Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Recognizable vs Unrecognizable class design

Two questions in thread

  • Question 1: Recognizable classes

  • Question 1: Unrecognizable classes

  • Question 2: Familiar class and spell names

  • Question 2: Original class and spell names

  • Kingcomrade prestige class


Results are only viewable after voting.

Lance Treiber

Educated
Joined
Feb 23, 2019
Messages
65
I'm at a stage on my project where I'm thinking about class design. This is what I'm struggling with:

Question 1: Should classes be stereotypical, or should they jump at you out of nowhere?

Stereotypical design, examples:
- arcane/elementalist mage
- generalist mage with utility spells

Unrecognizable design, examples:
- Gold mage, draws power from the amount of hoarded gold he's got in his vault. Crippling gold addiction: he must constantly increase hoarded gold or lose powers.
- Tattoo mage, prepares spells by tattooing them on his skin, and can materialize his tattoos. E.g. he tattooed a dagger on his hand, then a this dagger flies out at will, consuming the tattoo.
- Revision mage, can rewind time on self or allies. When dealt a non-lethal blow, can make in unhappen. Can only be killed by poison or an annihilating explosion. Has weak offense. Constantly rewinds time until enemy critically misses. Sounds exasperating? It's just an idea, don't worry about it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Stereotypical:
- Warlock. Summons undeads or demons, whatever.

Unrecognizable:
- Thanatonauts have to voluntarily die to "prepare spells". While dead, make pacts with ghosts/spirits that provide him powers. If body is destroyed while dead, there's no coming back. Can also be robbed while dead. Has to hide himself to commit suicide.

These ideas are just examples, but they could be iterated on until they become playable and interesting to play. Maybe.
Or would you rather play stuff you already know?
Or would you rather modify recognizable classes to make them fresh and original?


Question 2: If stereotypical is better, should they have familiar names?

E.g.:
- "warrior" vs "blade-bound"
- "rogue" vs "shadow"
- "priest" vs "bone mage": mends wounds by drawing health from disposable bones he carries with himself, but basically a recognizable priest stereotype.

Having familiar class and spell names at the start of the game can set you at ease, putting you into familiar territory. On the other hand, it reeks of boredom if you've been playing "mages and warriors" for 20 years.

Make unfamiliar names and the player may go "this is like when Sawyer changed vampire to fampyr".

Please vote, but also leave comments as to WHY this or that?
 

Serus

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jul 16, 2005
Messages
6,681
Location
Small but great planet of Potatohole
Classes that are original/unorthodox require original names. The standard ones, the vanilla fantasy ones, better use the ones that every one is accustomed too. No need to complicate things. This the way d&d games do it and it sort of works.
 

Shadenuat

Arcane
Joined
Dec 9, 2011
Messages
11,955
Location
Russia
is there a mechanical&narative reason to re-name class? (samurai from wizardry, can use samura items, has lightning strike and fearless) > rename
is it just fighter who fights? > fighter.
 

Tigranes

Arcane
Joined
Jan 8, 2009
Messages
10,350
I like unfamiliar / new stuff. But my advice would be that any unfamiliar elements have to be sufficiently surrounded by familiar elements, so that the player has the scaffolding to understand & enjoy the unfamiliar.

If you have mage mechanics that largely are familiar to D&D players, but then you have a 'Gold Mage' subclass that has its own weird gold-based schtick, I think that's cool. When I read something like "the number of your memorised spells and your save DC is based on your gold", it is new, but I immediately know what it means to modify my memorised spells or save DC and I know how to make these decisions.

But if you have a game where there are gold mages, and magic is not memorised via Vancian or per encounter but works off some unique resource system, and spells are not resisted by rolls/resistances but some other thing, then I've got nowhere to lean on. It's like an equation where every single part of the equation is unknown and I don't know how to make headway.

That said, it's also important that your unfamiliar element is sufficiently supported elsewhere so that it's actually meaningful. And that's hard to balance. If your system is really devoted to a unique and complicated mage mechanic, then perhaps the entire game is based around those mages. That's the lore your plot and setting is built around, and you learn about these mages through NPCs and quests. Everybody is a mage of some sort, rather than mage being one of 300 classes. It's one thing to have a tattoo mage, it's another thing to have a gameworld where tattoos are, say, used for disguises or signalling loyalty - so you put on that fire tattoo for the spell use but it's also going to get you in trouble with a faction.
 

