Class-Based Games

AI Art by @nightcafestudio

I wonder if my disinterest in many roleplaying games is a distaste for class-based systems. Companies use class-based games to siphon money from you; they limit options, drip out character-build choices in expansions, and even if they don't - they force you to take your idea of a character and fit it into a "box" they give you.

Conan? Fighter! Right?

Merlin? Wizard! Right?

No, and no.

Conan can sneak around a temple, survive in the desert, and go into a berserker rage. Merlin has this part druid side to him; he could probably act like a warlock, but he knows magic and sorcery. Those are MY ideas of these characters.

Then, I end up shopping for games that best fit my ideas for these characters and playing that game, having other ideas for characters and not having them work in the boxes they give for other classes. And I am back to square one.

Every class-based game I tried failed me.

You are usually fine if you can put your ideas in a tiny box.

I am so creative classes ruin the game for me.

Also, class-based systems do not scale and break easily at high levels. Unless you are committed to testing a game at every level with every option to the maximum level (aka, Pathfinder 2), why do you ship broken levels with your game? Wizards have never shipped working high-level D&D play for the last 20 years. Every game gets to the 10-12th level and breaks hard. D&D 4th edition died for us when the 'turn denial' tactics made boss monsters these silly knock-down and stun-lock affairs, and the damage dealers were rolling damage every turn, and the game got boring.

And martial classes always get the short straw. No matter what edition you were in, magic-using classes outshined everyone else. Mages out-damaged martial characters, rogue abilities were easily replicated by magic, and you got this sense of 'who cares?'

Point-buy games are superior in every regard to class-based games. Hands down. If I want my Conan to have stealth and ranger abilities, I buy them. I don't get something else, or my combat skills are less lethal in their current experience, but my character acts and functions exactly like I want them to.

And in the grand scheme, those stealth and survival skills make my Conan far deadlier and more capable than a comparable and boring B/X fighter. GURPS and Dungeon Fantasy give me that. Character design is game design. Will my game be more survival-based? Buy survival skills and put those challenges in my game. Will my game be straight dungeon combat? Ignore the survival skills, hand-wave the game's survival aspects, and design characters for map combat.

The most significant mistake people make when playing GURPS is thinking they need to use it all.

You don't.

Character design is game design.

The skills you pick define the world and experience you will focus on. Granted, you need to be mature enough as a referee to understand this early with your players and not blindside them suddenly, requiring them to have survival skills, or the party dies! That is lame. Nobody wanted to do that when the game started, so don't pull a cheese move like that on everyone when nobody signed up for that.

If you run a do-everything game where they need to battle, survive, do social stuff, repair gear, hunt, forage, build shelters, navigate rough terrain, make maps, and take care of medical care - fine, fair game. You are running a very complex game, and that level of detail appeals to you.

If you want to cut any of those parts out of your game - that is what the book tells you to do, and you can. We only play hex-combats; we just focus on combat skills and healing. Great! You could hand wave the trip to the dungeon and assume they do what they must to navigate and travel; that is fine!

That is your game.

Character design is game design.

AI Art by @nightcafestudio

And as for GURPS being complicated and math-heavy? I don't get it. The initial level of character complexity is higher than D&D, but the complexity of the character stays relatively level as you gain experience. High-level D&D characters are a slow and complicated thing to play and master - especially with the interruptions, bonus actions, reactions, and all the other not-your-turn mechanics flying around.

I understand why it takes people 30 minutes to say what their character does on a turn. What should be an "I do this" moment in a one-second combat turn - becomes a discussion of diplomacy and negotiation at an international forum. A GURPS character with many character points stays relatively the same complexity level as when they started. They are far more powerful and capable, but their complexity remains relatively low.

At worst, high-skill combat moves open up and become viable. You begin trading automatic hits for extra damage, called shots, or other advantages.

There are parts of GURPS I prefer to avoid, like some of their space combat implementations, that get too simulation-like and physics-based. I am free to handle this however I want to, like using another game's overall framework of starship combat but using GURPS skill rolls for attack and task resolution. The Knight Hawks starship combat game for Star Frontiers could use GURPS skill rolls for most everything, especially if you tweak modifiers for range (and convert between hexes and the minus-to-hit).

In fantasy, I like GURPS. The game is smaller scale and more intimate. Building a shelter and starting a fire for warmth can be a fight if you play on that low level. Getting an arm injury for your weapon hand can be a severe thing. A leg injury can slow you down. You will need medical skills, healing, and supplies - and you will wear down the longer you are in the wilderness. Armor can take damage, and weapons can wear down or break.

It is not high fantasy, fireball a thousand goblins and then laugh as you gate out to the planes of whatever. I tire of that no-consequences magic and 'combat for fun' game style. It is so 2010s, and it is frankly old and stale.

And classes limit my creativity. They put my ideas in a box designed by someone else.

I prefer to design the box myself.

Or have no box at all.