I guess I better tell you about Classpect now
So, you’ve started playing the game. Yep. Told you it was going to happen. It was never not happening, honestly. The time-loop started well before you even knew it existed and once it’s in place, you’re stuck with it. But that’s all in the future/past. In the present, that is the time passing as you read this for the first time, I need to talk to you about two topics your Sprite will inform you about. Unless your sprite was not prototyped, in which case bad luck, you’re all doomed.
I’ve heard some refer to the combo of Class and Aspect as ‘Classpect’, lumping both together like a pile of mashed potato and peas. There’s a reason for that, but you can’t hope to understand this stuff until you figure them out on their own first.
‘Class’ and ‘Aspect’ are pretty overpowered.
At least, most of the time. Personally, I would never want to be a Hero of Blood. You can only do so much with ‘the Bloody Thing’ and it makes a lot of mess. Basically, all the magical stuff you can do? Yeah, that’s from Classpect, save for a couple of loopholes. But those are mostly bad. Use your Aspect wisely. If you stuff up, it’s your own damn fault. Most of the time.
‘Class’ is less important than ‘Aspect’.
There, I said it. Feel free to disagree. We have this discussion sometimes and it’s rather healthy, for the most part. There are a few ‘grey areas’ in The Game, but we can agree on one metaphor.
Imagine you’re in a story.
That’s what The Game is, really. A game. A really, really big game that tells a story about you and the other players. For once, everything really does revolve around you.
Because it means that all your problems and all your failures are important and you will experience all the consequences. Welcome to growing up. It sucks.
Anyway, back to ‘Classpect’.
So, you’re a character in a story. Not the only one, mind you. There are others stuck in there with you and you better take bloody good care of them. Now, like most stories, there’s a bit of a plot running behind the scenes with a beginning, a middle and an end. Stuff is going to happen, basically.
‘Aspect’ is the events of your story.
Think of how a story tends to unfold. The events of that story determine what kind of story it becomes. You know, like genre and such. You can’t escape them; they just happen. By events, I mean that you will be given a series of challenges, quests and objectives related to your Aspect. The Game assigns its ‘Aspects’ based on your personal strengths and weaknesses. Nobody can tell HOW it does that. You’d need to be a godlike programmer to even try and scratch the surface of the code around that shit. I’m not going to do it, because firstly; programming isn’t a thing I do and second, I have almost all the time in the world on my hands and even I don’t have the time to mess around with it.
If you’re a Space player, you’re in charge of those silly frogs. It’s a thing that you do and nobody else can, really. Other players might help, but that’s more or less it. If you’re a Time player, you’re the team’s temporal babysitter and if something goes wrong, it’s up to you to go back and fix it. No, you will not forget the team’s failures, they will linger in your mind like a scar, a tear that just refuses to heal, no matter how much they might fade over the years. It’s there, you can see it and you never not see it, even if you can hide them from others.
Space and Time are serious business, but not the only ‘Aspects’ that matter. If you’re not one of those two players, you still have jobs. They’re not as crazy important but you better help those two out. It’s only fair. Some roles are pretty innocuous and some are only a big deal depending on how big the team is. Doesn’t matter. You still do them.
‘Class’ is how you react to that story.
Every time something happens in a narrative, the characters must decide how they’ll respond. Think of what a Hero usually does when the villain or whatever screws something up. They figure out how to fix things up and then they do it. That’s what ‘Class’ is. It gives you the tools you need to influence events and do whatever you need to do to ‘win’. Or at least make it to the end of your story. No guarantees, but odds are that if you made it this far, you’ll at least be able to ensure your own creation through some crazy time shenanigans I’ll leave for later. I can’t tell you because trying to mess with it on purpose can really mess things up. You may as well ask your Guardian though. Assuming they’re helpful.
You are better at some things, but you can help in other ways too.
So, even if you are a Thief or a Rogue, you should try and find ways to use your aspect that don’t involve theft, though if someone needs to get thieving, it should probably be you. All that Class tells you is what you excel at - and maybe a little bit of what you don’t as well. Focusing on it is a good idea, but don’t be afraid to explore outside it or think of other ways to interpret your ‘Class’ and ‘Aspect’ duties. Every time people play, it seems to be different and as far as I can tell, you as a player determine those limits, moreso than The Game.
TL;DR - Things happen and you respond. That’s ‘Classpect’.
It sounds simple, but you wouldn’t believe how much bullshit people wrap around both of those things. I could also go into all this nonsense about how every story has the same sorts of things happen and how everyone has similar arcs and whatnot but that doesn’t really help. It took me a long time to work all of this, believe me. But even if I knew everything I do now, I don’t really know if it all helps in the end. Far as I can tell, the more you’re prepared for The Game, the more it seems to go out if its way to make everything harder for you, specifically. Are you a powergamer? Congrats, you just booked yourself a date with the biggest, most ill-tempered monster it can offer. If you’re a Page of Heart, then you can breathe a little easier but just because you’re useless doesn’t mean you can relax. You still got enemies to deal with and more importantly, teammates to help out.
It is also a bit like ‘Classes’ in Roleplaying Games, but those are for silly nerds.
