作者：Rampant Coyote

之前我们阐述了基于技能的RPG系统的基本背景，接下来我将要讨论的是基于职业的RPG游戏的优势、劣势和设计特征。

易吸引新手：基于职业的游戏将不同风格的游戏玩法简化分解为各种职业，比较适合新手玩家。尤其是在创建最初的角色时，预测何种技能或何种风格的玩法是最有效的，这对新玩家来说是件相当困难的事情，职业的设置能够简化玩家的选择。

强制执行专门化：基于职业的游戏能够确保角色确实擅长于某些方面的能力，不会出现杂而不精的情况。这点在基于阵营的游戏中很有意义，在需要让每个玩家感觉到自己是独一无二的或者至少在某些方面是最优秀的多人游戏中尤其如此。此类系统鼓励玩家间展开协作，使每个玩家都能够参与到战斗中。

D&D character cards(from flickr.com)

限制性内容：这个方面既是优势，也带有一定的局限性。如果角色不具有某种职业和与该职业相关的关键技能，那么作为设计师，你或许会被迫在拒绝让该角色看到某些内容或者削弱专门化之间做出选择。盗贼职业便是个经典的例子。在老式的《龙与地下城》的早期关卡中，如果你需要有人爬上陡峭的墙壁、潜行侦查敌人或打开门，那么盗贼正是良好的选择。如果你的团队中没有盗贼，那么在CRPG中就意味着你无法接触到某些内容。但是，在《龙与地下城》后期中，咒术师的法术（游戏邦注：比如漂浮和飞行法术、侦查法术和开门法术）可能会让盗贼在团队中的地位受到威胁。在首个版本的《Advanced D&D》中，高等级盗贼获得了通过卷轴施放法术的技能，这进一步削弱了职业的专门化，但至少让该职业可以保住在团队中的地位。

内容不平衡：有些职业的离去或存在可能会影响到游戏内容的挑战性。原版《冰城传奇》便是个例子：如果你的团队中有吟游诗人且默认初始团队中有号角，那么存活到等级3或4相对较为容易。如果没有诗人和魔法号角，那么游戏的早期阶段会相当困难。《龙与地下城》中的牧师职业和不死族遭遇战也是个例证。牧师的存在与否决定了遭遇战的难度。专门化的要点在于让角色在某些情形下能够发挥特殊的作用，而不是提供一定的优势，这二者间有明显的差别。

Ding：“ding”是《无尽的任务》中角色升级时的同步背景音乐，随后许多玩家在玩纸笔系统游戏时也在升级时模仿这个声音。如果升级发生在冒险的过程中，那么这种提升力量和赋予角色新能力的升级缺乏现实性、复杂且存在潜在的不平衡性。但是作为玩家，这意味着趣味性和强大。这种瞬间获得新力量的设置比多数给予技能的系统所采用的逐步提升的做法要有趣得多。

参与游戏的有用技能较少：在基于技能的系统中，有些效能不大的技能往往会被玩家所忽略。在基于职业的系统中，通过将这些能力同更为重要的能力捆绑起来，设计师可以确保这些能力能够被玩家所用。

无“劣等职业”：确保数量有限的职业（游戏邦注：包括有限的职业间专门化技能数量）能够在整个游戏或游戏系统中被使用，设计师可以确保玩家不会觉得自己正在操控的是在后期无法成功的职业，而这是基于技能的系统所遇到的普遍问题。

职业不平衡性：这种问题更多出现在多人游戏中，尤其是在玩家间相互竞争的大型多人游戏中。实现职业间的“完美”平衡是不可能的。即便可能出现这种情况，玩家仍然有可能认为游戏是不平衡的。

限制自定义：纯粹基于职业的系统（游戏邦注：比如最早版本的《龙与地下城》）在职业定义上过于严格，某种职业的每个角色的表现几乎完全相同。有些玩家觉得这样的设计与自己内心的角色概念并不相同，于是会觉得游戏特别乏味无聊。做些许混合或者多样化属性奖励，可以缓解这个问题。

简化设计：在CRPG中，有助于吸引新玩家的职业抽象化同样能使设计师和开发者受益。如果能以有限的角色风格来创建内容、AI行为和NPC对话等元素，这些设计就会变得更为容易。

职业膨胀：这种问题更多地出现在纸笔RPG上（因为发行商想怂恿玩家购买更多书籍），但基于同样系统的CPRG或CRPG扩展及可下载内容同样也会出现这个问题。增加新的职业或融合两种职业成为了添加游戏内容的简单方法。这在《龙与地下城》3.X时代时显得特别糟糕，当时几乎所有的书籍中都通过融合已有的职业来构建新职业。因为发行商和开发商想要出售更多的扩展内容，所以盲目地提升某些职业的能力，使之比原有的职业更为强大。毕竟，如果新的职业较弱，那么谁还会想尝试呢？

游戏邦注：本文发稿于2011年12月29日，所涉时间、事件和数据均以此为准。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

RPG Design: Staying Classy

Rampant Coyote

Okay, after a little bit of basic background on class vs. skill based RPG systems yesterday, I’m going to talk about some of the advantages, disadvantages, and general design features of class-based RPGs.

Once upon a time, after I discovered the joy that was skill-based systems, I was really down on class-based design. Skill-based systems were so much more organic and realistic and flexible – why would anybody want to play a class-based game ever again?

