I don't know about you, but my birth certificate hasn't got a spot for a class. I guess that just isn't how you get one. A while back, finding that gamer didn't pay well, I tried to gain a new class, but I guess I just didn't have enough experience points. Okay, maybe I am smoking too much of the right stuff, or not enough, but I think I've got a ton of class.

Actually, I've only got about seven, and I don't even use all of them.

Those of us who play fantasy role-playing games, or role-playing games as a whole, are very familiar with the concept of class. It's not quite a profession, not quite a career and not quite realistic, but we use it anyway. Well, a lot of times, we aren't given the choice.

Now, I've mentioned before that my experience with RPGs is centred around Dungeons and Dragons. I've tried others, I've enjoyed others, but if you want to get a game together, your best bet is D&D. And like it or not, D&D's got classes. But does it need classes?

Well, to me, D&D has always been about simplicity. Those who don't play RPGs may not consider the plethora of charts and adjustments as simple, but compared to many systems, they are. A beginner looking at the character sheet and seeing what they have to prepare might think it all looks like rocket science, or, at the least, a tax form. Granted. It does. However, it can get much worse.

So, D&D takes life, takes adventures, and makes them simple. Well, nothing is simple in life. The beautiful thing, though, is that in heroic fantasy fiction, there are paradigms--paradigms that too often become stereotypes, but we won't go there . . . today. D&D took these paradigms and made them the basis of the class system. You want to be Aragorn? No problem. You're a ranger. You want to be Sir Galahad? Great. You're a paladin.

Now that's fine, but most people aren't so focused in their lives. Neither are fantasy characters. So, tell me what Conan is. A fighter? Sure. A ranger? Sometimes. A rogue. Quite a lot, yes. So which is he? Multi-classing? Sure, but expect slow progression. And, last I checked, Conan progressed about as fast and as high as anyone I can imagine.

Okay, you're saying, but we can't all play Conan. I whine and pout and pack up books. Just kidding. I know my characters can't be Conan, but even look around you, at the ordinary people. That stock-broker, is she a rogue? Well, maybe that's a bad example. That teacher, is he a wizard? Well, no, you'll have to wait for d20 Modern for the teacher class. And, no, not really, that was a joke. King Henry the Fifth, was he a fighter? Was he a paladin? What about Gustav Aldolphus. More importantly, what about Leonardo da Vinci?

Yeah, D&D doesn't replicate life, it replicates fantasy fiction. Well, the only fantasy fiction that D&D seems to replicate are the books based on D&D. And even then, not so well. In an attempt to better cater to the discriminating fantasy reader, we've got the skill system. Great. Now my fighter can pick pockets, but can my rogue cast spells? And since the D&D rogue originate as a thief, and the thief was based on the Gray Mouser, I bloody well think my rogue should be able to cast spells.

All this griping aside, I must then ask myself, if not class, what else? Well, many systems offer a less restrictive class system, with skills being more comprehensive and allowing players to shape their characters that way. Other systems just offer up those skills and let you build what you will. So basically what you are left with is a bunch of jack-of-all-trades who couldn't even give a first level bard a run for her money. Everyone wants to be a generalist.

And then it hits me. D&D isn't about generalists. D&D is about specialists. We ain't talking the dumb-ass specialists like Sly played, we're talking the kick -ass specialists like the team in Predator or comic-book groups like the X-Men or Cable's "Six Pack". That's when classes work well, when you've got to get a team together to take out that evil wizard oppressing those poor freedom loving gnomes. Bad example, but you catch my drift. Your character is good at what he does. He's a fighter and he fights, damn it. He don't need no stinkin' spells, and if he wants that guys money, he'll just beat the tar out of him and take it. When you need that special someone to sneak into the villain's layer and knock out the guards with sleeping poison (it's G-rated--no senseless slaughter allowed), that rogue character is the person to call.

Yeah, classes fall down when one is going up against real life and fantasy fiction, but show me another simplified method that works. Honestly, show me, I'd love to give it a try! To my mind, for now at least, I'd say that classes do their job. They offer the quick fix for the fantasy paradigm. They simplify something that defies simplification. Like the book to the movie, real life is better, but if you've only got three hours, can you read War and Peace?

Classes aren't perfect, but they're viable. That's good enough for me for now.