There are Only Three Classes - Game Design Theory

What are Classes?

What is the point of classes in your TTRPG? Classes offer different categorizations of character options, but beyond that, what is the value of a class system? Classically, their value comes in distinguishing playstyles or roles in an adventuring party. Each class has a specialty meaning they can do something that the other classes cannot! If classes start to blend together, or if classes begin to overlap, then some classes risk become redundant.

Some classes systems are strictly mechanical, but some class systems describe your character's place in the setting. For example, the word fighter is an abstract word. As a class, it describes anyone who is trained in the art of war, but a soldier is a fighter with allegiance to a country. A knight or samurai are a part of social class. Further, the class of knight and samurai describes the character's cultural (and maybe even ethnical) origin. Some class systems also give titles to your character at different levels.

Pure Classes

Truely there are only three types of pure classes.

Fighter - guy who bonks, wears armor, uses shields; for conventual combat

Rogue - guy with uncommon, usually non-combat skills; a utility class

Mage - guy who casts magical spells; extraordinary and supernatural stuff

I call these the three basic classes. I'm going to refer to these three classes throughout this post, although, apologies, I might not use the class names consistently; Rogues are also known as thief, mages are also known as magic-user.

Combination Classes

Some classes are effectively a combination of classes or combo class for lack of a better term. For example, the cleric as it was originally published in the original D&D game was a little bit of a fighter and a little bit of a magic-user. It was something of an in between. What distinguishes cleric from fighter is they can't use as many weapons and armor. What distinguishes cleric from magic-user is clerics get a different spell list, and it didn't have the as much spell variety. Further, clerics have their own specialty in turning the undead and a roleplay restriction that required them to be an ethically or morally lawful / good character. Note that to create a combination class that's not excessively powerful, you must get some but not all benefits of one class, and some but not all benefits of the other class, and possibly some other restrictions or requirements.

Variant Classes

Over the years, other classes have been added. Paladin, Ranger, and Barbarian were originally variants of the fighter in Advanced D&D, not separate classes, which makes sense because fighter does not describe a specific type of warrior. Fighter abstractly describes any and all types of warriors. If you don't like the term variant class, you could also go with a sub-class. A ranger is a fighter who trades his heavy armor for tracking skills to fight beasts and outlaws on the edge of civilization. Barbarian comes from the Greek "barbaros" meaning foreigner, and so a barbarian is just a fighter from another culture, usually a culture with a lower level of technological development. A scald (I think this was mentioned in some unearthed arcana or other supplemental magazine) is a warrior poet. Scalds make records of the battles they participate in as a song or poem. I think it was a prototype of a bard. By the way, a bard is actually a rank for a druid-in-training, not whatever modern D&D says. Fantasy, am I right?

Prestige Classes

Some games have prestige classes. These are classes that are earned through play. In D&D 3e, arcane trickster and eldritch knight were both prestige classes. Knight and Samurai are, in my mind, prestige classes. Both knight and samurai are types of fighters, but they have a social rank. The elevated social status means you have privileges, but also duties and allegiances, and even a code of conduct. These positions must therefore be earned, or granted by an ranking NPC, hence why they're prestigious. I would also argue that a paladin is a prestige class because paladin comes from the latin word palatinus which means "of the palace"; a paladin was therefore a member of the palace. Who lives in a palace? Nobles and royalty. Ordinary warriors do not become paladins. How did paladins become religious warriors? Because they serve a lord whose authority comes from a higher power (God). God blesses the king, and so, paladins, being of loyalty to a king blessed by God, and being of faith in that God, get just a touch of that blessing. This is why paladins can perform lay on hands and turn undead and etc.

Specialties

What's important about classes is that they have a specialty or a niche. This means that there is something that only they can do that no one else can do, or alternatively, no one else can do as well as they can! If a class doesn't have a niche, then there's no point in having them as a distinct class. Maybe you should opt for a skill-based system rather than a class-based system.