SausageInYourFace

Angelic Reinforcement
Patron
Joined
Dec 28, 2013
Messages
3,858
Location
In your face
Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Bubbles In Memoria A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. My team has the sexiest and deadliest waifus you can recruit. Pathfinder: Wrath
Not sure any scaffolding is needed at all, it seems to me that pretty much all classes in fantasy RPGs are inevitably a variation of the fighter - rogue - mage trias and can be easily understood and described within these terms. Begs the question whether it is necessary to jump out of the bushes with a "night blade" or a "gold mage" in the first place when its just "a rogue who knows spells" and a "mage whose magics based on his gold".

Why there can not be a genuine novel class outside this trias is just one of the great mysteries of the universe.
 

Generic-Giant-Spider

Guest
I don't like it when they change names for the sake of changing names and with very minor alterations or they make the replacement a lot more lame or simplistic compared to the original.

Like if a Rogue becomes a "Shadow" I can just about guarantee you it'll be some high damage stealth thing and that's that. Now if the Shadow was an offshoot of an already established, in-the-game Rogue class then that's okay but to tell me that a Rogue is only there to be a stealth critical hitter makes me realize they miss the point and a ton of potential for a class that can be so much more and if they fumble that badly on a class that can be so broad chances are the other classes they have will be uninspired too.
 

Tigranes

Arcane
Joined
Jan 8, 2009
Messages
10,350
Not sure any scaffolding is needed at all, it seems to me that pretty much all classes in fantasy RPGs are inevitably a variation of the fighter - rogue - mage trias and can be easily understood and described within these terms. Begs the question whether it is necessary to jump out of the bushes with a "night blade" or a "gold mage" in the first place when its just "a rogue who knows spells" and a "mage whose magics based on his gold".

Why there can not be a genuine novel class outside this trias is just one of the great mysteries of the universe.

What you're describing is the scaffolding. I would welcome a 'genuinely novel' class, and that would actually involve innovation at the level of how basic combat mechanics are structured.

If you have a system where 'magic' is a finite-resource set of special abilities that are cast one by one, for example, you're going to end up having pretty much the same old mages, no?

Imagine, for example, a combat system where martial attacks are not discrete 'attack' commands that you repeat, but everything is more based on stances that modify sustained statuses over time. So instead of ordering your fighter to attack, the swordsman is always locked in combat with the opponent and you're choosing foot stances, feints, or added pressure, in ways that do not have specific and immediate impact but shift the balance over time. I'm not saying this would be a wonderful system, but I'm saying it requires changing things like basic action economy to actually get really different 'classes'.
 
Joined
Jan 14, 2018
Messages
50,754
Codex Year of the Donut
Like if a Rogue becomes a "Shadow" I can just about guarantee you it'll be some high damage stealth thing and that's that. Now if the Shadow was an offshoot of an already established, in-the-game Rogue class then that's okay but to tell me that a Rogue is only there to be a stealth critical hitter makes me realize they miss the point and a ton of potential for a class that can be so much more and if they fumble that badly on a class that can be so broad chances are the other classes they have will be uninspired too.
Rogue is probably the class that deserves being renamed the most. Rogue is a description of an archetype, too broad for a class. Thief, swashbuckler, bard, assassin, etc.,
 

Shinji

Savant
Joined
Jan 10, 2017
Messages
313
What is a class, though?

If it is merely a template with pre-allocated skill points, then the name matters not (Oblivion and Dark Souls come to mind)

Some games use "class" to lock certain skills and moves. In Dragon's Dogma the player can change classes at any time, but he is limited to that class' skillset (warriors cannot use magic or bows)
Some games also lock equipment to specific classes. Dragon's Dogma does this as well (mages can't use shields, although mystic knights can)
Some games do not lock equipment to classes, but only allow the "right" classes to use some or all pieces of a category of equipment (axes, bows, heavy armor) in the most effective way.
Some games also use "class" merely as a replacement for "identity" or "social status", so it gives you a label, but it may not limit what your character can do.

