Fromage

Well I am very much in favor of more political involvement for the player, and I think a robust faction-based system would be a great way to do that. There should be a LOT of them, much like in a MMO (but without their complete irrelevance outside special loot like in MMOs or the ability to join any of them but just go thru a questline with them like in TES). However, I kinda doubt PE is going to be that kinda game. I think it would work best as a core for a game's design, the idea being that many factions would exist and they all would have goals that they were pursuing that the player can help them with, stop them from achieving, or just ignore. In many ways this would be the ultimate sandbox game, not just a simualted physical space you can traverse at your leasure, but a political one, the lack of which has always been my number one disappointment in each and every Bethesda release (I crazily thought that each new game would INcrease the complexity and player agency...ten years later and more fool me, heh). Anyway, that kinda just became a rant about me being disappointed with Bethesda, but the reason I brought them up is that they (and even more so Obsidian with New Vegas) have come the closest to actually achieving that ideal, with the notable failure of not giving them enough depth (which is understandable given the pressures to make more and more graphic intensive games).

See, to my mind, that's what a class is; the only link between a class and your abilities are that only people with certain abilities would be acceptable to be in a class, and society would expect someone with that class to have certain abilities. The way it currently works in most games is that the most fundemental portion of who you are in a class based game is what that class is, and yet at the same time being that class has no effect on you besides what kind of weapons and powers you can use. That's why I recommend making classes more like their closest analogues in the real world; a mix of jobs and titles. I'd rather have it mean something substinative for me to be called a knight, rather then just meaning I wear heavy armor and am good with a sword. This also has the benefit of making the world feel much more alive, and provides a great jumping off point for several quest lines amoung the various institutions and organizations that bestow the classes that could lead to the PC having both gross and subtle effects on the world and its balance of power, even outside the main quest (which it is my understanding is more intimate and personal in nature).

Well we only know that there are classes, not what form they will take, or whether the PC will have to choose one at creation or not. I admit that, most likely, they will; I'm even ok with it. I just figure I'd throw in a suggestion of how I'd like to see it done, just in case they're paying attention, heh.

I've talked about this in another thread, but this one is actually a bit more on target for the discussion I wanted to have anyway so I'll relocate over here. Basically, I propose that class be more of a social issue, albeit one with certain mechanical perks. Basically the world would have several instutions that would be capable of bestowing a class on the characters in the party, and each would have requirements, both for known skills and for public acts, for acceptance (in other words you have to be good at certain things to qualify, and you need to do things that they like). The organization would then provide training and perhaps one or two extra abilities and/or equiptment in exhange for you doing tasks for them. These quests would be in no way required, and in fact you could potentially play the entire game classlessly, albeit with fewer perls (not in the FO sense, necessarily, but that might actually work), but also with fewer limits on your actions and/or requests from your patron.

Backgrounds and race/species are a good replacement for starting class, I agree. They focus your char, especially if, like in Arcanum, they each come with a downside; they also make more sense then labeling someone as a fighter just because they have the barest amount of skill hitting things. Having classes depend on joining institutions should avoid the jack of all trades issue, since each org. would require a certain amount of skill focus to provide its benefits you would be forced to specialize wihile still allowing for someone to play a char without a class (with the downside of not being backed by anyone or having access to special abilities); shoudl provide a nice balance.

@adhin: Exactly, which is why what you're good at should determine what you can be, not the other way round. This is also why I advocate having organizations that bestow titles, as this is how it actually works. People in the middle ages were knights because they were good at beating the hell out of people and someone knighted them. Priests were a part of the institutional worship of a deity. These titles (classes) only have real meaning because of the organizations that created them.

I agree that class pre-dates RPGs. Troop classifications, though, like in class done well, is assigned by how they are equipped, not used as a limiter to prevent them from using certain equipment. In other words, a light cavalry unit can put on extra armor, and lo! they are heavy cavalry. This is not to say that I think class should be all about equipment, of course, but rather that it should be a way to describe someone, not define them. Like in your example of the ranger, if the game warden of a preserve went to town and became a baker, no matter how good he was at the bow he would no longer be a ranger. Far better, to me, is to use class not to define what you can do, but describe what you actually do and how you do it. Providing focus and guidance would then be the purpose of the instituions, each would not only tell you what they would like you to do for them, but how they would like to see you progress.

Generally I don't like classes the way they are used by games, especially when they are referred to by NPCs. I personally advocate completely excising the actual cause though and focusing on skill based development instead of levels. To me, the entire point of classes is to put my character on a certain amount of auto-pilot, so I don't need to worry about certain portions of their abilities, but I actually am interested in guiding those abilities myself. Clearly though the tradition has some interesting ideas, like allowing extra abilities depending on how you've tuned your char., and in that light I approve of them as a shorthand for, "I have trained so hard to stab people in the back I get a bonus at it". I suggest a system whereby the game has several famous individuals and/or groups who offer to take you under their wing and train you, possibly with extra special secret techniques that only they know. Depending on who you work for, you would gain access to different special abilities, and each would depend not only on your skills (though partially so) but also on quests that you've performed for that organization, as well as how, generally, your public values align with theirs (totally possible to play a sociopath here, heh). You could become a knight, but it would be by being especially loyal and upstanding martial specialist for a local Baron (or Thane, or prime minister, or whatever). Perhaps there may be several different nations you could strive for knighthood, each with different special abilities but with roughly similar skill requirements (though severely divergent public values, most likely). This would be, in effect, much like subclasses, but much more attached to the game world in interesting ways.

Here's my pitch: Your characters each have a personal inventory that is limited to what they can wear, equipped weapons and armor mostly, but also small bags around the belt for ammo and potions perhaps (of which you could buy improved versions as the game progressed). and a backpack that can hold maybe an extra weapon or bit of armor. (or actual adventuring gear, like ropes and lanterns, if such things are going to actually be in the game) You would then have the option to hire a squire/servant who would, amoung things (could be a companion in his own right, give bonuses, conversation and what-not) spend the time you spend actually adventuring to haul stuff back to cart or the horses (if you've purchased the same). The inventroy in the cart would be tetrisized, but the personalized inventroy would just be slot based.

Just about anyone would be. More embarassed, perhaps, in certain cases...