Sci fi Rpgs classes [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

Lord Raziere

2019-07-21, 07:37 PM

Hey everyone.

So I'm used to playing fantasy rpgs. I can usually find whatever info I need on classes on forums or sites.

When it comes to sci fi rpgs I can't seem to find much info on classes besides soldiers or a tech class. What classes are usually found in sci fi rpgs or if anyone can direct to a website is appreciate it

There probably isn't one?

this is largely because despite fantasy having more possibilities, fantasy has more set in stone tropes as far as heroes and plots go. while sci-fi can have more varied settings from logically deducing how this or that technology affects everyone, thus more varied roles depending on the setting while also looking at heroes not as archetypical people with specific styles and more as people with well-rounded skills and brains to think outside the box.

like, fantasy archetypes and heroes have things like, swordsman with various semi-mystical tropes and cliches like a Legendary Sword, the Sword Master you learn cool sword techniques from and such and so on, with a wizards and their power artifacts and this and that. its all about a growth of a legend and the conflicts they take place in.

but science fiction, it isn't concerned about that sort of thing. its concerned about how X would have an effect on Y in a logical manner and what does that mean for society. there is no personal legend involved. anyone can pick up a gun of any kind and kill people with it. given the right technology, anyone can be implanted with a chip to become a master hacker, or any other skill-set you'd care to name. at a certain point, the concept of a "class" becomes outdated when the entire world and people within becomes something modular and replaceable with easy enough cybernetics. at a certain point, doing anything YOURSELF becomes an outdated concept when you can make a robot to do it for you.

so ironically, sci-fi is less set in stone and more open to strange possibilities because while fantasy has tons of things it can do that sci-fi can't, fantasy has to somehow fit those things into a medieval world that humans can relate to where the protagonist can sword his way through everything, therefore the effects are limited. and therefore you can't really list any classes for sci-fi, because there is no real standard sci-fi setting like there is in fantasy, because sci-fi can be more weird and still be something understandable for most people, because it having an effect and changing, the asking of the "what if?" question is the entire point.

Particle_Man

2019-07-21, 08:28 PM

Star Wars games often have classes iirc. Traveller tends to have backgrounds in chargen that can act like classes in the creation minigame. But some sci-fi rpgs just are classless.

How much magic/force/psychic stuff do you want in your science fiction?

Grod_The_Giant

2019-07-21, 08:56 PM

Sci-fi games generally don't have classes, unless you're talking about something like Starfinder that's built around "D&D in space" as an idea. Personally, I think it has to do with all the options that technology opens up to the players. There are so many toys available to anyone who goes looking for them that you don't really need magic to interact with the world in interesting ways. Related to that is conservation of complexity-- once you get done writing rules for spaceships and hacking and building robots and biotechnology and all the rest, you've got a lot less room for the kind of character-based complexity a game like D&D or Exalted digs into.

JellyPooga

2019-07-21, 09:07 PM

Sci-fi games tend not to have such a focus on hack'n'slash as fantasy (IME), so "classes" in those systems also tend more toward professions; soldier or law-enforcer (as opposed to a more generic "Fighter"), journalist or socialite (rather than "Bard"), sports-star or acrobat, mechanic or scientist, etc. etc. Even in games like Dark Heresy, which has quite a strong combat emphasis, of the "class" roles, only a fraction are outright combat focused, unlike D&D in which practically every class is some kind of warrior (whether martial, magical, divine or arcane).

Steel Mirror

2019-07-21, 09:19 PM

While I agree with most of the others posting here that scifi class systems are rarer than they are in fantasy, I still think there are enough of them to make some class generalizations. Common classes include:

Soldier: durable, can use lots of kinds of weapons, probably midranged

Tech/engineer: skill monkey, versatile, possibly includes upgrading or other party buff abilities

Psychic/Jedi Counselor: basically does magic, often an emphasis on mind-influencing, force shields, or telekinetics, may be "sufficiently advanced technology"

Scout/Sniper: stealthy, hits hard but is fragile, mobility, probably has versatile skills but specializes in a single kind of combat

Melee: uses a scifi sword because swords are cool, probably can deflect lasers/be really mobile or otherwise has some gimmick so that they can survive to reach melee combat. more likely the closer the setting is to fantasy (in SPAAACE)

The Face/Nobility/Scoundrel/Captain: adept at dealing with people, may have some party buffing through inspiration or command skills

Mech Pilot: hopefully your system has these, because they are the best. robots, come on

Lord Raziere

2019-07-21, 10:55 PM

ngilop

2019-07-21, 11:08 PM

The RPGs I have played that were sci-fi and had classes and were NOT based on already existing media ( such as video games) fall into the following

Soldier: your typical weapon expert

Scientist: So you medic/tech guy

Diplomat: The social encounter guy

Pilot: the guy who flies the ships and vehicles

trader/smuggler: The skill based guy

and if they go with some form of supernatural

the Mentalist: the one with the psychic powers.

Max_Killjoy

2019-07-21, 11:11 PM

Pauly

2019-07-21, 11:36 PM

I”ll echo what other people have said in that most sci-fi systems use professions rather than classes. Basically you get to choose what particular skills and abilities your character has, rather than choosing a pre-determined suite of skills that someone else defined.

Generally people tend to choose abilities that have synergies and be an expert at something, rather than be a jack of all trades and master of none. Although being the jack of all trades can be quite useful at times.

Particle_Man

2019-07-21, 11:37 PM

LordEntrails

2019-07-22, 12:01 AM

Let's see, not classes, but called "primary skill areas" in Star Frontiers;
- Military
- Technician
- Computers
- Engineering
- Biologist
- Social Scientist
- Robotics
- Psionics
Spaceship PSAs'
- Pilot
- Navigation
- Engineering
- various weapon systems (Rocket, Beam...)

Probably off on some of those, don't have my materials handy.

Kaptin Keen

2019-07-22, 02:23 AM

Eeeeh.

Star Wars/Jedi/Psychic stuff can't really be counted as "sci-fi" to me, thats just Space Fantasy. if your using fantasy tropes of cool swords and heroes like that, your not sci-fi your just a fantasy world with tech trappings rather than wilderness ones. I would not count any setting that does that as "science fiction.".

fantasy is when the hero is able to read minds because of weird alien genetics and use that ability to save the day. science fiction is when everyone has the ability to read minds because of cybernetic implants, privacy as a concept is dead and the internet and your thoughts no longer have any difference and this sucks on so many levels that bad things happen because of it and the only way to change that is by figuring out what the real problem is and how society can be persuaded to revise itself to solve that.

Frankly, almost all sci-fi relies on magic. No, seriously. I cannot easily think of even a single work of sci-fi fiction that doesn't either overtly include psychic powers, or technology that is quite frankly impossible - from hyper drives over genetic ressurection to stasis sleep, and so on, and so on. Some of the most iconic sci-fi in human history is very, very fantasy, as well. Dune, for instance. Enders Game. Ringworld. And if we include handwaving the impossible as 'tech' you can include most of the rest - everything by Asimov, Neuromancer (well - whether actual cyberspace is impossible may be open to interpretation), and so on.

Oh - I came up with one sci-fi story that doesn't include any obvious fantasy elements: The Martian.

Lord Raziere

2019-07-22, 02:46 AM

Ok but you are throwing out Star Trek as well as Star Wars with your mind reading example, from the Vulcan mind-meld to the Betazoids. Also Babylon 5.

Star Trek:
I mean.....thats not losing much. calling Star Trek something like "Idealistic Space Navy/Explorer Fantasy" wouldn't be inaccurate to me, because the entire idea is that future Earth will somehow after a Eugenics War and WWIII, decide to go exploring into space as peaceful explorers and scientists who are only armed to defend themselves and nothing else, sounds pretty fantastical to me in terms of human behavior. its as unrealistic as WH40k, and has fantastical archetypes that while not mapping to medieval fantasies are pretty tropelike and larger than life:
-The Starfleet captain, the Ego to the balancing force and make this and that decision, the intrepid head of the exploration, the Kirk that always who beds the alien girl, the serious forceful Picard, that sort of thing
-accompanied by The Spock, the Data, the super-logical superego alien speaking in complete cold clarity without intonation ever trying to arrive at the best most logical conclusion no matter what and having no regards for the feelings of others
-The McCoy that is emotional and compassionate, the doctor who cares a lot, who cares TOO MUCH, who has arguments with The Spock, and so on and so forth

see what I mean? These aren't really people, they're larger than life heroes embodying a certain force of human thought present throughout all the world channeled to the most moral versions of them as they can to tell a story about this or that. they're as mythical as Robin Hood or Sir Arthur or Thor. the entire Starfleet set up really reminds me of kind of a knight or wandering cowboy kind of thing, and the rules Starfleet has to be follow being their knightly code. I wouldn't call Star Trek science fiction, I'd call it space knight-errant romance folklore for nerds. not all fantasy is epic good vs. evil clashes of the entire galaxy/universe at stake (which y'know is the kind of Space version of fantasy that Star Wars is).

Babylon 5:
while Babylon 5.....I haven't seen any of that. but from what I can look up, its kind of telling when a space station of peace and negotiation takes its name from the mythical tower of Babylon which when shattered also fractured one languages into many so that people can't speak the same one anymore. and apparently has aliens and technology verging on magic, humans with psychic powers, an ancient evil arising to threaten all intelligent life that was foretold by an alien religion, chosen ones, fortune telling, incredibly advanced races that are still jerks to everyone else for no reason.....
.....sorry thats a lot of destiny and larger than life flags there. it may be another form of Space Negotiation Fantasy, but its still a fantasy. the creator Straczynski saying they wrote it like an epic fantasy just clinches it (sorry but if you write it "LIKE" something your writing it AS that thing, no buts about it.) sorry I cannot call Babylon 5 science fiction, all things considered.

Kaptin:
Well yes. but thats not relevant. its how they are handled and portrayed that makes one fantasy and other science fiction. they are different genres for a reason. they are examinations of different things, and thus do different things with them. and unfortunately most uses of psychic power out there are fantastical, they use the usual tropes to make it something fantastic, rare, special, things to make it a protagonist power and blah blah blah.
you completely miss the point of the difference and how important it is, its not the fact that it exists, its how how one uses them that matters. to use an inverse example:

fantasy is when the protagonist has a legendary sword made of cool indestructible steel to kill people with, and also is a master swordsman and go kills some evil with it.

science fiction is when a group of medieval blacksmiths find a metal thats indestructible and cut through anything and have to figure out how to forge it so that it can function for any purpose at all, if they find a method, find a source of it to mine, then convince the king that its worth using to outfit their lords and troops with it so that the blacksmiths can get rich from it, then details how the kingdoms warfare changes with having access to this new great metal and how it stomps everyone else, making an empire that expands and grows prosperous but over time the metal weapons get stolen and fall into the hands of other people until nations begin to match them/one of the blacksmiths regret what they done and betrays the kingdom to share the metal to even the conflicts out, and how warfare changes with the introduction of indestructible armor from the same metal, then details how a musket fares against said armor and how that changes the existence of guns if there is armor that can't ever be pierced by normal bullets and so on and so forth.