It is worth mentioning that most RPGs are combat-focused, and so most classes are as well (if not combat-focused, you could have classes such as farmer, fisherman, blacksmith and so on. Not as exciting, but oh well...)
If your game has interactions that do not involve combat, then it might be worth considering an hybrid approach (i.e. skills that every class has, and some skills that are class-specific)
 

V_K

Arcane
Joined
Nov 3, 2013
Messages
7,714
Location
at a Nowhere near you
Unorthodox, but try not to make it too convoluted. Think VtM, for example - all the clans have their unique features (some more than others), but the underlying mechanics remain largely the same, ensuring coherence and making the different mechanics easier to grasp. Now compare that to DnD where each class is essentially a separate ruleset and weep.
 

luj1

You're all shills
Vatnik
Joined
Jan 2, 2016
Messages
12,877
Location
Eastern block
Make classes distinctive, +2 or -2 is nothing, you can have 2 humans with such stats. Orthodox and unorthodox it doesn't matter (but I always prefer to be original)
 

new fucking guy

Scholar
Patron
Joined
Oct 22, 2017
Messages
180
Pathfinder: Wrath
nobody's excited about a fucking generalist mage with utility spells
both concepts have their appeal, there's probably a correct answer considering other stuff present in the game. imagine a heavily stylized game like darkest dungeon with generic classes. or infinity engine clone where game doesn't let you make just a dude with a sword, forcing you to bother with some gimmick just to hold a frontline
never ask the audience what they want, they don't know shit
 

Morpheus Kitami

Liturgist
Joined
May 14, 2020
Messages
2,476
If you really want something class-based, a combination of both. You want the normal classes for people unfamiliar with the way your game works, but you also want some fancy ones for the people that do understand how the game works.
That said, unless you're copying D&D or M&M, a classless system usually works best, perhaps with a little bit of class, like in Vampire - The Masquerade.
 

Cael

Arcane
Joined
Nov 1, 2017
Messages
20,294
Have you looked at Demon's Winter's way of handling races, stats, classes and abilities? I like it as it is a darned good compromise between class and classless rules set.

Just expand it more and re-jig the numbers a bit.
 

Glop_dweller

Prophet
Joined
Sep 29, 2007
Messages
1,164
What is a class, though?
Specifically it's what they learned, and aspired to before the game starts—it's the PC's past education; technically it's their profession, but can also mean simply what they had access to learn, or what they could afford to be taught, or even simply what they were interested in.

Mechanically (the most important) it's one of the supported (ideally well balanced against the other) character ability sets. This is usually the (under the hood) reason for class restricted skills.

It is worth mentioning that most RPGs are combat-focused, and so most classes are as well (if not combat-focused, you could have classes such as farmer, fisherman, blacksmith and so on. Not as exciting, but oh well...)
Legend of Grimrock 2 allows for Farmer class PCs. They do not gain XP from combat—they gain XP from consuming food... it's strange, but it works.
 

*-*/\--/\~

Cipher
Joined
Jul 10, 2014
Messages
909
fiction_rule_of_thumb.png
 
Self-Ejected

Thac0

Time Mage
Patron
Joined
Apr 30, 2020
Messages
3,292
Location
Arborea
I'm very into cock and ball torture
Navigating a spell list from a game like POE that tries to be original and quirky by renaming all the spells and changing the elements while at the same time being so creatively bankrupt there is not a single original spell in there is exhausting.
Oh so this Kevins Shining Analbeads is this games Magic Missile? And Steffans Shattering Snowstrike is Fireball? Why are you making me do this tedium? Just put on the tin what is in the spell, you can get cool with naming when you make an actually exotic spell.
 

Sharpedge

Prophet
Joined
Sep 14, 2018
Messages
1,061
I am a fan of original ideas and settings. Your gold example is a good example of one which can achieve both, where the primary currency used within a setting can be a material form of magic. Magic can be something which is accessible to everyone (everyone is born with it) but practically due to prohibitive costs, only something which is really used frequently by the rich. A nice side effect of this kind of setting is it does a good job of resource management. If someone wants to use magic as their primary damage type, their currency can be depleted at roughly the same rate as someone who wants to bash things with a stick if the system is designed well.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom