1
00:00:01,320 --> 00:00:04,400
You can be anything is one of 
the most overrated promises in 

2
00:00:04,400 --> 00:00:07,360
modern RPG design, because the 
second the game starts 

3
00:00:07,360 --> 00:00:10,280
protecting every possible 
direction, it stops forcing 

4
00:00:10,280 --> 00:00:14,040
anyone to have a real job. 
And once nobody has a hard job, 

5
00:00:14,120 --> 00:00:15,960
your party stops feeling like a 
party. 

6
00:00:16,000 --> 00:00:18,480
It becomes a pile of 
customizable blur. 

7
00:00:18,880 --> 00:00:22,560
People call that freedom. 
I call it roll collapse. 

8
00:00:23,160 --> 00:00:25,400
This is vindicast. 
I make videos about tabletop 

9
00:00:25,400 --> 00:00:28,240
role-playing for people who are 
sick of fake depth or soft 

10
00:00:28,240 --> 00:00:32,000
advice and design that flatters 
players while hollowing out the 

11
00:00:32,000 --> 00:00:35,520
actual experience at the table. 
If that sounds like your kind of

12
00:00:35,520 --> 00:00:38,960
thing, hit like subscribe and 
let's get into it. 

13
00:00:39,600 --> 00:00:44,440
Because the older versions of 
DND understood something that a 

14
00:00:44,440 --> 00:00:46,360
lot of modern design keeps 
forgetting. 

15
00:00:47,320 --> 00:00:49,840
A character gets interesting 
when they have a place in the 

16
00:00:49,840 --> 00:00:53,880
machine, not when the game keeps
reassuring them they could be 

17
00:00:53,880 --> 00:00:59,760
anything at all. 
For example, basic basic expert 

18
00:00:59,760 --> 00:01:03,080
Beck me line was brutal in a way
modern players would call 

19
00:01:03,160 --> 00:01:06,120
restrictive good because that 
was its strength. 

20
00:01:06,320 --> 00:01:09,920
Human character started with 
four blunt jobs, Cleric, 

21
00:01:10,000 --> 00:01:14,560
fighter, Magic User, and thief. 
Non human pics were not endless 

22
00:01:14,560 --> 00:01:17,840
modular shopping carts either. 
He had a dwarf, elf, and 

23
00:01:17,840 --> 00:01:20,960
huffling and they were full 
class packages, not a race 

24
00:01:20,960 --> 00:01:23,160
stapled on to a separate class 
choice. 

25
00:01:24,080 --> 00:01:27,400
Later books added things like 
druid, Mystic, and higher level 

26
00:01:27,400 --> 00:01:29,920
fighter variants. 
But the heart of the game stayed

27
00:01:29,920 --> 00:01:32,840
simple. 
Pick a lane and live in it. 

28
00:01:32,840 --> 00:01:37,680
And then first edition AD and D 
kind of expanded the menu but it

29
00:01:37,680 --> 00:01:40,640
still organized itself around 
hard royal families. 

30
00:01:40,640 --> 00:01:44,840
Fighter with Ranger and Paladin,
Cleric withdrew it, magic user 

31
00:01:44,840 --> 00:01:48,720
with illusionist, Thief with 
assassin and monk and Bard in 

32
00:01:48,720 --> 00:01:52,480
their own strange corners. 
The point of all that was not 

33
00:01:53,120 --> 00:01:56,400
more expression, the point was 
sharper function. 

34
00:01:57,080 --> 00:02:01,040
And that difference matters 
really more than people admit. 

35
00:02:01,040 --> 00:02:05,280
The older game did not start 
from what if every player could 

36
00:02:05,280 --> 00:02:08,400
build the exact same fantasy 
cocktail in their head. 

37
00:02:08,680 --> 00:02:11,440
It started from what does this 
person do for the group? 

38
00:02:12,320 --> 00:02:14,200
And that is a much better 
starting question. 

39
00:02:15,120 --> 00:02:18,720
It's harsher, it's less 
flattering, it's restrictive, 

40
00:02:19,240 --> 00:02:23,640
but it also produces way more 
defined and clear characters. 

41
00:02:25,080 --> 00:02:28,120
In the older game, the roll 
split was not subtle. 

