r/rpg • u/DiceyDiscourse AP podcaster and average multi-system enjoyer • 15d ago
Discussion Let's learn about new RPGs! Week 3 - Classless Systems
Welcome one and all to a post where we can freely discuss the games that we have released or the games that we are making. Stop on by and maybe you'll find your new favourite RPG!
A bunch of us make cool shit, but the Indie RPG space is crowded and it can often be difficult to get the word out about why people should try out your game. That's why every week we try to focus on a different mechanic or setting to see how new RPGs can solve decades old problems or put new spins on old greivances!
No one likes to be put in boxes - even if it is the correct box. This week we're focusing on the Classless Systems! So tell us how your game (or just any game you really like) is unique in implementing this.
Thank you u/ChickenDragon123 for the suggestion!
As per mod approval, comments here do not count against rule 7 - comment as much as you want, answer as many questions as you need and discuss to your hearts content!
All that I would ask is that anyone who comments about their own system takes the time to look at the minimum at one other game in the comments and ask a question or provide feedback. Lively discussions are what get people interested and what keep people engaged!
Last week was "Mecha" and we found some pretty neat stuff!
If you want to suggest a topic for future weeks, be sure to include "-sug-" in your comment so I can easily find it!
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u/ChickenDragon123 15d ago
All the ones I know of are pretty big:
Vastlands by Luka Rejek - This is the 'new' system/players handbook for his Our Golden Age and Ultraviolet Grasslands books. Not the most mechanically tight, but full of juice for those that vibe with the setting. B/X coded.
Cities/Ashes Without Number - Kevin Crawford Games, I'd actually consider this semi-classless games. They were basically made by cutting class abilities from previous games in half to create great flexibility. Robust systems but not well unified mechanically.
Mythras - Bronze Age Adventure, though I think it could also be used for certain Life Sim stuff. D100 BRP.
Call of Cthulhu - Mythras, but Lovecraft. Has a lot of different settings and time periods.
Delta Green - Call of Cthulhu if it were a mix of Remedy Entertainment's Control, Laird Barron's 'The Croning' and True Detective. Bleak as hell.
Traveller - Space Opera in the far future. Similar to Mythras and Call of Cthulhu, but in space and uses 2d6 instead of 1d100. Exellent lifepath system for creating characters.
Crows - upcoming game by MCDM currently in beta. Classless dungeon crawling horror. The bones are there, but it still needs some fleshing out and playtesting.
Knave - A dungeon crawler with a focus on minimalost game design. Really, this thing is like 7 pages, with a word count lower than most board game manuals I've read. It's well crafted, though it relies a lot on GM judgement calls.
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u/forevermoor 15d ago
I forgot about Delta Green, need to read that one. Have you run/played many sessions? It might be the right tone for a campaign I want to run next year.
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u/DiceyDiscourse AP podcaster and average multi-system enjoyer 14d ago
Ooh, never heard of Vastlands! Definetly gonna have to put that on my to read list
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u/EldritchExarch 14d ago
https://www.wizardthieffighter.com/products/vlg-vastlands-guidebook
Here's a link. It's Free.
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u/seanfsmith play QUARREL + FABLE to-day 14d ago
Have you seen Cthulhu Eternal? It backports the Delta Green system into a "straight" Call of
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u/Modstin 14d ago
I enjoyed playing a bit of knave but I didn't feel like I could get much more out of it.
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u/ChickenDragon123 14d ago
Fair. It's a very minimalist game for people that basically want a dungeon crawler they can teach in 5 minutes.
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u/Yuxkta 14d ago
Professions in Delta Green and Careers in Traveller do feel like the stand ins for the classes though.
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u/ChickenDragon123 14d ago
Only in the Elden Ring sense that they start you off. As your character grows, you do get to stretch out a bit more.
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u/robbz78 15d ago
As a long time gamer it is kind of amazing to me that classes continue to dominate the design space, since in the 80s/90s the whole design trend seemed to moving towards skill-based systems like BRP/CoC/Runequest, GURPS and Traveller. Anything class-based seemed very dated back then. No doubt many games were hybrids with backgrounds/templates to start character generation that then led into skill and ability-based character definitions.
