Is class-based better for fantasy?

I wanted to start a new thread on classes, since it is way off topic for the character suicide thread. The branch started I think with

Will's Comment ,

Quote:

Originally Posted by Will (Post 794783) I had an interesting revelation a while back, that class systems do a nice job evoking the mood of a fantasy game while point systems are more evocative of a modern (or scifi) mindset. Jungian archetypes and functional 'he's John the Smith' elements of identity in older societies, people ARE what they do. We can quibble about whether that's really what's going on, I don't think it matters. What matters is that a fantasy culture is likely to conflate identity/job/birth/etc. On the other hand, the modern mindset is more about freedom to grow in any way. You might have advantages (or disadvantages) due to upbringing or folks' attitudes toward you or some starting talents, but after that? Learn Nuclear Engineering! Or Basket-weaving! And then Zero-G fighting and Capoeira! WEEE! One problem I see with D&D is that I think at times the Devs haven't had a strong grasp of what the underlying principle is with classes. D20 Modern did poorly, I think, because it treated classes as 'point bundles' almost -- they would have done better, IMO, by sticking to archetypes or moving to some actual d20-compatible point system. (Like M&M or something) Multiclassing is another tricky one. It's appealing but it moves in a more modernist viewpoint, and can ruin the conceptual integrity (and consistency) of the core system. Better, IMO, is the move toward wiggle room within a class, and well-staked-out subclasses (like some of Pathfinder and 5e's approach). When a fantasy game uses a point system, I'm naturally inclined to view it as a modern-minded gritty fantasy, where everyone is ultimately an adventurer in a tavern hoping to knife someone for cash. This is obviously not always the case, but that's the direction that feels most natural to me, and I THINK it might be a more common skew (though I am TOTALLY speculating here) When a modern/scifi game uses a class system, I'm inclined to think the reverse -- space opera or pulp.

I'll comment more in a following post, including my earlier reply.

Is class-based better for fantasy?