Class/level-less systems

[jpreem]

One thing i don't like about DD games is that quite often you come to a situation like that.
A:I want a character who can do a things X and Y.
B: Well then you have to take classA/ClassB/PrcC feats D and E and skill trick F.
Look at the Books of Compiled Stuff This and That, Heroes of Obscurity and 1995 january Dragon magazine.

I would like to know more about game systems where the stuff would go more like this.

A:I want a character who can do a things X and Y.
B: Hmm ok. You are a guy/girl/robot/eldritch abomination who does X and Y

What systems should i look into.

[DragonOfUndeath]

definitely LARPing

[cheezewizz2000]

definitely LARPing

Dependant on the system. In some systems, if you can't swordfight worth a dang, you'll be trounced by people who can regardless of the fact that you're calling sixteens with every hit. With a lot of LARPs, you're limited by what you as a player can do. IM(not very)HO it makes immersion a lot easier for other people if you CAN actually sneak up behind someone and take them out, rather than just holding up a hand with a bit of day-glow cloth wrapped around it to declare to the world "I'm hiding, so you have to pretend I'm not here". I'm not saying you shouldn't do that, but as a LARPer I respect people who can play characters within their own limitations and still be awesome.

Example: In Maelstrom (a UK system) there was a chatacter called "Bamboo" who was effectively a ninja dressed all in white. It seems stupid, untill you realise that the vast majority of tents are made of white canvass; so many people never saw him coming until it was too late...

[DragonOfUndeath]

yeah i guess so but if your LARPing your swordfighting skills improve dramatically so the "Goblin" who trounced you a month ago with superior swordskills becomes the "Orc" you draw against again and again

[kamikasei]

LARPing seems completely orthogonal to what the OP's asking.

There are a few systems where that's possible, OP. The one I'm familiar with is Mutants & Masterminds, a superhero system easily adapted to a variety of games. It's d20 based so you have a "level" that just caps some modifiers so everyone has a common baseline for attack/defense/damage/saves etc., but your abilities are bought from a pool of points where anything can be traded out for anything else.

GURPS is similar (in that it's point buy) though, from what I understand, considerably more fiddly.

A system like Exalted kind of has classes (which type of Exalt you are, and which caste of that type, makes some things cheaper/more expensive and gives some unique abilities) but is still essentially point buy.

(edit: World of Darkness would be much the same AFAIK.)

Then there are systems like FUDGE, Fate, or Risus where there are just fewer rules in general and your character consists of just a few key traits.

Note that lacking classes or levels does not mean rules-light. You may still need to do a lot of number-crunching to get the character you want. You just may have fewer hoops to jump through en route.

[Halaster]

GURPS. The point-buy system. You want something, the GM allows it, you pay the points, write it down on your character sheet, done. The catch is, of course, that all flavor decisions must be made by the GM, which can be a lot of work.

If you don't want to give up classes and levels altogether, Rolemaster might work for you. All classes can learn (almost) all things, including magic, but pay ever higher costs the farther away from their usual business these things are. Rolemaster does have a lot less special abilities, though, most things are handled by skills.

[J.Gellert]

Mutants & Masterminds

"I want a character who can do X and Y."
"Great, you can do it (but X and Y must be within campaign power limits*)"

Except you can play with unlimited points and no campaign power level limits, if your DM feels generous like that.

[Psyx]

Pretty much everything except d20 and 4e these days doesn't have levels. Levels are a frankly appalling and restrictive idea that most of the industry discarded many, many years ago.

Seriously: Anything that's not d20 would be a good start. There are literally too many systems to list.
What genre were you looking for?

[jpreem]

I have heard a great deal about GURPS it quite sounds like the thing for me.
Or some other kind of point based system.
I guess it kind of needs a lot of thought from GM to set the point price for different abilities. Heh i geuss you can really mess up right there but well DD classes feats etc. are definetly not a guarantee not to mess up characters also.

If I'd like to try to do some GM-ing for a short low-powered campaing (generic fantasy stuff maybe) to test the system - then what kind of materials do I need for GURPS.

