Am I wrong on race?

In the previous article, I made a very sweeping statement without putting any thought into it: "I won’t be doing demihumans as classes, though." As someone who likes to analyze why he does things to see if he's not wrong, I certainly blundered by making such a pronouncement before really looking into it.

While I started playing RPGs during the halcyon days of the red and blue boxes, the bulk of my playing career was with 1st and 2nd edition AD&D. As a result, my feelings of "race as class" is tainted by long exposure to a different system. People who spend a long time doing things a certain way have a hard time seeing that it might not be the best way. We like to think humans are flexible, but it really ain't the case.

Yesterday I was thinking about how I'm eliminating dwarves as a race in my campaign and so had the random idea of translating the races of TSR's first foray into sci-fi, Star Frontiers, into D&D terms to compensate. Who wouldn't want to play a sword-wielding Dralasite?? After reading that entry, though, I thought it really didn't seem likely they'd play any of the standard PC classes. Maybe a thief? Or, at least, a Specialist? I can't really see them wearing armor, so fighters would be out. They might be pretty good mages, though. Actually, they might be really cool as mages. If I'm willing to contemplate limiting them away from certain classes, doesn't it make sense that they also could be shoe-horned into a single class?

Hmmm...could I be wrong on this race-as-class thing? Is it possible for the game to be playable like that? I've done some rough outlines of the races I'd have in my game, so with the frame of mind that I'd want races as classes, I took another look at my description of elves:

The Aluunar

I've always hated the concept that elves live to be thousands of years old. It always seemed to be an impractical and unworkable lifespan. The elves of this world typically live to the age of 170-200 years instead, but with a twist: they mature at an extremely slow rate, reaching full maturity around 70, or roughly the equivalent of a human turning 30.

Around their 70th year, their physiology undergoes a remarkable change, and they cease aging as quickly. Instead of a one-to-one relationship between chronological time and their physiological ages, they age approximately 10 times slower for a full century. So, at the end of this century, they're physiologically the same as a 40 year old human.

Elves call this their "Time of Excellence" and it's when most achieve their greatest accomplishments because they are at their peak physically and mentally, and maintain that peak for a full century. Prior to achieving their Time, elves are considered immature and don't typically travel outside their homelands. In fact, most elven societies forbid those who have not yet reached their Time from leaving home at all. As a result, very few non-elves have even met an immature or elder elf.

This isolation has the side effect that once an elf is old enough to venture out, they have spent their entire lives (which was approximately 70 years, remember) isolated from the world around them. Their opinions are provincial, but also deeply-rooted in their experience. As a result, most see the outside world as inferior and full of lumbering idiots, which is where their reputation for being haughty and arrogant comes from. After a few decades, most elves get over their initial reaction to the world and come to appreciate that their species is only a part of it. Unfortunately, as this does take decades, it's typically far too late for their reputations to lose their tarnish.

After the Time, elves begin aging again at the normal rate. Thus, around 170, they typically settle down to enjoy their last decades in peace and surrounded by their families. Those who live to be 200 years old, are physiologically similar to 70 year old humans, which is around their maximum lifespan as well.

PC elves will always be somewhere within their Time on starting the game.

Given this description, does it make sense that there would be a wide variation between elven PCs? In classic OD&D, elves were essentially multi-classed magic-user/fighters. They could cast spells, even in full armor, and used any weapon type. If we're eliminating clerics entirely and making druids just a specialty magic-user, we don't really lose a whole lot by removing class options from them.

With only three base classes to choose from, elves as a class only lose 1/3 of their options (if we ignore multiclasses). One game I looked at, Adventurer, Conqueror, King, provides a solution to this, though. They use race as class, but provide multiple class options for each race. For the elves, you have two choices: the Spellsword, which is essentially the B/X fighter/mage elf, and Nightblade, which is a thief/mage combo.

The argument could even be made that perhaps elves could be the new rangers? Restricted to light armor? That fits. Restricted to light weapons? Check. Animal friends? Check. Racial enmity against goblinoids? BIG check. Casts spells? Hmmm...rangers do get spells at later levels.

When we think of traditional elf tropes, they're always magical, so these combos make sense. In essence, every elf is a mage, but there's the additional skill set you take into the world as part of your "Elven Rumschpringe". Is it that you're more warrior-like, or more skill-based? We lose the ability of elves NOT having magic (straight fighter or thief), or being just exceptionally skilled at magic (straight elven magic-user), but those loses make sense in context, too.

An elf without magic is an oxymoron, and so is easily dismissed. An elf who has dedicated their lives exclusively to the pursuit of knowledge, be it magical or specialist, probably isn't likely to be delving deep into musty old tombs. They would probably see that as a waste of their Time (capital "T"). While they might adventure out into the world, they're not having adventures in that world. There could be the one-off "elven mage who joins an adventuring party in search of lost and forbidden magical knowledge", but it would seem they would only join a party for individual explorations. "You're going to the Lost Tower Of Agbar The Mad? I've heard he had some really wild magical talents, I'll come with!" That makes sense. Jumping into every random hole in the hopes there MIGHT be something down there they want does not. It would make more sense they'd be sending the party out to retrieve things.

I'm actually finding myself starting to like the idea of race as class for my campaign. I've completely redesigned the halfling in my mind, but haven't fully fleshed it out on paper yet. So, let's go there. In my next article, I'll reveal what happens when you design a race with the expectation that they don't have class options. If that happens, I might just have to do the one thing humans are worst at...

...change my mind.

A Question Of Class

As I mentioned in my last gaming article, I've got the bug to torture some RPG players again. Since that last article, I've done a whole lot of research on how I wanted to go on a number of topics, and I thought I'd share.

