History Main / Splat

Frequently splats are delimited to forming a FiveManBand group of characters, though the number of splats (or combination of splats) is often greater than five. Changing from one splat to another depends on the game and which splat you're changing. Fluid splats, like character class or alliegence to a certain group, usually have a catch of some sort to keep players from cherry-picking all the good stuff. It's usually impossible to change permanent splats without extreme measures, GreenRocks, or other AppliedPhlebotinum. Those who can tend to become ''insanely'' powerful.

** Successive editions of D&D have provided additional splats to customise your character build. 2E had optional "kits" for each character class; 3E had prestige classes which (in principle) didn't depend on your character class, but had requirements that often kind of meant they did; 5E has "subclasses" for each class: Wizard Schools, Clerical Domains, Bardic Colleges, Marital Archetypes, Roguish Archetypes, Paladin Oaths, Barbarian Paths, Monastic Traditions, Warlock Pacts, etc.

** Way back in the 1st Edition Basic Set, races ''were'' character classes. You could be a Cleric, Fighter, Magic User or Thief ''or'' you could be an Elf, Dwarf or Halfling.

** Character templates help define your character's role in the story but they're entirely optional -- if you want to build your IntrepidReporter PC from the ground up, you can do that, but the existence of a Journalist template to start from speeds things up. The second-edition books ''Wizards'' and ''Warriors'' are collections of templates, along with a few sample characters to show how varied interpretation of them can be (using the Knight template in a futuristic setting ... or the Artilarist in a medieval fantasy one).

** Character templates help define your character's role in the story but they're entirely optional -- if you want to build your IntrepidReporter PC from the ground up, you can do that, but the existence of a Journalist template to start from speeds things up.

** Racial packages for settings with LoadsAndLoadsOfRaces, which stack with templates, and which ''are''' required if you're playing one of those races. So in ''TabletopGame/DiscworldRolePlayingGame'' a PC with the concept of "a dwarf working for the ''Ankh-Morpork Times''" would be required to have the Dwarfish package, and ''might'' also have the Journalist template.

* ''TabletopGame/{{GURPS}}'' usually has a few sample splats in each... splatbook.

AnAdventurerIsYou is a set of the most basic and common splats, which appear in one form or another in most games. [[JustForFun/IThoughtItMeant Not necessarily related]] to the ChunkySalsaRule or ''VideoGame/{{Splatoon}}''.

A group or character classification in many TabletopGames. The most well known splats are the typical [[FantasyCharacterClasses 'fighter-mage-thief-cleric' classes]], common to games such as ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'', though racial splats are common as well.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Monsterhearts}}'' has several "skins" based on both monster and high school tropes (though mostly the former). The default ten are [[TheChosenOne The Chosen]], [[TheFairFolk The Fae]], [[OurGhostsAreDifferent The Ghost]], [[OurGhoulsAreCreepier The Ghoul]], [[DealWithTheDevil The Infernal]], [[{{Muggles}} The Mortal]], [[AlphaBitch The Queen]], [[OurVampiresAreDifferent The Vampire]], [[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent The Werewolf]], and [[WitchSpecies The Witch]]. Its second edition replaced The Chosen with [[FrankensteinsMonster The Hollow]] in the core rules, reasoning that a Chosen automatically shifts the tone of the game towards outside threats rather than intraparty drama.

The term comes from White Wolf games. Practically all of their Storytelling System games have a variety of character types, with a variety of names for these character types, and lots and lots of books ''about'' these character types, "tribebooks," "clanbooks," and so on. These came to be known as "*books," or "splatbooks."[[note]]Asterisks are often used in computing as wildcards, to represent "everything" or "anything else". Don't asterisks look like little splats?[[/note]]

* ''TabletopGame/LegendOfTheFiveRings'' has Clans - the Great Clans (Crab, Crane, Dragon, Lion, Mantis, Phoenix, Scorpion and Unicorn), the Minor Clans (14 of them, in the new core book), the [[CardCarryingVillain Spider Clan]], the [[DeadlyDecadentCourt Imperial Families]] as well as clanless Ronin and Monks, and a select few non-humans races (Naga, Ratlings). Most of these have their own splatbooks (The Minor Clans as a group). Most have more than one. And most of these are [[CrackIsCheaper out of print]]...

** 4th Edition ''D&D'' has codified the roles even more specifically: Controllers control the field of combat to their advantage, Defenders block the enemy, Strikers are all about focused dependable damage, and Leaders heal and give bonuses to everyone. Monsters in the ''Monster Manual'' are laid out in a similar way as well, as an easy way to set up an encounter with just the right set of abilities to [[TotalPartyKill kill your players dead]].
*** More specifically: if you play in any kind of formally-organized D&D 4.0 gaming league or the like that's sanctioned by [=WotC=] (such as Florida's [=SCRAGcon=] network, which runs monthly sanctioned games at local shops), chances are that you'll be able to sign up online for a given slot/table for an adventure, and that whether you're planning to play a "Controller", "Leader", "Defender" or "Striker" is one of the things they'll ask you, simply because it gives the other players a better idea of what they might need to play to make the party more balanced, and the Dungeon Master a better idea of whether they might need to tweak a session to make it fairer (or, if you have a particularly bad DM, to make for an easier TotalPartyKill ).

