Too many character options ruin the fun of 'game constraints'?

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Character conceits are important, it seems many are using mechanics, and classes as the identifier around which to build the character. On the gripping hand, for me at least, Concept is King, for example, my latest CoC character is built around the concept of him being a crazy Russian who once rode with the Mad Baron in Mongolia, everything else I fit around that concept. It makes it easier for me to play him a I can think about "what would he do?" I know in the past, as I began roleplaying, I used more of mechanical concept, which does work for a game with constraints. Maybe not, I have moved in one direction that it is hard to wrap my head around doing it any other way. At the end of the day, it's horses for courses, you probably won't use a Tennessee Walker in a Steeplechase.
It's interesting as there is big difference between classes that have a flavorful concept and ones that are mainly mechanical constructs. As I mentioned earlier, Cyberpunk was the game that made me decide that maybe classes weren't entirely useless, and that was because the classes did a great job of selling the game to a group of players that had no idea what the cyberpunk genre was. If GURPS Cyberpunk had existed at the time, and I had sat those players down with the books and said, "Here are 150 points. Make some cyberpunk characters," the campaign would not have survived that session.

I still recoil from games where the classes are too gamey. "This class is the controller, and this one is the tank!" is a good way to steer me away from a game.
 
We use the terms 'precision' and 'accuracy' all the time in science. The easiest analogy I know is that of the dartboard, insofar that you can be accurate if you hit the target bullseye, and precise if you regularly hit the same spot (even if it's not accurate).

How this works for gaming system preferences, I'm not sure.

You help explain my viewpoint in part very well. I come from a perspective where it is perfectly fine to mix and match disciplines (areas of knowledge, not oWoD! :clown: ) to get one's greater point across. And, well, RPGs are very much an applied mix of various disciplines, so... it makes sense to me to cross-reference basics from differing disciplines. :grin:

Basically, as you note in your awesome dart example (I've seen it in a HS Chemstry textbook even!) it's the difference between "generally in the right direction" and "focused in the wrong direction."

Using LEGOs product development over time as an example, there is a general package towards a general theme, or a tight bundle of special pieces for a specific tableau. Often you get Skill based games then "declaring superiority" when they grab all of it and throw it all in one bin. It's tons of GM overhead to parse out, and humans being lazy often skip. And then leads to chargen weirdness later down the line when optimization of "LEGO pieces" conflicts with templating of a rough scene -- even down to PC point values (actually especially down to point values).

I think Opaopajr is referencing how many point buy games will have some options detailed with minutia and others with big abstract hand waives. AKA, you could have highly specific skills like Survival: Subtropics and overly general skills like Luck for the same point cost.

Yes, very much this, and more! :shade:

A common one I suffered is I have often returned to GMs with extra PC points that I had *zero interest in spending* because of a variety of reasons, from 'I had no strong idea and I'd rather take this general template and develop it in play (can we fucking start the game already)' to 'nope, character concept is full, any more points and it raises it to a functionality level I am not interested in using at this time'.

But one of the better controls in Skill-based games is evened out point value between players' PCs. So often these extra ribbons, treasures, and widgets would be attached to my PC as a "compromise" so other players can spend all their points. (And it generally was all for naught, as people always never had enough points, or the GM was a big softy/numpty and let Skill-based chargen masters go into deficit or delayed spending, or other system tricks, and blow the point curve anyway.)

In play it was exceedingly rare to find GMs who realized they have to have a very tight leash on Skill-based systems, AND were relaxed to let people play their PC +/- off point cap, AND get through the chargen bullshit quickly so we can play.

One of my least liked aspects of Skill-based games is how much it behooves one to kill an entire session into "Session 0, the chargen session." It's really only for a small portion of LEGO tinkerers. I know about getting everyone on the same page and all that jazz, and I'm even OK with some tinkering and tailoring, but I've had "Session 0" bleed over more than one gathering. I know most campaigns easily wither on the vine, especially as we get older (ouch! too close to home metaphor! :cry:) so it's a rather significant pet peeve of mine.