Before I lay out which system I've decided I wanted to use, it's probably best to explain how I came to that conclusion. As I stated in the previous article, the "feature creep" that's inherent in the basic structure of D&D is something that I've always hated.

Don't get me wrong, I loved getting my issue of the Dragon every month and finding a new, unique class to think about...but that's just it. Think about, never play. As a player, either already had a character I liked. And, besides, my DM would never let me play one of these new non-Lawful Good paladin variants no matter how I pleaded. As a DM, the topic never actually came up. At the end of the day, every class is just a variation on three basic classes (yes, there are four in D&D, we'll get to that): warrior, mage, rogue, so why complicate the issue?

"Um, stupid, yeah...hello? Clerics?" Nope, haven't forgotten the cure-carriers that cut their meat with maces. My problem with clerics is I think most people misinterpret what clerics are supposed to be. For most people, a cleric is a priest, and they concentrate on the fact that they case spells. But, the reality is they're supposed to be the warrior-priest. In D&D, clerics are supposed to be more akin to the Knights Templar than Friar Tuck.

Rightly or wrongly, that's how I've generally seen them played. Given that they're a warrior who casts spells, clerics are nothing more (to me) than a fighter/magic-user multiclass with some weapon restrictions and a lower XP requirement for advancement. If a cleric could ever cast anything but Cure spells (again, few have in my history), they'd be a formidable class, but they're not played to their potential so why bother?

"Druids?" Easy: mages with a restricted spell list and the ability turn into animals. In fact, most extra classes that are made up are simply variations on the base classes that add some kind of magical ability to make them interesting. Paladins are fighters who can cast spells and lay hands. Rangers are fighters who can make friends with animals and kick giant ass (and eventually cast spells). Bards are thieves who can charm the pants off the ladies. Or, guys, if that's what you're in to. Monks are...a whole other animal...

I know, I'm oversimplifying here, but that's the point. If I cut down to three base classes, and from that can create a cleric-like creature by simply having the player multiclass, why do I need a cleric class? I don't, so they're gone. I will avoid discussing the fact that in the campaign world I'm putting together, there's no gods anyway, so they're doubly pointless. :)

This isn't about me being against classes. I like classes, I just don't need so many of them. Classes make it easier to explain to fellow players what your character's role in the party is. When I tell other players "My cousin, Joe, played a paladin named Luckfudge, and it was the best-played paladin I've ever seen", they know that I'm talking about the restrictions placed on paladins and what I mean by that simple sentence. Their only follow up is "Luckfudge??"

Now, granted, trimming out all other classes and using multiclassing to make up the difference, you do lose some of that. But, Luckfudge was about role-playing. The restrictions aren't really placed on the character so much as on the player themselves. Joe knew better than to say "I'm going to slowly cut the throat of the orc's wife until he tells us where the camp is". He also knew that if someone else in the party said it, his only response should be "I'm attacking his character if he tries that."

Trust me, you did NOT want to be on the wrong side of Lucky.

But, those are decisions made by the player based on the restrictions placed on what the character code do. A good role-player doesn't need those restrictions spelled out for them. If Joe played a magic-user/fighter with a code of honor, he'd get most of what he could do as a paladin.

Let's also not forget, my plan is to recreate more the feel of playing old-school D&D (red boxers represent!) than AD&D. Most of my playing has been with AD&D, but I'm good with taking it further back. My goal is to induce role-playing over roll-playing. When your character is defined more by the way it's played than what the numbers on the page are, it becomes very difficult to fall back to the easy route. Lucky would be Lucky, no matter what his character sheet said.

So, given that, and a few other things, the game system that most fits what I want is Lamentations of the Flame Princess (yes, that's the name of the game). It's gained a lot of reputation since its debut, and not all of it has to do with the soft-core, grindhouse-style porn that graces its interior. I grabbed the free no-art version, so I've never seen the fun stuff, unfortunately. Overall, it's deservedly well-received as a well-constructed OSR retro-clone. It even has demihumans as classes!

I won't be doing demihumans as classes, though.

Trimming down to just three core classes was 2/3 easy. Fighters represent everything that has as its major job requirement "Must be able to knock things down through brute strength. Brains optional." Magic-users, um, use magic, and can stand in for clerics, druids, sorcerers, witches, or wizards. It all depends on the source of their magic and how they wield it, which is a role-playing decision anyway and is a whole other article.

But, thieves, that's a different story. I won't go into the permutations that I came up with, suffice it to say when I saw Whitehack I was enamored of his interpretation, "The Deft". It's essentially any class that depends on knowing how to do things (aside from cast spells and knock things over). However, while Whitehack is a neat hack I will be borrowing from, The Deft was not what I was looking for. It's TOO open-ended.

LotFP's Specialist, now there's my thief/bard/ranger!

Once I read through and saw the elegant simplicity with which the author had differentiated his four classes (in a nutshell: fighters are the only ones who get higher combat bonuses as they go up, everyone can try basic thief skills and such, but only specialists get bonuses as they go up, etc), I knew this is what I wanted to base my game around.

Of course, I'm going to have to pull it apart because he's got those stinky clerics in there, not to mention the demihuman classes (ick), but as far as mechanics go it's pretty much what I was looking for.

With all of this in mind, I've got the core of what players would need to build their own class. There's a lot of other material I haven't covered, but trimming down to three base classes is a fairly radical enough change for a single article....

...but, once we get to the campaign world, I'll introduce you to the fourth class that all player-characters will be required to multiclass with. :)