The Prestige of Character Classes

I played in a few D&D 3.5 games back before I had developed any kind of distinct preferences about complexity and game feel within the TTRPG space. D&D 3.5 was simply the game other people I knew played; I was years away from learning about the then-nascent PBTA, OSR, and sundry indie movements.

Knowing games like I know them now – knowing my own preferences – I have little interest in playing, running, or designing for 3.5 or its descendants. But aspects of its design do stick with me, interest me, and provoke thoughts about our games.

Remember prestige classes? These were classes in 3.5 (and its offshoots, like Pathfinder) that PCs could access through multiclassing. They were different from ordinary classes in a number of ways, principally that they required various prerequisites (skill ranks, feats, and so forth) before the players could take them. Because of the prerequisites, prestige classes weren’t available from level one; but through careful planning, players could steer their characters toward a prestige class that would deliver a particularly specific character concept. 

Prestige classes were emblematic of 3.5’s emphasis on mechanically complex characters. Much of the online discussion of 3.5 was consumed with character builds and optimization guides, where prestige classes figured prominently. More power to players who enjoyed (and still enjoy) this style of play, but the mechanical implementation of these prestige classes was not for me. It required too much planning ahead, and it felt too removed from the in-game events that might organically shape a character.

But the fiction of many of those prestige classes was still evocative. Many characters in fiction are defined more by drastic changes in their abilities – transforming or changing into something different – rather than just becoming incrementally better at each level, as where a 13th level fighter becomes marginally more effective at, well, fighting when they hit level 14. Is there some way to capture that energy, without the heavy-duty mechanical implementation?

Back to the Backgrounds

Backgrounds are one of 5E’s best (and least-appreciated) features. They’re flexible but flavorful, and can make a character three-dimensional in a way that ancestry-plus-class can’t do by itself.

But they’re often forgotten in 5E games. A few proficiencies, languages, and a narrow-use-case special ability fade into the background (sorry) as characters gain flashier class powers. How could we put more focus on those backgrounds?

Let’s start our characters at level zero. A level zero character simply uses the commoner stat block from the Monster Manual, plus a single background of their choice. These people are ordinary; we’re talking about an adventuring party that starts out with 10s across the board for ability scores. (This doesn’t mean their ability scores suddenly and mysteriously jump up when they hit first level; they simply have not yet been able to leverage or express their natural abilities just yet.)

After an introductory adventure or two – a funnel, if possible, so the players aren’t too precious with these fragile characters – they can qualify for classes. D&D 5E assumes no particular link between backgrounds and classes, which certainly has its merits; less-obvious background/class combinations like “criminal paladin” or “entertainer monk” certainly can make for interesting character concepts. But for this exercise – drawing from prestige class ideas – we’ll constrain ourselves to binary choices.

Acolyte. You grew up in or around a religious institution; one day, you had to make a choice. When you reach first level, choose devotee (cleric) or heretic (warlock).

Charlatan. You could never fit in with the rules and structure of a “normal” life. When you reach first level, choose trickster (rogue) or wanderer (bard).

Criminal. You have always lived outside the law. When you reach first level, choose deceiver (rogue) or thug (fighter).

Entertainer. You’re most at home in the spotlight. When you reach first level, choose musician (bard) or magician (sorcerer).

Folk Hero. You stood up for the little guy. When you reach first level, choose pugilist (monk) or paragon (paladin).

Guild Artisan. You were a craftsperson before your training took you in an unusual direction. When you reach first level, choose journeyman (wizard) or fortune-seeker (rogue).

Hermit. You were always on your own, until you joined an adventuring party. When you reach first level, choose loner (ranger) or ascetic (druid).

Noble. You were part of the aristocracy. When you reach first level, choose knight (fighter) or priest (cleric).

Outlander. You were most at home in wild places that would test even the bravest. When you reach first level, choose warden (ranger) or nomad (barbarian).

Sage. Your search for knowledge was what led you to a life of adventure. When you reach first level, choose savant (wizard) or bedlamite (warlock).

Sailor. Even sailing the seas wasn’t excitement enough for you. When you reach first level, choose pirate (rogue) or explorer (ranger). 

