Topic: The Argument Against Character Classes in Rolemaster. PT 1.

[B Hanson]

Since its introduction, Rolemasters’ appeal was as a versatile system against traditional class-based games like Dungeons & Dragons.  In RM there are supposedly no class limitations: a fighter could learn spells, and a magic user could wield a sword.  At the time, this was a revolutionary feature in fantasy role-playing, more so compared to the strict restrictions imposed in DD and other gaming systems.  The wide adoption of a class based systems was driven by fantasy literature but ultimately led to a creative dead end for the following reasons:

1.   Character classes reinforce fantasy tropes.  By continuing to use these class titles, RM has ultimately embraced a model it was attempting to challenge.  Over time, it’s made it harder to differentiate RM from other established gaming systems as they in turn have adopted some of RM’s ideas.
2.   Character classes tend to reinforce the need for the “balanced party”.  While the adventure group is a foundation of traditional fantasy role-playing, it may also pigeon holes players into class defined roles.
3.   Character classes should be driven by the setting, not the other way around.  RPG classes have become discrete memes: each profession carrying pre-conceptions of its abilities, behavior, appearance or power.  The term “wizard” or “magician” may conjure up our own fantasy motifs that can overwhelm a GM’s unique campaign setting or dispose us to specific actions based on our understanding of that class.

Rolemaster has always identified itself as a skill based system but it didn’t take the concept far enough.  The fantasy RPG genre is now a mature industry and new game systems and literature are trying to innovate.  Now may be the time for Rolemaster to fully embrace its original mandate: to become a system where a character is truly defined by the sum of his skills and not by accepted class restrictions and aptitudes.  In doing so, RM’s system can be more easily adapted to any fantasy setting, regardless of it’s similarities (or lack thereof) to Middle Earth, Greyhawk or any other high fantasy setting.

Discarding character classes does not make the dozens of professions already defined in the original rule set or companions obsolescent: these professions can always be used as pc and npc templates.  But it does give greater flexibility to players in defining their characters, and experienced GM’s who are already making substantial adjustments based on the setting, narrative or character background.  The question of what character class fits into any given world setting never need be asked—instead GM’s can create or choose skill cost sets that fit the society, guild, group or organization rather than trying to shoehorn RM character class into their setting

Do you really need different professions for a fighter and barbarian?  Are not those differences more defined by racial type, dress, armament and behavior than skill costs?  Do you need 3 different classes for magician, alchemist and illusionist.  All are Essence users, defined by the family of spells they specialize in rather than a few arbitrary differences in skill costs.
Returning to the idea in #1 above, a basic examination shows that skill development costs are still driven by the very tropes that RM should avoid:  thieves are weak fighters that rely on stealth; clerics “do good” and heal; magic users can’t wear armor etc.  If the goal is to eliminate class limitations, then why reinforce fantasy stereotypes or channel character development into these stereotypes?

I will propose a few of my own ideas in the second part of this article!  To be continued, but any thoughts welcome.

[kevinmccollum]

On the flip side, building your own character from a toolbox of picks or abilities leads to a min/max setting. I think the classes keep you from becoming the best at any one thing. I don't want to play in a game where everyone is good at spellcasting AND melee AND assorted skills. To me, the differentiation helps the group dynamic.

[markc]

  This has been discussed before and if you look in the ICE Archives you can find a lot of stuff there.
  This question has also has a divide in which RM you play in that RM2/C has some limitations that RMSS/FRP does not. In RMSS/FRP a GM tries to handle any idea of a new profession with a training package instead of a new profession like in RM2/C. It does not always work (better in some peoples mind than others) but that is the idea and IMHO it is shown wonderfully in SM:P Future Law with sequential Training Packages.


MDC

[Ecthelion]

1.   Character classes reinforce fantasy tropes.  By continuing to use these class titles, RM has ultimately embraced a model it was attempting to challenge.  Over time, it’s made it harder to differentiate RM from other established gaming systems as they in turn have adopted some of RM’s ideas.

Who said RM did challenge the model of character classes? All RM did was remove some of the strict limitations of other games by introducing a skill system and costs for skills depending on the character class.

2.   Character classes tend to reinforce the need for the “balanced party”.  While the adventure group is a foundation of traditional fantasy role-playing, it may also pigeon holes players into class defined roles.

Perhaps. But would it be different without character classes?