If you have a class that isn't the best at doing what it does, then why would you pick them? For example, in 5th edition D&D, there is the Rogue class and the Ranger class. The Ranger can get the survival skill and they can be double-proficient in it, unlike the ranger. Furthermore, the 5e Rogue has a combat action called Sneak Attack which allows them to add a bunch of bonus damage dice to an attack roll if a condition (having advantage) is met. Meanwhile, the 5e Ranger class has a Hunter's Mark bonus action. Get a load of this. It costs a bonus action to use it to mark a target or to mark a new target. When you attack a marked target, you get to add an additional damage die. Just one. Want to know how to simplify this? Just give the ranger a bonus damage die when they attack. They would still be doing less damage than a Rogue's Sneak Attack. So, if a 5e Rogue can track better than a 5e Ranger, and do more damage than a ranger, why pick Ranger? In my opinion, the other 5e Ranger options are meh. In my opinion, the designers of modern editions of D&D have trivialized the ranger as a distinct class and they should just make the ranger a subclass of either rogue or fighter (or maybe they can make it a floating subclass?). The reasons why they haven't are up to speculation, and I'm not usually one for that.

Designing a Class System

One of my favorite examples of games with a class system is Lamentations of the Flame Princess; it's a retroclone of D&D Basic Expert (or B/X) from 1984. To my recollection, you can download the players handbook and referee guide (both books without pictures) for free on the website! What I like about the LotFP Fighter is that they are the only class that gets a scaling to-hit bonus. Every other class only gets a +1 to-hit bonus, but Fighter's to-hit bonus is equal to their level. Why do I like this? Because it makes the fighter distinct. Really, why would a magic-user grow in martial proficiency as they level up? You could argue that they'd get a little better over time, but do we really need rules for that? For simplicity, I would say just nah.

In the Thief Class (the old name for the Rogue) section of the LotFP book is where the game describes skills. Why? Because you don't need skills to be in a separate chapter because only the Thief needs skills. Duh. Skills are rolled on a six-sided die in LotFP. The book says the referee can permit any player to roll a skill check if it is reasonable, but they succeed by rolling a 1. In other words, the other classes have a 16.67% chance to succeed a skill check if the referee rules it's allowed. The thief is the only character who can do all the skill rolls and can improve them as they level up.

The Magic-User Class in LotFP is the only class that can do magic (asterisk, there is a cleric class and an Elf class). In summary, if you want to hit things, be a fighter. If you want to do skills, be a thief. If you want to cast spells, be a magic-user. That's a class system.

Re-Flavoring an Existing Class Rather than Creating a New One

The LotFP Magic-User is the only class who can cast spells. There is a fully designed Cleric class in the book, but I've heard the game's author say that there really isn't a cleric class in his head because the Cleric in LotFP in his setting is just a magic-user who thinks he's a cleric because all magic-users are a little crazy. This makes sense because the LotFP book does not distinguish magic-user spells from cleric spells, and the mechanical distinctions between Magic-User and Cleric in LotFP are minor. I think I like this a lot! It says to me that if you want to be some other class, all you have to do is pick a standard class and flavor it as something else.

I really like this idea. I would rather have this as an option than a long, long catalog of distinct classes. Why? Because I don't need that! It's bloat! It's clutter! And because I want to make my own stuff. I want looseness and flexibility in my games! I don't want players looking at a catalog and asking "is this it?"  If you want to be a Paladin, pick Fighter and flavor it like a religious character. If you want to be a Druid, pick Cleric and re-flavor it as the priest of a nature religion or a nature wizard or whatever the eff a fantasy druid is. Etc. There's no need to design distinct, separate classes that are basically the same with minor differences.

Balance

Did you notice I never once mentioned jack crap about balance? Attempting to balance the character classes is probably what ruins the class system. Classes should have specialties. There should absolutely be things that some classes cannot do, or if they can all do it, the rest of the classes have the basic, minimal chance that any normal man would have at doing it. The trouble with balancing classes is that it's work, it's unnecessary work, and you probably can't achieve a perfectly balanced class-based game with classes that feel distinct. I feel that the wizard class is trivialized by the presence of other magic classes.

Proposed Alternatives

Five Torches Deep is a 5e compatible game that made four classes. I don't recall exactly, but it's basically fighter, magic-user, thief, and cleric, but with different names. All of the 5e classes appear as subclasses. Fighter, Barbarian, and Monk might have been subclasses of the Warrior. Thief, Bard, and Ranger might have been subclasses of the Rogue. Druid, Paladin, and Cleric might have been subclasses of the Zealot. And finally, wizard, sorcerer, and warlock are subclasses of the Mage. Why? Because you're taking the four basic classes, the most basic classes, and you're using them as a base. Then you're creating distinct flavors of each base. That is so effing slick! Seriously, look up Five Torches Deep!