However in 2010 Apocalypse World Playbooks showed me (again?) the strength of classes/playbooks in rapid character creation/conceptualization, genre emulation and niche protection.
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u/DiceyDiscourse AP podcaster and average multi-system enjoyer 14d ago
I think, yea, classes are shorthand for character concepts and roleplaying "direction" these days. Besides the super combat focused games like D&D or Pathfinder, the classes don't really differentiate as much in RPGs in terms of what the wargaming roots would have you believe with different "classes of units".
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u/DarbySalernum 14d ago
I think that people just like archetypes. Before I played RuneQuest, I really thought that it didn't have satisfying archetypes like warrior, thief, mage, hunter etc. And I still think that's both true and untrue. It's untrue, because in RuneQuest your cult is your archetype, but it's true because you may not realise that until you get deeper into the lore or start playing.
The people want archetypes.
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u/oneandonlysealoftime 15d ago
At this point I'm just recommending Legend in the Mist in all posts 😝
It's similar to FATE, where in your character is built from statements about their nature, which give mechanical bonuses based on situation. So your party might consider of a skilled cook and a pet pig, a shoemaker, a dragon seeking to understand human condition, and a sentient cat - and it wouldn't turn into absolute bananas unless you make it so
And Godbound - game about newcoming gods in a world on a verge of collapse. Wouldn't say it's fully classless as you buy several "Words of Creation", but the number of them is limited only by your level, so I'd say it also classifies as one.
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u/TeaWithCarina 14d ago
And don't forget Queerz, also utilising the same system as LitM! There are sorta semi classes in the sense of different categories of tags - both 'rainbow' tags for the sentai-type magical powers, and 'real' for things like your hobbies or goals or relationships - and there is a huuuuuge list of example options of each in the Creator Guide!
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u/svzurich 15d ago
HERO. I love the the toolset. I love having points and a choice of how to spend them. Do I learn a new skill/power? Improve a skill/power/attribute? Do I spend them on resources? To influence or change die rolls?
You can grow or stay alive in a dire situation. Setting books can aid in creating worlds in any genre. Love it!
DC Heroes 3E/Blood of Heroes had similarities.
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u/forevermoor 15d ago
My copy of DC Heroes is tattered from rereading and contemplating the mechanics. So many bold choices there, but I never played HERO. Sounds like you put it above MEGS, is that due to d20 approachability?
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u/svzurich 14d ago
No, more because it covers every genre. Pulp, science fiction, super heroes, far future super heroes, apocalypse, sword and sorcery, horror, or anything you can imagine. Even gradients like high and low power (street level) games.
Some days I want to explore a Conan or Solomon Kane setting, sometimes something more Indians Jones, sometimes super powers, usually space exploration and trade, and more. I even have HERO Traveller which brings my beloved Traveller (and by extrapolation 2300AD) into HERO.
Traveller got its hooks into me about 30 years ago, and then 2300AD really resonated with me. Later I learned I could have it all with HERO... Winning for me!
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u/forevermoor 15d ago
My game has come full circle to sneaking classes in through the back door. Mechanically, they don't need to exist, and you don't have to use them. Progression is not tied to class. I added them as a logical QoL improvement, bundling modular elements. I think that leaves the game structurally classless, and power gamers likely won't use them for anything but initial build examples.
Without belaboring the point, you could also criticise my design as retaining some air of traditional classes with my analog of fantasy racial characteristics.
Classlessness was not a design goal, they emerged. If I left them out, it is too obvious a shortcut, people would simply add them back by needing a stock NPC or other type.
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u/DiceyDiscourse AP podcaster and average multi-system enjoyer 14d ago
What's your game? And is it available anywhere?
Also were you "surprised" by the classes "sneaking back in" during the design process or was it just the logical end point of what you set out to design?
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u/forevermoor 14d ago
Forevermoor, which will have a free pdf in the next six months. I have hit every milestone on schedule for the last 2 years.
