RPG Errata: Ascendancy, and Double Classes

Ascendancy, by Gemworks, is a “Sparked by Resistance TTRPG for 3-5 players, set in a cyberpunk city in a distant future, after the empire that ruled the world for centuries has fallen.”

The “Sparked by Resistance” system originated with the Spire and Heart RPGs, and is similar in many ways to “Forged in the Dark” systems. To take action, players roll one to four d10s, and take the highest to decide how successful, or not, their characters were.

As a system, Ascendancy does a lot of other interesting things with the system, all building on the narrative of ex-weapons trying to survive a post-war cyberpunk world.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the system, or at least the thing that is done rarely, is Ascendancy’s dual-class feature. When creating your persona, you choose not one but two classes for your character.

Now, this may not seem like much of an innovation. Multiclassing has been a part of D&D since the 80s, and lots of non-class-based RPGs allow you to spend points that turn you into a fire-ball throwing knight or a battle-axe wielding ranger as you will. Both GURPS and FATE are robust enough that you could easily create a half-cleric/half-thief who spreads the word of the God of Rogues and carries their blessings, albeit both in different ways.

But neither of those systems are very restrictive. Both GURPS and FATE don’t have classes, they have free-build systems; as long as you can imagine it, you can make it. Classes are, by nature, restrictive. They dictate how you and your persona interact with the fantastical world the table has invented. Warriors swing swords and have high HP. Wizards cast spells and can only wield staves or daggers.

We could easily blame the miniature wargame influence on D&D for this tradition. When you have a limited number of actions or tactical concerns, classifying units becomes a useful organizational practice. Archers on the hilltop, Cavalry ready to flank, Infantry marching in front. Wizard at the back, Thief in the shadows, Warrior marching in front.

Slayers, by Gila RPGs, takes this concept to the next level by having each Class feel different. Gunslingers have six dice that represent bullets. Swordfighters can roll chains of dice into a long combo. It all stems from the same core assumption: picking a class defines how you and your character will interact with the game.

The first attempt at multiclassing in D&D was a method by which players could allow themselves to be worse at one class’s duties for access to another class’s abilities. Warriors could cast spells, but they needed to be careful with armor and weapons. Clerics could pick locks, so long as they were willing to sacrifice some spell-casting ability. It was another strategic choice with trade-offs. For some characters, it made sense. For others, it didn’t.

Ascendancy defies this framework in a fascinating way. Every character has two “Types,” which dictate what kind of weapon they were in the war. Some were spies who could put on any face and slip unnoticed through enemy lines. Some controlled the flow of time, while others could teleport. Some turned memory into weapons, while others were robots. And all of them were more than one thing at a time.

Your persona could be a robot that controls mechanical systems like they were their own body. Or, perhaps they could hack their own genetics while also jumping through time. Maybe they have an energy link to another character, all while changing language and concepts into their own reality.

There’s more to Types than this, but the core concept of having two roles is a fascinating one. Even in complexly defined games like Lancer, flexibility of design rarely gets this specific. Sure, you could combine multiple battle-rolls into your Lancer mech if you wanted, but that’s really just a slightly more focused “anything you want” system like GURPS; there aren’t really classes in Lancer.

This idea is also explored in games like Whitehack, created by Christian Mehrstam. In Whitehack, you have the option of three classes: the Strong, the Deft, and the Wise; read warrior, thief, and wizard. It’s a bit more flexible than that, but it gets the point across. The dual-class idea is explored by giving each character a “vocation,” which is what the character actually does in the world-space. You could be a knight-warrior of the King, and choose the Wise or Deft class. Vocation decides what your character does, while Class decides how your character does it.

On the other hand, Strike!, by Jimbozig, allows your characters to have both a Class and a Role. These two designations could either support each other or give a character two distinct functions. There are lots of combinations, and none of them are markedly less useful than another, as you never have to sacrifice one option to gain another.

That’s really the lynchpin, isn’t it? Multiclassing pits specialists vs generalists so that a warrior/wizard will never be as strong as a pure warrior nor as powerful as a pure wizard. With the unique power design and bespoke two-class system, Ascendancy makes sure that you’re never dividing your effectiveness.

But it’s not just Classes that could work this way. When I wrote about Stats way back when, I discussed the issue that certain stats are “givens” for certain classes; a warrior has to be strong, a wizard has to be smart. The early 70s RPGs avoided this by turning character generation into a random event. If you wanted to roll up a warrior, you had to hope your Strength was above 12. If you rolled up a wizard with intelligence 13, you had to deal with that limitation. Nowadays, with the many different ways of choosing your stats, the Str-14 warrior or the high-dex wizard have gone extinct.

But there are lots of different ways of being a warrior. A smart warrior can use the environment to their advantage. A dexterous warrior might be better at fancy maneuvers or pinpoint accuracy with their blows. A charismatic warrior might carry themselves with such poise that their foes lose their composure. Why aren’t stats a kind of second class system?

A strong wizard might not get tired as quickly when casting powerful spells. A wise thief might have an easier time finding traps and secret doors, knowing how other people think. A dexterous Cleric is a Monk, while a strong Cleric is a Paladin. It’s not a difficult concept to explore, but most games just make another class.

The advent of tactical RPGs has encouraged a few new terms into the lexicon: Defender, striker, controller, leader… 4th ed. D&D tried to combine these terms with “power source” to create classes. A martial defender was a warrior, while a magical controller was a wizard. It wasn’t a terrible idea, but it’s a space still rich with opportunities to play in. What about combining classes with those terms: a warrior striker, warrior leader, or warrior controller. Why not include stats? A Strong Leader, or a Dexterous Controller, or a Charismatic Defender?

How far could you go? Eventually, of course, you’d get to the point where a Strong Elven Nature-focused Striker from the East plays differently from a Smart Dwarven Martial-focused Leader from the North, with each of those traits bestowing abilities, bonuses, and more; and at that point aren’t we just playing GURPS or FATE?

Wherever you draw the line, however, there is a lot of space between the single-class D&D-like RPGs, and the flexible free-form GURPS-like RPGs. Ascendancy made the interesting choice of trying Two, and I can’t wait to see what numbers other designers try.