Mechalich

2019-07-22, 03:48 AM

Frankly, almost all sci-fi relies on magic. No, seriously. I cannot easily think of even a single work of sci-fi fiction that doesn't either overtly include psychic powers, or technology that is quite frankly impossible - from hyper drives over genetic ressurection to stasis sleep, and so on, and so on. Some of the most iconic sci-fi in human history is very, very fantasy, as well. Dune, for instance. Enders Game. Ringworld. And if we include handwaving the impossible as 'tech' you can include most of the rest - everything by Asimov, Neuromancer (well - whether actual cyberspace is impossible may be open to interpretation), and so on.

Oh - I came up with one sci-fi story that doesn't include any obvious fantasy elements: The Martian.

Science fiction works vary considerably in hardness (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness). There are some surprisingly hard sf tales out there that include only elements that, while somewhat speculative in terms of possibility, don't include anything that is concretely impossible. Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars novels include space elevators and human biological immortality, which are certainly things we don't know how to do yet, but we conceivably could figure out how to do in the future. The biggest issue with science fiction hardness is that people usually want to get out of the solar system, and doing that on any sort of timeframe that allows for dynamic conflict (ie. space warfare) requires FTL travel, which is either flatly impossible, or if possible does horrible things to causality that render storytelling itself impossible.

That doesn't mean you can't have a fairly hard-sf tabletop game, in fact, at least one actually exists: Eclipse Phase. If you remove the Pandora Gates, minor psionics, and the alien Factors from the setting (and this is actually a very modest set of changes) the remaining elements are all pretty plausible, if futuristic, technologies. We may discover in the future that some of them, like uploading a human brain, aren't possible, but from where science stands right now there's no reason that sufficiently potent computers couldn't do that.

In general hard sf is less common, and to a degree less popular than softer sf for a couple of reasons. One is that it's simply harder to write. A lot of the big names in hard sf: Benford, Brin, Egan, Reynolds, etc. have PhDs in some sort of advanced physics and considerable work experience in the field, which is indicate of the research necessary to write this kind of stuff. Second, for the most part hardening your sf means stripping out 'cool stuff' from the universe by saying 'nope, that's impossible' to options, and there are simply a lot of things that you cannot do in a story if you take those options - FTL being the most obvious and most substantial - off the table.

To swing this back to roles and classes in science fiction games, a lot of science fiction universes simply present a universe that's been shaped by advanced technology (and often some massive calamity, as many post-apocalyptic settings are also heavily science fiction oriented) and ask the players to build characters who are simply living in that universe. There's no expectation that they'll be heroes or even military personnel. Classes are poorly suited to settings which are highly open ended and the players could take in any direction. By contrast, in a highly focused science fiction scenario - for instance if all the PCs are personnel on a ship of some kind with defined on-board responsibilities - then classes are a much more viable option.

Kaptin Keen

2019-07-22, 03:54 AM

Kaptin:
Well yes. but thats not relevant. its how they are handled and portrayed that makes one fantasy and other science fiction. they are different genres for a reason. they are examinations of different things, and thus do different things with them. and unfortunately most uses of psychic power out there are fantastical, they use the usual tropes to make it something fantastic, rare, special, things to make it a protagonist power and blah blah blah.
you completely miss the point of the difference and how important it is, its not the fact that it exists, its how how one uses them that matters. to use an inverse example:

fantasy is when the protagonist has a legendary sword made of cool indestructible steel to kill people with, and also is a master swordsman and go kills some evil with it.

science fiction is when a group of medieval blacksmiths find a metal thats indestructible and cut through anything and have to figure out how to forge it so that it can function for any purpose at all, if they find a method, find a source of it to mine, then convince the king that its worth using to outfit their lords and troops with it so that the blacksmiths can get rich from it, then details how the kingdoms warfare changes with having access to this new great metal and how it stomps everyone else, making an empire that expands and grows prosperous but over time the metal weapons get stolen and fall into the hands of other people until nations begin to match them/one of the blacksmiths regret what they done and betrays the kingdom to share the metal to even the conflicts out, and how warfare changes with the introduction of indestructible armor from the same metal, then details how a musket fares against said armor and how that changes the existence of guns if there is armor that can't ever be pierced by normal bullets and so on and so forth.

Huh. I completely disagree.

The main gulf is that fantasy is past (or sometimes post-future), and sci-fi is future (or, occasionally, long long ago in a galaxy far, far away).

Fantasy deals with a glorification of the past, of knights and kings and chivalry and legendary monsters and magic and quests and .... so on.

Sci-fi deals with the glorification of the future, of technology and space travel and aliens and ... legendary monsters and psychic powers and important missions ... and so on.

It's propably the name - science fiction - that is the root of most of the confusion. In the vast majority of sci-fi, be it literature, movies, or games, there is very, very close to zero actual science. Star Wars, Star Trek, Warhammer 40k, Shadowrun, Mass Effect, pretty much all of the titans of sci-fi have nothing but the very most casual relationship with the sci part of things.

On the topic of sci-fi rpg classes, btw, they seem to fall into a few fairly standard brackets:
Melee fighters - Shadowrun Street Samurai, 40K assassin
Ranged fighters - Shadowrun Merc, 40k Guardsman
Tech specialist - Shadowrun Decker, 40k Tech-Priest
Vehicles or drones specialist - Shadowrun Rigger, 40k ... not sure, there's the Navigator in Rogue Trader for 40k
'Wizard' - mage or shaman for Shadowrun, Psyker for 40k
'Rogue' - diverse infiltrator or face types, Shadowrun has an Infiltration Specialist and a Face, 40k has Scum

That seems to cover most of the bases, in most of the games I'm familiar with. There's usually some specialisation, like heavy weapons or demolitions or ... you know. But on the whole, I don't recall finding a great many sci-fi games with classes incompatible with the above.

Science fiction works vary considerably in hardness (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness). There are some surprisingly hard sf tales out there that include only elements that, while somewhat speculative in terms of possibility, don't include anything that is concretely impossible. Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars novels include space elevators and human biological immortality, which are certainly things we don't know how to do yet, but we conceivably could figure out how to do in the future. The biggest issue with science fiction hardness is that people usually want to get out of the solar system, and doing that on any sort of timeframe that allows for dynamic conflict (ie. space warfare) requires FTL travel, which is either flatly impossible, or if possible does horrible things to causality that render storytelling itself impossible.

That doesn't mean you can't have a fairly hard-sf tabletop game, in fact, at least one actually exists: Eclipse Phase. If you remove the Pandora Gates, minor psionics, and the alien Factors from the setting (and this is actually a very modest set of changes) the remaining elements are all pretty plausible, if futuristic, technologies. We may discover in the future that some of them, like uploading a human brain, aren't possible, but from where science stands right now there's no reason that sufficiently potent computers couldn't do that.

In general hard sf is less common, and to a degree less popular than softer sf for a couple of reasons. One is that it's simply harder to write. A lot of the big names in hard sf: Benford, Brin, Egan, Reynolds, etc. have PhDs in some sort of advanced physics and considerable work experience in the field, which is indicate of the research necessary to write this kind of stuff. Second, for the most part hardening your sf means stripping out 'cool stuff' from the universe by saying 'nope, that's impossible' to options, and there are simply a lot of things that you cannot do in a story if you take those options - FTL being the most obvious and most substantial - off the table.

You don't say much that I don't agree with. I'm well aware of some hard sci-fi out there, but ... it's a niche genre. And you cannot argue that Eclipse Phase is hard sci-fi - then on the same breath name the things that need to be excluded to make it so. Like I said, the vast majority of sci-fi relies entirely on 'magic' to work. Hypothetical science is also magic. It is unknown whether we'll develop biological immortality - in much the same way that it's unknown whether we'll be able to develop psionics. Personally, some form of genetic radio transmitter doesn't seem implausible to me, but I'd never try to sell it as hard sci-fi.

Did you watch The Expanse? I really liked it for the sort of semi-hard sci-fi, with actual rocket engines. I liked how warships were depressurised in combat. Then ... bam, space-goo becomes god.

No one really wants hard sci-fi, it's just icing on the occasional cake: Having the poor human schmucks in the solar system use relatively believable tech is only a thing to make it a bigger challenge to defeat space-goo-god.

So, like I said: I don't really disagree much with you. I just claim that, for the majority of the actual genre stuff out there, it relies on 'science' of such speculative nature as to make it indistinguishable from magic.

Knaight

2019-07-22, 04:39 AM

If we're talking classics of the genre there's also the small matter of an enormous number of short stories, which have always been one of the genre's more signature forms. The Cold Equations is both pretty well known and very much hard sci-fi*. Most of Arthur C. Clark's work is this too, with a few very notable exceptions. Then there's the matter of how plenty of sci-fi isn't about glorification of the future at all, and is instead about a future that is generally pretty terrible because of how technology is used. Black Mirror is a lot of things, but a glorification of the future isn't one of them.

*Though there's a case to be made that sociology is a science, and the amount of major security and launch procedure screwups that would be needed to make the plot happen are a sociology violation.

Mechalich

2019-07-22, 04:39 AM

The main gulf is that fantasy is past (or sometimes post-future), and sci-fi is future (or, occasionally, long long ago in a galaxy far, far away).

Fantasy deals with a glorification of the past, of knights and kings and chivalry and legendary monsters and magic and quests and .... so on.

Sci-fi deals with the glorification of the future, of technology and space travel and aliens and ... legendary monsters and psychic powers and important missions ... and so on.

It's propably the name - science fiction - that is the root of most of the confusion. In the vast majority of sci-fi, be it literature, movies, or games, there is very, very close to zero actual science. Star Wars, Star Trek, Warhammer 40k, Shadowrun, Mass Effect, pretty much all of the titans of sci-fi have nothing but the very most casual relationship with the sci part of things.

Nope, you're confusing trappings with themes here.

Science fiction is principally speculative, it's about introducing concepts - usually but not always technologies (including social technologies, Brave New World is absolutely science fiction) - and then speculating as to the consequences of those concepts. Fantasy, by contrast is principally explicative, it posits a concept as true and then explains what that means. Often a moral concept as fantasy is deeply rooted in myth and folkloric traditions that addressed questions of ethics and human nature.

Setting a story in a hypothetical distant future or past has no bearing on whether it qualifies as fantasy or science fiction, the fact that fantasy stories are more commonly set in the past and science fiction more commonly set in the future is a matter of tradition and tropes, not the nature of the genres. The examples you listed, with the partial exception of Star Trek, are space fantasy, that is fantasy stories set in a futuristic interstellar scenario, and not science fiction at all.

Note that it is entirely possible to tell a science fiction story in a fantasy universe, and this actually happens a lot in space fantasy. The Star Wars novel Rogue Planet, by sf grandmaster Greg Bear, is an ideal example of just such a piece (and it's an interesting concept novel but a terrible Star Wars work as a result). Likewise a lot of space fantasy borrows concepts and speculative ideas from science fiction to insert as subplots or side points without having them be critical to the overall story. This is how Dune works. The story of Dune is utterly fantastical (almost Biblical even), but the setting backdrop includes a lot of deeply speculative science fiction elements (especially regarding the ecology of Arrakis) that serve to frame the story.

