FRDT Author - The Meta Weta

Now that we have our basic and not-so-basic stats for our hypothetical game, we need to talk about classes. About time, too, I am such a slack blogger.  But before we can get stuck into individual character classes, we need to talk about class categories . We've already got The Big Three divisions of Fighter, Rogue and Mage, so what else is there? Well, c haracter classes are essentially jobs : the specific role that a class plays in order to Make It Work, whatever 'It' happens to be: saving the world, defeating the dark lord, baking a cake, whatever.  It is interesting to note that when designing any system in which you have different roles for different characters, you can never quite get away from the spectre of specialisation . If you want multiple classes for people to choose from, you need to have them be good or bad at different things: there truly seems to be no way around it, at least none that I can think of. It's also still u p in the air whether this system ...

I don't really believe in Hack & Slash Dungeon Crawlers. Which is weird, because I've played quite a few over the years and have even occasionally enjoyed it.  Grim but fun! For those not familiar with the genre, Hack & Slashers and Dungeon Crawlers are frequently overlapping genres of video game where the primary focus is usually on murdering hundreds upon hundreds of monsters and collecting the piles of loot that explode out of them upon death like grisly pinatas. It's an exaggeration of the usual style of Role-Playing Game, be it paper-based or in video game form, where goblins inexplicably vomit up plate armour and heroes are often only as great as the trousers they wear.  These pants, for instance, are probably smarter, stronger and more dexterous than their owner.  Time-consuming, repetitive, a lack of actual constructed content and an over-reliance on procedurally generated loot with all the heart and soul of a Wall Street banker should ...