[Halaster]

You definitely need the Basic Set for the 4th edition (Characters book and Campaigns book. Anything else is up to you. All abilities are already priced, although you can tweak the costs, e. g. by limiting the ability to certain situations (only at night etc.). As far as I'm concerned, those two books contain all you need for most campaigns, and allow you to deduce the rest. There is, IIRC a Fantasy sourcebook, that gives you templates for fantasy stuff. For example, if you have the basic set, point costs for being an elf would have to be calculated by the GM (from the cost of, say, low-light vision, unaging, less sleep, resistance to disease and charm effects, dex bonus, health penalty), and so on for all other races, specialist training packages and so on. The sourcebook should give you most of these, plus expanded equipment lists, spell lists and so on.

[Knaight]

I have heard a great deal about GURPS it quite sounds like the thing for me.
Or some other kind of point based system.
I guess it kind of needs a lot of thought from GM to set the point price for different abilities. Heh i geuss you can really mess up right there but well DD classes feats etc. are definetly not a guarantee not to mess up characters also.

If I'd like to try to do some GM-ing for a short low-powered campaing (generic fantasy stuff maybe) to test the system - then what kind of materials do I need for GURPS.

GURPS has the point costs set already, with lots and lots of abilities listed. If you want something lighter, but with all the abilities, try Fate, or just Fudge, with Aspects and Stunts swiped. Fate and Fudge are both free, so it can't hurt to try them.

[The Rose Dragon]

GURPS is a great game, with only one disadvantage I can think of: it is a very dry read. I have bought four books so far, and none of them really made me go "Hey, I should use this in a game" rather than "when are we gonna get to the good parts?". However, if you can get past the rather clinical writing style of the books, it should serve you well (it's also kind of expensive, but you don't really need more than two books for anything other than fluff).

Instead, however, I will suggest Unisystem, the most awesome game ever created by man (except possibly for M&M, but that's just because it has superheroes). It is not as flexible as M&M or GURPS, but it is much more fun to read than the latter, and handles most things the former can and then some (it can't handle superhero-level games, but that's what M&M is for).

[horngeek]

I'm going to suggest Exalted.

...then again, I always suggest Exalted.

[Dogmantra]

Risus.

It is the best. You literally say "I want to do X, Y and Z". Then that's your character sheet.

[Person_Man]

Homebrew. If you want a character who does something, write that character.

[Tael]

GURPS GURPS GURPS! My favorite system evar! Lite is available online for free.

[Dizlag]

Savage Worlds has the "advancement" concept where you'll get new edges (= feats) to do better things and some of them required a higher rank (= 4 levels). Though it has this leveling-like system, it is a classless system. The edges and skills you choose allow you to create the character you want. During your turn you describe all of the "actions" you'll be taking and you can roll to see if you're successful. It's a great system and refreshing change from D&D.

Dizlag

[Lord_Gareth]

Shadowrun and World of Darkness are both pretty open-ended. Scion is slightly less so, but still comes highly recommended. GURPS is all it's advertised to be and more. Freeform play by post can work out great if you have a good group.

[Tyrrell]

The criteria of the original poster are very easy to meet. It still leaves us with everything from Ars Magica to secret of Ziran to recommend to him. For an appropriate recommendation we'll need more of your likes and dislikes.

For a recommendation with insufficient information I'll have to plug Ars Magica Fifth edition. It's the best game ever created for having great game sessions, rewarding stories, and fascinating characters. (People who have different opinions are clearly suffering from having tastes and preferences different from my tastes and preferences, I pity their disadvantaged circumstances.)

[Kiero]

How long is a piece of string? There are countless systems out there that aren't class/level based, hundreds are even free.

If you want specific recommendations, FATE 3.0 comes in a number of recent incarnations doing different things; Legends of Anglerre (fantasy), Dresden Files (urban/contemporary fantasy), Starblazer Adventures (space opera), Diaspora (hard sci-fi).

Cinematic Unisystem has a number of variations, Angel, Ghosts of Albion and Armies of Darkness.

