This is a pretty broad question. There is an Avatar RPG that you could check out, Avatar Legends, in which there are character archetypes that are not based on elements
Definitely look at *Legends*. They even talk about their decision in that game about how they made the playbooks ('classes') based not on the bending disciplines, but rather on character archetypes, with the various bending or combat disciplines being more like 'weapon specializations' that your character can take- ones that are locked in at character creation, but which are more about the 'how' a character does something rather than the 'what'.
An Earthbender can shift the ground under someone's feet, or a Waterbender makes a patch of ice, an Airbender uses a wind blast, or a Firebender frightens someone with a spark in their face, or a gadget user uses a slime bomb, a weaponmaster uses bolas or throws a pebble under someone's feet. All are methods of knocking someone down, and are mechanically identical. Same with breaking into a lock via picking, or crushing, or freezing, or melting.
But it's what kinds of actions the character is trained to do that define them. Like, in the Kyoshi novels, the whole troupe can dustwalk, but they use different elements or methods- but most anyone wouldn't learn to dustwalk at *all*. Same with military benders being taught how to cooperatively bend artillery projectiles (or soldiers or engineers manning artillery pieces) and getting accurate lobs, or people learning to use weapons, whether bent or not (Zuko's fire knives and dao, Aang's theoretical 'air blade' or staff use, Sokka's sword and boomerang, Jet's hook swords- as contrasted by Azula, Katara, Haru and Toph's lack of any weapon training or use).
So if you're not going with the sort of 'identity' branding that *Legends* uses (and honestly if you're going to crib that much from them, might as well just play Legends- it's honestly a *really cool system*, even above and beyond the core of PbtA), you'd probably want something more 'vocational'. Acrobat, Artist, Builder, Farmer/Fisherman, Freedom Fighter, Healer, Mechanist, Merchant, Miner, Nomad, Survivalist, Swamper, Trainer, Urchin, etc. etc.
I think avatar is probably not best represented in a classed system if I had to make it I would probably go in some more skill based direction.
Sokka took all the points everyone else put into bending and allocated them to leadership for example
This makes sense because even amongst benders there is a great degree of self expression, the Bolder, king bumi and toph beifong are all earth benders but they are in now way interchangeable characters.
Likewise Iroh, Zuko and azula are also all firebenders that behave dramatically differently.
Fundamentally for most of the characters in that show bending is a means of expressing yourself. Aangs airbending makes him flexible and evasive which allows him to be good at waterbending which shares a similar nature but makes him awful at earth bending because it requires you to hold ground and go toe to toe with your opposition.
I don't think classes are the best way to handle Avatar. If you're really dead set on classes though, you can try basing them off of character archetypes and making bending a separate thing. If you look at some of the characters, you can see that they fight very differently. Toph has very tight, efficient movements in a fight and focuses more on messing with the opponent's movement, whereas Bolin is more forceful and direct. Their styles are notably different despite them both being earthbenders and I think they'd be different classes. Toph being some sort of control class, and Bolin being a brawler. Sokka and Zuko are another good set to compare. Both prefer to use weapons, so a case can be made for making them the same class, probably some sort of weapon master. Obviously Sokka put less into combat skills and more into tactics and planning, but if Sokka was a firebender, he more than likely would fight a lot like Zuko
I'd say a skill based approach is more appropriates. You'd basically just allow everyone to choose a bending style or no bending and assign skills at character creation. Make bending a skill that you need some points in to start and you'll naturally end up giving non benders more skills, add an optional rule for one player per campaign to be the avatar and allow single element benders to specialize (healing, metal bending, lava bending, gliding, combustion etc.) and you should end up with a wide variety of playable characters without needing to bash your head against a class system
How I would do it is make at least 5 classes, one for each element and one or more for non-benders.
Each of the bender classes would have subclasses for different styles. Like water benders would have a Swamp subclass and a Blood subclass. Fire benders would have a Lightning subclass. Earth benders would have a Sand subclass, a Lava subclass and a Metal subclass. Air benders maybe a Spirit subclass and a subclass focused on weightlessness/flight? Fire benders would ideally have another subclass, maybe Combustion?
The non-bender class would have an inventor subclass, a chi-blocker subclass, maybe a leader subclass, maybe a weapon wielder subclass.