As to why this distinct matters for classes versus class-less systems, classes are primarily a design element for characters who are intended to experience a dramatic change in their capabilities over the course of their character arcs, which is best suited for characters who go on something resembling a class hero's journey and acquire physical power to match their metaphorical ascent at the same time. We need look no further than Luke Skywalker for a fine fantasy example of how this is supposed to work and that's why classes make a great deal of sense for Star Wars and for many fantasy formats generally. By contrast, because science fiction focuses much more on the impact of concepts than of characters, most science fiction protagonists start in a place where there capabilities are very similar to where they began, even if they underwent immense character development during the interim. Duncan, the nominal protagonist of the Faded Sun trilogy, goes through a massive personal shift to the point of adopting the culture of an entirely different species during the series, but he doesn't become a better fighter or anything during that time and such skills as he does learn are anachronistic and have little relation to his earlier career. The don't make him better, they make him different.

Classes are useful because they take a concept and represent it across varying degrees of power, which helps to streamline advancement and prevent option paralysis in characters who are advancing rapidly (to make a reducto ad absudium point, in Disgaea it is possible to go from level 1 to level 9999 in a single move, that's impossible without classes). For characters who are not advancing significantly and in fact probably spent 90+% of the points that they will ever spend at chargen, classless systems provide the flexibility to allow characters to change in accordance with the story they are experiencing. A true science fiction setting is very likely to be the latter case, and therefore classes are usually not beneficial.

Kaptin Keen

2019-07-22, 04:45 AM

Nope, you're confusing trappings with themes here.

Please don't do that. If you cannot express disagreement without calling my views confusion, then you and I cannot have any sort of exchange.

CharonsHelper

2019-07-22, 07:27 AM

Well - I'm 90% done with a semi-hard swashbuckling space western RPG - Space Dogs (in my signature).

The 8 base classes (each of which split in two at level 4) are Brute, Commander, Operative, Skirmisher, Trickster, Warrior, True Psychic, and Guardian (the physic/martial hybrid class). Though in many ways it's a class/point-buy hybrid system rather than a more traditional class sytem.

The skills are actually separate from your class as you pick from a longer list of Backgrounds, each of which makes 4 skills cheaper to buy. (Though buying more in the same skill costs quadratically more - so it promotes spreading your skills somewhat.

One point of note, is that the mechanics are such that everyone should have both ranged and melee weapons. Charging across open ground under gunfire with a sword is super risky, but having ravening bug-eyed aliens close to melee with you when you still have a rifle or rocket-launcher out can be equally dangerous.

Max_Killjoy

2019-07-22, 09:56 AM

Nope, you're confusing trappings with themes here.

Science fiction is principally speculative, it's about introducing concepts - usually but not always technologies (including social technologies, Brave New World is absolutely science fiction) - and then speculating as to the consequences of those concepts. Fantasy, by contrast is principally explicative, it posits a concept as true and then explains what that means. Often a moral concept as fantasy is deeply rooted in myth and folkloric traditions that addressed questions of ethics and human nature.

Setting a story in a hypothetical distant future or past has no bearing on whether it qualifies as fantasy or science fiction, the fact that fantasy stories are more commonly set in the past and science fiction more commonly set in the future is a matter of tradition and tropes, not the nature of the genres. The examples you listed, with the partial exception of Star Trek, are space fantasy, that is fantasy stories set in a futuristic interstellar scenario, and not science fiction at all.

Note that it is entirely possible to tell a science fiction story in a fantasy universe, and this actually happens a lot in space fantasy. The Star Wars novel Rogue Planet, by sf grandmaster Greg Bear, is an ideal example of just such a piece (and it's an interesting concept novel but a terrible Star Wars work as a result). Likewise a lot of space fantasy borrows concepts and speculative ideas from science fiction to insert as subplots or side points without having them be critical to the overall story. This is how Dune works. The story of Dune is utterly fantastical (almost Biblical even), but the setting backdrop includes a lot of deeply speculative science fiction elements (especially regarding the ecology of Arrakis) that serve to frame the story.

As to why this distinct matters for classes versus class-less systems, classes are primarily a design element for characters who are intended to experience a dramatic change in their capabilities over the course of their character arcs, which is best suited for characters who go on something resembling a class hero's journey and acquire physical power to match their metaphorical ascent at the same time. We need look no further than Luke Skywalker for a fine fantasy example of how this is supposed to work and that's why classes make a great deal of sense for Star Wars and for many fantasy formats generally. By contrast, because science fiction focuses much more on the impact of concepts than of characters, most science fiction protagonists start in a place where there capabilities are very similar to where they began, even if they underwent immense character development during the interim. Duncan, the nominal protagonist of the Faded Sun trilogy, goes through a massive personal shift to the point of adopting the culture of an entirely different species during the series, but he doesn't become a better fighter or anything during that time and such skills as he does learn are anachronistic and have little relation to his earlier career. The don't make him better, they make him different.

Classes are useful because they take a concept and represent it across varying degrees of power, which helps to streamline advancement and prevent option paralysis in characters who are advancing rapidly (to make a reducto ad absudium point, in Disgaea it is possible to go from level 1 to level 9999 in a single move, that's impossible without classes). For characters who are not advancing significantly and in fact probably spent 90+% of the points that they will ever spend at chargen, classless systems provide the flexibility to allow characters to change in accordance with the story they are experiencing. A true science fiction setting is very likely to be the latter case, and therefore classes are usually not beneficial.

And this hits on two of the big issues that I get caught up in around here.

One, going by the distinction you laid out above, my approach to worldbuilding, setting, etc for my fantasy worlds is far more "science fiction" than it is "fantasy". I can't look at a setting as a collection of "just so" elements and "this is True" statements each in isolation, I have to see how the pieces fit together and follow cause to effect to cause to effect etc. If I add a new element, I have to look at and include the effects and consequences of that element.

Two, characters. I greatly prefer characters who possess competence and their general ability set at the start of the story... "coming of age" and "hero's journey" and "zero to hero" are very very much not my cuppa. So character classes as they're usually presented, in the d20/D&D/PF manner, are actively detrimental to my enjoyment of a game... if my character is supposed to be an X who can do Y and Z, then having to wait 6+ levels to even touch on that capability is... just an exercise in wasted time.

Lord Raziere

2019-07-22, 11:46 AM

And this hits on two of the big issues that I get caught up in around here.

One, going by the distinction you laid out above, my approach to worldbuilding, setting, etc for my fantasy worlds is far more "science fiction" than it is "fantasy". I can't look at a setting as a collection of "just so" elements and "this is True" statements each in isolation, I have to see how the pieces fit together and follow cause to effect to cause to effect etc. If I add a new element, I have to look at and include the effects and consequences of that element.

Two, characters. I greatly prefer characters who possess competence and their general ability set at the start of the story... "coming of age" and "hero's journey" and "zero to hero" are very very much not my cuppa. So character classes as they're usually presented, in the d20/D&D/PF manner, are actively detrimental to my enjoyment of a game... if my character is supposed to be an X who can do Y and Z, then having to wait 6+ levels to even touch on that capability is... just an exercise in wasted time.

Then congratulations, your just a science fiction nerd rather than a fantasy nerd. that doesn't mean anything bad or good, its just how things are.

a lot of stuff that has the trappings of science fiction (superheroes, Star wars, Halo, Doom, any other fiction with a larger than life hero doing something epic in a short amount of time to save the day from evil) are just fantasies in modern disguises to appeal to people. this is to is just how things are.

science fiction is a bit more restrictive on what it is and does and how you can write it, that is also just how things are. and the more soft the science fiction the more you have to be careful not to verge into fantasy.

as for sociology violations, its widely known that people can be corrupt, stupid, incompetent and so on. I'd consider it more of a sociology or psychology violation to not show people capable of making mistakes or not being good or competent people than showing them all as incompetent. we get mad at people being incompetent or whatever in real life all the time, when you get angry for someone being incompetent in fiction that isn't a writing problem, thats the intended reaction. after all, writing people as too competent runs the risk of mary sues and mary suetopias where you somehow make the best society out of nowhere that has somehow solved the human element of everything. and thats bad both narrative wise AND consistency wise. I'd go far as to say that making people perfect is the biggest mistake you could possibly do in writing or in roleplaying.

The Fury

2019-07-22, 01:43 PM

As far as I can tell, the common class in pretty much all sci-fi games that I've seen is some sort of pilot. At least in ones that lend themselves to the space-opera sort of feel, which makes sense. You're in space, you probably need a spaceship so you probably need someone to fly it. The other classes like Soldier, Scientist, Diplomat, Smuggler and such seem a little more loosey-goosey. Like depending on how the system/setting is built, some classes can overlap or be done away with.

Then there's the classes/character types that aren't always around and players rarely seem to pick them: Medic/Doctor and Engineer/Mechanic.

Particle_Man

2019-07-22, 02:15 PM

Star Trek:
I mean.....thats not losing much. calling Star Trek something like "Idealistic Space Navy/Explorer Fantasy" wouldn't be inaccurate to me, because the entire idea is that future Earth will somehow after a Eugenics War and WWIII, decide to go exploring into space as peaceful explorers and scientists who are only armed to defend themselves and nothing else, sounds pretty fantastical to me in terms of human behavior. its as unrealistic as WH40k, and has fantastical archetypes that while not mapping to medieval fantasies are pretty tropelike and larger than life:
-The Starfleet captain, the Ego to the balancing force and make this and that decision, the intrepid head of the exploration, the Kirk that always who beds the alien girl, the serious forceful Picard, that sort of thing
-accompanied by The Spock, the Data, the super-logical superego alien speaking in complete cold clarity without intonation ever trying to arrive at the best most logical conclusion no matter what and having no regards for the feelings of others
-The McCoy that is emotional and compassionate, the doctor who cares a lot, who cares TOO MUCH, who has arguments with The Spock, and so on and so forth

see what I mean? These aren't really people, they're larger than life heroes embodying a certain force of human thought present throughout all the world channeled to the most moral versions of them as they can to tell a story about this or that. they're as mythical as Robin Hood or Sir Arthur or Thor. the entire Starfleet set up really reminds me of kind of a knight or wandering cowboy kind of thing, and the rules Starfleet has to be follow being their knightly code. I wouldn't call Star Trek science fiction, I'd call it space knight-errant romance folklore for nerds. not all fantasy is epic good vs. evil clashes of the entire galaxy/universe at stake (which y'know is the kind of Space version of fantasy that Star Wars is).

Babylon 5:
while Babylon 5.....I haven't seen any of that. but from what I can look up, its kind of telling when a space station of peace and negotiation takes its name from the mythical tower of Babylon which when shattered also fractured one languages into many so that people can't speak the same one anymore. and apparently has aliens and technology verging on magic, humans with psychic powers, an ancient evil arising to threaten all intelligent life that was foretold by an alien religion, chosen ones, fortune telling, incredibly advanced races that are still jerks to everyone else for no reason.....
.....sorry thats a lot of destiny and larger than life flags there. it may be another form of Space Negotiation Fantasy, but its still a fantasy. the creator Straczynski saying they wrote it like an epic fantasy just clinches it (sorry but if you write it "LIKE" something your writing it AS that thing, no buts about it.) sorry I cannot call Babylon 5 science fiction, all things considered.