Soldier. You fought in wars before you delved into dungeons. When you reach first level, choose veteran (fighter) or scout (ranger).

Urchin. You grew up in the streets with no one to look out for you but yourself. When you reach first level, choose mendicant (rogue) or scrapper (fighter).

And there we have it! Yes, this is quite unbalanced; some classes appear many times, while others appear only once. But that could be a feature, not a bug. In this example, fighters, rogues, and rangers would make up half of the class options, implying a considerably less-magical world. 

With a few changes to the choices above, it would be easy enough to create an entirely different menu of options. What prestigious choices would characters make in your game?

Defacing the Party Face

Skill-based games struggle with resolving action organically when PCs are hyper-aware of which character is best at what. A player will outline an entire elaborate plan for solving a problem; the DM will call for a roll; and the player will immediately switch gears and start proposing reasons why another PC (who was silent throughout the aforementioned process) should execute the action (because their character has a 5-10% better chance of succeeding).

Some games solve this through various mechanical details or table rules. But can we help the ones that don’t?

Everyone Has Something to Say

While watching the last Guardians of the Galaxy movie, I was struck by how frequently the members of the titular adventuring party undermined their own plans because one or more of them couldn’t keep their mouths shut. Sure, social interaction is easy when the bard does the talking, and everyone else stands mutely behind them. It’s a little more challenging if the barbarian feels the need to interject with unhelpful or overly revealing commentary.

What if there was a game rule that the scene doesn’t end until every character speaks? Or, for larger adventuring parties, at least two characters (besides the charismatic “face”) speak?

The goal is to get some friction into the dialogue. Some PCs will be tempted to just say “yeah, what he said.” PBTA systems and other games that provide a mechanical payoff for the player failing, acting suboptimally to advance the narrative, or otherwise indulging a flaw can do this most easily. But it can work in any kind of game where the players buy into the idea and trust the DM to encourage them to cause interesting problems without responding punitively. 

Actions Speak Louder Than Words 

Let’s take another page from fiction. Movies, TV shows, and books are good at moving the spotlight from one character to another to make sure the story gives each of them something to do. Many of the same tricks work in a TTRPG.

How to move the spotlight after the face makes their case? It’s easy:

• The chieftain respects strength and strength alone; an arm-wrestling contest with the warrior would bring him around.
• The security system is unmoved by guile; it wants the cyborg to explain why you need to get in, using reason and logic.
• The fence agrees to find the missing artifact, but only if another member of the brotherhood of scoundrels (like, say, the party criminal) personally vouches for the deal.
• The elemental only speaks primordial, the language the dwarf PC got at level one and promptly forgot about. The elemental can’t make sense of the nattering, flighty language of man; say it  again, in words of stone and fire.

No More Talk

Implicit in some of the examples above is that a good rule for handling social situations is to know when and how to end the dialogue.

In listening to some actual play podcasts recently, I’ve been driven up the wall by GMs who will let players cajole, wheedle, beg, hector, and berate NPCs long after the interesting part of the conversation has ended. This is doubly bad in a podcast, where the session has to be entertainment for an audience, in addition to the players. But it should still be avoided in games where the players themselves are the only audience.

A terribly underrated tool is to simply say “they don’t buy your arguments and are no longer listening to you. It looks like you’ll have to explore some other way to get what you want, or come back to them after the situation has changed in some way and there’s a new argument to make.” Phrase it as narration  rather than in-voice dialogue, so it’s clear that you’re moving on to something else. This can be a little frustrating in the short term to players who want to “win” every interaction and scene they participate in, but it pays dividends in the medium to long term, with tighter, more interesting sessions.

Revenge of the Rejects

Players love to roll up new characters. The randomness and uncertainty is thrilling, and the process encourages players to discover their characters through creation rather than fulfilling a pre-decided ideal. But since the early days of the RPG hobby, people have debated the best way to do this. 

Today, I settle this debate. I have detailed below the best system for D&D-style 3-to-18 base statistics (OK, I have not tested this yet, so it may not in fact be the best system).

Players roll their character’s abilities straight down the line. No point buy, no standard array, no 4d6 drop-the-lowest. Maybe allow a single swap of any two stats (ala Knave 1.0), but that’s it. We want very quick, straightforward characters.