Any game that includes Luck as a "skill" would be poorly designed. Sounds like an issue with bad design in games. Games with long skill lists almost always seem to have this issue. I remember the skill list in Champions/Hero started out pretty succinct and eventually got to the point where Acrobatics, Tumbling, Breakfall, Gymnastics, etc. were all reduced to separate items. Star Wars started down that path with the 2nd West End Games edition.

It's more like Luck as a merit/skill (a.k.a. Adv/Disadv, etc.) that directly competes with the skills for the same pool of points. Oh sure, sometimes there's a firewall between. But Skill-based games pride themselves on specific tinkering so there's almost always a way around it and/or an overwhelmed GM willing to acceed. In practice it's too often the same point pool.

And yeah, that's the other major part about the overhead, the incremental deviation. Sure some will benefit with these massive list. But too often I've experienced certain things beat out others (as they should because Campaign Specific Skills have needs that should have more 'focus in its fire',). And bit by bit it gradually pulls the PC in the mechanics' own directions, especially in the hands of permissive (read: new, less 'invested', lazy?, overwhelmed...) GMs.

In CCGs it's called "migration" where things from text (rules drift affecting errata and eventual text migration in reprints,) to archetypes can be effected. (e.g. This set's merfolk can breathe air and wander the trees canopy! And it's vampires are holy crusader conquistadors! This is pretty much MtG Ixalan right now.) Tropes become so fungible over time they start to wash out into mere power functions -- traits and keywords -- than adherence to shared assumptions of the fiction.

Basically myths de-mystify into a supermarket of features, not packaged suites. And for me, sometimes that's fun and cool... :ooh::grin:nBut I also acknowledge part of that loses some complex emotional resonance to general audiences because of the confusion of expectations. :ooh::errr: Therefore this drift ("pull," "migration," etc.) ends up affecting things in a way I don't enjoy. So what once started as roughly defined becomes hazy in process and might end up in an unexpected and unsatisfying result. :sick::beat:

In art terms, it's like building my work through finishing details alone. (i.e. I've been so focused on details and shading of a part, the image would logically spill off the page... I didn't plan.) That often ends up screwing up my composition, particularly of values. I like macro to micro, then build up back to macro.

You *can* do that with Skill-based games, but you need to put in the work to select down and tailor the available rules into a personal-table-suite relevant to one's setting. And in my experience you need to do so even more than the work I normally put into broad generality Level-based games. I may love my SJG In Nomine (Skill-based game), but I sure as heck don't turn on its version of "multi-classing" (mixing gifts from different Superiors or Choir/Bands).

(And I find games like D&D 3.PF somehow manages the worst of both worlds, giving rise to even stranger contortions and final results. :irritated:

This part is directly related to the OP. It's why I bring in the topic of Precision v. Accuracy into this discussion. Precision is not a bad thing, but can subconsciously pull you away from what you want. And this aspect is present in both Level games and Skill games. Thus it is why I see the validity in the OP argument. It's not the System Structure at fault, but the nature of design pitfalls when Precision given primacy over Accuracy -- curious and not really desired results may develop.)

(guys, I'm typing this all by my phone, so excuse the back-edits. ;) )
 
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To address the OP, the bolded paragraph is basically Greg Costikyan's definition of a game: a series of meaningful choices towards a specific goal. The word "meaningful" matters. If the choice you make does not forestall other choices, it isn't meaningful because you can always go and make those other choices later. Without constraints, you don't have meaningful choices.
 
To address the OP, the bolded paragraph is basically Greg Costikyan's definition of a game: a series of meaningful choices towards a specific goal. The word "meaningful" matters. If the choice you make does not forestall other choices, it isn't meaningful because you can always go and make those other choices later. Without constraints, you don't have meaningful choices.
Reminds me of why Civilization III was my least favorite game in the series. In order to move from on historical era to another, you had to invent every single technology in your current era. Yeah, the order you did it in still mattered, but it still meant you looked technologically identical at the end of each era. And it just forced you to do dumb things. I want to move my republic from the Medieval Era to the Renaissance. I guess I better pick up feudalism to fill my plate up.
 
That is a good explanation with an example.

