In this installment Baranor talks about classes,and how they are handled in most RPGs. Classes are the basic character sorting mechanism, and they are usually archetypal. Everyone immediately recognizes the warrior, the mage, the cleric, the thief, etc. Baranor even includes the opening of a fantasy short story to illustrate that point. He also explores the issue from other angles. Should games divide their characters up into classes? How is Diablo III going to handle classes? Are the new ones improvements over the Diablo II classes?
Read on to see what he thinks—the column begins below the break.
Of Castles and Classes
Out there in the Sharval Wilds near Entsteig lies a castle. The castle has a gate, and that gate once barred the way inside. Looming over the shrubbery that stretches itself for miles on end, it is placed over a well which never goes dry. Atop its battlements once flew the banner of Lord Krag. Once… a long time ago. Now, this very castle is a ruin. The walls have crumbled and the gate has all but broken from its hinges. Wild grass and more shrubberies fill the space between the outer wall and the inner wall that separated the court jester and the court he was supposed to amuse from the common people in the castle who were forced to live with the pigs and the cows. Of the four towers it once possessed three now lie in ruin, and the fourth is not much to look at anymore. Crows use it as a nesting place and the lower levels have been filled with their twigs and feathers, their excrements and eggshells, dead crows both young and old. No, this castle has seen better days. That gate, that wonderful gate, still a sign of power and might, has been split in half, and in that gate sticks a single arrow. The tale of this arrow and its flight is akin to the tale of the castle and its fall, and the fall of Lord Krag. To understand what happened here we must travel back in time and meet up with four friends, a group of adventurers, who set out from Kingsport to Entsteig some thirty years ago. They passed through castle Krag, which then was still a mighty castle but their passing was more akin to the passing of a storm than the passing of a breeze, and where they went only ruin followed them.
First of the four, at least in his own mind, was Joseph Grunwald. He was forty-three years of age, already an older man. His garments were purple, not because he liked purple but because he knew a lot of people disliked it and thought it to be outlandish. He carried a small stock of alchemical supplies wherever he went and owned a mule named Jak. Jak carried a larger stock of alchemical supplies. In fact, it was something short of a miracle that Jak did not buckle under the weight sometimes. Joseph had a short grey beard, blue eyes and short, stubby hands not used to heavy labor. Which he considered to be below him anyway, being a wizard.
First of the four too, but in walking order, was Arrakan. Arrakan usually attracted a lot of attention, and it was the kind of attention any six feet tall black giant in full plate mail attracted in a town, and that attention was not always good. Guards got nervous when Arrakan was around. Women swooned and cooed. Bandits took the other route. Arrakan the Mighty, the Master of the Blade, occasionally taught the Way of the Blade to the sons of kings. Today however he was not wearing his plate mail. Nobody who is right in the head goes walking through the Wilds while wearing full plate mail.
Third in line but first in wit and quickness was a rather ugly lady, whose face betrayed she had spent most of her childhood on the streets of some god forsaken town thieving and burgling whenever possible. Her name was Sylvie, but whether or not this was her real name not even her companions new. Sylvie wore some sort of leather armour, a bow, a short sword and a quiver of arrows. Currently she was using a knife to skin a rabbit she caught earlier. She liked doing things on the move. It was her way of being prepared. She moved as supple as cat.
Last in line but first in faith was Gerard Upperbrow, member of the Order of the Light and a full Brother of that Order. Gerard was definitely in the prime of his life, mace at the ready, chainmail over his shoulders and a shield strapped to his back. None but the foolhardiest of fools could mistake this man for anything other than he was: a Crusader for the Light and the Lord of All. His boots were polished as often as possible, as was his armor. His entire equipment was in pristine state, as if he never had been knee deep in the corpses of the undead swinging his weapon. Gerard was, according to himself, the embodiment of a Crusader of the Light. This would eventually prove to be his downfall, and that of the others.”
What? A story? Where? Didn’t notice. Nope, I didn’t. It might be that there will be more parts to this story, then again, maybe not. I’m sure though you all recognize the archetypes over there, being the arch-types they are. A wizard, a fighter, a thief and a cleric. The Wizard waves his wand(s) around, in true Merlin-esque style, the fighter masters the powers of the sword, mainly being the cutting and stabbing of people, the thief is an expert in sneakiness and stabbing with some sort of sharp object, preferably in the back of the opponent, and the cleric goes around being nice to people, helping them and bashing in the brains of those who are not classified as “nice.” They are all classes. So, what is a class then?
Some online dictionary tells us that a class is:
1. A set, collection, group, or configuration containing members regarded as having certain attributes or traits in common; a kind or category.
2. A division based on quality, rank, or grade, as:
a. A grade of mail: a package sent third class.
b. A quality of accommodation on public transport: tourist class.
3.
a. A social stratum whose members share certain economic, social, or cultural characteristics: the lower-income classes.
b. Social rank or caste, especially high rank.
c. Informal Elegance of style, taste, and manner: an actor with class.
4. A level of academic development, as in an elementary or secondary school.
5.
a. A group of students who are taught together because they have roughly the same level of academic development.
b. A group of students or alumni who have the same year of graduation.
c. A group of students who meet at a regularly scheduled time to study the same subject.
d. The period during which such a group meets: had to stay after class.
6. Biology A taxonomic category ranking below a phylum or division and above an order. See Table at
taxonomy.
