Well said. There has been a shift in the design of TTRPGs and their video game brethren towards characters and character classes that are disembodied archetypes or lesser forms thereof. I distinctly remember the first time reading AD&D about how the Assassin class would necessarily belong to a guild and be part of a pre-existing association with its own history and goals. The crystallization of these ideas, embedded in that example, inspired the class design in BMD: roles in a specific factional entity.
I love the idea that a high level Monk or Druid needs to kill the character of the rank above them to claim that level. That sort of stuff is super cool, it encodes the world directly into the mechanics, and is richer for it. Seeing similar sorts of things pop up in BMD has been a cool part of observing that design process.
Well said. There has been a shift in the design of TTRPGs and their video game brethren towards characters and character classes that are disembodied archetypes or lesser forms thereof. I distinctly remember the first time reading AD&D about how the Assassin class would necessarily belong to a guild and be part of a pre-existing association with its own history and goals. The crystallization of these ideas, embedded in that example, inspired the class design in BMD: roles in a specific factional entity.
I love the idea that a high level Monk or Druid needs to kill the character of the rank above them to claim that level. That sort of stuff is super cool, it encodes the world directly into the mechanics, and is richer for it. Seeing similar sorts of things pop up in BMD has been a cool part of observing that design process.