Kaptin:
Well yes. but thats not relevant. its how they are handled and portrayed that makes one fantasy and other science fiction. they are different genres for a reason. they are examinations of different things, and thus do different things with them. and unfortunately most uses of psychic power out there are fantastical, they use the usual tropes to make it something fantastic, rare, special, things to make it a protagonist power and blah blah blah.
you completely miss the point of the difference and how important it is, its not the fact that it exists, its how how one uses them that matters. to use an inverse example:

fantasy is when the protagonist has a legendary sword made of cool indestructible steel to kill people with, and also is a master swordsman and go kills some evil with it.

science fiction is when a group of medieval blacksmiths find a metal thats indestructible and cut through anything and have to figure out how to forge it so that it can function for any purpose at all, if they find a method, find a source of it to mine, then convince the king that its worth using to outfit their lords and troops with it so that the blacksmiths can get rich from it, then details how the kingdoms warfare changes with having access to this new great metal and how it stomps everyone else, making an empire that expands and grows prosperous but over time the metal weapons get stolen and fall into the hands of other people until nations begin to match them/one of the blacksmiths regret what they done and betrays the kingdom to share the metal to even the conflicts out, and how warfare changes with the introduction of indestructible armor from the same metal, then details how a musket fares against said armor and how that changes the existence of guns if there is armor that can't ever be pierced by normal bullets and so on and so forth.

Take it up with the bookstores. They distinguish the two according to the more common way people split fantasy and science fiction. And Star Wars and Star Trek and Babylon 5 novels are in the science fiction section, not the fantasy section.

Anyhow, if we are going for the hardest of hard sci fi, classes are generally “what did you major in while in college/university?” or “what did you get training in while in the military?” So less classes and more a loose bundle of skills. GURPS works well for this (it has some examples of common builds but is really an a la carte skill system at heart), as does Traveller minus the psionic stuff.

Steel Mirror

2019-07-22, 03:31 PM

JellyPooga

2019-07-22, 06:22 PM

I have to generally agree with Mechalich on the definition of science fiction as opposed to fantasy (if not necessarily the examples given); to put it a little more succinctly, sci-fi asks a question, while fantasy tells a story.

"What if we encountered sentient life beyond our solar system?"
"What if someone developed a method of reviving the dead?"
"What if artificial intelligence spontaneously arose?"

These are examples of the questions that science fiction asks, while fantasy tends to begin with a premise;

"Here's a story about magical space monks."
"Here's a story about a group of a small race of people in a world dominated by elves and men and threatened by orcs and worse."
"Here's a story about one boys rise to power...in a universe that runs on magical spice...in a fantastic realm...in an alternate history."

This isn't to say that the lines can't be blurred (a lot) or that a work of science fiction can't develop into fantasy. Take the work of H.P.Lovecraft. Much of his earliest work was well within the realms of science fiction (horror too, but nothing says you can't tack other genres onto your story); it famously asked the question "what if there were other beings, or realms of existence, that exist beyond our comprehension and what if someone discovered a way to interact with those otherworldly things?", but also the likes of the second question above (a question also asked, famously, by Shelly in Frankenstein). As his body of work grew and grew in popularity, the "Cthulhu Mythos" became more and more a fantasy setting that both he and other authors could write stories within.

This is opposed to something like Star Wars, which asks no question; it literally starts by telling us that things in this story are not as we know them; it sets us up in a fantastic setting, in space, with magical space monks who have amazing powers, then tells a story in that setting. The questions it asks are solely about the characters in the story, not the setting itself. We might only discover elements of the setting as one or more of the characters discovers them in the story (such as how we discover the ways of the Force along with Luke, or how Harry Potter finds out about the wizarding world), but the story is not predicated upon a question, such as "What if we lived in a galactic society and there were Jedi?" or "What if magic was real?". Fantasy is the stories in settings where those questions are already assumed to be answered. A science fiction follows the course of the question to its "inevitable" conclusion (according to the author), based upon the premise of that question, whether that be something to do with space travel in the future, the third reich researching supernatural technology, artificial intelligence subjugating mankind, or whatever.

It's the "what if" as opposed to the "once upon a time".

That's my take on it, anyway.

Max_Killjoy

2019-07-22, 06:48 PM

Just to put in my 2 cents, the split between "science fiction" and "fantasy" is not settled or obvious, whether you are talking about among fans, among critics, in bookstore aisles, or among any other group who might care enough to argue about the distinction.

I've heard lots of possible definitions, including those made here.

"Science fiction is about things that COULD happen, fantasy about things that COULD NOT, given what we know about how the universe works."

"Science fiction visits different planets, fantasy visits different worlds."

"Science fiction deals with technologies and discoveries, fantasy with wonder and moral conflict."

"Science fiction has like spaceships and lasers, fantasy has horses and fireballs."

You can certainly debate which definition is best, or why you like your definition, but I don't think that anyone can credibly claim to have "the one true definition" of what, if anything, separates these 2 genres. For me personally, any definition which demands that Star Wars be clearly defined as fantasy and not at all scifi doesn't ring true, even though I'd be happy to concede that on a structural level, in terms of literary criticism, it's a reasonable position to take. But if I were getting together a group to play a Star Wars RPG, I wouldn't tell my players to prepare for a fantasy game. Insisting that I do so is, in my mind, deliberately being pedantic and obtuse. It's just not how the term is used, literary theories and classifications aside.

And in each case, there's some stuff out there that breaks the rule.

I have to generally agree with Mechalich on the definition of science fiction as opposed to fantasy (if not necessarily the examples given); to put it a little more succinctly, sci-fi asks a question, while fantasy tells a story.

"What if we encountered sentient life beyond our solar system?"
"What if someone developed a method of reviving the dead?"
"What if artificial intelligence spontaneously arose?"

These are examples of the questions that science fiction asks, while fantasy tends to begin with a premise;

"Here's a story about magical space monks."
"Here's a story about a group of a small race of people in a world dominated by elves and men and threatened by orcs and worse."
"Here's a story about one boys rise to power...in a universe that runs on magical spice...in a fantastic realm...in an alternate history."

This isn't to say that the lines can't be blurred (a lot) or that a work of science fiction can't develop into fantasy. Take the work of H.P.Lovecraft. Much of his earliest work was well within the realms of science fiction (horror too, but nothing says you can't tack other genres onto your story); it famously asked the question "what if there were other beings, or realms of existence, that exist beyond our comprehension and what if someone discovered a way to interact with those otherworldly things?", but also the likes of the second question above (a question also asked, famously, by Shelly in Frankenstein). As his body of work grew and grew in popularity, the "Cthulhu Mythos" became more and more a fantasy setting that both he and other authors could write stories within.

This is opposed to something like Star Wars, which asks no question; it literally starts by telling us that things in this story are not as we know them; it sets us up in a fantastic setting, in space, with magical space monks who have amazing powers, then tells a story in that setting. The questions it asks are solely about the characters in the story, not the setting itself. We might only discover elements of the setting as one or more of the characters discovers them in the story (such as how we discover the ways of the Force along with Luke, or how Harry Potter finds out about the wizarding world), but the story is not predicated upon a question, such as "What if we lived in a galactic society and there were Jedi?" or "What if magic was real?". Fantasy is the stories in settings where those questions are already assumed to be answered. A science fiction follows the course of the question to its "inevitable" conclusion (according to the author), based upon the premise of that question, whether that be something to do with space travel in the future, the third reich researching supernatural technology, artificial intelligence subjugating mankind, or whatever.

It's the "what if" as opposed to the "once upon a time".

That's my take on it, anyway.

There is no hard line here... sometimes the difference between a question and a premise is just the punctuation. :smallwink:

Anyway, thought I'd combine these two and try to say something a bit more useful -- more in a minute.

OP / Stormtrooper666 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/member.php?161494-Stormtrooper666) -- what kind of setting will this be in? What kind of game will it be? That would tell us a lot if and which classes might be fitting.

Particle_Man

2019-07-22, 08:57 PM

Ok but if your definition excludes everything except your own unpublished works, it is not a very useful definition. And I am willing to bet that more rpg players and designers use the common idea of science fiction than use yours. :smallbiggrin:

In any case since the OP’s username directly references Star Wars I am willing to bet they put that in the Science Fiction category. Also, since the question is about rpgs that are science fiction, I assume that includes rpgs such as Star Wars, Traveller, Star Frontiers, Paranoia, etc. and not merely a non-generic dedicated hard science fiction rpg, if there are any. The OP can feel free to correct my misapprehensions of course.

Steel Mirror

2019-07-22, 10:16 PM

To put it more concretely for this thread, I would consider Starfinder, D20 Future, Warhammer 40K and Star Wars to be science fiction RPGs, and they all have class systems.

And links, since the OP asked for them:

Starfinder Classes SRD: https://www.starjammersrd.com/classes/

D20 Future Classes SRD: http://www.d20resources.com/future.d20.srd/classes/

Dark Heresy Classes: https://dark-heresy-rp.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Player_Classes

Star Wars Saga: https://swse.fandom.com/wiki/Heroic_Classes

iTreeby

2019-07-22, 10:22 PM

There is a blades in the dark hack called scum and villainy. I really like how that system handles classes, essentially your class determines what kind of stuff you are likely to be carrying, what sort of approaches earn you experience, one class exclusive ability (unless you are an alien) , and some of your starting skills (about half). The classes are muscle, stitch, speaker, mystic, mechanic, pilot, and scoundrel. There are also abilities listed for each class but any class can take any ability aside from the exclusive one.

I think that the existence or lack of classes says more about a game system than one genra or another.

Fate for example doesn't have classes but could be fantasy just as easily as sci-fi. It just depends on the story being told.

All the character sheets are available at:

https://www.evilhat.com/home/scum-and-villainy-downloads/

Particle_Man

2019-07-22, 10:31 PM

Well, OP, what, if anything, have you found helpful? Do you have further questions?

Anyhow here is a link to a list of science fiction rpgs, themselves links: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Science_fiction_role-playing_games

I hope you find it useful.

The Fury

2019-07-23, 12:46 PM

Yes it has, by getting rid of the assumption that sci-fi classes exist, because they don't, not really. Some make attempts, but I wouldn't say any of them are successful enough to cover all of sci-fi in a way fantasy has archetypes to cover all of fantasy. why lie to them?

Somewhat tangential, but you could make a case that character classes aren't particularly useful in any genre of RPG. Quite a few indie RPGs lack class/level systems and play perfectly fine. (Heck, I've seen games that lack GMs and die rolls, but the a whole other can of worms.)

On the remark of fantasy genre stuff... it's weird because it has an ubiquitous RPG touchstone that other genres don't, that being D&D. Even then, quite a lot of typical roles in fantasy roles don't map well onto D&D either. Though because it's been around for as long as it has, fantasy character classes are something of a trope themselves, for better or worse.

Ventruenox

2019-07-23, 01:15 PM

Mödley Crüe: Play nice. Stay on topic.

Knaight

2019-07-23, 03:41 PM

Somewhat tangential, but you could make a case that character classes aren't particularly useful in any genre of RPG. Quite a few indie RPGs lack class/level systems and play perfectly fine. (Heck, I've seen games that lack GMs and die rolls, but the a whole other can of worms.)