And to add to the quoted reply in the OP, the proliferation of new already-blended choices tends to create reluctance for players to make their own meaningful shading and blending choices. It also opens unintended consequences where a pre-blended choice can have a cascade in its effects. Huh, I think I just described RPGs as pastels... :ooh: I better put down my crayons for a bit. :wink:
 
To address the OP, the bolded paragraph is basically Greg Costikyan's definition of a game: a series of meaningful choices towards a specific goal. The word "meaningful" matters. If the choice you make does not forestall other choices, it isn't meaningful because you can always go and make those other choices later. Without constraints, you don't have meaningful choices.

Yeah but that reads chargen as a game in itself. Certainly that is true of some systems and is an enjoyable mini-game for some (many?) players but others would rather make their meaningful choices in the game, not in the prep and tinkering with post-game builds.
 
I'm not sure what your point is; I'm not a huge fan of RPG Sudoku myself, but that's orthogonal to the topic. The OP indicated he'd never seen the argument before; I was simply pointing out that it's actually been around for quite a while (although admittedly, it's much better known in the boardgame and video game design communities)
 
The OP indicated he'd never seen the argument before; I was simply pointing out that it's actually been around for quite a while (although admittedly, it's much better known in the boardgame and video game design communities)

Yes, I've seen it in those other contexts, but not as an argument against character options in tabletop.
 
It's not an argument against character options in tabletop; it's an argument against meaningless choices. If there are so many character classes that you can have all of the things you want without any constraints and/or you can multi-class to something else any time you want without penalty, then choosing a class is a meaningless choice. You may as well just list the special abilities you want and your hit die type and call it a day.
 
That is a good explanation with an example.

And to add to the quoted reply in the OP, the proliferation of new already-blended choices tends to create reluctance for players to make their own meaningful shading and blending choices. It also opens unintended consequences where a pre-blended choice can have a cascade in its effects. Huh, I think I just described RPGs as pastels... :ooh: I better put down my crayons for a bit. :wink:
As someone that helps run a local art association, I encourage you to keep playing with your pastels. Just grab a drop cloth next time. I'm sick of trying to get pastel powder out of the carpet. And you need to wipe that crap off the easel before you put it back!
 
No, mine are Crayola crayons :heart: -- or as I like to call them, "wax pastels" from "Tar-zhay" (Target, a megastore). :clown:

(They're cheaper, cleaner, and less forgiving. It's like ego self-flagellation on the cheap. :brokenheart: )
 
It's not an argument against character options in tabletop; it's an argument against meaningless choices. If there are so many character classes that you can have all of the things you want without any constraints and/or you can multi-class to something else any time you want without penalty, then choosing a class is a meaningless choice. You may as well just list the special abilities you want and your hit die type and call it a day.

Providing additional options when one must select from presented options does not create a meaningless choice, even when theoretically every possible option is now available. No matter how large the set of available options grows, as long as meaningful differences exist between the options the choice is meaningful. One has to establish that all of the classes are functionally indistinguishable in order to establish that a choice from a list of classes is meaningless.

For example, assume I am drafting a baseball team and can draft for the nine positions on the field. As I draft each player, each player selects which position they will play. The first player’s choice is not meaningless despite the fact that the first player can have exactly the position she wants without constraints. If I now am able to draft for additional positions (like the DH and bullpen and backups), the additional positions do nothing to diminish the meaningful nature of the choice each player makes.
 
I bolded the part I found most interesting because I hadn't quite seen this argument before.

What do you guys think of that?

I don't really like the idea of classes and the constraints that come with them. That's why I prefer games such as RuneQuest to D&D, because they have less constraints about what I, as a PC, can do.
 
I don't really like the idea of classes and the constraints that come with them. That's why I prefer games such as RuneQuest to D&D, because they have less constraints about what I, as a PC, can do.
I like classes in the way games like Cyberpunk and to a lesser extent B/X and BECMI D&D present them. Broad archetypes rather than specific niches.
 
I don't disagree with most anything in this thread, but I keep thinking how much more I want interesting players instead of "interesting" characters at my table. I rarely reminisce on a great chargen, but I have many memories of great roleplaying.

I know they're not exclusive, but I do really want to get to the actual gaming quickly.
 
I think the problem comes when classes are confused with "professions." I think that instead of creating options, a proliferation of classes restricts them.

There is more than one way to think about classes in games that use them. I alternate between two approaches: treating them as professions, and treating them as meta-archetypes.

