“The Spirit of D&D” (essay excerp)

Reliance on others

It has been my experience that online gaming has created an odd situation where individuals can create characters that can effectively act independently of others. With a few notable exceptions, differences between characters are reduced in terms of role and teamwork. In Neverwinter Nights, for example, healing is a skill native to all classes and characters can freely mix and match up to three classes, i.e. leaving room for a fighter/rogue/cleric character. That’s not to say that these options should never be available; it simply seems unrealistic to me, and it fosters an attitude of unhealthy self-reliance.

The “class” system for role-playing games was designed with one outcome in mind: reliance on others. No single character could do it all. Each class had a definite strength and several weaknesses. A thief (rogue), while physically weaker than almost all other classes, could gather information about an enemy or protect the party from traps but would easily fall but for the magical augmentation of a magic-user. A fighter (warrior) could stand up to the most punishing damage with a cleric (priest or druid) behind him healing and offering divine protection. A ranger specializing in archery could cover the party’s rear while covering the charge of dwarven fighter.

In a multi-player game, dual-classed characters actually diminish the effectiveness of the party as a whole, by diluting the performance of a single, specialized class.