Because I can never have too many projects on the go at one time, I designed a new fun series discovered an ancient practice called Classomancy. This totally ancient and completely authentic art studies: What does your favourite D&D class say about you?
According to the lore, this practice began between ancient DMs who spent time watching their players build characters. Even when they picked different classes then they always play, they tended to migrate back to at least the core vibes of their favourite. You know the one. The class you keep circling back to. The one you swear you are taking a break from, yet somehow end up making again with a different cloak or a new tragic backstory. A great DM should never lament or belittle that mind you. The best part of this game is when the players sit down excited with their character and are ready to find out what’s going to happen next. It did make me the ancient DMs curious if there was more to why they picked what they did?
The Gamers – Because some of us have been called out by comedy sketches more accurately than by personality tests.
Sure, some people love the Paladin because they want purpose, conviction, oaths, and dramatic moral tension. Others return to the Rogue because they like stealth, hitting for triple digits on a crit, and being the first person to ask, “I check for traps.” Except, I think there is more going on here.
I think, even for optimizers, the class we choose is rarely only about mechanics. Obviously, sometimes you pick a Fighter because you want Action Surge, or pick a Wizard because you enjoy having seventeen options and the confidence to prepare the wrong twelve. Mechanics matter. They are part of the fun. I think most of us are choosing a feeling, a shape for the story, or the kind of trouble we want to cause in a moment we hope the table remembers.
Classomancy claims to understand players on a deeper level. Of course it’s not an easy practice, nor for the weak. To guide you, I’ll present the D&D class that is associated with each month of the year. How did the ancients decide which class was right for each month? Through a very complex equation of the planes of existence, dice, math, and a slathering of “Timspired bullshit” (™ Chris Lacey).
January begins with the Paladin, because many people begin the year with a vow, a resolution, or at least a suspiciously dramatic promise to become a better version of themselves. June belongs to the Sorcerer, full of self-discovered power and impossible to ignore. October, no-shock, is where the Warlock already signed something in what may or may not be blood.
Don’t worry, no one needs to check their birth chart to find out whether they are Bard rising with a Warlock moon, although I admit that sentence is already trying to become its own project – if you are an astrologer and have ideas email me, let’s see what shenanigans we can get up to. Classomancy is meant to have fun with what you play and what you love, the class your friends accuse you of being, because apparently “finding things just laying around” and having “three backup exits” is Rogue behaviour now.
The monthly posts will have the flavour of the class, a little seasonal mood, and a monthly omen or quest. It will also include things like: favoured background, a favoured colour, lucky dice, a critical success, a natural 1, and the all-important question of how to mess with the DM in a way that creates story rather than headaches.
Classomancy doesn’t flatten a class into memes. We all know Bards aren’t only flirt machines in a fetching hat and Rangers are not lost in the woods unless they are emotionally committed to the aesthetic. Instead, Classomancy has its fun in finding the recognizable little truth inside the archetypes like the Paladin who wants to do the right thing and accidentally adopts every moral problem in a five-mile radius. Or the Wizard who claims they are “just being thorough” while turning a locked cabinet into a research thesis.
Classomancy also gives players a playful way to think about character creation. Instead of only asking, “What class is strongest?” or “What class should I play?” maybe they’ll ask, “What kind of story am I trying to step into?” Do I want to feel competent? Needed? Free? Mysterious? Brilliant? Devoted? Incontainable? Do I want to protect the group, disrupt the room, solve the impossible, survive the wilderness, uncover the secret, or just make the villain regret attempting a monologue window? (let’s be honest that last one’s a standard player move)
It is useful for Dungeon Masters too. When you know why someone loves a class, you can give them cool moments that might even challenge the class itself. What would happen if you gave the Warlock a way out of their pact, or the Fighter a moment where skill, not spectacle, saves everyone. These little patterns can help us understand what kind of spotlight each player may be chasing, even when they do not say it directly.
Mostly, though, Classomancy is a monthly excuse to celebrate D&D and TTRPGs and us wonderful nerds who love making and playing them. So, for the player who always makes the same class with a new coat of paint, for the DM who knows exactly which player is about to ask if the chandelier is load-bearing, for anyone who has ever looked at a character sheet and realized they may have accidentally created a tiny, magical confession. We start in a few days with June!
Welcome to Classomancy.
Roll accordingly.
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