3.   Character classes should be driven by the setting, not the other way around.  RPG classes have become discrete memes: each profession carrying pre-conceptions of its abilities, behavior, appearance or power.  The term “wizard” or “magician” may conjure up our own fantasy motifs that can overwhelm a GM’s unique campaign setting or dispose us to specific actions based on our understanding of that class.

The GM is free to rename professions as fits his setting, if that is necessary to avoid the problem you describe.

Personally I think removing professions from RM would alienate the existing player base and IMO it is doubtful whether it would attract so many new players. Removing professions from a system is probably not really a USP that attracts new players. But it will be interesting to hear of your own ideas in the second part of your article.

[TerryTee]

Could be interesting to run a campaign where all characters have the same skill costs for all skills.It would take some thinking to find out what the skill costs should be, but that’s a problem to be solved later.

It would then be up to the player to spend DPs on the skills he’d like to get good at. If he spreads them around evenly he’ll be a jack of all trades, but can’t specialize in anything. If he spends it all on weapons he’ll be a fighter type, and if he spends it all on magic he’ll be more of a spell caster. If the character survives for a few levels the player may want to change focus, and rather than specializing further into the skills the character is good at he’ll start building proficiency in other areas without any disadvantage like high skill costs.

This way of doing it may be a good mechanism to flesh out the leveling process with more role playing. Special skills may not be any more expensive, but they are only available to members of certain organization. Anyone can learn Adreneral Defense, but only if they are a member of the proper school of martial arts connected to a certain monastery, etc.
Same thing goes for spell lists, or even realms. The character may have the same skill cost for all spell lists in the game across all realms, but he’s not likely to have access to teachers. Knowledge is power and people tend to protect their secrets…

Perhaps a few pre requisites should be introduced as well for certain types of skills (they may exist in the game already for all I know). An example may be a skill like Essence Metaphysics. This skill is only available from certain people and schools, and the ranks in this skill will limit the ranks in spell lists or the number of spell lists, or something similar.

The point is that anyone can learn ANYTHING. This does not mean that one character actually can become good at EVERYTHING.

-Terry

[Lord Garth]

There's rules for the "No-Proffesion" character in (I think) RMCVI. I've never used them, always allowed them. The problem becomes that every player wants the following:

• 1/2 (Or very close) in Directed Spells
• 2/4 In primary Weapon
• +3 in both Arms and Directed Spells
• +2 in Base Spell Casting
• Assorted +1 in Perception, Academic and Social til the limit

All players eventually become killing machines.

There's probably a case to be made for different skill costs. I usually allow my players a few 1/2 pics in non-esential skills (read not for killing). I end up with players that put some skill points in Dancing,  Singing or what not. Currently I have a player with 35 skill ranks in Gambling, for instance. AND he's an evil spell caster. Oh the laughs.

[bpowell]

While I understand the idea of a total skill based system.  How I see the reason for Professions is that we are all hardwired differently.  Most of  this is due to how we spent our youth (Old dogs and new tricks if you like).  I am very good at analytical endeavors, and I can make almost any vehicle sing, I cannot carry a tune in a  bucket and have two left feet.

I am told by a friend who is an accomplished Opera singer Yes, she is truly a Diva) that anyone can learn to sign and dance.  She has attempted to help me and tells me I have improved.  But I find it take me twice as long to learn something she is teaching me than it does to learn something new with Databases or the like.

I am "hardwired"  that way.  This is how I see professions working.  In AD&D if you are not that class, you cannot learn to do it...period the end. In RM I can have a spell casting Fighter and in the case of one post above an evil spell caster with a Gambling problem.

[Ecthelion]

I am "hardwired"  that way.  This is how I see professions working.  In AD&D if you are not that class, you cannot learn to do it...period the end. In RM I can have a spell casting Fighter and in the case of one post above an evil spell caster with a Gambling problem.

Something like this is how I see RM professions nowadays. The skill costs represent only how quickly a character can learn certain types of skills. And the foundation for this probably lies in his genes (=stats?) or early youth training. And certain sets of skill costs have simply been given a profession name, so that a player can more easily picture what a this or that set of skill costs might be suitable for. And a skill set where weapon and armor costs are low, whereas spells and magic skills are costly fits nicely for a fighting profession and was thus named "Fighter". Of course that's not how the creators of RM devised it, but picture it that way and perhaps you (bhanson) can live better with the RM profession system (?).

