in our RPG Group commented that "RQ Cults are just like classes, anyway" and he has a point.

 

[Raleel]

For me, they are too restrictive.

However, I can see how they work in something like 13th Age Glorantha and Classic Fantasy and they do seem to work really well. A friend in our RPG Group commented that "RQ Cults are just like classes, anyway" and he has a point.

yea, the juxtaposition of classic fantasy by itself allowed me to see that and softened me a bit. I still don't like some things about classes, but it is better

 

[Trippy]

To be honest, I think most gamers prefer to have baseline, but customizable, options for character types, whether they admit it or not.

 

[AsenRG]

To be honest, I think most gamers prefer to have baseline, but customizable, options for character types, whether they admit it or not.

I can't speak for most gamers, but I'd like to point out that "baseline, but customizable" is properly called a template, not a class!

 

[Ravenswing]

I loathe classes with a hot heavy hate. I will not play in a game that has them. I will decide for myself what skills and stats I have, thanks. It's not as if there haven't been classless systems for nearly 45 years.

 

[gentlemanbear]

I like customizeable templates for new players to jump right in and start playing.

And, well, obviously I see the utility of Archetypes expressed as classes for instant buy-in. Of course, I think ever since third edition, D&D has moved away from the "Archetype" aspect of classes - especially in 4th edition, when Archetypes were thrown out the window entirely. The biggest issue I have is the rules implementation in regards to classes, which are chock full of "because game" dscordant rationales and arbitrary restrictions in the name of "balance", a concpt I've always been skeptical of. Combined with a level system and you have such a divergence from any sort of identifiable reality that after a short time gaming I simply no longer could abide it, especially after encountering much more sensical/representative alternatives.

Yep. This is me. "I feel so SEEN"

 

[Villein]

I think they mostly work fine, but I play with a lot of contrarians who at best put their spin on setting classes to make them different or at worst completely avoid them so I don't use them much.

 

[AsenRG]

Yep. This is me. "I feel so SEEN"

You, and me, and Tristram, and Ravenswing...
On the Pub, our name is Legion!

I think they mostly work fine, but I play with a lot of contrarians who at best put their spin on setting classes to make them different or at worst completely avoid them so I don't use them much.

They're "contrarians"* just because they dare to put their spin on the classes?
But yes, indeed! How dare they?

*Oh wait, maybe they just rolled that number as their approach to debate when generating their "Dying Earth"/"Skulduggery" characters?

 

[Villein]

They are indeed contrarians for this, because they usually do so in a way that upends the setting assumptions everyone else is using in a given group and force them to bend around it. Freeform-adjacent games have this problem a lot.

 

[AsenRG]

They are indeed contrarians for this, because they usually do so in a way that upends the setting assumptions everyone else is using in a given group and force them to bend around it. Freeform-adjacent games have this problem a lot.

Well, I think the discussion would benefit from a more specific example, if you don't mind?

 

[zanshin]

I don't like to play stereotypes and I lean towards jack of all trade types of PCs so I don't like being constrained by classes. I don't mind broad classes, or classes in games where you can pick and choose skills, and push around the edges adding non class skills at a cost.

I just don't like when its like hey you are a thief, go pick that guys pocket, like no question you have the skill because your are a thief. Maybe I'd like to play a fighter who has sticky fingers.

Many games with classes give you that flexibility. It certainly was a big part of the draw of 3e D&D for me at the time - proper skill system! You can get non class skills! You can multiclass pretty freely! It felt like a breakthrough for D&D then and we had some fun with it up to about level 5.

With the exception of a lot of Runequest 2e, I have mostly played class based systems. It's a bit like having a menu rather than a list of ingredients for your food/roleplay based needs.

I am relatively relaxed about it, but I have found that a class based system gets you to the point of being able to play quicker. Templates are also good (played a bit of Feng Shui too). Hybrids like The One Ring can also work well- not fully point based, but selections made between different pools (stats/skills/combat/background + a bit of top up).

