Roles in D&D

Looking briefly over the Pathfinder 2.0 playtest material, I'm a little struck by roles (i.e., classes) in D&D.  I recently re-read one of my older posts where I discussed the Thief archetype, which is a very old archetype in D&D.  It actually predates the printing of the game, although it wasn't included in the very first printed version of OD&D, and didn't come out until the Greyhawk supplement in 1975, after the basic game had been out for about a year. But it was in play at the very first conventions where D&D was played, prior to the release of the game.

The problem with the Thief, I think, and why it occupies a very controversial role among old school grognards, is that it really isn't meant for the dungeoneering environment.  The fictional archetypes on which it is based—the Gray Mouser, Bilbo, Cugel, etc.) spend very little of their time in dungeons and they offer very little material to work with in a dungeoneering environment.  In fact, they work quite well for a number of other roles that require a game that does stuff other than be stuck in a dungeon the entire time.  Of course, we're reliably informed that the dungeoneering environment is the only proper old-school environment for gameplay to take place by many in the OSR movement and elsewhere.  I'm not very sure that Gygax or Arneson or any of the other old school principals literally believed this of course, but many gamers today believe it, and even the mantra at one point during 3e's development was "back to the dungeon."  But if the Thief archetype doesn't really fit very well in a dungeoneering environment, well, how can that be?  Begs the question doesn't it?

In any case, although my tastes were formed very early and are largely in line with a lot of stuff that is very early in D&D, I don't consider myself old school, merely old fashioned.  And certainly I'd never be inclined to worry about whether or not something I liked fit into a certain box or not.  If I like it, I like it, and I'm not very concerned with whether or not I can fit my tastes into a specific "style" or not.  There are elements of the "old school" playstyle that I strongly dislike even though there are many other things about that style that are right up my alley.  The same is true for nü-style D&D too.  In fact, one could probably fairly say that D&D itself simply isn't my game, even though my FANTASY HACK game is largely based on D&D for much of its structure.  It's my own personal fantasy heartbreaker, I suppose.

Anyway, in the Pathfinder 2.0, we have a pretty standard array of classes, with a few additions.  I'll list them and talk very briefly about how well I think it belongs in the game.

• Alchemist.  This is a new archetype for Pathfinder (as opposed to more standard D&D) although of course it's been an optional archetype in D&D for quite some time.  I personally think it has limited utility in the game, and I don't like roles that are primarily support because they're usually not very fun for most people to play.
• Barbarian.  I always thought that some of these "alternate fighter" archetypes kind of were splitting hairs.  That said, for the most part, the fighter class is kind of boring, isn't it, in most versions of the game.  So I've often liked this class specifically even as I think it should be folded into the fighter class, which should be better designed so that it can be broad enough to have a barbarian archetype embedded within it as a option.
• Bard.  I've never had any interest in bards at all as a character class.  While I've (very occasionally) known good players who enjoy playing bards, there does seem to be a high correlation between bard players and drama queens who hijack the game to be all about them.  I think something about the class just attracts that type.  And in any case, I can't even think of an adventure type where the bard is a good class to add to the mix unless it's as third string support.  No thanks.  I'd can the entire concept.
• Cleric.  I've never liked the cleric either, mostly because it's a grab-bag of tropes jammed together to fit a role needed in the tactical combat game of D&D rather than an actual archetype that's clearly delineated.  My games don't feature them as an option at all, although if for some reason you really liked playing clerics, you could mimic them easily enough if you absolutely had to, I guess...
• Druid.  This is really just an alternative spin on the cleric (like barbarian is an alternative spin on the fighter archetype) so I have as little use for it as I do for clerics.
• Fighter.  This is, of course, one of the most iconic archetypes in the entire fantasy genre, but to be truly fair, it's more of several related archetypes boiled down.  The fighter class hasn't always been good at modeling the nuance of, say, a swashbuckling fighter as opposed to a heavily armored knight-like fighter, or some of the other version of the archetype.  But that's a failure of the mechanics, not of the concept itself.
• Monk.  I personally have always thought this archetype was too esoteric to fit into D&D.  Plus, its source is not part of the canon of Western Civilization really—so its inclusion is oddly uncomfortable, and a lot of times both developers and players are a little unsure exactly what to do with the class.  I'd rather just not include it.
• Paladin.  While this is indeed an archetype that is recognizable, it's also probably too specific to have general use in the game.  I'd prefer it, again, to be a variation that could be done with the fighter class rather than a class all its own.
• Ranger.  In theory, you could say that this would be a variation on the fighter class too.  You'd not be wrong, although I'll admit for purely personal reasons (because I like the archetype so much) I don't mind it standing alone whereas I have less use for the barbarian or the paladin as separate classes.  But that's a personal quirk.  I think the ranger as a sub-class of the fighter as it was in AD&D means that the fighter class should be broad enough that the ranger archetype could be created within it.  Of course, that might mean that it's not a specific Driz'zt or Aragorn type character and more of a generic "hunter" type archetype, but that's fine too.
• Rogue.  Well, I just talked about the thief archetype above.  Of course part of the problem is that there's been a lot of role and archetype confusion with regards to the class over time.  But y'know.  The basic concept is about as core to the genre as you can get.
• Sorcerer.  This is a new spin on the same archetype as the wizard, and while of course it's iconic to the fantasy genre, you could also make a case that it's not so much a player class archetype as it is either a patron/mentor archetype (Merlin or Gandalf or Ningauble and Sheelba) or antagonists (Thoth Amon or Xaltotun, etc.)  I think at this point, though, if you don't have some kind of wizard or sorcerer option, you'll probably surprise, disappoint and otherwise disillusion your players, unless you're doing a very specific kind of fantasy that excludes them from play.  But there's no reason to have two classes doing the exact same archetype.  The way 3e tried to make sorcerers the "X-men" compared to the wizards being the Avengers was just as stupid as it was in the comics; why are mutants feared and reviled while other superheroes aren't?  It makes as little sense in D&D as it does in the comics.
• Wizard.  See sorcerer above.

Of course, there are nuanced archetypes, and Pathfinder (1.0, at least) explored them a lot.  Many of these were less archetypes than they were simply tactical alternatives, or even concepts that the designers just made up that had absolutely no archetypical resonance at all.  Which is totally fine—arguably even a good thing, especially in such a rule heavy system as Pathfinder.  FANTASY HACK has the advantage that because it's much less rules bloated, you can play a concept like, say, "tower shield specialist" you can without having to have a bunch of new, specialized mechanics to back it up.  You just make your tower shield your signature equipment and because the game is rules-lite, that's sufficient.