Olde Swords Reign (is free online by the way!) is 5e compatible and also uses the four basic classes of fighter, specialist (instead of thief), magic-user, and cleric. There are no subclasses or variant classes. Instead, the game takes all the class features you're familiar with and puts them into different pools of feats. The categories are fighter feats, specialist feats, and general feats. Everyone has access to the general feats. Essentially, this decouples class from subclass entirely, because subclasses or variant classes are restrictive. You aren't restricted to a single growth path like in 5e, instead, you can pick and choose what you want when you want it. It's customizable and allows for a lot of flavor.

Social Skills-Using Class

In case you're wondering, I don't care to create a class dedicated to influencing others socially because this is a roleplaying game and I don't believe the mechanics of the game should govern or try to mechanize or systematize conversations. I don't believe conversation should be balanced with other aspects of the game, like combat or exploration. In fact, I hate that! I think anyone who can fight well can also talk and explore perfectly well.

Classes Describe the Setting

Another thing to consider is that the rules of the game describe the setting. The class options that are available to the players describe what classes exist in the world, or alternatively, which character classes are adventuring classes. For example, in D&D B/X, there is no option for dwarves to be any class. They are restricted to the Dwarf class. As a reader, you wonder why. The book doesn't explain it, but you have to figure that there must be Dwarf clerics because they have their own pantheon, it's just that dwarf clerics don't adventure. Fair. In AD&D, dwarves had class options but were restricted from being magic-users. Why? Must be something about dwarven culture shunning magic or the career. Use your imagination. Maybe there are dwarven magic-users, but they're very rare. I recall notes that most dwarfs are lawful good and the thief class can't be that alignment, so there you go. Dwarf culture does not produce thieves.

If you take my recommendation to pick a basic class and flavor it, that flavor must be compatible with the setting. If you pick any class and flavor it as a traveling minstrel or a troubadour, that means there are traveling minstrels in the world. Just keep in mind that, rules as written, the game master (GM) is the curator of the setting and it's his setting even if it's a published, official setting. That means if the GM says no dwarf wizards, then there are no dwarf wizards.

Multi-Classing or Dual-Classing?

Multi-classing means being able to gain a new class and the benefits of the new class while still retaining the benefits of the old class. Dual-classing means being two full-classes at once, possessing all of the benefits of each, and progressing in them both simultaneously. Dual-class characters usually need double xp to advance in level, but a multi-class character needs normal xp based on the total of their levels in all their classes.

I believe multi-classing must be pursued in play. If you're a thief and you join the army and receive military training then congratulations, you're now multiclassing as a thief-fighter. However, if you as a player of a thief character decide you want to also be a fighter one day, no, you can't just add that to your character sheet. If one multi-classes, there must be a penalty for balancing, right? Not necessarily. If I join the military and go through boot camp, why wouldn't I be able to do everything a beginner soldier can do? I would just be a beginner or a novice in that new class. No dual-classing.

The Three Basic Classes in Other Genres

I'm not much of a sci-fi guy, but I suppose I could be into space opera. Think Star Wars for a moment. How do these three classes (fighter, thief, magic-user) translate into Star Wars? First, let's make some basic assumptions. First, piloting is a common skill and does not indicate a class (example a pilot class). Lots of people seem to be able to use vehicles. No big deal. Second, use of computers and machines (even droids) is also common to people within the setting, even if it's all unfamiliar to you! These skills do not indicate a need for a class to me, such as an engineer or machinist class. Third, there is no magic, instead we have the force. Forth, guns are the dominant way of fighting in many places, and in those places, they'd be common and ordinary, but weapons that bonk or cut or stab are probably uncommon in those areas.

So, a fighter in Star Wars would be able to handle any armor and any weapon. A staff, a grenade, a big gun, whatever. There's one exception: the light saber is off limits. Why? Because! Now shut up.

A thief would be able to use peasant weapons, small arms, a holdout blaster. Right? And they'd be able to hack any computer terminal or pick any locked door too, and they'd be able to disarm any trap or explosive, at least better than anyone else. They can sneak and they can back attack. Familiar? Cool? OK.

A magic-user is out. Sorry. Instead, we have force-user. Either a jedi or sith, or some uninitiated force adept. A force adept is someone with some force sensitivity or above-average potential with the force who has discovered a few basic force powers. They can't really learn more on their own, they need a teacher. Jedi have restrictions to the list of force powers, but the sith have unrestricted access. The force-user has access to the same weapons as a thief (small blasters, bonk-sticks), and the supremely supreme light saber.