42
00:02:28,120 --> 00:02:31,320
The fighter was there to survive
direct violence much better than

43
00:02:31,320 --> 00:02:34,040
everyone else. 
The cleric was the only one who 

44
00:02:34,040 --> 00:02:37,800
could keep the group alive and 
brought the divine utility, and 

45
00:02:37,800 --> 00:02:40,600
also was the only one who could 
handle threats nobody else could

46
00:02:40,600 --> 00:02:44,720
even touch. 
The magic user carried scarce 

47
00:02:44,800 --> 00:02:49,000
high impact magic that mattered 
precisely because it was limited

48
00:02:49,000 --> 00:02:52,320
and fragile. 
The thief dealt with traps and 

49
00:02:52,320 --> 00:02:57,000
locks, infiltration, scouting, 
the ugly problem solving that 

50
00:02:57,000 --> 00:02:59,000
wasn't really safe, but he was 
the only one who could do it. 

51
00:03:00,200 --> 00:03:04,680
Even in in basic racist class 
choices had very hard 

52
00:03:04,680 --> 00:03:07,800
silhouettes. 
Dwarf as the hard bastard in the

53
00:03:07,800 --> 00:03:10,560
dark, Elf as the sword and spell
hybrid. 

54
00:03:10,920 --> 00:03:14,080
Hofling as the sneaky survivor 
with a very specific footprint. 

55
00:03:15,480 --> 00:03:20,520
AD and D line mostly defined 
those jobs instead of replacing 

56
00:03:20,520 --> 00:03:23,400
them. 
Ranger and Paladin were still 

57
00:03:23,400 --> 00:03:27,240
warrior variants. 
Illusionist was still wizard 

58
00:03:27,240 --> 00:03:29,680
territory. 
Druid was still priest 

59
00:03:29,680 --> 00:03:31,720
territory. 
Assassin was still rogue 

60
00:03:31,720 --> 00:03:34,680
territory. 
The class count went up, but the

61
00:03:34,680 --> 00:03:38,480
party logic stayed legible. 
And that is why the party felt 

62
00:03:38,480 --> 00:03:40,120
like a machine instead of a 
committee. 

63
00:03:41,000 --> 00:03:43,320
When danger showed up, people 
knew where to look. 

64
00:03:43,320 --> 00:03:46,480
When the group hit a tomb full 
of traps, everybody understood 

65
00:03:46,640 --> 00:03:49,160
who had to crawl forward and 
risk getting skewered. 

66
00:03:50,600 --> 00:03:53,480
When in that poured out of the 
grip, the religious specialist 

67
00:03:53,480 --> 00:03:56,120
mattered. 
When the fight went bad, the 

68
00:03:56,120 --> 00:03:59,840
armored bastard mattered. 
When the impossible needed 

69
00:04:00,360 --> 00:04:03,440
doing, then the wizard's tiny 
pile of spell slots mattered. 

70
00:04:04,240 --> 00:04:07,360
Nobody needed the giant neon 
sign saying this is your 

71
00:04:07,360 --> 00:04:10,640
spotlight. 
The structure already did that. 

72
00:04:11,680 --> 00:04:14,680
Now let's take a look at 5th 
Edition, 5th edition D&D. 

73
00:04:15,720 --> 00:04:20,000
The official rules present 12 
classes in the 2014 Players 

74
00:04:20,000 --> 00:04:25,400
Handbook, and they describe each
of these classes in broad 

75
00:04:25,560 --> 00:04:30,560
aspirational terms, explicitly 
invite unconventional concepts 

76
00:04:30,560 --> 00:04:34,400
like a brownie rogue, and then 
offer optional multi classing 

77
00:04:34,400 --> 00:04:38,040
and feats so players can mix 
class abilities and trade focus 

78
00:04:38,040 --> 00:04:41,560
for versatility. 
The same basic rules also frame 

79
00:04:41,560 --> 00:04:45,240
play around the few pillars 
exploration, social interaction,

80
00:04:45,240 --> 00:04:49,760
and combat, with the broad idea 
that adventurers can try 

81
00:04:49,760 --> 00:04:53,200
anything players imagine. 
None of that is automatically 

82
00:04:53,200 --> 00:04:56,640
bad, but it does create a very 
different design instinct. 