Here’s the trick: Players can reroll any number of times. What, you might reasonably ask, is preventing them from simply rerolling endlessly, until they get a character with exclusively good-to-great stats?

Option 1: They’re Going to Hold This Against You

The answer is simple. The DM keeps each character that the players reject. Each of those rejected characters becomes an NPC in the game. Each rejected character is an antagonist or rival to the group as a whole, or -- better yet -- to the player who passed on them. 

The intensity of their enmity goes up incrementally the more characters a player rejects. The first one they turn down might be a schoolyard rival or nosey neighbor. The tenth one is going to be a major world power or potential campaign antagonist.

Option 2: Group Draft

Each player rolls the first of six stats, writes it down, and then decides to either hold onto the sheet or pass it clockwise. Players opting to pass circulate their sheets amongst the other passing players. A player who passes their sheet and doesn't accept someone else's can start a new sheet. If all players reject a particular sheet, the DM gets that character sheet. This process continues until all players settle on a completed character sheet.

The DM keeps all the sheets that weren't claimed and uses them to collectively build an antagonist, villain, or organization integral to the scenario. This person or organization's strength in the world is proportional to the number of sheets the DM received (for example, the number of sheets could equal HD for a monster, or number of hexes controlled by an enemy army). If the DM chooses to make them an NPC or monster, the DM can pick and choose the best statistics from among the sheets they received. If they choose to make them an organization, faction, or something more abstract, the numbers can still inform how the resulting antagonistic force works.

Feels Within Wheels: NPC Reactions

In June, the Goblin's Henchman blog posted a cool idea for visualizing NPCs.

I’m often struck by how we try to help people by stuffing them full of words, when what they really need is a simple, elegant diagram (as someone who writes first and foremost, this was a tough thing to learn; but an important lesson all the same).

I really like this idea, but I knew that I would need something a little different for my own use. I need a tool that more specifically implies movement or development from one state to another. So my idea is something like this.

Spinning the Wheel of Values

I used an “emotion wheel” as a simple frame for what values might drive NPCs (a quick search will turn up many other examples of varying complexity). I don’t remember where I first saw these, but if you spend enough time thinking about RPGs, everything you encounter in the wild starts to look like a game mechanic or adjudication system. In addition to the Goblin’s Henchman post, this idea probably owes something to this old Sorcerer’s Skull post that I have cited before. 

Remember that NPCs should not (generally) attempt to simulate the complexity of real people. They are game mechanisms meant to create interesting interactions with the PCs. Just a few emotions are enough to create an actionable character; more details just bog down action at the table.

For example, rolling to choose values randomly, I populate an NPC with Love (the innermost level); Affectionate and Longing (at the intermediate level); and Sentimental and Romantic (outermost level). With just those five ideas, I can already visualize this character. Affection and longing suggest they’re separated from what they love. They’re also romantic, so we’ll say this is a non-platonic kind of love. But they’re also sentimental, which suggests to me nostalgia; I interpret this as someone longing for a love they have lost; perhaps they were widowed.

Social interaction with this character happens like this. Love is the surface level. On a cursory interaction, this person is warm and caring. But if the interaction goes beyond the superficial – because the PCs need something from this NPC, for example – the NPC comes across either as affectionate or longing. Viewing the NPC as a game tool reactive to PC action, we might say that empathy, persuasion, and gift-giving pushes the NPC toward their affectionate mode, while coercion, logic, or appeals to authority are more likely to push this NPC into melancholic longing.

If the PCs deepen the interaction and succeed again in going "deeper" (more on “success” below) the interaction can advance to the outermost level. If the PCs had followed the longing path, it develops to sentimental (the widow tells their story, perhaps gaining some closure in the process). If the PCs’ actions had pushed the NPC more toward affection, further development moves into romance (whether directly, because a PC flirted with the widow; or indirectly, by reminding them of the virtue of loving again, perhaps by relating a similar experience in their own life).