For ultra-lite, there's Wushu, Risus, There Is No Spoon, InSpectres, The Pool, Warrior, Rogue and Mage and many others.

[mabriss lethe]

Hollow Earth Expedition is full of Old School pulp goodness.

Cthulhutech: Eldritch horror and Big F'ing Robots, What more could you want?

[Artanis]

BESM is worth mentioning. Not only do you say, "I can do X," but you also say, "and this is exactly what it looks like when I do X" right on the character sheet.

[Tengu_temp]

Risus.

It is the best. You literally say "I want to do X, Y and Z". Then that's your character sheet.

Risus is a fun little game, but it's far too simplistic to work well for a more serious game. Its main purpose are comedy campaigns.

[Particle_Man]

There are a few systems where that's possible, OP. The one I'm familiar with is Mutants & Masterminds, a superhero system easily adapted to a variety of games. It's d20 based so you have a "level" that just caps some modifiers so everyone has a common baseline for attack/defense/damage/saves etc., but your abilities are bought from a pool of points where anything can be traded out for anything else.

Pretty much everything except d20 and 4e these days doesn't have levels. Levels are a frankly appalling and restrictive idea that most of the industry discarded many, many years ago.

Seriously: Anything that's not d20 would be a good start. There are literally too many systems to list.
What genre were you looking for?

[Dogmantra]

Risus is a fun little game, but it's far too simplistic to work well for a more serious game. Its main purpose are comedy campaigns.

Your Mileage May Vary. Some people find it easier to get on with a serious game and into character when they literally only have to worry about four adjectives and a number next to 'em. Rolling lots of different dice can be kind of jarring.

[kamikasei]

Risus is a fun little game, but it's far too simplistic to work well for a more serious game. Its main purpose are comedy campaigns.

Although I don't know the specifics of Risis versus other rules-light games (it was designed for comedy, so maybe what rules there are lend themselves to that much more readily than to other things), I don't think simply being rules-light or "simplistic" disqualifies a system from serious games.

And come to think of comedy, an omission for which I cannot forgive myself: Maid RPG! All the rules you need can be described in a few minutes and you barely need the book beyond the tables for random chargen.

[Caliphbubba]

If you're not afraid of lots of Math in your character creation Champions
can be a great "I want to be able to do X and Y, so I make a character that can do X and Y".

It's a fairly involved character creation process, but I've had tons of fun playing it.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Champio...e-playing_game)

[Tyndmyr]

7th Sea is great for this.

You have nationality, which plays a part in character creation. Certain nationalities have specific cultures and advantages they are more likely to have. However, the big one is that sorcery is in the blood.

So, you pick a nationality(or two) you like for your heritage. This is roughly the only uncustomizable thing you do. You can then pick up traits that are roughly feat equivalent(though widely varying in cost and power), different schools of combat, traits, skills, etc.

It's extremely open ended.

[The Big Dice]

7th Sea is great for this.

You have nationality, which plays a part in character creation. Certain nationalities have specific cultures and advantages they are more likely to have. However, the big one is that sorcery is in the blood.

So, you pick a nationality(or two) you like for your heritage. This is roughly the only uncustomizable thing you do. You can then pick up traits that are roughly feat equivalent(though widely varying in cost and power), different schools of combat, traits, skills, etc.

It's extremely open ended.

It also suffers from the same problem as L5R, the game that gave rise to the system 7th Sea uses. That is, schools are percieved as being functionally the same as classes. Familes and clans (or nations in 7th Sea) mix that up a little, but in general, whatever School your character has is seen as it's class.

One slightly odd thing about the R&K family of games is the way they'e a bit like D20 with classes and levels, except they are Schools and Ranks and don't quite work the same way as class based games do. The other thing is that they are all abot Skills, Advantages, Disadvatages and Traits. In exactly the same way the many point buy games are.

[Lord Raziere]

Risus is a fun little game, but it's far too simplistic to work well for a more serious game. Its main purpose are comedy campaigns.

I have played on at least two forums that were basically freeform with a bunch of agreed upon rules that balanced out everything, and they were both serious and they worked. Unless you got your own experiences, my memory says your wrong.