 

[TristramEvans]

I always thought Shadowrun's* combination of priority and point-buy was interesting. For those not familiar, you have 5 overall categories of character aspects: Race, Magic, Attributes, Skills, and Resources, and you categorize them from A to E, each priority giving you more points to spend (or money), or in the case of race and magic, I think to play anything besides a human, Race had to be priority A, and certain types of magic users required a certain priority assigned to Magical Ability.

It worked well, haven't seen any other games use that approach ( I guess White Wolf was close)


*1st edition and 2nd, I haven't read the newer editions so don't know if they are the same

 

[cranebump]

There's definitely a preference for some customization n my current group (finally got one together--5 people in 3 different time zones playing remotely). Since I've pretty much committed to Dungeon World (mainly so I don't system hop - this one has most of what fits my style), I allowed the basic classes, but also provided them access to Class Warfare. Two of the four players mixed-n-matched their PCs, so their results are relatively unique.

One of them wanted to belong to an organization of demon slayers called "The Unbroken Chain." He took a warrior class that allowed a "signature weapon," and used the palette of choices to determine its nature. He backed it up with a bit of magical ability, and some tracking. Since you can acquire access to additional moves in play, he's pushing to acquire traits from the "Exorcist" class (mission accomplished--they performed something of an exorcism early on).

Another player is a "Moonblade," which is basically a "regional defender" type of ranger. In addition to the typical bow stuff, we determined that his blade grants him the ability to spell mimic (which is a class called a Blue Mage).

The other two took premade classes, but, drawing on the precedent established by the Chain character, they've taken to looking into the accessible classes to see whether they might diversify in play. We've used the supplement before, but this is the first time I've had a group pay attention to how their choices/achievements in play might determine their character's class development. If they all do so, they'll simply be "characters," since none of them will follow any traditional template. I find it a real strength of the system, on the whole. If I were playing instead of GMing, I'd definitely go the "custom" route.

 

[Villein]

Well, I think the discussion would benefit from a more specific example, if you don't mind?

As I've been thinking about it, it's not a question of being contrarian with class design so much as it is that in the freeform-adjacent environment there's no real session zero or equivalent where all players sit down and decide to make characters of a given type.

People just sort of make whatever they feel is interesting and put them in to play. If I make a game and advertise, people are not going to make fresh characters for it, but instead bring what they have. So where a standard tabletop group can hash out what players are going to do with their classes and incorporate that into the setting, I can wind up dealing with a lot of conflicts where two players of the same class show up with very different assumptions about how it works and who is allowed to use it.

So I'll partially retract the claim of contrarianism with regards to spin on a given class, but I do run into a lot of people who build off of archetypes that have no bearing to the setting whatsoever and show up eager to distinguish themselves.

 

[AsenRG]

As I've been thinking about it, it's not a question of being contrarian with class design so much as it is that in the freeform-adjacent environment there's no real session zero or equivalent where all players sit down and decide to make characters of a given type.

People just sort of make whatever they feel is interesting and put them in to play. If I make a game and advertise, people are not going to make fresh characters for it, but instead bring what they have. So where a standard tabletop group can hash out what players are going to do with their classes and incorporate that into the setting, I can wind up dealing with a lot of conflicts where two players of the same class show up with very different assumptions about how it works and who is allowed to use it.

So I'll partially retract the claim of contrarianism with regards to spin on a given class, but I do run into a lot of people who build off of archetypes that have no bearing to the setting whatsoever and show up eager to distinguish themselves.

Oh, so typical freeformers - which is why I don't play freeform!
I also would prefer for such a game a FKR-style ruleset, but without any "class-like" feature, and with mandatory session zero!

 

[Trippy]

I can't speak for most gamers, but I'd like to point out that "baseline, but customizable" is properly called a template, not a class!

Same thing as far as I am concerned. Class, Template, Archetype, Role, Clan, Tribe, Profession often enough - all just customizable stereotyped characters that allows players to pick up and play easily enough.

 

[TristramEvans]

Im trying to think of one but can't, is there are game that uses classes that doesn't have levels, or do the two concepts always go together?

 

[TJS]

Im trying to think of one but can't, is there are game that uses classes that doesn't have levels, or do the two concepts always go together?

Cyberpunk? Alternity?