Classes Should be Specific, and OD&D is a Template

I have been thinking about OD&D recently. I've been thinking of hacking it into an existing product setting. But I think the classes bug me, at a conceptual level. I have no problems with the mechanics of any of the basic 3 classes; the fighter, cleric, or magic user, nor the optional thief. But I think the classes, being only broad concepts, are a bit lackluster. I think they point to no concrete view of how they fit into the setting, and conceptually tighter classes give better diegetic information.

Let's take the fighter for instance. There are many types of armed combatants in fantasy, from soldiers and mercenaries to brawlers (e.g. "barbarian" classes, problematic as that can be). So if you decide to be a fighter, you are supplied with mechanicals, but nothing else that directs how your character fits into the setting.

I think this can genuinely detract from play. Let's examine parley. Consider the charisma description in Book 1, which says "the charisma score is usable to decide such things as whether or not a witch capturing a player will turn him into a swine or keep him enchanted as a lover." I think this referee's decision, and the in-game interaction, can be improved and augmented if we have more specific information on the characters that would interact with the witch. Does the witch take favorably to brawling, burly fighters? Or perhaps have an outright hatred to soldiers? What if the class was instead a "witch-hunter" class? These factors provide diegetic information that eases players' and ref's decisions without mechanical overhead.

I also think classes based on tighter concepts, rather than loose archetypes, provide better implicit setting information. The implied setting of OD&D has been the subject of many bits and bytes of blog posts, pdfs, and forum posts. There is a general consensus, based on analysis of monster lists, PC powers (e.g. turn undead), and of course Appendix N. This could be more coherently presented with specific classes. 

For example, instead of the magic-user, we can call the class "Third Age Wizards." The use of "wizard" immediately brings a type of magic-user to mind: one that uses precise manipulation of basic magical energies to influence reality (or something). "Third Age" provides more information, but in a flexible way. As you think of your setting, you can decide that the game will take place in the Fifth Age. Then a Third Age Wizard brings up ideas that they are practitioners from a bygone era, like Gandalf. However, you could also set your game in the Third Age, in which these wizards are now trailblazing researchers, rulers, or advisors. This provides more understanding of the PCs, in a way that provides in-game direction for both player and referee on how a character class should be understood in the setting, without a "lore dump."

Of course, one has to ask, is this broadness of classes truly a flaw of the OD&D booklets? I think not. Reading the Book 1 introduction, Gygax describes the booklets as "guidelines to follow in designing your own fantastic-medieval campaign". I read this as a recommendation to hack the contents of the LBB. Make them more setting specific, tweak mechanics, and so on. You should be inspired to make an RPG of your own. In this way, OD&D is great reading as a basis for hacking, no matter if you love the content or are ready to Frankenstein it.

So I see OD&D as a template, an encapsulating framework to trim and edit to your setting. Not to say you can't run it with none, but if you have a vision of a setting, you can get OD&D to fit it. I think it's also fine to realize RPGing has changed a lot since '74, and that changes what game information is important.

Now, all the bad theory out of the way, here's a class for an OD&D hack set in the deserts of Vaarn.

Killsynth

A machine made to kill. You are skilled in nearly every form of combat. Your fundamental programming directs your mission in combat. Most computations focus on finding opponents' tactical errors, defensive weaknesses, and reactions. You have limited memory for information irrelevant to your mission.

HD: As Fighter

Fighting Capability: As Fighter

Armour and Weapons: All are usable.

All other mechanicals: As Fighter.

(So it's a specific, Terminator-esque fighter class. I wouldn't encourage any player to use this description as a 'role-playing prompt' and go murder-hobo. It just gives context to why a killsynth fights so well. It can also influence rulings based on diegetics, as being a synth in the Vaarn setting would.)