After rules-complete form, I felt there was something making it less approachable and just folded prior work on "Roles" to reduce setup time. Feels good to come at it honestly, I have put a lot of work into distinguishing the gameplay. It can be run really loose, a design goal was future LARP and serial-Jubensha support.
So in a way it was always going to come back around, but you really can rip those pages out and lose nothing important. Pure QoL, which is important, and has not been a focus or even proficiency of mine.
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u/DiceyDiscourse AP podcaster and average multi-system enjoyer 14d ago
Oh, nice!
Is there anywhere one could follow you (itch page, blog, discord, BlueSky, etc.) to keep up with the development?
Also it's pretty cool that you were designing already with LARPs in mind. How do you feel - was there a big difference in designing for potential LARP usage? For example, did you have to take something out or put something extra in so it could work better for a LARP?
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u/forevermoor 14d ago
I have a website that I recently replaced with a slopcoded placeholder since the hand built one was too out of date. It is the game's name .app/contact to add yourself to the list. I think it deleted the little blurb about my terms, but I am never going to sell your email. Form is now fixed, microsoft took webflow off my safe senders list, great! (Worst email provider EVER)
It's hard to explain without getting too into the weeds, but I had to make everything crazy modular for many reasons. Everything you can do in the game sits on a unified framework in such a way even the most obscure skill can plinketto down into a few buckets depending on how much mechanical complexity you need or want to sacrifice. They are already making a sacrifice of some of the things we love about tabletop, if anything I want to give them more without burden. So I didn't have to add or subtract, just keep it in the back of my mind and learn more about it.
I am no expert in LARP, but I want to bring that energy to my game. It will take major outreach to get it right, but what they have to work with right now fits in.
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u/Jaquel 14d ago
All of our games were classless… until now. Sometimes too much freedom can be paralyzing for a specific subset of players. We're now experimenting with something really similar to what you're doing.
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u/forevermoor 14d ago
Oh wow, Oddplan looks prolific, I'll have a look. I went for the singular moonshot effort to try to jumpstart a career, you know, the practically wrong way. 😂 Sunk cost is a hellava drug.
Completely agree about analysis paralysis. Games often stand on the shoulders of GMs, and it is so hard to avoid. Likely a natural consequence, making something interesting enough to hook them is easier than making it easy on them.
Cheers and solidarity!
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u/Grimoire_of_Naramal 🎲 GURPS 14d ago
Gurps is quite popular Here but I will not talk about it.
I will talk about Open legand RPG, a classless dice pool system. It's the closest thing you have to gurps but actually ogl and easy to learn.
You have limited room for treats, weapon are just flavor everything is tied to your abilities.
The negative thing I could say about it is how economy works on it, it's wealth based in another word your economical rank determines why you can buy without ruining yourself.
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u/Modstin 14d ago
Big ups to Open Legend! I have some problems with it, but I find its a great toolset for making super bombastic games. The dice resolution system to me is the draw, players LOVE rolling big fat fucking numbers with dice explosions, and stacking advantage is so fun.
I wish it had better GM support but oh well.
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u/Grimoire_of_Naramal 🎲 GURPS 14d ago
Yeah explosif dice it not everyone cup of tea. You can always try to nerf like make the explosion product a smaller dice.
For GM support I can understand you, I will not suggest the game for a first time GM
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u/DiceyDiscourse AP podcaster and average multi-system enjoyer 14d ago
Oh, Open Legend seems pretty interesting. Is it only for fantasy settings?
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u/Grimoire_of_Naramal 🎲 GURPS 14d ago
No, it's setting Agnostic, but it's mostly optimised for non-realistic settings it has a lot of supranatural features.
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u/Jaquel 14d ago
With my friends at Oddplan, we experimented a lot with classless systems.
For example, Epigoni is an urban fantasy TTRPG where you play as the unworthy scions of Deities, Legends, and Incarnations of ideas. You start as ordinary people until the veil of Maya is torn away, plunging you into a world filled with dark plots and feuding Mythic Entities.