On the remark of fantasy genre stuff... it's weird because it has an ubiquitous RPG touchstone that other genres don't, that being D&D. Even then, quite a lot of typical roles in fantasy roles don't map well onto D&D either. Though because it's been around for as long as it has, fantasy character classes are something of a trope themselves, for better or worse.

They're not remotely necessary for any of them, but there are things they're good at. If you want to embed setting in mechanics they're about the single best option not named "lifepaths". If you want to escalate mechanical complexity through a game they're similarly really solid.

That, incidentally, is part of why D&D doesn't do a lot of fantasy well - it's a class based system, and so it does the specific things it has classes for. This has included some very weird setting specifically built in, especially in the heyday of 3.x prestige classes.

Mechalich

2019-07-23, 06:23 PM

They're not remotely necessary for any of them, but there are things they're good at. If you want to embed setting in mechanics they're about the single best option not named "lifepaths". If you want to escalate mechanical complexity through a game they're similarly really solid.

That, incidentally, is part of why D&D doesn't do a lot of fantasy well - it's a class based system, and so it does the specific things it has classes for. This has included some very weird setting specifically built in, especially in the heyday of 3.x prestige classes.

3.X classes - especially with prestige classes included, are mechanically extremely complex and due to certain peculiarities of the system (penalizing cross-class skills, feat preqs., synergistic bonuses, etc.) tend to trap characters within very specific builds, especially as optimization level increases and even higher-tier classes are expected to streamline their builds for maximum capability rather than player taste. This is not inherent to a class base system and a system with classes can be more flexible, especially if there are aspects of the game that aren't covered by any set of class abilities. In 3.X D&D there's a spell for everything which means classes have to cover the entire playspace. In earlier editions, where this was not the case (or not nearly so much), characters could be rather more flexible.

You could, in theory, have a class system that only covered combat, while everything else was handled through an amorphous point-based system - this would make sense in a game where everyone played a specific kind of combatant and classes were the equivalent of combat styles or equipment specializations. In a futuristic space setting type, this would be logical if, for example, all the characters were space marines and you might have a grenadier class and a sniper class and a heavy armor class and comms specialist class and so forth, but these could be completely unrelated to the roles the characters play when the armor comes off and any character could have any assortment of secondary interests (admittedly they would probably specialize and you might end up with every character having a de facto secondary class, but at least you could mix and match).

More broadly, if you are going to have classes in a futuristic setting they're going to be fairly setting specific depending on both what the characters are doing: the classes available to a group of StarCraft space marines would be very different from those used by a Star Trek bridge crew. Additionally they will be heavily dependent upon the specific technologies available. For example, Eclipse Phase allows characters to play 'bot jammers' characters who spend basically all their time controlling multiple robots and even entire swarms through telepresence, which is a character type that is not available in Star Wars. So a generalized class list is probably less useful than figuring out what you're trying to play first and then determining what sort of classes would be useful second.

The Fury

2019-07-23, 08:29 PM

Kaptin Keen

2019-07-24, 12:54 AM

You end up with character classes, whether the game has them or not (well - potentially).

So in one game you have a Healer class, a Psionic class, a Tank class - and so on - and in another game you have a healing skill, a psionic skill, and let's call it a heavy armor skill, and if you pick those particular skills, well then you become the party Healer, Psionic, tank.

The real problem with classes is that there's this underlying understanding that the Healer shouldn't also be good at fighting, or tanking, or whatever.

JellyPooga

2019-07-24, 03:05 AM

You end up with character classes, whether the game has them or not (well - potentially).

Not really. Granted, if a GM of a non-Class game enforces a set of "skill packages" that the PCs must choose from rather than allowing them to select what skills they want, then yeah I guess, but generally speaking no.

The real problem with classes is that there's this underlying understanding that the Healer shouldn't also be good at fighting, or tanking, or whatever.

That's because Classes are restrictive and often exclusive. A Class is a skill package that is frequently inflexible (it's one reason why I like 5ed D&D so much...the customisibility of the classes is generally pretty good). So the healer won't be good at fighting because fighting isn't something the designer of the class thought a healer should be good at and if there's no "bonus character points" (whether they come in the form of skill points, feats, advantages, or whatever) to spend on fighting, then every healer will be bad at fighting.

Kaptin Keen

2019-07-24, 05:01 AM

Not really. Granted, if a GM of a non-Class game enforces a set of "skill packages" that the PCs must choose from rather than allowing them to select what skills they want, then yeah I guess, but generally speaking no.

Yes. Really. If a GM does not enforce any damned thing, generally players will self-regulate to make sure they have all the bases covered.

So in a world free of any constraint what so ever - most groups will, quite regardless - have a healer/tank/damage dealer/rogue/wizard. And if it doesn't, if everyone want's to play wizard and no one agrees to compromise, then generally the group just doesn't work.

That's because Classes are restrictive and often exclusive. A Class is a skill package that is frequently inflexible (it's one reason why I like 5ed D&D so much...the customisibility of the classes is generally pretty good). So the healer won't be good at fighting because fighting isn't something the designer of the class thought a healer should be good at and if there's no "bonus character points" (whether they come in the form of skill points, feats, advantages, or whatever) to spend on fighting, then every healer will be bad at fighting.

See, it's because you base one class specifically on being good at fighting. I mean, there could be more than one, but that's beside the point: If being good at fighting is the core element of any class, then any other class that has a different core element must, by need, be not good at fighting.

Take that out of the equation, you have another set of circumstances: If there is no fighter class - or no class that is without any other core ability besides fighting - then all classes can actually be equally good at fighting, without stealing the fighter class' thunder.

Max_Killjoy

2019-07-24, 08:04 AM

Not really. Granted, if a GM of a non-Class game enforces a set of "skill packages" that the PCs must choose from rather than allowing them to select what skills they want, then yeah I guess, but generally speaking no.

I don't see the replying posts in your exchange, but based on the history of "all games have classes even if they think they don't" arguments... I'm going to guess that the response will be some sort of attempt to conflate broad, general combat roles with "character classes", and then insist that players will just create characters to fit those combat roles even if there are no classes or packages, because supposedly no "party" without those "roles" could ever possibly exist or succeed.

And by that 37-car pileup of unfounded assumptions and blatant conflation, "all RPGs have character classes no matter what".

:smallconfused:

Kaptin Keen

2019-07-24, 11:36 AM

I don't see the replying posts in your exchange, but based on the history of "all games have classes even if they think they don't" arguments... I'm going to guess that the response will be some sort of attempt to conflate broad, general combat roles with "character classes", and then insist that players will just create characters to fit those combat roles even if there are no classes or packages, because supposedly no "party" without those "roles" could ever possibly exist or succeed.

And by that 37-car pileup of unfounded assumptions and blatant conflation, "all RPGs have character classes no matter what".

:smallconfused:

I think it's a case of 'classes serve a useful function' - and with the absence of classes, that same useful function still needs to be served. Or, you get an all wizard party (potentially) capable of solving nothing that cannot be solved with explosions (for the purposes of this example, all wizards are blasters, and the trusty old 'if you tried explosions, and it didn't work, you weren't using enough' doesn't apply).

I've played several games without classes, but regardless of that, I've never played a game that didn't cover the bases of rogue, wizard, cleric, barbarian - or similar.

Jakinbandw

2019-07-24, 12:21 PM

On the specific topic:
Ranger - Conventional weapons specialist, has weapons for any situation
Air Raider - Calls in equipment and artillery support
Wing Diver - Light weight areal class with advanced weapons
Fencer - Heavy armored suit with heavy weapons

(EDF! EDF!)

On the topic of classes in general, I find them useful for focusing creativity and creating a thematic whole. They give prospective players a good idea what the game is about, and at the same time give players ideas about characters they want to play.

I for one only ever play a holy man, unless a game has a really cool class that catches my attention and gives me a cool idea I want to try.

kieza

2019-07-24, 01:48 PM

I threw together a system for a military-SciFi game once that had four classes:
--Soldier: better with weapons, heavier armor, used grenades and rockets, had some "grit" abilities to ignore conditions.
--Specialist: used stealth systems, planted explosives and traps, marked targets and managed a sort of "tactical network" granting bonuses to the squad.
--Engineer: performed repairs, deployed drones, turrets and other fortifications, hacked into enemy hardware and operated ECM.
--Adept: interfaced with alien technology to generate blasts of fire, lightning bolts, and dangerous gravitational anomalies.

If you were running something more like space opera, you'd probably want to add in a scoundrel/trader/face class and a pilot class. (Although my thoughts on piloting are that the pilot should be a "shared asset" like the ship that the party designs and controls as a group, rather than having a player who only gets to do anything when they fly )

iTreeby

2019-07-24, 03:28 PM

Paranoia has classes that don't give you abilities but do define your role in the team. The classes are: team leader, communications officer, loyalty officer, equipment officer, hygiene office and happiness officer. Paranoia is unique among role playing games in that knowing the rules is punishable by death.

Knaight

2019-07-24, 05:14 PM

3.X classes - especially with prestige classes included, are mechanically extremely complex and due to certain peculiarities of the system (penalizing cross-class skills, feat preqs., synergistic bonuses, etc.) tend to trap characters within very specific builds, especially as optimization level increases and even higher-tier classes are expected to streamline their builds for maximum capability rather than player taste. This is not inherent to a class base system and a system with classes can be more flexible, especially if there are aspects of the game that aren't covered by any set of class abilities. In 3.X D&D there's a spell for everything which means classes have to cover the entire playspace. In earlier editions, where this was not the case (or not nearly so much), characters could be rather more flexible.

Class based systems still tend to be fairly specific - but I was talking more about how the 3.x prestige classes embed some very specific things in the game. The greenstar adept is just weird, and putting that in as a prestige class puts that sort of weirdness in the setting. It's an example of classes being effective at embedding setting. I could make the same point for a lot of them - for every archmage there's an alienist. That pulls it away from generic fantasy pretty quickly.

PbtA playbooks are also often pretty strong examples of class systems in action defining a setting, but I wouldn't expect that example to be nearly as well known on these forums. They don't do the mechanical escalation so much. They also tend to prevent their settings from being generic, and they do it without the mechanical complexity or much in the way of system peculiarities there. It's just something classes do.

If classes are used wisely it's also a good thing. I'd be deeply skeptical of any class based generic system, but when you've got an actual setting attached, implicit or otherwise? They can do a lot of heavy lifting there. When you don't have a setting per se but you've got a laser focus on a particular subgenre? Same deal.

Going back to sci-fi specifically, the question is what subgenre. For instance Save the Universe is a space opera game, but it's also one specifically about resistance fighters up against an entrenched hostile government of some sort. There's a lot of leeway in how that goes (it can do Star Wars, it can do Starship Troopers, it can do spy fiction in space), but that does suggest certain archetypes, and so the game has them. You get the Sly Scoundrel, the Veteran Warrior, the Mysterious Seer, the Courageous Outsider, the Fallen Noble, the Reformed Defector, the Gifted Engineer, and the Relentless Hunter.

Sure, some would work more broadly. The veteran warrior holds up for most sci-fi with any emphasis on physical combat, though the name comes across as really weird for something like military sci-fi. The reformed defector though? That's there because there is a singular Enemy of some sort to defect from. Similarly a number of these have a definite ring of dubiousness to them were you to try and run something involving people in a benevolent organization that's actually in power.

