>Earthdawn does handle the concept better than others, but I
>still see the class paradigm as fundamentally flawed if you're trying
>to run an even remotely realistic campaign.

But I'm not trying to run a realistic campaign. I'm trying to run a ballad, a folk tale, a story. And the gritty reality of GURPs doesn't, I find, fit with that at all.

>It's always "These are the abilities
>you get. Period. You do not get these abilities. Ever. No matter
>what." And systems that allow you to eventually pick up other
>abilities (like, say, D&D) in a class-based paradigm also force you to
>pick up a bunch of abilities you may not want, or may not be
>appropriate to your character concept.

As was previously mentioned, you get skills. And GMs can always make new talents if they feel that the stuff in there isn't appropriate.

For example, our Thief adept has a very different view of what being a Thief adept means. Because your viewpoint and the way you follow your path influences how your Talents work - Talents are not skills, they are a magical extension of your pattern - the "Fence" talent was utterly inappropriate for her. So I made a new Talent, swapped it in for Fence, and she got that instead. It means that she will only be ever able to pick up Fence as a skill, but because her magical Pattern wouldn't allow her to learn Fence as a part of herself and her worldview, that's totally appropriate.

And some talents you just can't learn as skills, because they require magic.

And, I said:
>>Some point-based systems I find go way overboard.
>
>Like what? I'm a big GURPS fan, personally, although I concede
>that chargen can take forever in that system (it's no
>Runequest, but I know it's rough).
<snip>

Not only chargen does it take forever, you then have to cope with the Easy/Average/Hard/Very Hard whatever things, you have to have certain advantages to get certain skills, etc. etc. While it's a neat system, it is certainly just as complicated in its own way as Earthdawn. I don't care how easy rolling 3d6 is - if it takes more than ten seconds to see what my target number and/or how well I can do something is, I think the system is complicated.

And it doesn't, to my mind, fit the world of an Earthdawn story anything like as well as the Earthdawn system does.

And ye gods, the combat system...

<snip>
>I guess it's that you have to
>have a pretty solid character concept in mind before you even start in
>GURPS, while in most systems (like, say, Storyteller) you can
>just muddle your way through.

True. And that's very hard on beginning players too. (Entirely different rant deleted here - I've played a system where you start completely blank slate, but it is currently in beta test and unpublished and I can't talk about it - unfair I realize, but there it is...)

>>Regardless, I think Earthdawn's system fits the world. Heroes don't
>>start out knowing everything - they have to build their legends.
>
>You can say that for the recommended starting point for any
>system, though. I do like that Earthdawn actually measures the amount
>of fame you get, but I don't like the degree to which it plays into
>your character abilities.

Mmm. Then don't play Earthdawn. :) I personally love that particular aspect of the system.

-- Juniper

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"Fac me cocleario vomere!"
--Onatah, on NE:CiF MUSH