What do I mean by "meta-archetypes"? Take the fighter. In one DCC game I ran, the player wanted his warrior to have all these specializations for disarming and swashbuckling. I pointed out that all this was covered by the Mighty Deed. Yes, he said, but there's no mechanical difference between my warrior's deeds and another warrior's deeds.

That's when it clicked for me. I realized that what he was essentially asking for was a more limited character for the sake of greater personalization. I pointed out that the solution was easy: have his character wield a rapier, disarm opponents and do swashbuckling things. If he didn't want a character drop-kicking skeletons and spinning a double-bladed battle-ax over his head, it was easy to just not do those things.

Options should always suit the setting. No more, no less. If it makes sense for there to be Paladins, let there be Paladins. If it doesn't make sense for there to be Wizards, cut Wizards.

The fighter character is really a bundle of archetypes. If the game makes him good at all things fighting, then he can fit whatever fighter-type concept you want to play.

So if the capabilities of this classes are broad enough, you don't need that many. I'm content to let me player's clerics wield swords and call themselves paladins. If you have one mage class that has access to the entire spell list (magic-user and cleric), then you really don't need ten different magic-user classes. The question of whether you regain your magic power by resting, prayer, study or sacrifice can be left up to the player. If the GM is flexible, these things can have minor mechanical effects without fundamentally changing the class.

Then, make Turn Unholy into a spell (like Lamentations does), and the only difference between cleric and magic-user is the balance between fighting and spell-casting. This type of "cleric" could be used to play a freaking Jedi. And why the hell not?

Now, if I'm treating classes as professions, then I like to absolutely minimize the number of classes to three, and let PCs multiclass. The three classes are fighter, mage and specialist. The challenge of such a system is curtailing the non-linear power progression of spell-casters in D&D-based games. Accomplishing that requires radical changes no matter how you cut it.

The real question is why use a class system (or D&D) at all.

Skill-based systems are always an option. For the games I play, the archetypes of classes make them easier for players to get their heads around, and I feel like skill-based systems would be too fiddly for the ROI. Their suitability can depend on genre and setting; for instance, it works perfectly for something like Call of Cthulhu.

Even if the options are open for the PCs, doesn't mean it's standard in the culture. It can be enforced in game accordingly. If you stick to the "dwarves aren't wizards" from earlier AD&D, but allow it in 5e for players, then it can still be enforced culturally. The wizard dwarf is unique and frowned upon by his people both for not taking up "honest" work and for dabbling in forces best left alone.

Alternately, you can have dwarven rune priests in the setting without allowing them to be playable. After all, a number of OSR games point out that there is no reason for NPCs to obey PC class rules.

However, in a game like Over the Edge, where you just have a single tier of traits that are essentially broad skills, Luck is going to work just fine.

It's worth pointing out that OTE did have two distinct tiers of traits, as you put it. Each PC could choose one of their traits to be "broad," which was essentially a profession or class. Interestingly enough, the PC also chose one of their traits to be exceptional, and it didn't have to be this one.
 
That's when it clicked for me. I realized that what he was essentially asking for was a more limited character for the sake of greater personalization. I pointed out that the solution was easy: have his character wield a rapier, disarm opponents and do swashbuckling things. If he didn't want a character drop-kicking skeletons and spinning a double-bladed battle-ax over his head, it was easy to just not do those things.
In a way, I've gone full circle to reach the same realisation. For many years, RPGs have conditioned us that we need mechanical options unique to the Thing we want to play. So a swashbuckler and a brawler and a knight and a barbarian and so on are all very different subtypes of Fighter. When the truth is, they're all Fighteres that choose to either focus on a Thing, or to ignore Things that don't conform to their idiom.

Realising that,I suddenly grokked why the Rules Cyclopedia doesn't need a crapton of classes. By choosing a bunch ofskills that are relevant to your personal style, then choosing not to go down the obvious route of wearing the heaviest armour money can buy, you've got a character that's unique to you. And yet isn't handicapped by being too tightly bound to a niche.

In other words, just because you can doesn't always mean you should.
 
