Enough Classes

On my closed blog, The Higher Path [available through Patreon], I addressed how the general discussion of D&D on the internet fails to intrinsically address the game's design flaws.  More often than not, the rush to give opinions about subject material such as rangers and alignment is apt to produce a lot of tribal flag-waving, without effort to draw conclusions.  We either use, or do not use, alignment, and we're ready as a community to argue endlessly about it ... but useful, concrete evidence of alignment's use or non-use remains absent from the discussion.  This is true of virtually every discussion related to D&D, and roleplaying in general.

Consider alignment as a convenient example, as the lines are already drawn in that conflict.  My personal take is that alignment is not necessary.  It is irrelevant to me what it adds to the game; but it was plainly clear, from those early days when I tried alignment, what it detracted from the game.  On the whole, we spent far more time discussing and debating the specifics of the rule than we spent using it.  Players automatically moved to circumvent the rule, universally.  Game time was lost in discord and argument.  Preparation time was wasted attempting to define alignment ~ and no matter what definition was offered, players would view the results with resentment.  Consensus was not possible.

And so, no matter what alignment added, the price was too high.  So I ditched it.  Players, I said, could do what they wanted, within the game's limits.  Immediately, consensus.  Resentment evaporated.  Game time progressed towards more fruitful discussions.  There were no longer any restrictions on attitude and character that required circumventions.  Debates on character evil/good evaporated.  New players entering the game, expecting to find alignment, adapted almost immediately the absence of the rule.

Those who argue for the value of alignment, or any other rule, never seem to address the behaviour of the players to that rule.  Never mind if there ought to be some penalty for some behaviour ... if the penalty compromises the pleasure and momentum of the game, we are penalizing the wrong thing.  We ought to have learned that lesson from social experiments like Prohibition and the War on Drugs, both of which have been exhaustive, non-productive, disastrous failures of policy and intention, based on the premise that there "ought to be some penalty" for this sort of behaviour, as imposed by people who do not partake.

As another example, consider the ever-present motivation that has existed, since very early in the game's history, to expand the number of classes that players can play.  In every case that I've seen, there are two arguments that are always made to justify the existence of the new class:

1) that, logically, persons of this profession are defined differently in an historical or literary sense, such as sorcerors, warlocks and witches.

2) the presence of the profession is commensurate with the underlying culture and motif of D&D, particularly in literature that is filled with such things as chevaliers and barbarians.

This is followed by some elaboration of how the character class would be interesting to play, and how it offers a new experience for the player.  However, what is not included is any discussion of how this might usefully change the game milieu, or generally advance the players' participation beyond the limitations of the new class's most obvious application.  A "fighter" covers a vast multiplicity of individual behaviours, essentially every form of possible application of combat and military training used to solve problems ~ whereas a barbarian is essentially a stereotype of one sort of combatant, with limited knowledge and cultural expectations built in.  "Magic user" defines any person that uses magic, obviously; subdivisions don't add to the game's structure or player behaviour, except to flagrantly subdivide the magical schematic in order to specialize the field to where, hopefully, emasculated forms of the original will have less power complimented by further stereotypical applications to character behaviour.

Is this really the point of the game?  To transform general freedoms of action in order to stipulate what sort of player actions "appropriately" fit a descriminate, prejudiced perception of what's expected of a player ... all the while selling the notion that more choice is more freedom.  There is no freedom in choice once the choice is made.

That only encourages boredom with narrower character concepts, promoting increased flipping of player from character class to character class, sabotaging the game's appeal towards masterfully building something unique and personal over the length of the campaign.  Instead, we give you something unique at the Start, and then tell YOU that your job is to live up to IT.  Character classes as shackles.  Gawd.  What a concept.

This conclusion will have been lost on some, so let's be clear.  When I want to run a character in your game, am I defined by what I do, or am I defined by what I want?  Is my personality based on the assigned conditions of my character class, or is it based on my ongoing, session-to-session actions?  The way the game has gone for more classes, it sounds to me like I'm supposed to believe the former.  That I am a sorceror because my character sheet says I am one.  But I think I am a mage, who uses magic to solve problems in ways that I invent, not in the way that my character class invents.  And I think that the way I act, and what I do, ought to be up to ME, and not what the class description says, or what the DM says.  And I feel that the game's design ought to stop putting me in cultural boxes and just get the hell out of my way.

I don't get excited by my character's class.  I like that it offers me certain tools, that I can work with ... but what I choose to "be" will be my choice, and not the game's.  So thank you, just let me pick some spells or a weapon, because that's what I need.  I don't need stereotypes.  I need points to jump off from.

The essentials of this game are that the DM is going to describe what I see, and then I'm going to cope with that.  There are shackles enough, thank you.  I can only run so fast and hit so often.  I am only as exceptional as the dice and my experience allows.  I am only as clever as my brain lets me be.  I don't need rules on my behaviour, my beliefs, my morality, my literary responsibilities or additional boundaries on what my character class "stands for."  The genius of the original fighter was that it didn't stand for anything.  It's a shame that this lesson was not extended to all the other classes.  If it had been, we'd have enjoyed less stupid fights at the game table for ridding the game of all that, too.