Adversity and Variety

If the PCs fail – they badly misread the NPC, or otherwise act in a way that really pushes against the NPC’s core values – the wheel also suggests a response with the entries on the opposite side of the wheel. So a failure might reset the players back to the innermost circle, and push them to the opposite wedge. Imagine an NPC interaction that begins with Surprise, then develops to Stunned. At this point, the PCs mess up. They’re pitched back into the innermost circle, and now the NPC is dominated by Fear! The PCs will have to ameliorate the situation before they can return the NPC to their “natural” track.

The descending relationships implied by the wheel are helpful for restricting choices to a manageable range. But we’re not bound by the wheel’s structure. Let’s create a character that draws from the entire wheel. This character will probably be a bit more dramatic and unpredictable than our affectionate and sentimental widow.

Rolling randomly, I get Surprise (innermost circle); Despair and Proud (intermediate circle); and Contempt and Dismayed (Outermost Circle). Surprise suggests they’re in a state of turmoil and disruption when the PCs encounter them. Despair and pride are their two reactions to this turmoil; the PCs can push them toward one or the other. We can pair the outermost terms with whatever intermediate terms we like; let’s match despair with dismay, and pride with contempt. Encouraging PCs could push their feelings of despair into mere dismay; that’s a relative improvement! This person may be inherently pessimistic, but the PCs can at least cheer them up and get them from hopelessness to… modest hopes. Pride pairs well with contempt; no matter how their fortunes have fallen, this person considers themselves better than others. By stroking their ego, perhaps pitting them against a group they look down on, clever PCs convince them to do what they want.

Success in Any Social System

This approach is system-neutral by design, so “success” and “failure” can vary depending on the system. In a storytelling or FKR game, it can simply be GM judgment (or group consensus in a GM-less game). In a crunchier system, the appropriate ability check or equivalent test does the work of moving from state to state.

Obviously not everything the PCs do will slot neatly into the binary forks this system suggests. That’s fine. The GM can choose the option that is marginally closer, or just whichever seems to make sense in context. Remember, the purpose of the tool is not to provide a “right” or “correct” answer; it is to create a choice that moves the GM quickly toward the next step in the process and avoids analysis paralysis. It’s a shortcut for the GM to get to what they think is right, not a way of telling the GM what the correct answer is.

Dungeon 23: The Art of Stopping

I stuck a fork in my Dungeon 23 project earlier this year. Through the spring, personal commitments, work, and my home games devoured all of the time I had set aside for Dungeon 23, and by the time the smoke cleared, it was obvious it would require a major increase in work just to catch up, much less get back into fighting form. So it goes.

But… I don’t feel bad about it.

Certainly we’re all familiar with lapsed resolutions and “year-long” projects that die miserable deaths by St. Patrick’s Day. Our instinct is to slink away from them in shame because they “failed.” 

I think it’s instead more helpful to think of ways we can extract value from a “failed” project. Many nominally wasted experiences are valuable if we just make the effort to learn things from them.

Doing Double Duty 

In my initial post, I decided to make my Dungeon 23 project from scratch, and not tie it to either a game I was running or something I would publish for others to run.

This was a mistake.

I think the theory in that post was fine, but in practice, it doomed the enterprise, because when time got tight, everything else took precedence over Dungeon 23. The hierarchy was something like this: 

• Family and friends
• Home games (an extension of the above)
• Work 
• Blogging and creating stuff for others
• Dungeon 23

Looking at it that way, of course Dungeon 23 fell by the wayside. If it had been, from the beginning, something I was going to share with others, it would have been much easier to prioritize that Dungeon 23 work. As a private project, it lost out to everything else.

Salvaging the Wreckage

In my original Dungeon 23 post, I wrote the following:

All misfit toys are welcome. No failed campaign notes, unused session prep, or aborted Itch.io publication is ever wasted so long as it could still rise again, animated by dark necromancy, to become part of a new project. One or more of my past projects will surely be absorbed into this process.

Well, the same is true for Dungeon 23 itself. All the work I did early this year is still ripe for reuse in other games and projects. I still use the generator that appeared in my original post, and it will probably be my go-to dungeon-population tool in the future. I don’t think I’ll ever finish my Dungeon 23 dungeon; but I’d be even more surprised if no element of it ever made it out into the world all the same.