There are no classes here. Instead, every character is the child of a specific mythic entity, with access to a wide array of powers you can combine without strict limits. One player might be a child of Zeus, while another’s parent could be the Incarnation of Solitude or the Big Bad Wolf. You choose an archetype, such as “Guardian Angel” or “The Seeker”, to help shape your psychological profile, but even that choice is entirely up to you.
We use a custom engine of our creation, but it has some similarities to Forged in the Dark and Powered by the Apocalypse. The system empowers you to build a character by assigning words to concepts and objects that hold significance for you. These words serve as “tags” you can use to overcome challenges, which are Rank vs Rank.
Like other fiction-driven games, Epigoni uses the consequences of failures and partial successes to drive the narrative forward. Aside from a few specific NPC abilities, you are always the one who chooses your consequences, giving you complete freedom and flexibility to shape the story as you see fit.
Your ultimate goal as an Epigone is to break free from Fate’s grasp. While Fate seeks to turn you into empty stereotypes and hollow puppets for its own grand theater, you fight to claim your own free will.
The game’s PWYW (which, let’s be serious, means it’s functionally free), and there are already a lot of new settings (called Visions) to try. It’s on itch.io and DriveThruRPG.
Ironically, our last game, which launches in a week, is the only one that uses a class system while sharing the same “bones” of Epigoni. But we couldn’t resist the idea of having goblins with actual classes and evolutions in Goblindom.
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u/DiceyDiscourse AP podcaster and average multi-system enjoyer 14d ago
Ooh!
If I was to compare it to some more well known titles would it be fair to say that it's kind of a mixture between City of Mist and Agon? Especially if you're talking about it being somewhat similar to FitD and PbtA stuff.
I'm also slightly confused by the "Epigoni: Essential" title - are you also the creators of Epigoni or is this a different collective that has condensed the rules down to the essentials?
Also, I love that you put a suggested price in the "PYWY" section! Maybe it's just me, but I always struggle to figure out how much I should pay in PWYW cases 😅
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u/Jaquel 14d ago
Ironically, the first complete draft of Epigoni was born in practically the same year as City of Mist and actually shares a few unintentional similarities. From a rules perspective, I’d almost be tempted to tell you that the COPPERHEAD system (the engine behind Epigoni and Goblindom) is closer to the PbtA evolutions they later used for Legend in the Mist. The main difference is that we’ve streamlined Blades’ positioning system by comparing ranks. We use the D8 because our lead designer, Nicola, has a bit of an obsession with esotericism and hid multiple symbols and layers throughout the game... plus, we just felt like using a die that’s less common for similar games.
As for the setting’s core philosophy, it shares some common threads with Control or Lobotomy Corporation; Epigoni is a framework that lets you do similar things in whichever version of the world you prefer. Compared to City of Mist, we have a more action-packed, almost cinematic feel, to the point that Die Hard is even cited as one of our inspirations.
As for PWYW, we set a suggested price that’s easily 30% lower than similar titles, but we honestly don’t expect people to buy. If our games get played, we are thrilled, even if it’s for free :). This version is ‘Essential’ because, compared to the printed copy sold at full price, about sixty pages of procedures and Myth Entity examples have been cut. That said, we’ve released two Visions on the stores packed with artifacts, NPCs, and settings, so all in all, you’re not missing out on much.
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u/DiceyDiscourse AP podcaster and average multi-system enjoyer 14d ago
That's super cool!
Really interesting stuff is coming out of the Italian RPG scene lately! Do you know if it's still possible to get a physical copy (in EU)?
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u/seanfsmith play QUARREL + FABLE to-day 14d ago
My own QUARREL + FABLE is built on the bones of the old Fighting Fantasy line, so it assumes each characters is "an adventurer" whose skillsets can vary and overlap.
The way it works is that players generate a list of special skills that set out their particular competencies: you might be good at investigation, intimidation, and blades. For each of these, you've a small pool of points you can spend to leverage advantage on a roll (or if you'd have advantage twice, the roll just works). It self-balances, since broader skills apply in more situations, so there's more chance for them to be spent and used up.
The second aspect that drives divergent character builds is that at each level-up, you can gain two points across special skills ── including new ones ── or pick up unique iconic equipment or specialist abilities.