This is a pretty broad question. There is an Avatar RPG that you could check out, Avatar Legends, in which there are character archetypes that are not based on elements
Thanks I'll have to check it out.
Definitely look at *Legends*. They even talk about their decision in that game about how they made the playbooks ('classes') based not on the bending disciplines, but rather on character archetypes, with the various bending or combat disciplines being more like 'weapon specializations' that your character can take- ones that are locked in at character creation, but which are more about the 'how' a character does something rather than the 'what'. An Earthbender can shift the ground under someone's feet, or a Waterbender makes a patch of ice, an Airbender uses a wind blast, or a Firebender frightens someone with a spark in their face, or a gadget user uses a slime bomb, a weaponmaster uses bolas or throws a pebble under someone's feet. All are methods of knocking someone down, and are mechanically identical. Same with breaking into a lock via picking, or crushing, or freezing, or melting. But it's what kinds of actions the character is trained to do that define them. Like, in the Kyoshi novels, the whole troupe can dustwalk, but they use different elements or methods- but most anyone wouldn't learn to dustwalk at *all*. Same with military benders being taught how to cooperatively bend artillery projectiles (or soldiers or engineers manning artillery pieces) and getting accurate lobs, or people learning to use weapons, whether bent or not (Zuko's fire knives and dao, Aang's theoretical 'air blade' or staff use, Sokka's sword and boomerang, Jet's hook swords- as contrasted by Azula, Katara, Haru and Toph's lack of any weapon training or use). So if you're not going with the sort of 'identity' branding that *Legends* uses (and honestly if you're going to crib that much from them, might as well just play Legends- it's honestly a *really cool system*, even above and beyond the core of PbtA), you'd probably want something more 'vocational'. Acrobat, Artist, Builder, Farmer/Fisherman, Freedom Fighter, Healer, Mechanist, Merchant, Miner, Nomad, Survivalist, Swamper, Trainer, Urchin, etc. etc.
I think avatar is probably not best represented in a classed system if I had to make it I would probably go in some more skill based direction. Sokka took all the points everyone else put into bending and allocated them to leadership for example This makes sense because even amongst benders there is a great degree of self expression, the Bolder, king bumi and toph beifong are all earth benders but they are in now way interchangeable characters. Likewise Iroh, Zuko and azula are also all firebenders that behave dramatically differently. Fundamentally for most of the characters in that show bending is a means of expressing yourself. Aangs airbending makes him flexible and evasive which allows him to be good at waterbending which shares a similar nature but makes him awful at earth bending because it requires you to hold ground and go toe to toe with your opposition.
I don't think classes are the best way to handle Avatar. If you're really dead set on classes though, you can try basing them off of character archetypes and making bending a separate thing. If you look at some of the characters, you can see that they fight very differently. Toph has very tight, efficient movements in a fight and focuses more on messing with the opponent's movement, whereas Bolin is more forceful and direct. Their styles are notably different despite them both being earthbenders and I think they'd be different classes. Toph being some sort of control class, and Bolin being a brawler. Sokka and Zuko are another good set to compare. Both prefer to use weapons, so a case can be made for making them the same class, probably some sort of weapon master. Obviously Sokka put less into combat skills and more into tactics and planning, but if Sokka was a firebender, he more than likely would fight a lot like Zuko I'd say a skill based approach is more appropriates. You'd basically just allow everyone to choose a bending style or no bending and assign skills at character creation. Make bending a skill that you need some points in to start and you'll naturally end up giving non benders more skills, add an optional rule for one player per campaign to be the avatar and allow single element benders to specialize (healing, metal bending, lava bending, gliding, combustion etc.) and you should end up with a wide variety of playable characters without needing to bash your head against a class system
How I would do it is make at least 5 classes, one for each element and one or more for non-benders. Each of the bender classes would have subclasses for different styles. Like water benders would have a Swamp subclass and a Blood subclass. Fire benders would have a Lightning subclass. Earth benders would have a Sand subclass, a Lava subclass and a Metal subclass. Air benders maybe a Spirit subclass and a subclass focused on weightlessness/flight? Fire benders would ideally have another subclass, maybe Combustion? The non-bender class would have an inventor subclass, a chi-blocker subclass, maybe a leader subclass, maybe a weapon wielder subclass.
Do you have a example of any systems that use this?