That's what usually muddies the waters here... if it were as simple as saying 'I create my uniqueness by choosing what to specialize in and what not to do and that's the end of it', we're in good shape... Its when they think that choosing a single path and foregoing all other choices should give them mechanical bonuses for having foregone all other choices. That's where all the trouble starts.

Before you know it everyone wants a specialization bonus, and everyone gets a specialization bonus, which brings everyone back to parity and its a mechanical change that's only relevant in the rare case that you meet a guy who didn't specialize, and that guy is thus mechanically inferior.
 
No, mine are Crayola crayons :heart: -- or as I like to call them, "wax pastels" from "Tar-zhay" (Target, a megastore). :clown:

(They're cheaper, cleaner, and less forgiving. It's like ego self-flagellation on the cheap. :brokenheart: )
Fine. Just be sure not to leave them lying on the back seat in summer.

I don't disagree with most anything in this thread, but I keep thinking how much more I want interesting players instead of "interesting" characters at my table. I rarely reminisce on a great chargen, but I have many memories of great roleplaying.

I know they're not exclusive, but I do really want to get to the actual gaming quickly.

I remember back in the days when arguing about Savage Worlds was a popular sport online, a common complaint about the game was that characters tended to look too mechanically similar.

It inspired me to conduct an experiment on my unknowing players. I ran a Savage Worlds one-shot with pregens. What I didn't tell the players was that every pregen was mechanically identical. I just gave them different backgrounds and personalities I felt were suited to each player. I went with a solid, well-rounded fighter design.

The adventure lasted two sessions, and nobody ever noticed their characters were mechanically identical. The characters were all different because the players were all different. Savage Worlds also has a combat system that provides a lot of options to everyone: Smart Tricks, Agility Tricks, Wild Attacks, Tests of Will, etc. It allows to players to handle the same character build in different ways. Even when you have two players that both rely on Agility Tricks a lot, the specific descriptions they give make them feel very different, and make the characters seem very different.

There is more than one way to think about classes in games that use them. I alternate between two approaches: treating them as professions, and treating them as meta-archetypes.

What do I mean by "meta-archetypes"? Take the fighter. In one DCC game I ran, the player wanted his warrior to have all these specializations for disarming and swashbuckling. I pointed out that all this was covered by the Mighty Deed. Yes, he said, but there's no mechanical difference between my warrior's deeds and another warrior's deeds.

That's when it clicked for me. I realized that what he was essentially asking for was a more limited character for the sake of greater personalization. I pointed out that the solution was easy: have his character wield a rapier, disarm opponents and do swashbuckling things. If he didn't want a character drop-kicking skeletons and spinning a double-bladed battle-ax over his head, it was easy to just not do those things.

Yep. Mighty Deeds have the same effect as Tricks in Savage Worlds. They give the character cool options without making them feel tied down to a couple of cool moves they bought.

The fighter character is really a bundle of archetypes. If the game makes him good at all things fighting, then he can fit whatever fighter-type concept you want to play.

So if the capabilities of this classes are broad enough, you don't need that many. I'm content to let me player's clerics wield swords and call themselves paladins.

As someone that started with B/X and then went to AD&D, the paladin has always seemed like an odd addition, as the cleric was already a holy warrior. Giving the paladin a class lots of pre-reqs to make it look exclusive and cool really took the shine off of cleric, which already had to contend with the stigma of being the healbot. It always seemed a weird choice to me for a balanced selection of starting characters.

If you have one mage class that has access to the entire spell list (magic-user and cleric), then you really don't need ten different magic-user classes. The question of whether you regain your magic power by resting, prayer, study or sacrifice can be left up to the player. If the GM is flexible, these things can have minor mechanical effects without fundamentally changing the class.

Then, make Turn Unholy into a spell (like Lamentations does), and the only difference between cleric and magic-user is the balance between fighting and spell-casting. This type of "cleric" could be used to play a freaking Jedi. And why the hell not?

These are all good ideas, especially as there are many fantasy setting where the magic/divine divide makes no sense, such as Lord of the Rings.

Skill-based systems are always an option. For the games I play, the archetypes of classes make them easier for players to get their heads around, and I feel like skill-based systems would be too fiddly for the ROI. Their suitability can depend on genre and setting; for instance, it works perfectly for something like Call of Cthulhu.

