One of the first major departures from D&D and other similar RPGs is that DPS will have no Classes. Why?
- Classes are an artificial constraint. Game-publishers use class-constraints to justify selling expensive game-supplements to Players. I understand their desire to make money. But this mechanism interferes with the game, by adding complexity in the form of shiny new bells and whistles for individual Characters. It distracts from focusing on role-playing and collective story development.
- With the introduction of Skills, Feats, and Traits mechanics in the 1980s, Classes actually became redundant. Today we can actually think of Classes as standard-arrays of these more-specific mechanics. Classes, Subclasses, and Multi-Classes can be replicated with specific Skills, Feats, and Traits (or maybe even Skills alone), without the added complexity of a named Class. The fundamental game mechanic becomes simpler to start with, although complexity can emerge over time with Characters that have unique combinations of features they have chosen and developed.
- In the 21st century, Americans actually talk about social class. This was taboo in the 1970s when D&D was designed, because anyone talking about ‘class inequality’ was dismissed as a Soviet-sympathizer. Since the term was not used to describe social inequality in the 1970s, the use of the term ‘Class’ to refer to a profession/role was not a confusing problem. But today we actually do discuss inequality, increasingly in-game as well. Within roleplay, we can incorporate features like Background and Prior Jobs to help flesh out the skills and identity of a Character. We can also quickly characterize NonPlayer Characters (NPCs) including their social class, without conflating the term with a game mechanic.
Social Classes: Proles, Plebs, and Prats
With ‘Class’ removed as a game-mechanic, we can more easily use ‘social class’ as a characteristic of the setting, and as a motivation for Players and their Characters.
Most Characters should start out lower-class, as Proles. This provides many clear motives for Characters:
- to gain freedom from debt, or to gain financial security, or to gain real riches;
- to gain magical powers;
- to gain skills such as persuasion, stealth, healing, and combat; and
- to gain prestige or political power to change something in the setting.
To represent poverty, Characters begin with a Yoke of Debt. The Proles constitute 90% of the population, and they owe more than they own. It is an ugly commentary on America in the 21st century, but it also emulates late-medieval European society more accurately. In-game, that means that the moneylender who holds the debt of one or several Characters may be a patron at the beginning of a Campaign.
If the GM agrees, a Character might start out as a Pleb class: a freedman, merchant, shopkeeper, or skilled artisan. Plebs only make up 9% of the population in any typical setting, and are immediately identifiable because they do not have a Yoke. Plebs have 3 to 30 Prole employees; Plebs own a house, but usually rent their shop from a Prat.
Prats (a.k.a. assholes, or Patricians) constitute only 1% of a typical population. They own the housing of the Proles, the shops of the Plebs, and most of the Gardens, Fields, and Forests surrounding most settlements. They hold almost all the debts of the Proles. In a few cases, Plebs hold the debts of some Proles. Prats are immediately identifiable because they wear a DebtHolder ring, usually on the left hand.
The terms Prole, Pleb, and Patrician all come from ancient Roman society. But they are similar to many cultures in the past, and increasingly the U.S. in the 21st century. Therefore they are easily imaginable for Players. Exceptions to this 90% Prole / 9% Pleb / 1% Prat pattern do exist, and those exceptions are a major distinguishing feature of those locations.