83
00:04:57,560 --> 00:05:01,640
It's no longer what is your hard
job and more how many ways can 

84
00:05:01,640 --> 00:05:05,320
we make sure you still feel 
useful outside of your lane. 

85
00:05:06,520 --> 00:05:08,680
That is a big shift. 
It's I don't know if it's 

86
00:05:08,680 --> 00:05:10,200
kindness. 
I don't think so. 

87
00:05:10,480 --> 00:05:12,920
It's not really openness. 
It is coverage. 

88
00:05:13,160 --> 00:05:15,160
Modern design is obsessed with 
coverage. 

89
00:05:15,280 --> 00:05:18,880
More overlap, more 
customization, more backup 

90
00:05:18,880 --> 00:05:21,560
plans, more ways to make sure 
the character still feels 

91
00:05:21,560 --> 00:05:24,160
viable. 
If the scene is not naturally 

92
00:05:24,160 --> 00:05:29,560
theirs, it tells you that class 
matters, then spends the next 

93
00:05:29,560 --> 00:05:33,240
several layers of design 
softening the consequences of 

94
00:05:33,240 --> 00:05:35,040
that choice of your class 
choice. 

95
00:05:36,720 --> 00:05:40,240
This is what role collapse looks
like in actual play. 

96
00:05:41,000 --> 00:05:43,400
The scouting lane stops being 
sharp because multiple 

97
00:05:43,400 --> 00:05:47,400
characters can sniff out danger.
They can stack perception, use 

98
00:05:47,400 --> 00:05:50,840
magic to bypass uncertainty, or 
simply smash the obstacle 

99
00:05:50,840 --> 00:05:53,120
instead of interacting with it 
on its own terms. 

100
00:05:53,680 --> 00:05:56,480
The social lane stops being 
sharp because the whole table 

101
00:05:56,480 --> 00:05:59,360
has enough decent stats and 
proficiencies and spells and 

102
00:05:59,360 --> 00:06:03,240
fall back tools to muscle into 
conversations that used to 

103
00:06:03,240 --> 00:06:07,360
belong to one kind of character.
The front line stops being sharp

104
00:06:07,360 --> 00:06:10,760
because durability, emergency 
buttons, healing, and 

105
00:06:10,760 --> 00:06:14,280
battlefield control get spread 
around more generously than 

106
00:06:14,280 --> 00:06:16,240
older designs ever would have 
tolerated. 

107
00:06:17,280 --> 00:06:20,440
The problem solver role stops 
being sharp because magical 

108
00:06:20,440 --> 00:06:23,880
utility and flexible character 
building keep giving the party 

109
00:06:23,880 --> 00:06:26,640
alternate routes around hard 
dependence. 

110
00:06:27,520 --> 00:06:30,680
That is why so many modern 
parties feel less like a team 

111
00:06:31,480 --> 00:06:33,680
and more like 4 adjacent all 
rounders. 

112
00:06:33,680 --> 00:06:38,040
Everybody still has a theme and 
fewer people have a hard job. 

113
00:06:38,040 --> 00:06:41,600
And once the hard job start 
disappearing, the character 

114
00:06:41,600 --> 00:06:46,400
start feeling less necessary. 
Not weaker, less necessary. 

115
00:06:46,560 --> 00:06:50,840
And I think that's even worse. 
This is the less an older 

116
00:06:50,840 --> 00:06:52,520
designer understood in its 
bones. 

117
00:06:52,520 --> 00:06:55,680
A character becomes memorable 
when the table can feel what 

118
00:06:55,680 --> 00:06:59,600
would break without them. 
That is what the what is what. 

119
00:06:59,600 --> 00:07:01,960
Beck me did so well, what ADND 
did so well. 

120
00:07:02,280 --> 00:07:05,680
It's class packages were rough 
and narrow and and blunt enough 

121
00:07:05,680 --> 00:07:07,920
that you could feel the 
silhouette immediately. 

122
00:07:08,440 --> 00:07:11,960
You didn't need 3 levels of 
subclass, A feat choice and a 

123
00:07:11,960 --> 00:07:15,160
multiclass did before your 
character had a point. 