I think a standard skill system only blends well with classes when you don't have class levels. In those games, the class is essentially just a starting package, and once the campaign begins, you are effectively playing in a standard point buy game. Vampire: the Masquerade is a game in this category.

I find it a lot clumsier when you mix a class progression system with a standard skill system in the way that D&D 3.x did. Skill progression is limited by character level. Skills have TNs that need to be stretched over 20 levels creating the treadmill effect. It's two kinds of rule systems standing on top of each other in a trenchcoat, and is ungainly. With 3.x, they also had some skills that were core class abilities (Pick Lock) and others that were side skills (Use Rope).

I think the proficiency systems in RC and AD&D 2E handled skills the ideal way for a level-based game like D&D. Proficiencies run off of ability checks and are fairly binary. You only make ability checks in stressful situations. Rather than be part of your class abilities, they simply extend the range of things your character can do outside their skill.

Alternately, you can have dwarven rune priests in the setting without allowing them to be playable. After all, a number of OSR games point out that there is no reason for NPCs to obey PC class rules.

Yes. Feeling that every class option and type of magic needs to be open to players means that you are allowing your players to examine them prior to play. If you want dwarven rune priests to be a cool and mysterious faction in your campaign, that isn't going to happen if the players have already picked over their class abilities and spell lists.

It's worth pointing out that OTE did have two distinct tiers of traits, as you put it. Each PC could choose one of their traits to be "broad," which was essentially a profession or class. Interestingly enough, the PC also chose one of their traits to be exceptional, and it didn't have to be this one.
That's true. There really were two tiers in the sense of the Primary Ability and Secondary Abilities, but it is still very different than the attribute/skill tiers that are the RPG standard.
 
I like how C&C used primes (although imperfect) to let you customize your class quickly. Wanna be a swashbuckling paladin? Great, make DEX and CHA your primes. Boom. Done. Go. Everything else is the player choosing gear appropriate to their concept and roleplaying their concept. AKA, choosing for your paladin to wear leather and rapier instead of plate, shield and sword.

Now, if I'm treating classes as professions, then I like to absolutely minimize the number of classes to three, and let PCs multiclass. The three classes are fighter, mage and specialist.

Warrior, Rogue & Mage (aka WyRM) does this. It's free with lots of free supplements. Worth a look. It feels like GURPS lite.
http://www.stargazergames.eu/games/warrior-rogue-mage/

Exemplars & Eidolons by Kevin Crawford / Sine Nomine also does this, but from an OSR angle.
http://www.rpgnow.Per/product/144651/Exemplars--Eidolons

Yes, I'm pimping E&E again! :dice:
 
I remember back in the days when arguing about Savage Worlds was a popular sport online, a common complaint about the game was that characters tended to look too mechanically similar.

It inspired me to conduct an experiment on my unknowing players. I ran a Savage Worlds one-shot with pregens. What I didn't tell the players was that every pregen was mechanically identical. I just gave them different backgrounds and personalities I felt were suited to each player. I went with a solid, well-rounded fighter design.

The adventure lasted two sessions, and nobody ever noticed their characters were mechanically identical. The characters were all different because the players were all different. Savage Worlds also has a combat system that provides a lot of options to everyone: Smart Tricks, Agility Tricks, Wild Attacks, Tests of Will, etc. It allows to players to handle the same character build in different ways. Even when you have two players that both rely on Agility Tricks a lot, the specific descriptions they give make them feel very different, and make the characters seem very different.

I love that.

I went kind of another route, and wrote "Savage Worlds Characters Are All The Same" on my blog, taking five different designs and ranking them up through Legendary...(and in gameplay, they would be even more different because advancement based on what actually happens in a game or campaign is almost always going to be wildly different than what happens in a sterile environment of ranking characters up in a vacuum).
 
I love that.

I went kind of another route, and wrote "Savage Worlds Characters Are All The Same" on my blog, taking five different designs and ranking them up through Legendary...(and in gameplay, they would be even more different because advancement based on what actually happens in a game or campaign is almost always going to be wildly different than what happens in a sterile environment of ranking characters up in a vacuum).
I remember that blog post.