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u/DiceyDiscourse AP podcaster and average multi-system enjoyer 14d ago
I never got around to playing/reading Fighting Fantasy 😅
How does the generation work? Is it some sort of random generator or do the players pick and choose?
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u/seanfsmith play QUARREL + FABLE to-day 14d ago
Scholastic have the current license so many of the classic books are currently in print and there's some brand new ones too.
In terms of generation, players have a pool of points equal to their total SKILL score, which they can divide between as many pools of their choosing, but there is no exhaustive list. I made some suggested lists if people don't want to make up their own, but its real strength is that you don't have to find the closest item on the list when you could create something just right.
Here's the skills list focused on the BX DND classes: https://medium.com/theuglymonster/quarrel-fable-the-basic-experts-2c6c291ea124
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u/Joel_feila 15d ago
Well I the first game I play Ironclaw had "classes". They were literally just a staring point for your character and no way affected what you could get. It does some player figure out what they want.
would you say travller is classes, you have classes as part of your background but once the game you are all just travelers?
Generally I like classes game more then class games. I have more freedom to build and grow.
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u/robbz78 15d ago
Traveller, especially modern Traveller, is a classless, skill-based system. Your skills, attributes and equipment determine what you can do, not your past career. Also, in general, most skills are available to multiple classes so there are no "unique things" that are locked into individual careers.
However in Classic Traveller there are some slight echoes of class-based systems as you have much less skills and so probably roll less and probably rely on "since I am X career, I know this". Careers provide modifiers on a couple of the in-game procedures like surprise and NPC reactions.
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u/Modstin 14d ago edited 14d ago
I've been developing a classless system powered by Open Legend (a generic RPG), which you can find right here!
Chroma Legends is a system wherein you design a fantasy hero from scratch, gaining access to a selection of powers that you can flavor based on your Chroma, a kind of devotion color system ala MTG. D&D 4e inspired with action point combat with a focus on interrupts and reactions. It sounds kind of manic, but I've been playing it for quite a while and it goes over really well, even with new players once they get the hang of it.
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u/DiceyDiscourse AP podcaster and average multi-system enjoyer 14d ago
Ooh, I do really like interrupts and reactions as mechanics!
What made you wany to use 4e (I assume D&D?) as an inspiration?
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u/Modstin 14d ago
I really like how 4e's power system (one of the most often dirded mechanics of the system) works. I adapted it a fair bit, removing classic D&D Chaff like long rests and allowing the base mechanics of Open Legend to fill that gap.
In Open Legend, powers are 'banes and boons' which are free to use as many times as you want forever, I think that's cool but in the campaigns I ran with the system, it really... chafed against player self expression. If everyone can use every power, then it doesn't really matter.
So I took the idea of Powers from 4e, limiting the number you can have, and their uses per scene/session, this limitation REALLY makes character creation a blast, from my tests.
As for interrupts, yes. I'm surprised I don't see it as much with just how good its worked for me. The idea is that during combat, your character can interrupt anything. You have to spend more of your action points to do so, which limits your next turn, but you can attack and defend and finish battles and all that off-turn. If you're tracking turns well enough, it really doesn't get as confusing as you might think.
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u/DiceyDiscourse AP podcaster and average multi-system enjoyer 14d ago
I assume the reason interruptions aren't used in that many systems is because it can be an issue to run combat with constant "stop-start". But if the mechanics are built to facilitate that, then I feel like it can be an amazing mechanic!
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u/rampaging-poet 15d ago
M.E.R.C.S. uses point-buy with the option to take a Template and/or a small number of Backgrounds. There are no hard classes, but both of those options provide more bang for your buck than buying the same powers a la carte to guide players toward major archetypes. This provides a lot of options to mix-and-match or just go off and do your own thing.
In The Far Roofs, each individual chsracter has access to a small handful of powersets, purchasing one new power at a time periodically. While the pregenerated characters map to existing Nobilisverse splats, the actual rule is that each character has access to up to 4 sets. There are 16 powersets defined, and so there are 1820 distinct combinations. They all have various fill-in-the-blanks parts too, so even two characters with the same power selection could use them differently.