As a thought experiment, what is Han Solo's class? He's described as a smuggler, but does that mean the same thing as a Thief? Maybe he's a fighter who smuggles? I would say if you wanted to interpret Han as either a thief or a fighter, you can. It depends on how you justify it.

Now, the Star Wars KOTOR games describe three (non-jedi and non-droid) classes: Soldier, Scout, and Scoundrel. If you read them, you'll easily identify Soldier is the Fighter and Scoundrel is the Thief. So what is a scout? At a glance, I think it's something like a ranger, but I'm not sure. I only conclude that based on the fact that I think ranger definitely suits a setting like Star Wars. I think someone really only stuck the Scout in the game for variety. I would rule that it's just a variant of thief with wilderness survival skills instead of urban thievery skills and call it a day. And I think that's fine.

I played Shadow Run on the PC by Harebrained Schemes. It's good. It's a cyberpunk fantasy thing. They have street samurai as their fighter and that's what I picked. They have a class called a Rigger that remotely controls drones or robots as a utility class, possibly a thief(?), and a class called a Decker who goes into the internet almost like going into the matrix and they hack computers (another utility class). Cool in concept but I thought it wasn't fun. They have mages (magic-users) and shamans (magic-users with a nature flavor). They also have a class called either the adept or the physical adept which as far as I can tell is the monk, so a flavor of fighter.

Skill System Plus Class System?

Not really into this myself. The first time this might have been done is D&D 3e, and I think this led to the eventual trivialization of the Ranger class by taking their specialty, tracking, and making it into a general skill, survival, that anyone else can do. I think the benefits of a class system is to simplify a game, and the benefits of a skill system are to allow customization. The thief is the utility class. Give them a theme for their skills. Thievery or Wilderness Survival or Alchemy. Just use your judgement in-game and play. It's fine.

If you want multiple skills or skill sets, I suggest instead making clear, distinct variants of the Rogue / thief, aka the utility class. Basic Fantasy RPG (also free!), has the thief as a core class and the ranger as a supplemental optional class which just swaps some skills around. Effectively, the dungeon skills and the wilderness skills. Use the logic of your setting to make these variants.

Conclusion

There are three categories of classes: The combat class, the utility class, and the magic class. Each category has flavors (variants). You don't need distinct mechanics for each. I have an opinion that classes should be distinct. For example, if you're a non-combat class, why would you be good at combat? Only the utility class needs to worry about skills, and only the magic class needs to worry about magic. Below, I have an abstract concept of how one might distinguish these. Features that are listed are part of the class, but features that are not listed are not. For simplicity, I am using D&D 3e saving throw names.

Combat Class

HP: base of 10 HP, +1 HP per level

Weapons and Armor: all, including shields

Hit Bonus: +1 per level, max +10

(optional) Either Bonus Attack or Bonus Damage Die: +1 every 5 levels

(optional) Crit range: +1 every 5 levels (19-20 at level 5, 18-20 at level 10)

Saves: Fortitude +1 per level

Flavors: Fighter, Barbarian, Paladin, Monk / Pugilist, Soldier, Knight

Utility Class

HP: base of 8 HP, +1 HP at even levels

Weapons and Armor: peasant

(optional) Hit Bonus: +1 at even levels or +1 every three levels beginning at level 3

Skill Bonus: +1 per level, max +10

Skills: Based on flavor or a theme

(optional) backstab: +2 bonus damage dice when attacking unaware foe from behind

Saves: Reflexes +1 per level

Flavors: Thief, Dungeoneer, Ranger, Alchemist, Assassin, Rogue

Magic Class

HP: base of 8 HP, +1 HP at even levels

Weapons and Armor: peasant

(optional) Hit Bonus: +1 at even levels or +1 every three levels beginning at level 3

Spellcasting Bonus: +1 per level, max +10

Spells Available: Based on flavor or a theme

Saves: Will +1 per level

Flavors: Mage, Cleric, Druid, Wizard, Sorcerer, Witch, Warlock, War Priest

I would suggest allowing players to distinguish these characters with feats or talents if this is too basic for them. How are they available, either by level up or training or whatever, and how frequently, is up to you, but don't hand them out too often.