I came around. I still marginally prefer skill-based games (or hybrids), but I’ve come to really appreciate class-based systems – both as a designer and a player.

Simplicity and Ease of Introduction: Class-based games break different styles of gameplay into simplified roles that are easier for newcomers (to that particular game system, or to RPGs in general). Particularly during initial character creation, it can be really hard to predict what skills or styles of play will be viable, and a smaller palette of roles can ease the guesswork a bit.

Enforces Specialization/Role Cohesion: Class-based games can make sure characters are really good at a few things rather than mediocre in a lot of areas. This is desirable in party-based games, especially in multiplayer games where it’s good to have each player feel like they are unique in some way, or at least “the best” at one or two things. It encourages cooperation and keeps any one player from hogging the limelight.

Restricted Content: This is both an advantage and limitation. If characters are missing certain classes and the key skills associated with the class, as a designer you may be forced to choose between denying access to the content, or watering down the specialization. A classic example of this is the rogue/thief class. In old-school D&D, at early levels, if you needed someone to climb a sheer wall, sneakily spy on the enemy, or unlock a door, the thief was your guy. If you had no thief in the party, you might be out of luck entirely (in a CRPG, this would mean being locked out of some content). However, at later levels in D&D, spellcasters had access to spells (levitate and fly, scrying, and door-opening spells) that rendered the thief’s specialization almost useless. This was partially rectified in 1st edition Advanced D&D by giving the high-level thief the oft-forgotten ability to cast spells from scrolls, further watering down specialization but at least giving the thief something useful to do now that his specializations had been trumped.

Unbalanced Content: Some content may be far too difficult or far too easy depending upon which classes are absent or available. An example would be the original Bard’s Tale, as far as I remember it correctly: If you had a bard in the party and the horn from the default starting party, surviving to level three or four was relatively possible. Without a bard and the magical horn, the early stages of the game were absolutely brutal. Another example is the cleric class in D&D (up through 3rd edition, not including Pathfinder) and undead encounters. The difference between an encounter being trivially simple and brutally devastating might be the presence of a cleric. One can argue (and I often do) that this simply means the class abilities are imbalanced with such an all-or-nothing difference in the experience, but the point of the specialization really is to make the character truly shine in particular circumstances, not to just provide a marginal advantage. It’s a fine line…

The “Ding“: By “ding” I’m referring to that wonderful chime sound that became synonymous with leveling up in EverQuest back in the day, and entered popular vernacular amongst gamers even when playing pen-and-paper systems. Gaining a new level which both increases power and grants access to new abilities is unrealistic, complicated, time consuming, and potentially imbalancing if it occurs in the middle of an adventure. But as a player, it’s also tremendously fun and empowering. That sudden stairstep of new power feels a lot more exciting than gradual increases in most skill-based systems.

Less Useful Skills Get Play: In skill-based systems, those skills of marginal utility will often be ignored entirely by players. By bundling these abilities with more critical ones in a class-based system, the designer can make sure that content utilizing those skills will be more likely to be enjoyed.

No “Bad Builds”: By making sure the limited number of classes (and any specializations within the classes) are fully playable through the entire game (or game system), the designer can make sure players won’t find themselves stuck with a character who cannot succeed in later stage – a common problem in skill-based systems.

Class Imbalance: This is really more of a problem in multiplayer games, especially in massively multiplayer games where there is competition between players for “slots” within parties. It’s impossible – and even undesirable – to make classes “perfectly” balanced and equally useful in all circumstances. And even if it was possible, perceptions of imbalance would remain.

Restricted Customization: Pure class-based systems, like the earliest versions of D&D, tend to be so strict in class definition that every character of a particular class act almost identically, which gets pretty boring and frustrating to players who find that no class easily matches their character concept. Some hybridization and a greater difference in attribute bonuses and subclasses/multi-class additions can ease this a bit.

Easier to Design Around: In CRPGs (and pen-and-paper “modules” not customized around specific players and characters), the same abstraction of roles that makes the game easier for new players to get around is just as valuable for designers and developers. Content, AI behaviors, NPC dialogs – these can all be easier when you can create it for a limited palette of character types.

Class Explosion and Inflation: This is more of a problem with pen-and-paper RPGs when publishers are trying to entice players to buy more books, but also relates to CRPGs based on these systems, or CRPG expansions/DLC. Adding a new class that fits a particular niche or blends two other classes together becomes an easy (and brain-dead) way to add player content to the game. This became particularly bad in the D&D 3.x era, when almost every book featured new core or prestige classes that were often nothing more than a variant combination of game mechanics with some kind of tacked-on class description. Since publishers (and developers) really want to sell expansions, there was always a temptation to inflate the power level of these classes so that they were slightly more powerful than the original classes. After all, who’d bother playing a new class (or buying an expansion that activates that class) that is weaker than the originals, right?

Anyway, I’m sure I’m missing a bunch of other features/consequences/advantages/disadvantages here for class-based systems, but this should cover all of the basics and a bit more besides. I’ll cover more in a later article about skill-based systems… and many of the advantages of one system will be disadvantages of the other, and vice versa. So I’ve left things like skill-combo exploits for the next article. (Source: Rampant Games)