Just Pick a Class Already!

I previously mention Spwack on the OSR Discord defining the essence of “OSR” as “Just Play The Damn Game” and thought about Let 'Em Pick as a way to apply that approach to chargen. But that’s just for ability scores. What about classes?

Picking your own class is the default. I’m not interested in taking away that choice, or randomizing it. But secondary talents (bonus class abilities) hold some promise. Also, some way for players to defer picking a class until later, allowing them to just start playing and filling in details later.

I previously dabbled in a class construction system, still incomplete, which might be something I want to explore more. But during my class explorations, I came up with a bunch of “Talent” classes – basically, thieves with their thief skills replaced with something else, like the Leech, Apothecary, and Sage. Also explored some classes that focused on reaction rolls, like Charmer and Beastmaster, or magical relatives like the Necromancer, Weather-Worker, and Mesmerist. Many of these classes looked interesting to me, but might be a hard sell for the typical player, who might not see the adventuring potential… unless they were were in addition to a character’s primary class.

So, we could have a table of secondary classes, perhaps two tables, one for Fighter types and one for Magic-User types. Players would have three options:

1. No Secondary Class. Get the XP adjustment based on prime requisite for their main class.
2. Pick a Secondary Class. No XP adjustment.
3. Random Secondary Class. Secondary class would get some kind of bonus (for example, Fighter/Apothecaries might know extra medicinal recipes.)

I’ll have to think more about the tables before I write them up, and also need to work on how deferring class choice until later would work.


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