7. Statistics An interval in a frequency distribution.
8. Linguistics A group of words belonging to the same grammatical category that share a particular set of morphological properties, such as a set of inflections.
Which is nice, and I am sure we can, at least for our purposes of roleplaying games, quickly discard numbers 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8. A Barbarian is not a group of students, not taxonomically assigned to a phylum or such other than it being a Homo Sapiens, no interval of a frequency distribution and most certainly not a group of words other than the set of curse words that came out of the player who controls the barbarian that just WW-ed in a pack of monsters in the CS whilst getting IM-ed at the same time (lets pray that particular curse does not make a re-entry in DIII… *shudders* ). Nope, Barbies definitely fall under 1, since all DII Barbarians share a good vitality, a tendency to melee damage, and a general physique that looks the same. Hell, they even wear the same clothes. Who can forget the 1.09 Barbarian with his silly leather hat ("gib Thinking Catp"), his Shaftstop, his Stormshield and his Grandfather or CCBoQ? At times there were like three dozen in a channel, all spamming the same "trade me now for xxx u n00b" message. Number 2 also applies. They were all a division by quality, rank and grade, as the Sorceress fans considered the Barbarian players to be lacking of any power or mental prowess, and only differentiated between one Barbie and the next because of the level of their BO (i.e. BO quality). Since a Sorceress could teleport and a barbarian could not, the barbarians were most certainly also member of the example 3a (lower class… 
). Best applied though is definition 1, to be sure.
Silliness aside, the idea of classes is not new. In human society classes usually represent a level, a status and/or a position in society based upon hereditary traits and/or station, wealth and job-type. The social class of a doctor is higher than that of someone who collects the garbage (I am not judging whether or not this is a good or right thing, that is something different altogether). The social class of the president is again higher than that of a doctor. However, these classes have nothing to do with the role-playing classes. A garbage collector, what kind of class does he have? Is he a fighter, a thief, a wizard or a cleric? Doctors are easily put in the “clerical” class being healers… although some doctors might not believe in God, and some might actually consider themselves to be a god having the powers over life and death. Sometimes they sure act like one. No, role-playing classes do not neatly translate to real life, and real life does not neatly translate to role-playing. The 3rd edition, or 4th edition, or 2nd edition of Dungeons and Dragons ( I lost track somewhere between Dungeons and Dragons 1st ed, Advanced Dungeons and Dragons and DnD 3.5) does its best to add a distinction between NPC classes by means of levels of say "commoner" or say "soldier" and such, but its just a crutch. Unless you model your role-playing system on the real world, a class will simply be (1) a set, collection, group, or configuration containing members regarded as having certain attributes or traits in common; a kind or category, to which a certain combination of skills and character looks have been assigned. That other stuff, numbers 2-8, is just bollocks.
So why the class system? Why not simply allow people to choose a gender, choose a character representation, and then let them pick whatever skills they liked? Well, for one thing, the balance of those skills would be a major pain in the ass. There are a few systems out there that allow a player to do just that (GURPS), and a few games, like Fallout 1 and 2 (and most likely 3 too), and Oblivion, but these are either "pen and paper" role-playing games who are closely moderated by a games master, or single-player games who do not require you to interact with others. There are a few overly powerful combinations in those games too, and relatively easy ways to break the system. Some people choose the overpowering way, others like a jack of all trades like a 2nd edition ADnD Bard, who’s good for everything but good at nothing (apart from singing and dancing). Most role-playing games follow the traditional way set out long ago: They give you a class to play with so that you have a set of pre-defined, finely balanced skills that complement each other but leave some vital weak spot for another class to fill. Rock-paper-scissors is a key element in most games these days, even more so in MMORPGS. Each of the classes fulfill a different role in the party and/or raid, forcing a group of players to work together.
Does it not strike anyone as funny that game developers develop their games in such a way that individualism is both applauded in varied looks and gear, and at the same time stomped in the ground because the Minotaur was Magic Immune and the Wizard Buddy needed his Fighter Buddy, who first needed a bunch of buffs from this Cleric Buddy because the Minotaur was too strong to take without them, whilst the Thief Buddy, magically enchanted to stay invisible by the Wizard Buddy, kept the Minotaur Kids away from the Cleric, thus forcing everyone to join in a happy communion of role-playing? We’ve all seen what happens when players get the freedom to choose cross-class skills and everyone and their dog runs around on battle-net wearing an Enigma, and that which was once Sorceress only territory has now been taken by Paladins and Barbarians, who can teleport just as quick but have a lot more life or an attack that damages everything short of the 1.5 magic immunes in the game. Everyone chooses to play his own game, ignores the rest, grabs the gear and runs with whatever makes them as powerful as soon as possible. Nope, once you do decide to do the class thing, you’d better stick with it and make sure those classes need each other. Personally, I think the cross-class skills usable with rune words was one of the biggest mistakes that Blizzard ever made. However, and that’s something we should always remember, Diablo III will not be rock-paper-scissors. The aim of the development team is to provide something that someone can play on his own, in his house, without friends or the Internet, have fun at and succeed at, with whatever class he chooses. So… Barbarian, Witch Doctor or Wizard, whatever you pick, lets hope you have fun with your class
Stay tuned for next episode, win which I shall take a closer look at the Wizard, ridicule the Necromancer and maybe, just maybe, if you get very lucky, I’ll even continue the story.
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