Personally I am a fan of having a relation between stats and skill costs, so that e.g. a character with high agility can quickly learn thieving skills and a character with high intelligence quickly grasps the concepts for learning spells and magic skills. That way you also won't use character classes/professions that define what a character learn or how quickly. Nevertheless, in such a system I created for HARP, where stats define the skill costs, I added some aspects we know from the RM professions as "professional talents". But, as you might see, I don't have a problem with professions in a FRP system. IMHO they make it easier for new players to get into the game and play a character the have in mind, like a famous fighter from a book they have read. They just pick that profession and know that way the can create a character that is able to survive in combat.

Just my 2 cents

[Cormac Doyle]

Rather than saying that the concept of a profession or archetype is wrong, we should look at it in more detail.

Are there people who find physical tasks easier than mental ones, and vice-versa ... I'm sure we are all familiar with Jocks and Nerds at school. I don't care how much circuit training Bill gates does ... he won't be able to be a quarterback, or a sprinter, or an effective boxer.

So ... potentially you have an argument that some people have a certain level of affinity towards physical stuff (fighters, et al), and some more mental pursuits (sages - mages in a setting where magic is possible).

However - should these Affinity/Archetype/Class constructs be used to differentiate between a Fighter, a Knight, a barbarian and a Cavalier? (and what exactly is the difference between a Cavalier and a Knight??).

Similarly - should a Magic user specializing in Elemental magic (RM Mage) really be an entirely different Archetype when compared to a Magic specializing in meta-magic (RMIII Wizard)?

No - this level of individualization should not be handled at the level of the Archetype ... it is more setting specific.

to my mind, there is definitely a place for a select group of Archetypes. The individual setting-specific tweaks and variations combine with these Archetypes to create what are currently known as "Professions".

It is this reasoning that the Archetype is a fundamental attribute (or collection of fundamental attributes) of a character that explains why people should not be able to "change profession" ... you can't change your profession any easier than you can have a brain transplant ...

Can you change the job you are doing ... sure

So the use of the term "Profession" (which in any dictionary effectively equates to that of "job" is a really poor one).



Overal - should Archetypes be retained? - yes, in most games they serve a purpose, and more importantly, the vast majority of players want them. Should you have "Professions" that are "as Animist, but two of the spell lists are different" or "as Thief, but with two skills slightly cheaper" ?  - NO

[rdanhenry]

Given that RuneQuest pre-dates Rolemaster, it isn't as if the skills-only option wasn't on the table from the very beginning. If you do want everyone to share skill costs, the No-Profession (RM2) and Layman (RMSS/FRP) Professions exist and have been used for all characters in some games. The option is there for those who want it, but it hasn't been nearly popular enough to suggest that Professions ought to be dropped.

[intothatdarkness]

If you link professions with cultures and similar constructs, they start to make more sense. I never had a problem with professions and development costs, simply because I think they tend to mimic pretty well how people actually develop in the course of their lives. I also like to see how players adapt to the limitations imposed by a profession. If all characters are the same, and all-powerful, things get boring pretty quickly.

There are ways to allow characters to change professions (at least in my house rules), which is one way to address this issue.

Within my fantasy world, class and profession are both linked strongly to culture. That gives each profession something of a background and association. Within my world, the difference between a knight and a cavalier can be something as simple as where the character is from and as complex as which order or ruler they serve (knights tending to be more focused on serving rulers or political systems while cavaliers tend to be more focused on religious orders). I tend to think that it can be useful to have some close-yet-different professions, but I also favor worlds and settings that have strong backgrounds (the first thing players do in my campaigns is roll for origin). In my experience if you don't have that kind of foundation, you lose the focus and framework that makes professions work and work well.

[OLF, i.e. Olf Le Fol]

Archetypes/professions/classes are also tied to the concepts around them, making it easier to communicate between the players and the GM (and even the community). If one speaks about the "Warlock", everyone knows what it is; or has a good idea about it. Presenting a list of archetypes/professions/classes to new players make it easy for them to know which character or kind of character they'd like to play.
In a pure skill only system, it's hard to communicate about a character concept except through intensive descriptions of the skills in which he'd be good and bad... and quickly enough, people would assign it a word to mean "that concept of a character being proficient in such and such skill sets, and bad in such and such skill sets"... meaning, a class/profession.
I mean, really, if you develop your skills in order to be efficient in combat more than anywhere else, wouldn't you call/present yourself as "a fighter"? Whilst calling yourself a "mage" if your focus is more on magic? Then, since there are thousands spell lists, as a need to differentiate each one, depending on their focus, would arise, people would naturally assign a name to each concept/focus; for instance, "elementalist" for the mage who specializes in manipulating elements. And even further, such as "elementalist" for the mage who specializes in manipulating elements, with no dominance of one on the others, "fire mage" for the one specializing in fire, "wood mage" for the one specializing in wood, "metal mage" for the one specializing in metal, etc.

