Informal bit
Before going any further let me start by saying that what follows absolutely does not
pass muster for what I consider an actual post but that with your, the reader’s,
help this can be somewhat remedied. I’m churning the inkpot for something a
darker shade of tangible at the end of the week. Until then, pray read on.
As the months pass me by, I keep being amazed at how incredibly
adept I’ve proven at eluding both my higher cognition and a player base in
pursuit of yet more rule structures. Must be this ‘enthusiasm’ thing I keep
hearing about. It’ll be a couple of posts yet before I actually roll up the
sleeves for the matter at hand, but it is already shaping as a practical next
step to keep me off the streets gaming table: the gradual reinterpretation
of different character life-paths and careers as distinct entries.
It stands to reason that the victory lap that is a landing
page would be reserved for the end of
a series, as might soon be the case with the Bones of Adventure, but for a
couple of considerations: firstly, that my mind has difficulties with the concepts of closure and letting go; secondly, me figuring that
for once I might take the chance to let in the faintest whiff of breathable air and foster some interaction
on this cloistered blog: given as certain that I ought to lean into the different character classes at
some point in the near future, it’s also true that I currently have no
particular order nor table demand pulling my focus this way or that, inviting
the thought that no harm would come from affording whoever gives my ramblings
the time of day the chance to pipe up with a preference.
Associating this freeform polling to such a long-running string
of future posts means it’ll enjoy the advantage of being valid for a long, long
while, as a new reader or player seeing this for the first time six months from
now could still plonk down some sort of worthwhile reply.
In case you’re wondering what hashdream propelled this idea, a significant part came from the all-too-modern concern with “Separating the Men from
the bots”*. Taking the numbers at face value, I’ve pretty much cornered the pen-and-paper
outdoorsmanship houserules market among slavic botnets. And southeast Asia seems
ripe for the plucking, too, so a cat gets curious.
*(girls definitely allowed in the treehouse, the
wordplay just wouldn’t fetch otherwise)
Slightly less informal
bit
This won’t be anything too fancy, I'll just start by
digging a small trench and progress further down one shovel-sweep at a time
until the writing starts hitting rock, each write-up being meant to only brush the wide
angle, inform a new player on what a given class is about and go a couple of
levels deep at most, as doing more would mean committing my limited time
allowance to things that may simply not be getting used anytime soon.
The whole thing will doubtlessly take a while and I can’t
compromise with much beyond, when settling down to write up a
character class, heading for the general direction of the one currently most
voted for, as according to the precepts of digital democracy: one screen-name, one vote; multiple handles
that I cannot in any way verify, multiple votes.
I’m not up for anything exotic at least before reaching the end of the PHB’s rope and, truth be told, the starting focus ought to be on
the game’s core classes (Cleric, Fighter, Thief, Wizard), though conceding
that part of the point of this post is that I can indeed be swayed by gently whispered sweet nothings.
Update:
Two months later a class write-up finally appears. Doves are
released from the rooftops and children are christened with my impractical
nickname as I expand this joint into almost a post.
Technical bit
Mechanicswise, the present edition does little that’s new
and even less that’s good. Looking specifically at character mechanical complexity, the
scion of the game’s ‘modern’ lineage started with Third exhibits a rather high
density of impotent crunch: if it happens outside of combat, it’s probably not
worth talking about, if it takes time, it’s probably a minute and nothing is so serious that it cannot simply be slept away. Build options are thankfully minimized, complexity has been downtuned and the aesthetic
remains post-MtG high fantastic, though I could spell it given just four letters too.
It is a venereal truism that things you’re exposed to first often end up
leaving a mark. Fourth edition was, for practically all intents and purposes, a
different game but it's what I was weaned on and maybe my taste got just a
tad bit spoiled (I remember using a “handbook” and a software builder to make
my very first character). Looking back at older, simpler editions it all seems
a little sparse by comparison.
Characters, unless they’re spellcasters, grew in power numerically more often
than not, with qualitative gains tucked away at the fringes of each class’s
level structure, which is why I’d have a hard time considering play with a
non-spellcaster in such a version of the game: apart from spells, the differentiators
between classes are just too damn bare.
Since the start my whole noodling has straddled the line
between being a faux-modern take on classic DnD and a faux-oldschool take
on the current edition (i.e. a trap, in Ackbarian terms). The faux’ness itself ending up as the only element I could really settle on, I’ve done like real men do and
avoided compromise for as long as possible, keeping everything modular. Now, sitting down to define
character classes the feeling of being cornered looms, as I fear what follows is sure to paint my efforts firmly in either one
corner of the ring or the other.
Alternated readings across editions have brought some clearness of thought, deliberations slowly emerging regarding where I’m going with this. On the one hand it is understood that modern DnD in general is very kitchen-sinky, on the other it is licit to point that previous iterations of classes were rife with corner-case flavouring that simply never materialized at the table.
To clarify the equation, a little spark of the new school moves my design efforts: I
want mechanically rich, somewhat complex classes.
To muddy it comes the old school side of the silver piece: I want them to be grounded and visceral,
avoiding the feel and texture of plate-mailed superheroes.
Since I’m a sucker for both having and eating, the result has me faced with what appears to be an orthodontic quest: to stab some rusted implants on the barren gummy plain utterly bereft of teeth known to us as the current
edition.
Current Listing of Character Classes:
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