And, yeah, I agree that the idea that all SW characters end up the same is bogus. I have run a campaign that went up to Legendary, and it was never an issue. At the time, I just wanted to see if it was even an issue if it were true.

Looking back, I did that experiment in 2008, shortly before we played B/X again as a one time lark and ended up having a much better time than we expected. I suspect that having already decided that character builds really weren't a big deal helped a lot with us getting on board with the simple classes in that game.
 
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I'm running into this issue as my game group has evolved and is now made up mostly of char op powergamers. Instead of a party representing clear archetypes - human paladin, dwarf fighter, elf wizard, half-elf cleric, halfling thief - we have what I call the Superfreak Dungeon Kill Squad: half-elf barbarian, elf trickster cleric, dwarf druid, elf assassin, tiefling warlock. It's pretty much impossible to think of a thematic way to integrate this bizarre grouping into a team.
This isn't a huge problem in my current underdark campaign. But for my planned Greyhawk campaign, I'm going to impose some restrictions on character race and class options, and make it clear that integration into the game world will be as important as cool powerz.
I hope to demonstrate that you can have original and interesting characters without relying on novel mechanical combinations.
 
What's the relation between elves, dwarves, tieflings and humans in your campaign world? I imagine none of those PCs are welcome in the Underdark so they have that "band of misfits" appeal. If the players are doing a good job roleplaying them, it sounds like an interesting adventuring group. Overall.
 
As a rifts player, having a party comprised of a dwarf, 2 elves, a half elf and a tiefling seems mercifully vanilla ^_^

A Rahu man, a dragon, a quattoria and a machineman walk into a bar. The bartender thinks 'oh no not again'
 
Alright, let's examine the bolded paragraph.

"Also, "games" are about achieving goals within artificial constraints. Games become less fun without the constraints (which is why cheat codes on video games typically spoil the fun. At least for me.) One of those constraints in D&D is making a class choice that comes with trade-offs: pros and cons. Class proliferation is about creating choices without trade-offs (in the sense that the things you give up are the things you didn't want anyway.)"

This is, as others have pointed out, objectively incorrect. Any class-based system provides a number of "slots" into which you insert a class. In DnD you get one slot at a time. Whether I have two choices or two hundred, "spending" my slots has an opportunity cost, and thus I am making a meaningful choice. To me, this reads like a grognard who wants those silly classes off his lawn.

Even the underlying assumption is BS. He claims class proliferation decreases trade-offs. Assuming each class has at least some unique capability, then increasing the number of classes actually increases the amount of trade-off! If start out with Fighter and Wizard, and then I create Rogue, I effectively removed sneaking/lockpicking/pickpocketing excellence from my two classes and moved it into a third. Or, if my rules-set didn't include roguish capability, I added it in, and I still have more options and more trade-offs.

Now, I can think of several valid arguments for a small number of classes:
Faster character generation
Focus PC capability in the desired playstyle and direction. "I'm running a combat-heavy war campaign; diplomancers need not apply."
Maintain setting consistency "Wu-Jen don't exist here."
Reduce PC power differential...though this can backfire. *Waves at the 3.5 Druid*

All that said, I generally find class-based systems confining for this reason. I have to represent my character concept with a set number of silos, each with defined ways of interacting with the game world. I'd much rather choose the ways I want to represent my character in a bespoke fashion, or at least have the option to do so.
 
That poor vagabond! :smile:

I'm also a wargamer and I assume intelligent monsters in their hunting ground (aka, their dungeon) know how to adapt to threats. Also, keeping all the meat shields in front leaves you terribly vulnerable to rear attacks or casters/traps who could divide the party.
 
What burnt me out on D&D, still does, is that I'm a number crunching wargamer, by the end, it was always the same, fighters in front, archers 2nd row, MU's 3rd, clerics keeping casting healing, and thieves sneaking around back for the double damage back stab. It got to the point where we had it figured out enough that we would say "we got this in seven rounds" or "too much, withdraw". There wasn't much suspense or mystery, and for the GM too, often just letting it go, award the xp, and move to the next scenario.
I would love to play D&D with people who use tactics, rather than assuming that the game system is tactical and they therefore don't have to worry about it. Who would be able to respond when the enemy backed away from that formation until they reached a point where they could hit the PCs from multiple angles. Or thought about things like how do we deal with an attack from behind? From the the sides? From bloody kobolds that keep coming out of holes that are scaled to Small rather than Medium creatures? Or see what happens when a bunch of Undead Monks get into that formation.