Novelty Has No Inherent Value

I think Final Fantasy 7 was a great game. It felt fun to play. It was satisfying to play. You gain experience points for fights. When you reach a threshold, you level up. When you level up, your stats improve. You can customize your characters with equip-able magic stones called materia. You can swap them freely among your characters to make all kinds of combinations for your playstyle. When you fight, you also gain AP for your equipped materia. When your Materia reach an AP threshold, they level up and you gain more utility or power. When you fight, you get money. When you get to a new town, new weapons and armor become available for purchase that make your characters tougher. In dungeons, you can find unique weapons and armor and materia. Really simple gameplay loop. Make some progress to make more progress. You could see and feel how you get tougher. You could watch numbers go up. It was simple. It was elegant.

Then Final Fantasy 8 came out, and it was nothing like Final Fantasy 7. They changed almost everything. You earn experience points, and you can level up, but your stats barely increase! Worse yet, the monsters' levels scale to your levels, and their stats and powers do improve! It means that leveling up is disadvantageous! You can find these monsters called GF you can equip, and they gain levels with exp, but they don't have stats that you can see. Instead, you're mostly keeping an eye on their AP. When AP is earned, they learn abilities. There's a hidden ability tree where certain abilities are prerequisite to others. What abilities are going to be valuable? You don't know till you get there! Instead of finding magic stones that you equip for magic, you have to go stock spells with a tedious, slow combat action called drawing, or by using special abilities to modify playing cards or refine various items you collect from monster drops. You had to collect items to use to upgrade your weapons, some of which were rare to find and rare to drop! Armor was gone. Instead, you equip magic spells to your specific stats, and the level of the spell, and the quantity of the spell effected the amount that the stats increase. It was a very micromanage-y, it was complex, and it was intimidating to learn. Mastery meant playing the game in a very controlled way to efficiently earn AP without getting so much exp. Ugh.

But it was different, so that means it was OK? Right?

Remember the Nintendo Wii and its nunchaku controller? Eff that. Sometimes I hear people praising games for being new and different. What was wrong with Final Fantasy 7? Give me more of that! I want more of that! I wish I was into sports games and FPS games and Assassin's Creed because those game devs look like they figured this out. People like the formula, keep it! How do you go from FF7 to FF8? It's madness! What a wild change!

So, my central complaint is novelty for its own sake sucks. Is the game good? I have heard people praise FFX for being a non-standard fantasy setting. Boo! It was the ugliest setting ever. The costumes were ugly and stupid looking. The unique hair styles were dumb and ugly. Machines were ugly and dumb looking. Monsters were OK. Buildings and boats were dumb when they were unique. How many people cosplay as characters from FFX? Better yet, when people cosplay as FFX characters, which ones do they pick? Auron, and the main girl characters. That's it. The game is so ugly, no one cosplays as any other character. Ronsos were in the game. Ugly effing game.

So for some reason, people think FFX is a really good game. It's not. They did some cool stuff. Being able to swap characters in and out mid-combat? Cool. Having to swap your characters in and out mid-combat because all the monsters in the game are functionally a rock-paper-scissors game? Meh. I just want to pick my favorite characters and use them. The game's best mechanics don't get fully utilized until late game if you fill out the monster arena, which is effortful, but I think you have to be into grinding to really enjoy yourself. It so happens that I am into grinding. Why can't the whole game be more like the late game? The equipment customization system doesn't even matter until this late portion of the game. You might be able to manage to make a few useful things throughout the main game, but that's it. Mostly, you would put elemental damage on weapons so you could do double damage. By the way, Str + 5, +10, +20, etc. in FFX is a trap when using the right element doubles damage! A trap I say!

I hate the story and characters in FFX. OK, I don't hate the story and characters, but it was a very, very delayed appreciation and even then, I don't actually like them. I just don't care. I enjoy Lulu's cleavage though. More of that please. Also, bring back the customization of materia. Powers are contained in objects that are tracked separately from characters, and they can be freely moved around. And there weren't that many fiddly bits. Very simple, very fun. You dumb dumbs at Square came up with a cool idea, you used it once, then that was it. The hell is wrong with you?

What's wrong with them is they pursue novelty for the sake of it. As if reusing something that works is a bad thing because we already did it. So in FFX, they give you this thing called the Sphere Grid instead of experience and levels. What is the sphere grid? It turns character improvement into a process of moving your character along a path on a game board and activating nodes with consumable items you collect after battle. The problem is it's linear, so why? What's the point? Again, it's something in FFX that only gets good late game when you can move freely around the sphere grid and earn whatever you want. It's undercooked.

