Would You Rather Have Class or Skill?

Ten Ton Hammer has published an editorial called “Would You Rather Have Class or Skill?”, that looks at both sides of such a debate as it applies to MMORPGs. The topic could really apply to single player RPGs, as well:

…with the success of class systems in the (mainstream) marketplace, there were members of the panel who believed that there was a certain amount of comfort in picking a class rather than filtering through a list of skills. Most players familiar with MMOs, Dungeons and Dragons, or fantasy-as-a-genre, are fairly familiar with the classes that many developers inherently put into their game. It’s easy for a gamer to describe what a wizard does…millions of readers have picked up the Harry Potter series…a wizard deals in magic! Thus, when a developer uses a class system, he’s nearly guaranteed a sense of familiarity from many of the MMO gamers.