Steel Mirror

2019-07-24, 11:01 PM

I've played several games without classes, but regardless of that, I've never played a game that didn't cover the bases of rogue, wizard, cleric, barbarian - or similar.In an old urban fantasy game I played in, we had 4 characters. One was a sneaky wizard type who was a faerie queen and really good at manipulation. One was a dusty old professor wizard type who was great at research. One was a sneaky mortal thug who had contacts in the underworld. The last was a literal stray cat who had lived long enough to achieve sentience, was sneaky, and had 4 more lives before she died for good.

By most standards, all of us probably filled the rogue archetype. Any of us could probably have snuck into your average high security bank vault. And all of us focused on subterfuge over combat, in one way or another.

Two of us could plausibly have been argued to be wizards, by your definition. Though only one of us had any kind of directly offensive magic at all, and even she was less powerful in a straightforward fight than your average police officer.

All of us were ridiculously fragile compared to the kinds of things running around the city, so I don't think any of us could be qualified as a fighter, tank, or whatever.

None of us had any healing magic at all, unless you count the cat who could come back from death a few times. But since that didn't benefit any of the rest of us, I don't think it counts.

Our party was ridiculously awesome and fun to play with, and well balanced against the types of foes we went up with. We would get stomped by even a couple of mundane badass thugs in a brawl if they had some iron or a gun, but then we never really saw the point of playing fair. We defeated a corrupt police department, a giant slave smuggler, a dragon, and a cult masquerading as a homeowner's association. Needless to say, I don't think that EVERY game ends up having the class breakdown that you posited.

Max_Killjoy

2019-07-24, 11:25 PM

In an old urban fantasy game I played in, we had 4 characters. One was a sneaky wizard type who was a faerie queen and really good at manipulation. One was a dusty old professor wizard type who was great at research. One was a sneaky mortal thug who had contacts in the underworld. The last was a literal stray cat who had lived long enough to achieve sentience, was sneaky, and had 4 more lives before she died for good.

By most standards, all of us probably filled the rogue archetype. Any of us could probably have snuck into your average high security bank vault. And all of us focused on subterfuge over combat, in one way or another.

Two of us could plausibly have been argued to be wizards, by your definition. Though only one of us had any kind of directly offensive magic at all, and even she was less powerful in a straightforward fight than your average police officer.

All of us were ridiculously fragile compared to the kinds of things running around the city, so I don't think any of us could be qualified as a fighter, tank, or whatever.

None of us had any healing magic at all, unless you count the cat who could come back from death a few times. But since that didn't benefit any of the rest of us, I don't think it counts.

Our party was ridiculously awesome and fun to play with, and well balanced against the types of foes we went up with. We would get stomped by even a couple of mundane badass thugs in a brawl if they had some iron or a gun, but then we never really saw the point of playing fair. We defeated a corrupt police department, a giant slave smuggler, a dragon, and a cult masquerading as a homeowner's association. Needless to say, I don't think that EVERY game ends up having the class breakdown that you posited.

Same here. I've been in plenty of games where the supposed "always exist" roles just didn't get filled by any character.

IMO, the influence of video games and some questionable tabletop theorycrafting have convinced some gamers that there are roles that supposedly must be filled and are always filled by any "party" that doesn't end up dead.

For starters, there are plenty of campaigns that aren't focused on the sorts of things that require a "dungeoneering party", that don't require combat-focused characters, etc. Then there are plenty of settings that don't allow for the "tank" or the "healer" or whatever as such, because they're gritty realism or horror theme or whatever. And then there are systems where the combat mechanics or the character building just don't encourage or even support that sort of thing... like the Vampire character one of my players made who was very hard to damage, plus an arcane scholar, and the best investigator in the group, without breaking the starting build points.

Steel Mirror

2019-07-24, 11:36 PM

Same here. I've been in plenty of games where the supposed "always exist" roles just didn't get filled by any character.

IMO, the influence of video games and some questionable tabletop theorycrafting have convinced some gamers that there are roles that supposedly must be filled and are always filled by any "party" that doesn't end up dead.

For starters, there are plenty of campaigns that aren't focused on the sorts of things that require a "dungeoneering party", that don't require combat-focused characters, etc. Then there are plenty of settings that don't allow for the "tank" or the "healer" or whatever as such, because they're gritty realism or horror theme or whatever. And then there are systems where the combat mechanics or the character building just don't encourage or even support that sort of thing... like the Vampire character one of my players made who was very hard to damage, plus an arcane scholar, and the best investigator in the group, without breaking the starting build points.Yeah, even in actual class-based systems like D&D I've played in a game where we all played rogues because we wanted to play a ninja themed game where every session was basically an assassination. We didn't have any magic, definitely no healing, though I suppose to be fair we were still pretty powerful in a standup fight. And this was back in 3.5, where I recall hearing all the time that "someone's gotta play the cleric" and similar things.

I suppose the influence of video games is pretty big in pushing this mindset, ironic since afaik the idea of MMO roles itself came from the influence of the D&D class system.

Anonymouswizard

2019-07-26, 08:25 AM

Same here. I've been in plenty of games where the supposed "always exist" roles just didn't get filled by any character.

Yep. I think the archetype I see the most is the Brute, because most groups want somebody who can dish out damage, but even that hasn't been universal.

IMO, the influence of video games and some questionable tabletop theorycrafting have convinced some gamers that there are roles that supposedly must be filled and are always filled by any "party" that doesn't end up dead.

I think it's amentality, somewhat reinforced by computer games, of 'party tailored to the challenge' over 'challenge tailored to the party'. I'll also agree that a lot of internet theorycrafting overemphasises specialisation and underplays versatility, my experience in actual games is that an intelligent GM who'll dock a few skill points of an enemy to avoid them being impossible makes characters with a diverse skillset more enjoyable (which, incidentally, is part of the reason I dislike D&D).

JellyPooga

2019-07-26, 09:11 AM

Yes. Really. If a GM does not enforce any damned thing, generally players will self-regulate to make sure they have all the bases covered.

I have never known a player (myself included!) to self-regulate anything, let alone the notion that a "party" has to "cover all the bases" (specifically in which those bases are stereotypical "dungeoneering" roles). If it does happen it's because of coincidence that the players wanted to play those roles, not because of any kind of planning. That's not to say those kind of players don't exist, only that I've never played with them.

So in a world free of any constraint what so ever - most groups will, quite regardless - have a healer/tank/damage dealer/rogue/wizard. And if it doesn't, if everyone want's to play wizard and no one agrees to compromise, then generally the group just doesn't work.

This has already been anecdotally proved wrong. Some games are even predicated on such notions; the all-Rogue party working for Thieves Guild or Team Cleric, for example. This breaks down even further when the system itself doesn't hand players those roles on a platter (i.e. with Classes or a facsimile of them). Even when the system does have Classes, the roles don't necessarily match the expected; I myself have played a Tank Wizard in 5ed D&D and a roguish/fightery/druidicy/healer in WHFRP, just off the top of my head. Yeah, I guess you could look for the patterns of who is "filling a role", but in many parties I've played with it's little more than a realisation that Player A is the toughest so I guess, sort of, that makes him the Tank, but he's also the party locksmith (because, you know, the system was Classless), even though he's rubbish at stealth, so does that make him the Rogue instead? Who knows, or cares?

Bohandas

2019-07-26, 10:06 AM

Kaptin Keen

2019-07-26, 01:02 PM

I have never known a player (myself included!) to self-regulate anything, let alone the notion that a "party" has to "cover all the bases" (specifically in which those bases are stereotypical "dungeoneering" roles). If it does happen it's because of coincidence that the players wanted to play those roles, not because of any kind of planning. That's not to say those kind of players don't exist, only that I've never played with them.

This has already been anecdotally proved wrong. Some games are even predicated on such notions; the all-Rogue party working for Thieves Guild or Team Cleric, for example. This breaks down even further when the system itself doesn't hand players those roles on a platter (i.e. with Classes or a facsimile of them). Even when the system does have Classes, the roles don't necessarily match the expected; I myself have played a Tank Wizard in 5ed D&D and a roguish/fightery/druidicy/healer in WHFRP, just off the top of my head. Yeah, I guess you could look for the patterns of who is "filling a role", but in many parties I've played with it's little more than a realisation that Player A is the toughest so I guess, sort of, that makes him the Tank, but he's also the party locksmith (because, you know, the system was Classless), even though he's rubbish at stealth, so does that make him the Rogue instead? Who knows, or cares?

In an old urban fantasy game I played in, we had 4 characters. One was a sneaky wizard type who was a faerie queen and really good at manipulation. One was a dusty old professor wizard type who was great at research. One was a sneaky mortal thug who had contacts in the underworld. The last was a literal stray cat who had lived long enough to achieve sentience, was sneaky, and had 4 more lives before she died for good.

By most standards, all of us probably filled the rogue archetype. Any of us could probably have snuck into your average high security bank vault. And all of us focused on subterfuge over combat, in one way or another.

Two of us could plausibly have been argued to be wizards, by your definition. Though only one of us had any kind of directly offensive magic at all, and even she was less powerful in a straightforward fight than your average police officer.

All of us were ridiculously fragile compared to the kinds of things running around the city, so I don't think any of us could be qualified as a fighter, tank, or whatever.

None of us had any healing magic at all, unless you count the cat who could come back from death a few times. But since that didn't benefit any of the rest of us, I don't think it counts.

Our party was ridiculously awesome and fun to play with, and well balanced against the types of foes we went up with. We would get stomped by even a couple of mundane badass thugs in a brawl if they had some iron or a gun, but then we never really saw the point of playing fair. We defeated a corrupt police department, a giant slave smuggler, a dragon, and a cult masquerading as a homeowner's association. Needless to say, I don't think that EVERY game ends up having the class breakdown that you posited.

Yea.

I don't think you can point to anywhere I said: This is true in every and all cases, and no exceptions exist in the time/space continuum we are in.

So you've been unlucky enough to play with people unwilling to make sacrifices to make the group work, and that's really sad. I've seen a few examples myself, but only by GM prompt: For this game, I want to see you guys making things work without a group healer - that sort of thing.

I've played for 30+ years, with - quite literally - dozens of people, propably dozens of groups, friends, strangers, weekly games, convention one-shots .. on a general note, players enjoy having a specialty for themselves, something they can contribute, that no one else can.

That could be a class. Or it could be a skill, role, that no one else has. But it's almost always there.

Even if you're an 'all rogue' party. One rogue specialises in dealing damage, one in using UMD to be a caster, one in stealth skills and one in social skills - or something along those lines.

Or maybe not. God, does that ever sound boring, everyone specialized in the same thing. But I'm sure it exists, out there, somewhere.

And I'm not trying to tell you what I do is right, and what you do is wrong. But I'm quite convinced what the norm is - and what I consider to be most fun, and most workable.

Max_Killjoy

2019-07-26, 02:02 PM

Steel Mirror

2019-07-26, 04:09 PM

So you've been unlucky enough to play with people unwilling to make sacrifices to make the group work, and that's really sad. I've seen a few examples myself, but only by GM prompt: For this game, I want to see you guys making things work without a group healer - that sort of thing.