For my part, I have an extensive use of professions, as "a set of development costs for skills and, possibly, a set of spell lists, based on a character concept". It's very useful to me and my players (old and new), because it provides a common framework of skill tweaks (and spell lists combinations) that were proven to work (more or less).
1. It makes it easier for a player to know from where to start, without the burden to compose himself his character (e.g. spending hours tweaking the skill costs),
2. It makes it easier for a new player to start, since he doesn't need to know much of the system to understand what kind of character he'd have if he takes a "Thief", or an "Archer".
3. It makes it easier for me to remember a NPC, out of my thousand ones, and what his proficiencies are (just as, IRL, one would remember more easily "John Smith the Lawyer in Paris" than "John Smith of Paris").

[OLF, i.e. Olf Le Fol]

4. It's easier (both for the GM and the player) to present the player a set of professions/classes and ask him to choose one, than to present him hundreds of skills and tell him he can play whatever he wants and "only" have now to tweak the skill costs to match what he wants to play.

[B Hanson]

Thanks to everyone that took the time to respond.  I know this topic has been covered before, but in the context of an imminent redesign of the system I wanted to work through my own thought process as well as the RM community. 

I wanted to address some of the issues and points raised and continue with my thought experiment.

Moving to a classless system would alienate current RM players.  There are already several versions of RM on the market that players can continue to use.  Personally, I’ve always used the original RM system and never chose to adopt the new versions or even much past RMC I.  However in terms of a changing market—and ultimately RM is a commercial product—does it make sense to undergo a system evolution rather than just another iteration?  The development discussion around Arms Law is more than a polishing so why not take a new approach to Character Law?

Tropes are useful for players and GM’s, creating a common gaming vernacular.    Agreed, but again, this is less a technical issue and more a philosophical one that I’m raising.  There is some comfort is settling into traditional gaming roles—we are currently playing through an Expert D&D module using Castles & Crusades rules.  It feels like putting on a comfortable pair of slippers but its lack of flexibility is already apparent to our group of experience players.  It may just be that if you played a long time, eliminating these stereotypes and expectations can lead to a novel gaming experience.  But more importantly would this type of chance make RM appeals to new players?  Certainly the latest fantasy literature is moving away from these traditional memes: Erickson, Lynch, Rothfuss are all good examples and it is popular literature that can drive game design and genre.

Eliminating classes would homogenize characters and/or create the “optimized” profession.  While I haven’t gotten to some suggested solutions yet, I see a place for both a classless system and “classes as templates”.   And no, I’m not suggesting the No Profession option already included in the rule set.  There seems to be a belief that an open skill system would lead to player optimization: maximizing key spells, weapons and a few other skills to produce the ideal character.  While new rules can still account for that, I’m not sure that this doesn’t already occur under the current system.  A quick review of the new character classes, optional rules, talents and background options all point towards the trend to balance individual classes out and expand their abilities beyond their designed skill cost assignments.  Don’t like the lack of spells for a fighter or the lack of weapons for a magician?  Try the Warrior Mage; an excellent example of cherry picked spells and abilities creating an optimized class.   Don’t like the thief or rogues lack of spells but the mystic doesn’t have enough combat and offensive spell ability?  Try the assassin class!  Spell user doesn’t have any fighting ability: slap 10 ranks of a weapon as a background option.  In the end you have an exhausting list of optional rules and exceptions that complicates the system and perhaps leads to game imbalance.  And all of it really driven by one base motivation: more character flexibility.

A few last thoughts…  Is there any really guidance, rules or balance to the current character class generation process?  Besides an arbitrary assignment of perceived “primary” abilities is there a really way to balance classes?   Does anyone believe that character classes are equal in balance in playability?

So let’s move on to few ideas. 

Step 1.  Skill Bonuses.