124
00:07:15,400 --> 00:07:18,080
They had a point at the moment 
of creation because the game had

125
00:07:18,080 --> 00:07:23,760
already put them somewhere. 1st 
edition or AD and D complicated 

126
00:07:23,760 --> 00:07:27,360
the surface, sure, but it's 
still mostly respected royal 

127
00:07:27,360 --> 00:07:29,280
families. 
The Ranger did not exist to 

128
00:07:29,280 --> 00:07:31,920
erase the fighter. 
The druid did not exist to erase

129
00:07:31,920 --> 00:07:34,520
the cleric. 
The illusionist did not exist to

130
00:07:34,520 --> 00:07:38,000
make the magic user irrelevant. 
These were refinements of a job 

131
00:07:38,000 --> 00:07:41,320
structure, not a campaign long 
argument against having one. 

132
00:07:43,360 --> 00:07:46,600
Yeah, 5th edition is often 
better at making your expressive

133
00:07:47,480 --> 00:07:50,320
rather than necessary, and that 
is the problem. 

134
00:07:51,280 --> 00:07:53,760
Expression is not useless, but 
it's not enough. 

135
00:07:54,920 --> 00:07:58,360
A lot of modern characters feel 
rich on paper and thin in play 

136
00:07:58,360 --> 00:08:00,800
because they have plenty of 
options, but too little 

137
00:08:00,800 --> 00:08:04,680
obligation, too much personal 
texture, not enough structural 

138
00:08:04,680 --> 00:08:07,080
need. 
They can color outside the lines

139
00:08:07,200 --> 00:08:09,280
all day. 
The issue is that the lines 

140
00:08:09,280 --> 00:08:13,480
barely mean anything anymore. 
I'm not saying modern games 

141
00:08:13,480 --> 00:08:15,840
should clone the old rules 
wholesale. 

142
00:08:15,840 --> 00:08:18,280
I'm not saying every old 
limitation was sacred. 

143
00:08:18,760 --> 00:08:21,920
Some of that stuff maybe was a 
little bit clunky or lopsided or

144
00:08:21,920 --> 00:08:24,200
just annoying. 
That's not the point. 

145
00:08:24,960 --> 00:08:29,120
The point is that modern design 
should relearn job clarity. 

146
00:08:29,320 --> 00:08:31,320
Give classes a lane that 
actually matters. 

147
00:08:31,320 --> 00:08:34,080
Let the party feel what happens 
when that lane is absent. 

148
00:08:34,799 --> 00:08:37,919
Stop treating every weakness 
like a customer service failure.

149
00:08:38,640 --> 00:08:41,840
Stop assuming every player 
deserves equal relevance in 

150
00:08:41,840 --> 00:08:44,720
every kind of scene. 
Stop building advancement so 

151
00:08:44,720 --> 00:08:47,360
that every rough edge gets 
sanded down into generic 

152
00:08:47,360 --> 00:08:50,640
usefulness. 
Let's subclasses deepen a role 

153
00:08:50,640 --> 00:08:54,400
instead of apologizing for it. 
Let's specialization hurt enough

154
00:08:54,400 --> 00:08:57,600
that it creates identity. 
Let the group depend on each 

155
00:08:57,600 --> 00:09:01,160
other, because dependence is not
a bug in tabletop role-playing. 

156
00:09:01,160 --> 00:09:04,760
Dependence is one of the main 
reasons the medium works. 

157
00:09:05,680 --> 00:09:09,880
The party should not feel like 4
people each carrying their own 

158
00:09:09,880 --> 00:09:12,720
complete emergency kit for every
possible situation. 

159
00:09:13,280 --> 00:09:16,440
That's not a fellowship, that's 
a convention demo for character 

160
00:09:16,440 --> 00:09:18,960
options. 
That is the line. 

161
00:09:19,160 --> 00:09:22,040
That's the whole damn point. 
You can be anything is a slogan 

162
00:09:22,040 --> 00:09:24,360
of a game. 
Scared to assign anyone a place.

163
00:09:25,320 --> 00:09:27,760
It sounds generous. 
It sounds creative, it sounds 

164
00:09:27,760 --> 00:09:29,840
inclusive. 
It sounds like the game is 

165
00:09:29,840 --> 00:09:32,520
honoring your imagination a lot 
of the time. 

