Question for the comments: what are your favorite types of characters to play in a TTRPG, and what is it about their play-style that appeals to you?

There's Glory in the Rip uses classes for character creation, calling them archetypes. Each archetype grants two exclusive features:

1. A fixed 1-Glory-cost talent called a Signature Talent, ensuring every character has at least one Glory spender
2. A pool of talents exclusive to the archetype to pick from, all themed around that archetype's concept to pick from on creation and when "leveling up" (though there aren't really character levels, per se)

There are also general talents that any character can choose, in addition to the ones exclusive to their archetype. My design goal is that archetypes have the "best" versions of any sort of talent exclusive to them. For example, the Stalker gets the prime stealth, scouting, and assassination talents. Those talents cost a bit less and do a bit more. There are also general talents organized around subterfuge, but they either cover different rogue-type abilities or offer a slightly less potent alternative to the Stalker-exclusive ones.

This is my idea for multi-classing: you can choose talents that overlap in concept with other archetypes, they'll just be a little different or a little weaker.

Once the talent list gets fairly large, I could imagine specific campaign settings where only a subset of the talents are available to help the game fit a particular theme. That could help reduce the burden of choice for newer players, but also give me the freedom to design talents that cover a wide variety of concepts and feels.

The Archetypes So Far

Currently, TGitR has 7 archetypes, which were all of the ones I had a strong ideas for:

• Crusher: my personal favorite, the big strong barbarian type with talents for breaking things, shrugging off hits, and grabbing enemy focus
• Devout: a holy conduit for a specific deity that can mark targets for protection or destruction even once they leave line of sight
• Flesh Shaper: an almost-necromancer that crafts corpses into autonomous dolls that can go out and do your dirty work
• Hunter: a sort-of ranger with sharper fangs, with talents all heavily focused on tracking prey and revealing weak points
• Mastermind: my attempt at a tactician that has ways to rewrite history and predict the future as you direct and buff your allies
• Stalker: the prototypical sneaky-stabby type, with talents oriented around big damage to distracted targets and gathering intel
• Technologist: the gizmo crafter, with talents oriented around creating and improving technological devices and even making artifacts

Each archetype is intended to have a fairly large set of exclusive talents to pick from, ranging the spectrum of costs (1 to 6 burn/reserve or 1-3 Glory). If there's a type of playstyle I want to support that doesn't have enough to fill a whole archetype, I figure I can just put it into a general talent. For example, the Wildshape ability that D&D Druids have is something I wanted to support, but I didn't have a good idea for what other sorts of talents should be exclusive along-side it. So I put it in a Transformation category of general talents.

Even if a talent isn't fully exclusive to on archetype, each character gets to choose a limited set of talents as they play. So if you are the only one that picks a general talent, it might as well be exclusive to you.

Magic is Tricky

One big hole in TGitR's talent system is magic. Magic spells are merely another type of talent you can choose. Other systems do something similar (I think Cypher System doesn't have magic separate from limited character traits, except the vast array of single-use cypher items), but it does mean my system would have a hard time supporting a Wizard archetype. Specifically types that have a large codex of spells that they can prepare smaller sets from.

I do have some magic-themed talents, especially the Elemental categories. Currently I've designed them so that you need to choose a "flavor" of the talent when you gain it, and can only use that version. For example, if you choose Conjure Element, and you pick the Fire version, you can only use the Fire version until you pick that talent again. This is good for Sorcerer-type magic, where you get free access to a very limited set of spells. If I wanted more Wizardy-type talents, I'd have to offer multiple versions of a talent and have you gain access to all of them.

Huh, I'll have to think about that. That could be good for an archetype-exclusive mechanic. It might be challenging to make a ton of talents all with different variations, though.

Looking for More Ideas

In any case, this is where you come in! I'd love more ideas for talents and archetypes to pick from, especially general talents. For that, I'd love to hear about what your favorite types of characters are, and what sorts of abilities define those character types. This setting is a pretty big grab-bag of light-weight fantasy and sci-fi, with an emphasis on exploring strange dimensions and defeating enemies one way or another, so there's room for a lot of different flavors of talents.

If a playstyle is on the narrow side, with only a few talents needed to support it, it'd make a great candidate for general talents.

If a playstyle is more comprehensive and flavorful, it could make a great archetype.

So yeah! As I said in the top of the post, feel free to let me know what sorts of characters you like to play in your games and favorite systems. I want to support as many interesting playstyles as I can since this system is so mechanics-light and narrative heavy, so here's your chance to have your favorites included here!