Before we tackle a skill driven based system we need to look at both skill progression and costs.  Perceived character balance is created by the careful structuring of skill costs but may not take into account player motivations.  These decision points can be simplified as the sum of three components

1.   Additional benefit = (skill bonus increase)
2.   Cost of additional benefit  = (development point cost)
3.   Opportunity Cost = (decision to forego a different skill)

The three of these act as a measure of Marginal Utility, a common economic measurement of consumption and decision making.  In simple terms players look at the cost of a skill, the additional bonus against other skills they may need or want when making their skill picks.  Even with high DP costs, most players can afford a versatile selection of skills.  That’s because the first 10 ranks offer the highest marginal utility per DB cost AND most skills are limited by a maximum gain of 2 ranks per level.  By capping skill rank increases per level you force players to choose skills they may not want but that offers them some cost/benefit for otherwise unusable DP’s.  In effect this system has an unintended consequence of homogenizing character classes.

One way to address this is to modify the skill rank bonus progression.  The current system is simple: +5 for ranks 1-10, +2 for ranks 11-20, etc…  I would suggest a different approach, starting with Rank 1 a bonus of: +1, +2, +3, +4…etc….+8, +7, +6, +5, +4…down to +1/2 after Rank 20.  Ultimately this gives you the same bonus at Rank 20 you have under the current system.  Not only would this change players’ skill picks since buying 1 rank of a new skill has less utility,  but the progression has a more intuitive curve.  This also pushes the inflection point (the slope of the curve measures marginal utility) to skill rank 11 or 12.  I have a graph I can insert as soon as I figure out how!

To be continued....

[intothatdarkness]

If the concern is making RM accessible to new players, I'm not sure that creating a convoluted classless system is really the way to go. I've played some games that don't use traditional classes, and many of them soak up so much time in character creation that it becomes more work than fun.

It's been my experience that the classes are "balanced" as well as can be expected. There should always be downsides to a class, just as there are benefits. That's part of the challenge and fun (at least for me) of playing.

Of course I also reworked both the professions and level bonuses to fit with my world, so my RM isn't "stock out of the box." But to get back to your example based on literature....most good series or one-off books have a good, vibrant background to them. I tried to fit all my professions into a background, discarding those that don't work. Some are "traditional," others are not. But if you link your professions strongly to an environment instead of using every listed profession just because it's there they become more useful and relevant to the game. And I just don't get that feeling from a "spin your own" system of character creation.

[intothatdarkness]

On the flip side, building your own character from a toolbox of picks or abilities leads to a min/max setting. I think the classes keep you from becoming the best at any one thing. I don't want to play in a game where everyone is good at spellcasting AND melee AND assorted skills. To me, the differentiation helps the group dynamic.

Agree 100%.

I also don't think that reinforcing fantasy tropes is necessarily a bad thing.

[markc]

Thanks to everyone that took the time to respond.  I know this topic has been covered before, but in the context of an imminent redesign of the system I wanted to work through my own thought process as well as the RM community. 

 IMHO there is no "imminent redesign of the system". There are constant fan rumors that there will be. All in all a redesign would take about 1-2 years to go through all the phases of design, testing, etc to get finished and out to the public.


A few points;
A) RM2 professions in companion are not balanced, they were created by fans and published by ICE as is.
B) There is no profession design system for RM2/C or RMSS/FRP.
C) Also IMHO RMSS/FRP does a lot to fix the profession problem created in RM2. Some do not like it do to the fact that there are skill categories and no profession bonuses but some also have proposed fixes for that.
D) There are some articles on TheGuildCompanion.com that deal with no professions. I think the article is called Irregular Realms and it might be a place for you to start looking.


MDC

[smug]

I always felt that professions was entirely the wrong word for them. They're aptitude templates, not professions and not classes in the D&D sense. The naming is actually horrible, I think.

[smug]

 IMHO there is no "imminent redesign of the system". There are constant fan rumors that there will be. All in all a redesign would take about 1-2 years to go through all the phases of design, testing, etc to get finished and out to the public.

I would think that 1-2 years would be really quick.

[OLF, i.e. Olf Le Fol]

Does anyone believe that character classes are equal in balance in playability?

IMO, no, they're not (at least, not in RM2) and it's why I like them and like RM2 over any other game system. The world is not balanced, so there's nothing more annoying to me as a GM than a system where every single character you can create is "balanced" with the others. I mean, really, why thrive to become a knight when, all thing considered, he's "balanced" with a farmer! Doh! (More seriously, I don't think "balance" should come from the game system, whatever it is, but from the world itself: its cultures, its social system and classes, etc. Instead of giving rules to create balanced characters, system gamewise, I'd would love a game system to provide guidelines to balance characters, worldwise)