Players that are smart enough to know when to back down are a rare gift, too.
 
I play wargames too, but I play them for fundamentally different reasons than I play RPGs. When I want to get my tactical game on, I have a dozen boardgames on my shelf to choose from. If I want to get my tactical fantasy game on with an RPG element, I crack out D&D 4E. I find the other editions of D&D are pretty crappy as tactical maneuver systems, and best used to support other styles of play. Which isn't to say they shouldn't feature combat. But the combat should be fast, and feature interesting elements besides tactics.
 
I'm running into this issue as my game group has evolved and is now made up mostly of char op powergamers. Instead of a party representing clear archetypes - human paladin, dwarf fighter, elf wizard, half-elf cleric, halfling thief - we have what I call the Superfreak Dungeon Kill Squad: half-elf barbarian, elf trickster cleric, dwarf druid, elf assassin, tiefling warlock. It's pretty much impossible to think of a thematic way to integrate this bizarre grouping into a team.
I'm not really seeing what the problem is, or why the second group is so much less archetypal; you've got the four core dungeoneering roles represented - fighter, caster, healer, sneak - just not using the "standard" set of races. In terms of power gaming, they don't exactly hyper-optimised, but even then, if a race's natural talents tend to favour particular types of class, they'll tend towards that type of class in-world (Or at least, they should). The players may well not be interested in the "traditional" race / class set-ups you've suggested above, for whatever reasons.

Working out why they're all together is really a problem for the players, not you, but "gold and glory" is always good, or a group of outsiders banding together for support.
 
Players that are smart enough to know when to back down are a rare gift, too.

Everyone knows you're supposed to fight to the death! Or the ref is supposed to calibrate the enemy to make sure it's just the right Goldilocks level of opposition! Right? :clown:
 
So, on another forum someone posted this:



To which one of the interesting replies was this:



I bolded the part I found most interesting because I hadn't quite seen this argument before.

What do you guys think of that?

I tend to agree with the bolded part. Yet I'm also of the camp where two "classes" Fighter/Wizard and a skill system (ala TFT) is near optimum; or in true class terms Fighter/Wizard/Thief. Cleric to me is just some sacred OD&D cow, just a wizard with different spells.

I certainly agree that the class bloat in D&D is all about making players happy and selling books (i.e., removing all the down side and keeping the upside: aka being a munchkin) or GM Mary Sues, as is much my view on the character species proliferation and half-this half-that species. D&D 3.e excelled at class bloat, combined with feat bloat I almost wonder why even have rules. D&D 3e had more classes than any game I've ever seen have skills.

Yet the "class bloat" (and Mary Sue classes) goes back to Unearthed Arcana (officially) and unofficially to the Dragon. My recollection is this wasn't originally driven by munchkinism so much (well maybe except the anti-paladin :smile: ) but by D&D's inability to represent many types of adventures from fiction and mythology. It unfortunately was an inherent flaw in the D&D class system, which while fine when taking a miniatures war-game with setting assumptions and turning into an RPG, not so good for an RPG outside that assumed war-game setting...like almost any setting from fantasy or sword and sorcery literature of the day...as every Giants in the Earth article in the Dragon, or almost every entry in Deity and Demigods (any edition) gave proof to.

It really comes down to there being no skills originally in D&D, at best abilities. The later add-ons of skills, feats, and class after class, to me are Exhibit 1 of the fundamental problem with the class system of D&D. I just don't buy either the retroactive rationalization of the D&D class system as archetypes (unless one would argue that wizard/warrior/thief is it, I'd agree with that with respect to mythology); also don't think this ever was the original design intent, certainly it wasn't brought up as a justification in Gygax's screeds against skill systems in the 80's.

If you're going for a class system, I think few, very few like three classes is the way to go with clerics, and other "classes" just being choices or focuses (or even just mostly flavor) within your "class." As long as there are good rules / approaches for letting anyone attempt to climb, sneak, etc.
 
I love character monster options. Always have.
 
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