** Prior to 4E, there were generally held to be four main class archetypes, based on the four human classes from the original 1974 rulebook: melee specialist (Fighter), skill specialist (Thief/Rogue), arcane spellcaster (Magic-User/Wizard), and divine spellcaster (Cleric). In 2E, the psionicist (mental-powered character) was kinda-sorta a fifth archetype, but became more of a Wizard clone in 3E.
*** Despite the "iconic roles", prior to 4E, D&D was highly unbalanced and mostly dominated by spellcasters, leading to the (satirical) fan made "splats" of God (casters, the ones who get things done), Big Stupid Fighter (meatshield, stands in front of the caster to take hits), Glass Cannon (mops up the enemy with hitpoint damage after they have been disabled by the caster), and Useless Waste of Space (monks, CW Samurai, soulknives, commoners). It didn't help that a Big Stupid Fighter could do tons of damage as well, so that leaves two combat roles: BSF and casters.

** The 5th Edition has backed off of splats somewhat, when compared to 4th edition. It has become easier to make a character more competent across a wider field of abilities, with character backgrounds giving the chance to widen a class' abilities. Nearly all of the classes have been given the option to become spellcasters, as well. 5th edition has also refocused the line on selling adventures rather than splatbooks, with none produced so far.

* Most versions of ''TabletopGame/{{Traveller}}'' have careers, which determine your starting skills (with dice roll tables) and gear but that don't have much affect on the character after they enter play. Careers still received splatbooks.

* In ''TabletopGame/ApocalypseWorld'' and other UsefulNotes/PoweredByTheApocalypse games, each character chooses a unique playbook, a character archetype with a few fixed abilities and a number of customization options. ''TabletopGame/MonsterOfTheWeek'' has playbooks based on paranormal character archetypes like [[ConspiracyTheorist The Flake]] and [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge The Wronged]], while the playbooks in ''Fellowship'' represent various fantasy races.

* The Mongoose version of ''TabletopGame/{{Traveller}}'' has careers, that determine your starting skills (with dice roll tables) but don't affect later advancement.

Frequently splats are delimited to forming a FiveManBand group of characters, though the number of splats (or combination of splats) is often greater than five. Changing from one splat to another depends on the game and which splat you're changing. Fluid splats, like character class or alliegence to a certain group, usually has a catch of some sort to keep players from cherry-picking all the good stuff. It's usually impossible to change permanent splats without extreme measures, GreenRocks, or other AppliedPhlebotinum. Those who can tend to become ''insanely'' powerful.

* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' has races as splats, everything from Dwarves, Elves, Humans, Orcs, and {{Half Human Hybrid}}s of every stripe. Changing splats was only possible with the Druid's Reincarnation spell, which reincarnated a dead person randomly into any kind of naturally occurring species. Of course, since ''D&D'' is replete with ''hundreds'' of naturally occurring mythological creatures because AllMythsAreTrue, there's an even chance a resurectee could come back as a Troll or an Elf.

* ''TabletopGame/FadingSuns'' has the five major noble houses, the five major Church sects and the five major guilds. Befitting the FeudalFuture setting, the splatbooks divide the characters by social class, [[CaptainObvious so there are three]]. There are also the books for other organisations like the military, spies, and revolutionaries, and the books for the aliens.

Frequently splats are delimited to form a FiveManBand group of characters, though the number of splats (or combination of splats) is often greater than five. Changing from one splat to another depends on the game and which splat you're changing. Fluid splats, like character class or alliegence to a certain group, usually has a catch of some sort to keep players from cherry-picking all the good stuff. It's usually impossible to change permanent splats without extreme measures, GreenRocks, or other AppliedPhlebotinum. Those who can tend to become ''insanely'' powerful.

* The ''TabletopGame/BattleTech/Mechwarrior'' RPG gets rid of 'classes' entirely -- instead, character creation involves rolling dice to determine 'life paths', which chart your character's personal history (it's even possible, with the right (wrong?) choices, to construct a ''[=BattleTech=]/Mechwarrior'' character that ''dies'' as a result of a path selection).

AnAdventurerIsYou is a set of the most basic and common splats, which appear in one form or another in most games. [[IThoughtItMeant Not necessarily related]] to the ChunkySalsaRule or ''VideoGame/{{Splatoon}}''.

* Used in-universe in ''WebComic/{{Homestuck}}'', with Sburb having two types - classes and aspects. There are twelve of each, not counting the classes of Lord and Muse, which seem to only appear in otherwise dysfunctional session. They are usually somewhat metaphorical (the Prince class actually means "destroyer") and can be combined to form very unique character builds. Dirk, for instance, is a Prince of Heart, which translates to [[BadPowersGoodPeople "destroyer of souls"]]. [[YourSoulIsMine Which is exactly what he does.]] Many of the characters who share either a class or an aspect don't have similar powers at all.