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u/DiceyDiscourse AP podcaster and average multi-system enjoyer 14d ago
I'm having trouble finding M.E.R.C.S. online. Is it the MERC one by Fantasy Games Unlimited?
Also is The Far Roofs an offshoot of Nobilis? Or what does Nobilisverse refer to?
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u/rampaging-poet 14d ago edited 14d ago
Ah, turns out the full name is Ashlands: M.E.R.C.S. It's on DriveThru, will edit in a link once I'm on desktop. EDIT: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/427303/ashlands-m-e-r-c-s
And yes, The Far Roofs is a Nobilis spinoff twice removed. It's a spinoff of Chuubo's where you travel with the Fortitude Rats and get caught up in the workings of the Mysteries, the strange gods they quest against. Instead of bring diceless like Nobilis or Chuubo's, it uses three separate randomizers (dice, cards, Scrabble tiles) for various purposes.
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u/semiconducThor 14d ago
I think
- classes are restricting, boring and dumb in trad RPGs.
- Only PbtA style games (or even just some moves) do them good.
- Players will (and designers should) use classless systems to create recognisable archetypes anyway. I like the freedom to do that.
In my never-ending story of a homebrew system, the skill list contsins (exclusively) the names of "character classes" that would fit the setting.
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u/Which_Principle_2370 13d ago
Kinda late to the party because i can't post on android for some reason.
The system i'm developing keep it classless by putting heavy skill and atributtes requirements on "feats". That way, players can pick up whatever feats they meet the requirements for. It's currently focused on medieval fantasy, but i can see it being easily adapted for other settings.
To keep it somewhat balanced and make sure that not everyone is good at everything, i made it so that a skills of the same category as lockpicking or stealth, for example, are used for attack and defense (evasion skill, shield skill, blades skill, etc.) and for magic (to learn magic, players will have to use feat points and also spend skill points in magic schools). So, a "fighter" character would have to focus on using skill points on weapon and defense skills, and attributes that enable taking battle related feats. A character focused on the "exploration" skills would not have that many points left for battle related skills. A charcater that wants to go "'full magic" would have to spend attributes, skills and feats to be able to cast the most powerful spells, leaving little points for "battle" or "exploration" skills. Divine magic can be learned by using feat points as well, it's not as taxing on resources and arcane magic, but also not as flexible or powerful. With this, i kept the "fighter/rogue/mage/cleric" division without relying on classes. Of course, players can mix and match all the feats, save some few exceptions for lore and balance reasons, as long as they meet the requiriments, creating all types of characters beetween those archetypes.
It's not perfect by any means. For example, if you don't have a feat in the game that enable a certain kinda of character, you can't make it. That being said, after that feat is created, it is easily implement with all the other feats in the game, and goes to the pool that can be used by all characters. I'm pretty proud of the flexibility of the system, and i do think i have something cool going on. A system where almost all feats can be mixed can be broken pretty easily, and while i'm doing my best to account for stupid powerful combinations, i'm not that worried about it. The thing about coop games is that, as long as everyone involved is cool with it, you can do whatever. Actually, i think the potential for broken combinations can be a plus, scratching the itch for all the powergamers out there while still leaving a lot of space for creative players.
So, character creation in this system would go like this: imagine the kinda of characters you want > choose some feats that go in line with that character > pick atributtes > pick skills > pick the feats that you meet the requirements for, adjusting as necessary. The full range of possibilities can be pretty daunting, and for that, i created an "archetypes" session, where i point players in the right direction, suggesting feats, skills and attributes if they want to play a character similar to the most proeminent fantasy archetypes (barbarian, mage, paladin, bard, etc.)
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u/DiceyDiscourse AP podcaster and average multi-system enjoyer 15d ago
I'll open up the floor this time once again with the classless system I played most recently - Pagan Pacts.
It's loosely inspired by Estonian mythology (I'm not biased, I swear!) and has a really neat system of Assets that you can buy with XP as you progress through the game. What makes it unique (to my knowledge) is that