Splats. Clans. Careers. Archetypes. Whatever. Comes down to this: I love character classes.
A good class tells you something about a character’s relationship to the world. Where they come from, how they interact.
There’s a lot of argument over what the “core” classes for Dungeons & Dragons are. For me, they’re Fighter, Thief and Magic User. Each of these characters represents a different way of interacting with the D&D world: combat, tricks or spells. In early versions of D&D, each of these interactions operates on an entirely different mechanical system, though they also each overlap.
Vampire: The Requiem‘s clans work the same way. Each one represents a distinct take on the vampire from genre media. (Except, arguably, the Mekhet, something we struggled with for a while.) Following the nineties fad for universal point buy systems, any vampire can do anything, but the system gives you cost breaks for choosing powers that fit the clan concept.
Vampire clans also say something about where your character comes from. A Ventrue neonate might come from as many different backgrounds as a D&D fighter, but he automatically gets something a D&D hero doesn’t: a family.
In future posts, I’m going to be looking at individual character classes from D&D, as well as different class schema, their impact on play, and my personal feelings about what they represent and which are the best.
Yes and no: classes are a mechanical construction to facilitate strategic combat encounters, giving you a template through which to direct and focus player attention. Non-class systems (Noblis, Amber, et al) elide classes because they elide combat in all but the most cursory ways. Hypothesis: Systems which are meant to be about character interaction require less scaffolding in the form of a class system. Vampire here is the exception to the rule, since it wants to be *both* so it has classes, but makes them ‘races’ (to steal and mis-use the D&D classification). GURPS exists somewhere over to the left, poking a rock with a stick. It’s interested in logical conflict, which requires more precision than classes can give (without turning needlessly atomic: I’m looking at you, Palladium). And it’s arguably the only place Point-Buy makes much sense.
Classes aren’t just for combat systems, though. D&D got some of its first non-combat rules through the thief class.
White Wolf’s use of a class system was actually suggested by Chris McDonough in response to players being intimidated by straight point-buy in early playtests of Vampire: The Masquerade. There was an assumption early on that more advanced players would play clanless.
Of course, that’s not how things worked out at all. The clans became the central element of the IP… and one of the most-borrowed ones. So, like every other breakout success in gaming, Vampire grew up to be something other than what its original volumes suggest. (I think this is fascinating and kind of great).
The clans, however, are very representative of what AD&D classes (and those across the hobby) grew up to be: a mixture of combat and non-combat abilities. The d20 system and the second World of Darkness both pushed this idea pretty hard.
D&D 4 pushes back into the idea that your character’s class is primarily a fighting style, with non-combat mechanical interaction being handled by rituals and skills.
In MMOs, classes are pretty much exclusively fighting styles. Yes, there are some games that try to put crafters into their own class… notice how rarely you hear about them.
Classes aren’t just for combat systems, though. D&D got some of its first non-combat rules through the thief class.
White Wolf’s use of a class system was suggested by Chris McDonough in response to players being intimidated by straight point-buy in early playtests of Vampire: The Masquerade. There was an assumption early on that more advanced players would play clanless.
Of course, that’s not how things worked out at all. The clans became the central element of the IP… and one of the most-borrowed ones. So, like every other breakout success in gaming, Vampire grew up to be something other than what its original volumes suggest. (I think this is fascinating and kind of great).
The clans, however, are very representative of what AD&D classes (and those across the hobby) grew up to be: a mixture of combat and non-combat abilities. The d20 system and the second World of Darkness both pushed this idea pretty hard.
D&D 4 pushes back into the idea that your character’s class is primarily a fighting style, with non-combat mechanical interaction being handled by rituals and skills.
In MMOs, classes are pretty much exclusively fighting styles. Yes, there are some games that try to put crafters into their own class… notice how rarely you hear about them.
My problem with classes goes back to Basic/AD&D “Magic-Users can’t wear armor” and “Clerics can’t use edged weapons.”
Says who? Will some god-like force strike a wizard down should he or she dare attempt to don breastplate? Will the cleric’s hand stop mid-swing if it holds a sword? The classes were, from the start, VERY meta-gamey.
At least the Vampire clans place these differences into the game itself. Though, we could argue about the realism of those advantages and cost-reductions as well.
Clanless was the original idea from VtM? Looking back at how much I dug the Clans as an idea from the outset as an in-game explanation for different kinds of vampires which added to the political complexities of the thing, that really surprises me.
I can see it in reference back to the Anne Rice model, where “the dark gift is different for each of us” or words to that effect, but at the time the Clans were an “of course, that makes perfect sense” idea.
I should add that I came to Vampire without having seen Ars Magica, which I believe did it first.
“Clanless was the original idea from VtM? Looking back at how much I dug the Clans as an idea from the outset as an in-game explanation for different kinds of vampires which added to the political complexities of the thing, that really surprises me.”
My understanding is that it was one of those lightning bolt moments in developing the game, where an idea just sprang to life.
I’m glad it did.
(And damn, that was a terrible example of sentence structure on my part!)