166
00:09:32,560 --> 00:09:36,040
All it really means is that the 
design is too scared to tell you

167
00:09:36,040 --> 00:09:38,560
where you belong. 
And if the game is too scared to

168
00:09:38,560 --> 00:09:41,360
tell you where you belong, then 
it will also be too scared to 

169
00:09:41,360 --> 00:09:44,240
tell you that you what you're 
bad at, what you cannot cover, 

170
00:09:44,240 --> 00:09:47,040
what you have out have to 
outsource to someone else at the

171
00:09:47,040 --> 00:09:49,920
table, what you must sacrifice, 
what the group would actually 

172
00:09:49,920 --> 00:09:53,560
miss if you were gone. 
That's not liberation. 

173
00:09:54,680 --> 00:09:58,000
That is, refusal to define, and 
a character that refuses 

174
00:09:58,000 --> 00:10:00,680
definition long enough turns 
into exactly what so many modern

175
00:10:00,680 --> 00:10:05,160
parties are full of now. 
Broad, polished, respectable, 

176
00:10:05,400 --> 00:10:10,240
customizable nobodies. 
So here's what modern design 

177
00:10:10,240 --> 00:10:13,000
should learn from the basic line
and AD and D. 

178
00:10:14,000 --> 00:10:16,840
Give me fewer roles that mean 
more. 

179
00:10:17,400 --> 00:10:21,160
Give me class identity that 
shows up at level 1, not after a

180
00:10:21,160 --> 00:10:24,920
build planner session. 
Give me subclasses that sharpen 

181
00:10:24,920 --> 00:10:28,720
a job instead of dissolving it. 
Give me parties where each 

182
00:10:28,720 --> 00:10:32,880
person is carrying a burden the 
others cannot casually fake. 

183
00:10:33,320 --> 00:10:36,560
Give me real weaknesses that 
survive contact with the with 

184
00:10:36,560 --> 00:10:39,880
the campaign. 
Give me clearer dependence. 

185
00:10:40,040 --> 00:10:43,440
Give me sharper silhouettes. 
Give me a game where the answer 

186
00:10:43,640 --> 00:10:46,880
to why are you here is stronger 
than because I also have a 

187
00:10:46,880 --> 00:10:51,400
decent modifier for this. 
That is how you make characters 

188
00:10:51,400 --> 00:10:53,400
matter. 
Not by promising they can be 

189
00:10:53,400 --> 00:10:57,320
anything, by forcing them to 
become someone. 

190
00:10:59,200 --> 00:11:00,520
So this is where I want to close
it. 

191
00:11:01,240 --> 00:11:05,360
No, the big lesson from older 
design is not nostalgia. 

192
00:11:05,560 --> 00:11:07,720
It's not. 
Everything used to be better. 

193
00:11:07,720 --> 00:11:10,360
It's not go back to every old 
rule. 

194
00:11:10,360 --> 00:11:13,480
The real lesson is much more 
useful. 

195
00:11:13,520 --> 00:11:17,320
Older editions were better at 
assigning a player a place in 

196
00:11:17,320 --> 00:11:21,240
the party, and modern design 
keeps trying to replace that 

197
00:11:21,240 --> 00:11:25,040
with customizable coverage. 
And that trait, to me, is 

198
00:11:25,040 --> 00:11:27,040
poison. 
Because once the game stops 

199
00:11:27,040 --> 00:11:30,080
giving you a hard place in the 
machine, your character stops 

200
00:11:30,080 --> 00:11:32,520
feeling necessary. 
Once they stop feeling 

201
00:11:32,520 --> 00:11:34,800
necessary, they stop feeling 
sharp. 

202
00:11:35,200 --> 00:11:38,400
And once that stops, all that 
beautiful flexibility turns into

203
00:11:38,400 --> 00:11:41,680
mush and all the characters just
feel the same. 

204
00:11:41,680 --> 00:11:44,840
And that's the problem with You 
Can be anything. 

205
00:11:45,480 --> 00:11:48,560
If you can be anything, the game
never has to ask who you are for

206
00:11:48,560 --> 00:11:50,920
the group. 
And if the game never asks that 

207
00:11:50,920 --> 00:11:53,920
question, then your character 
might be expressive, might be 

208
00:11:53,920 --> 00:11:58,600
stylish, might be optimized, 
might be versatile, and still be

209
00:11:58,600 --> 00:11:59,160
nobody.