<Snip>

Or maybe not. God, does that ever sound boring, everyone specialized in the same thing. But I'm sure it exists, out there, somewhere.

<Snip>

And I'm not trying to tell you what I do is right, and what you do is wrong. But I'm quite convinced what the norm is - and what I consider to be most fun, and most workable.Fair enough. I do think that your first two statements are obviously you saying what you think is right, and that the other way of doing it is wrong. Saying that I've "been unlucky enough to play with people unwilling to make sacrifices to make the group work, and that's really sad" is not a judgement-free statement, it's clearly a condemnation.

For the record, all of us in that game I described WERE good at different things and contributed in different ways. If you wanted to research the weaknesses of a legendary dragon, the cat was not your best bet, and if you wanted to get in touch with the local criminals to find out where a stolen Ferrari wound up, it wasn't much use to ask the stuck-up faerie queen. Those aren't "classes" or MMO-style roles, because the game wasn't a normal MMO or dungeon crawl type campaign, but we were emphatically NOT all the same character with the same abilities.

But I can at least agree with you about different strokes, so happy gaming!

Max_Killjoy

2019-07-26, 04:19 PM

Fair enough. I do think that your first two statements are obviously you saying what you think is right, and that the other way of doing it is wrong. Saying that I've "been unlucky enough to play with people unwilling to make sacrifices to make the group work, and that's really sad" is not a judgement-free statement, it's clearly a condemnation.

"Unlucky enough to play with people unwilling to make sacrifices to make the group work" also presumes that groups, and thus games, don't work without the "tank DPS healer" unholy trinity or whatever sort of "classes even if you think you have no classes" belief is being pushed as "Truth".

That assertion has been shown untrue by the examples various posters have given of campaigns that worked quite well without said unholy trinity.

If I seem a bit disdainful of "tank DPS healer" and similar, it's because of the detrimental effect that widespread belief in those ideas has had on game design, both videogames and TTRPGs.

Jakinbandw

2019-07-26, 04:37 PM

If I seem a bit disdainful of "tank DPS healer" and similar, it's because of the detrimental effect that widespread belief in those ideas has had on game design, both videogames and TTRPGs.

I'm a bit surprised about that to be honest. Tank DPS Healer are rolls that show up everywhere in the real world. Roughly translating too keeping vulnerable elements of your forces protected, the ability to project damage at the enemy and the ability to keep your forces supplied through logistics.

You see these elements in every place from ancient armies, to modern aircraft carrier groups. Even the formation of the trinity online was organic, with players figuring out the best way to handle battles. Saying you don't like them for combat is like saying you don't like wheels for cars. Of course you can build alternate ways of locomotion other than wheels, but wheels work, and are around to this day for a good reason.

I do notice from your post you seem opposed to classes being unable to do everything in rpgs. In the Magic vs Mundane thread you argued that characters like spiderman should be just as good doctors as people with their phd, and also able to do taxes as well as a chartered accountant. I'm curious why you want every character to be equally good at every possible ability, instead of having diversity.

Max_Killjoy

2019-07-26, 04:43 PM

I'm a bit surprised about that to be honest. Tank DPS Healer are rolls that show up everywhere in the real world. Roughly translating too keeping vulnerable elements of your forces protected, the ability to project damage at the enemy and the ability to keep your forces supplied through logistics.

You see these elements in every place from ancient armies, to modern aircraft carrier groups. Even the formation of the trinity online was organic, with players figuring out the best way to handle battles. Saying you don't like them for combat is like saying you don't like wheels for cars. Of course you can build alternate ways of locomotion other than wheels, but wheels work, and are around to this day for a good reason.

I do notice from your post you seem opposed to classes being unable to do everything in rpgs. In the Magic vs Mundane thread you argued that characters like spiderman should be just as good doctors as people with their phd, and also able to do taxes as well as a chartered accountant. I'm curious why you want every character to be equally good at every possible ability, instead of having diversity.

I don't recall saying that.

What I do recall saying was that a character being good at any one thing isn't justification for a hard ban on that character being good at any other one thing. And that I oppose the idea of locking things behind packages of other things for "thematic" or "archetypal" reasons.

There's a difference between saying that Spiderman should also be X, and saying that being Spiderman shouldn't stop you from also being X just because you're Spiderman.

One of the things I liked about SWTOR (the Star Wars MMO) was that there were "subclasses" that could back up other roles. So for example, I knew whether a "raid" group was any good based on how they reacted to my Bounty Hunter (Merc) throwing the occasional heal while DPSing. The good ones appreciated me pausing DPS for a split second to keep another PC alive, while the bad ones flipped out. Plus, having some self-healing made all the solo stuff so much less tedious.

The Pilgrim

2019-07-26, 04:50 PM

Well, for Sfi-RPG settings, I'd say some mandatory classes are:

- The Ace Pilot: Deals with incoming Fighters, navigates through asteroid fields, blows up the Death Star.
- The Engineer/Mechanic: Patchs the ship, Raises the Shields, Reverses the Polarity of Guns
- The Computer Wiz: Hacks computers, Scrambles devices, forces Rogue AI's into logical breakdowns
- The Medic/Science Officer: Carries the Med-Kit, deals with strange alien technology, makes witty remarks
- The Mystic/Psyker: Because you need magic with another name
- The Trader/Smuggler: The Jack of All Trades
- The Colonial Marine: Power Armor looks cool, and most of your problems can be solved with violence

I think that covers all the basic functions. For a classic 4-man party, merge some of the classes. For example:
- Smuggler+Marine = The Mercenary
- Computer Wiz+Marine = The Operative
- Pilot+Smuggler = The Space Pirate
- Psyker+Marine = The Jedi Knight
- Smuggler+Science Officer = The Xenoarchaeologist
- Engineer+Marine = The Combat Engineer
- Science Officer+Computer Wiz = The Nerd
- Etc...

Add mutant/alien/robot templates to the mix for extra flavor.

Jakinbandw

2019-07-26, 04:52 PM

I don't recall saying that.

What I do recall saying was that a character being good at any one thing isn't justification for a hard ban on that character being good at any other one thing. And that I oppose the idea of locking things behind packages of other things for "thematic" or "archetypal" reasons.

There's a difference between saying that Spiderman should also be X, and saying that being Spiderman shouldn't stop you from also being X just because you're Spiderman.

One of the things I liked about SWTOR (the Star Wars MMO) was that there were "subclasses" that could back up other roles. So for example, I knew whether a "raid" group was any good based on how they reacted to my Bounty Hunter (Merc) throwing the occasional heal while DPSing. The good ones appreciated me pausing DPS for a split second to keep another PC alive, while the bad ones flipped out. Plus, having some self-healing made all the solo stuff so much less tedious.

Then I'm confused what you were arguing with me about. There is nothing in my game that stops you from mixing any three classes you wish. In fact there are mechanics that let you pick up more classes as you level ending up with a maximum of 15 different classes and having each at level 20 (though that would come at the heavy cost of not having easy access to any of their abilities). Nothing stops a mage from having the Intellegence attribute class. I'm confused again.

JellyPooga

2019-07-26, 05:39 PM

Yea.

I don't think you can point to anywhere I said: This is true in every and all cases, and no exceptions exist in the time/space continuum we are in.

I mean no offence when I say this, but this is a delusion; as in, it's not true but you appear to believe it to be. The evidence may only be anecdotal to you, but roleplaying games encompass a broad demographic and there are many kinds of game, including those in which the roles you describe aren't even an option, let alone recommended or optimal. A healer or tank in a game without combat isn't going to be optimal, let alone a requirement. If you've only played in games where combat is a focus, then I am sad for the lack in your gaming experience. It's not about playing with people unwilling to make sacrifices, so much as who is playing, what the game is and what the group considers to be entertaining.

a_flemish_guy

2019-07-26, 06:08 PM

CharonsHelper

2019-07-26, 09:43 PM

for RPG classes I think mass effect had a good selection

it was bassicly split up in 3 categories, combat (more health, heavier armors, more weapon spec), tech (hacking, droid, etc) and "space magic" (in ME this were people who could make changes in the local gravity but you could easily replace it with psionics or the force)
there were 3 pure classes and 3 mixed ones

In theory - though in practice, I remember the extra weapon selection of the pure combat one was pretty worthless. Pistols were nearly as good as the other weapons.

Plus, I think that in a TTRPG where you likely have a group larger than 3 characters at a time you'd likely want a bit more variety.

Particle_Man

2019-07-26, 09:47 PM

I mean no offence when I say this, but this is a delusion; as in, it's not true but you appear to believe it to be. The evidence may only be anecdotal to you, but roleplaying games encompass a broad demographic and there are many kinds of game, including those in which the roles you describe aren't even an option, let alone recommended or optimal. A healer or tank in a game without combat isn't going to be optimal, let alone a requirement. If you've only played in games where combat is a focus, then I am sad for the lack in your gaming experience. It's not about playing with people unwilling to make sacrifices, so much as who is playing, what the game is and what the group considers to be entertaining.

But since the OP was asking about classes usually found in science fiction rpgs, perhaps we should focus on the many science fiction games that have them.

Pleh

2019-07-26, 11:25 PM

In theory - though in practice, I remember the extra weapon selection of the pure combat one was pretty worthless. Pistols were nearly as good as the other weapons.

Eh. Sort of. Yeah, you can beat the game with any weapon, but there are advantages to being able to switch weapon types. I liked assault rifles and shotguns for quickly taking doen mobs of mooks, but pistols and snipers were often better for single targets, depending on their range and vulnerability to crits. The classes that stick to pistols only really *needed* special tech or magic, not for DPS, but for tactical flexibility.

Still probably better for a video game than a TTRPG

CharonsHelper

2019-07-27, 12:48 AM

I liked assault rifles and shotguns for quickly taking doen mobs of mooks, but pistols and snipers were often better for single targets, depending on their range and vulnerability to crits. The classes that stick to pistols only really *needed* special tech or magic, not for DPS, but for tactical flexibility.

Yeah - I remember liking the combat/magic class pretty well for the shotgun. But I didn't think much of the assault rifle - which was supposed to sort of be the pure combat class's selling point.

Pleh

2019-07-27, 05:32 AM

Yeah - I remember liking the combat/magic class pretty well for the shotgun. But I didn't think much of the assault rifle - which was supposed to sort of be the pure combat class's selling point.

I think the Soldier in ME was meant to primarily be the simplified version of the game for players who didn't want to learn how the tactics behind tech and biotics worked (give me just the vanilla gunfights, please). I remember the assault rifle being great at consistent, noncritical damage out to medium range due to being somewhat innacurate. Sniping crits with a strong pistol or a well placed sniper round will do the job quicker, but requires more skill. Newer players will gravitate to the assault rifle, so I think it was toned down to encourage tactical choosing of weapons. Once they wean players off relying on spray and pray, the assault rifle becomes more effective in their hands as well, because at medium to close range, you can target crit boxes much better looking down the sights and it's a great emergency cover fire weapon if your enemy closes in on your position. The shotgun is probably better for this, but again requires more skill, because if you miss, you could be screwed (which is more likely to happen if someone snuck around your cover to jump you), while the assault rifle keeps firing as you bear down on them.