Anyway, if you've stuck with me this long, thank you. Believe it or not, I am not here to complain about the Final Fantasy series, it just happens to be what I'm very familiar with. I'm here to complain about novelty. I don't care about new things because they're new. New is not a virtue. How about I get you a new turd? And so understandably, I get a little annoyed when I hear people praise something for being new. I could get you a new car or I can get you a new scratch on it. The new car is valuable if it's in new condition because that means its quality is intact. But a new car that's used is less valuable. But what if the used car still works better than the new one?

I think innovation must be a value to some people. I don't share it. Can I say I'm tired of people trying to be innovative? Are we done trying to invent new stuff? Or make old stuff seem new by adding a twist to it? Are we done? Can we just embrace tradition yet? If you don't like tradition, then by all means make something different, but be honest that you don't like tradition. Many of us just like being a male, human, fighter, with a sword, and that will never get old to us. When you eff with the thing that works, you alienate the people who come for something familiar. I think this is why media has generally sucked for the last ten to fifteen years. Especially Final Fantasy games. The FF7 remakes sucks too. Can we cut out the ten-to-thirty-minute cut scenes? I don't want to watch an effing movie! Oh, and bring back timed hits and defenses from Super Mario RPG Legend of the Seven Stars. Those were fun!

I think I made my point without ruffling too many feathers. Newness does not automatically mean good, quality, or fun. We have decades of good stuff we abandon. What happened to side-scrollers? Video games were 90% side-scrollers once upon a time. They didn't stop being fun! And isometric perspective games are missed. Did I piss off the FFX fans? Who cares. Wakka's hair sucks and you suck for liking it. Insert the Titas Ah-ha-ha laugh. Cue the outro. DUN da da dun dun dun duuunnn.

The Nerd-Brain Problem

Hayao Miyazaki, regarded as the Walt Disney of Japan, said anime (animation) was a mistake and that Otaku (the Japanese word for nerd) ruined anime. I want you to think about that. Not because I want to comment on anime or Miyazaki, but because I want you to consider why an artist might think that fans spoiled art.

First, what does it mean to spoil something? Imagine going into a mystery story and trying to solve it yourself before the protagonist, then some thoughtless a-hole spoils the ending for you. You can't have fun solving the puzzle because someone gave the answer away already. The fun is spoiled.

So for some of us, we don't pursue art for the style alone, we pursue it for both the style and the substance. What nerds do is they enjoy art for what it is, both the style and the substance, and then they do what with it? What if they collectively misunderstand it and indulge in the wrong aspects of it. Then they want more of the style and don't appeciate the substance, or they appreciate the substance disproportionately less. For example, Gundam is an anime and its message is that war is bad, so it's ironic that everyone liked the mechs so much that they just wanted more mech stuff, and thus the original mech story that wanted to tell an anti-war message is known for being the first of the mech stuff. Mech stuff is commercialized, and the original artist and his message are left behind. There are several mech animes and video games and etc, now. It's not immoral but you could image how that artist could be disappointed.

Back to Miyazaki, he says anime used to be created by artists, now its created by nerds who only know how to imitate art but can't make it. And so nerds have spoiled anime for him by turning it into an art form known for imitation and that is slowly degrading in quality and substance. I think this is a fair observation because I watched all of Naruto and while it's admittedly really fun for a while, it's also really inane. Ninja fights for the sake of ninja fights. What's the substance? Believe in yourself? Never give up? OK, sure. That's fine. I guess. I didn't watch the other Naruto series and I won't. The 2021 Mortal Kombat movie was style over substance and I didn't enjoy it.

This is all leading to a point about playing D&D. I hate everything about modern D&D. Not because I find the lack of substance to be disturbing or sad, I mean it's D&D. Historically it's about killing monsters for treasure in a conflict of law vs chaos so you can build your own kingdom and rule as a hero-king and create fun and exciting stories of daring-do. The problem is partially when people bring their dumb nerdy OC to bear, and boy is that just the peak of what makes nerds nerdy and exhausting and embarassing.

But seriously, how pretentious is it to complain about D&D and a lack of high art? Or maybe isn't this just part of the hobby? If you're thinking that, you've missed the point. The point is that like nerds ruining anime for Miyazaki, the wrong crowd ruins D&D for others. There is an incompatibility. What modern D&D does is it encourages all manner of silliness and goofiness with its sanitized kitchen sink setting for everyone and wide, wide catalog of player character options for everything. Be anything you want. Imitate things you like. Bring multi-page backstories. Get tons of mechanics! Can't you just be an ordinary dude who falls on hard times and becomes an adventurer? I would like it if you could turn off your nerd-brains when you engage with the game.