Add to this that the soldier gets health and heavy armor and the assault rifle becomes the game's most forgiving combat mode. You don't have to be very accurate or quick and the game tries to encourage you to learn the tactics by using enemies who are really tough if you don't work on targeting crit hit boxes and enemies who use Tech and Biotics against you.

I guess in a way, I see the ME assault rifle as part of the training wheels of the game, though I often used it consistently even in the late game as there are just a few scenarios where taking cover and brute forcing it was just the easiest option.

Psyren

2019-07-29, 09:45 PM

I wouldn't call ME Assault Rifles "training wheels" - they're good all the way through the game. They're more like picking Mario in Mario Kart, or Ryu in Street Fighter - easy to pick up, but there's enough depth there to get you through all of the game's challenges if you have the skill. This is especially true with the ARs in later titles like the Mattock and the Ceberus Harrier.

Anyway, I digress:

If you've only played in games where combat is a focus, then I am sad for the lack in your gaming experience.

Eh, I've experienced non-combat RPGs (mostly White Wolf) and been bored to tears. They're not for everyone (and that's okay.)

What genre of sci-fi? Are we talking space opera, cyberpunk, or post-apocalyptic? Because that probably makes a difference. For instance, a hacker/decker class is going to be a given in a cyberpunk rpg, a possibility in a space opera rpg, and hit or miss in a post-apocalyptic rpg (it depends on the specific type of apocalypse and how long ago it was. In a machine uprising based setting (something akin to Terminator or The Matrix) such a class is likely, in a setting where the grid is totally or almost totally down (akin to Waterworld or any Mad Max installment after the first) it's probably not going to be a standard class if its there at all, and in a Fallout-esque setting where the grid has been rebuilt and/or there's pockets of high tech it may or may not play a key role)

This is by far the most important question; "sci-fi" is very broad, and so too are the classes found therein.

Kaptin Keen

2019-07-30, 07:35 AM

I mean no offence when I say this, but this is a delusion; as in, it's not true but you appear to believe it to be.

Don't worry, I'm not offended. Also, trust me, there's no delusion - I'm well aware that occasional exceptions exist. The occasional exceptions just don't make any real impression on me, as they stand in stark contrast to the overwhelming majority of the games I've played, GM'd, witnessed or heard of.

The evidence may only be anecdotal to you, but roleplaying games encompass a broad demographic and there are many kinds of game, including those in which the roles you describe aren't even an option, let alone recommended or optimal. A healer or tank in a game without combat isn't going to be optimal, let alone a requirement. If you've only played in games where combat is a focus, then I am sad for the lack in your gaming experience. It's not about playing with people unwilling to make sacrifices, so much as who is playing, what the game is and what the group considers to be entertaining.

And your example is excellent to prove my point: I'm well aware of non-combat RPG's, I've even had a job selling them - but outside of that professional context, selling events with RPG style contents to businesses for their summer- or christmas parties, I've never seen one. Not one, not ever. Never heard of anyone who played that style, not encountered it, it hasn't even been played in that dark corner of a convention where all the weird stuff seems to happen (there aren't any such corners, everywhere is weird at conventions).

Your concern is nice, but you needn't worry yourself. I've been playing since 1988 or 1989 or there abouts, many thousands of hours with propably hundreds of people. Many of the games I've played didn't have any editions yet. I've played with every sort of focus imaginable. But I've never played a game that didn't have a class structure - or benefitted from players picking roles that were more or less analog to classes.

I've played:
Dungeons and Dragons
Drager og Demoner (it's a scandinavian adaption of Basic Roleplay)
Buck Rogers
Mythos
Call of Cthulhu
Shadowrun
Earthdawn
Cyberpunk
Warhammer FRP
Warhammer - Rogue Trader and Dark Heresy and Deathwatch
Werewolf
Vampire

And several more I forget the names of.

If the phenomenon you describe is common, then it's unbelievably unlikely that I've somehow missed it entirely. I'm not denying it exists - I know it does - but it is not common. It's fringe.

Steel Mirror

2019-07-30, 11:15 PM

The evidence may only be anecdotal to you, but roleplaying games encompass a broad demographic and there are many kinds of game, including those in which the roles you describe aren't even an option, let alone recommended or optimal. A healer or tank in a game without combat isn't going to be optimal, let alone a requirement. If you've only played in games where combat is a focus, then I am sad for the lack in your gaming experience. It's not about playing with people unwilling to make sacrifices, so much as who is playing, what the game is and what the group considers to be entertaining.

I'm well aware that occasional exceptions exist. The occasional exceptions just don't make any real impression on me, as they stand in stark contrast to the overwhelming majority of the games I've played, GM'd, witnessed or heard of.

...snip

I've been playing since 1988 or 1989 or there abouts, many thousands of hours with propably hundreds of people. Many of the games I've played didn't have any editions yet. I've played with every sort of focus imaginable. But I've never played a game that didn't have a class structure - or benefitted from players picking roles that were more or less analog to classes. Well at least that part is easily addressed! You've now heard of several other different groups of players who have played those styles of games and reported enjoying them. I'm not sure if our experiences will make an impression on you, but I can assure you that for me at least, classless games really are tons of fun.

For reference, the game system for the game I was referring to was Fate, specifically the Dresden Files RPG. In that system healing is available, it's just none of us were ever interested in it, and I never felt we needed it. Strong tanky characters are also DEFINITELY possible in that system, in fact it wasn't hard to make a character who was basically as tough as a literal tank and could hit like a literal speeding truck, but none of us ended going that way for whatever reason. It did mean that we were frankly crap in an actual fight, but it ended up being a lot of fun that we had to play around that glaring weakness and it forced us to be more devious and creative. Let me tell you, while it's doubtless cool to go all Terminator and walk into a corrupt police station guns blazing, nothing quite beats tricking an avaricious crime boss dragon into rampaging through the station in order to recover her impounded exotic car collection to do your dirty work for you. :smallbiggrin:

Kaptin Keen

2019-07-31, 01:18 AM

Well at least that part is easily addressed! You've now heard of several other different groups of players who have played those styles of games and reported enjoying them. I'm not sure if our experiences will make an impression on you, but I can assure you that for me at least, classless games really are tons of fun.

No, it doesn't impress me in the least. As I've stated - again and again - there's no doubt the concept exists. It's fringe, at least when compared to mainstream RPG's (if RPG's can even be considered mainstream), and represents ... I dunno, let's just call it 5% of games. That's a small enough percentage that it makes sense that I've never really encountered it in my rather vast experience.

For reference, the game system for the game I was referring to was Fate, specifically the Dresden Files RPG. In that system healing is available, it's just none of us were ever interested in it, and I never felt we needed it. Strong tanky characters are also DEFINITELY possible in that system, in fact it wasn't hard to make a character who was basically as tough as a literal tank and could hit like a literal speeding truck, but none of us ended going that way for whatever reason. It did mean that we were frankly crap in an actual fight, but it ended up being a lot of fun that we had to play around that glaring weakness and it forced us to be more devious and creative. Let me tell you, while it's doubtless cool to go all Terminator and walk into a corrupt police station guns blazing, nothing quite beats tricking an avaricious crime boss dragon into rampaging through the station in order to recover her impounded exotic car collection to do your dirty work for you. :smallbiggrin:

I've played DnD without a healer. I believe I've also played some variant of Fate. I think. No, I just checked - it's not fate, it's called Urban Shadows.

It's like I'm just not getting through. Please listen (read, actually):

I'm not saying it's impossible to play without classes - or that it isn't fun, or that people don't do it, or that there aren't games designed without them, or that it's wrong.

I'm saying that generally, games have classes, or by default, players will adapt certain roles, even when classes aren't a thing. Generally.

You have a quick look at that list I made. That is basically every major RPG franchise in the world. Gurps isn't on there, but I played that too, and generally speaking, while Gurps is classless, people will adapt roles in Gurps too in my experience.

So there are games that do not offer the option of picking a class or class-like role. Urban Shadows is one such game, but I still picked a role because that's what I do. I played a damage dealer, someone obscenely good at shooting pistols, and someone else did his best to build a healer in a game without any type of healing magic.

So, just to reiterate: I know it exists, I'm not trying to pass judgement on it's merits - I'm just saying that the overwhelming majority of games out there will tend to be class or role based hack'n'slash fantasy games, with some variant of the fighter/cleric/wizard/rogue thing going on.

Knaight

2019-07-31, 01:46 AM

You're oscillating heavily between "some sort of role or role like structure will exist" and "it's basically all fantasy, fighter/cleric/wizard/rogue". Those aren't remotely the same statement, and support for the former absolutely isn't support for the latter.

The latter is still probably true simply because D&D is the majority of the hobby, but once you restrict it to scifi? You see that a whole lot less. The former is also a sufficiently vague pattern that you can retrofit basically anything to it. Characters tend to exist within a broader concept, pattern finding is basically the core human intellectual skill, and so you can force the model wherever. That makes it a lot less useful unless there's some more specific structure, whether that's actual bonafide classes or just a game that steers you into particular builds (e.g. Shadowrun, which has some fairly specific in setting concepts that could easily be represented as classes).

On top of that your list of the major other games is pretty dubious. Other than Paizo (which is just making D&D with a different name) White Wolf is the single biggest competitor D&D has ever had, by far. I'd consider the various vampire/wherewolf/changeling/whatever clans/tribes/whatever to effectively be a class structure, but it's not fighter/cleric/wizard/rogue. White Wolf also usually made games that weren't intended to be combat heavy, especially the WoD core line. They still had a combat focus in the rules and got used that way pretty often, but inasmuch as the hobby exists beyond D&D? That's not fringe.

JellyPooga

2019-07-31, 02:22 PM

On top of that your list of the major other games is pretty dubious. Other than Paizo (which is just making D&D with a different name) White Wolf is the single biggest competitor D&D has ever had, by far. I'd consider the various vampire/wherewolf/changeling/whatever clans/tribes/whatever to effectively be a class structure, but it's not fighter/cleric/wizard/rogue. White Wolf also usually made games that weren't intended to be combat heavy, especially the WoD core line. They still had a combat focus in the rules and got used that way pretty often, but inasmuch as the hobby exists beyond D&D? That's not fringe.

Picking up on the White Wolf thing; the Roleplaying Society at the university I went to had a long-running Vampire campaign that lasted at least three "generations" of students. It started (according to a lecturer involved) back in 2000 and was still going strong in 2010 when I left the town. The game took place entirely in a pub (plus downtime activities); entirely social. No combat at all (we could hardly have gotten away with brawling in a public space and there's always the Masquerade to consider...). Dozens of players over the years; older players introducing newer ones and those newer players later taking fresh blood in under their proverbial wings as their mentors moved on from the university (or indeed as a power play against their superiors). As one of the first major roleplaying groups outside of my own or a friends household that I ever experienced, I'd say it left something of a lasting impression of what kind of roleplaying groups exist out there, not only in fringe cases, but as a popular and stalwart experience. Sure, combat heavy is in the limelight because of games like D&D, but just type in "freeform roleplaying" on any PbP site and see how inundated you get with people who are in the hobby just to have a conversation and not to stab people in the face.