There are many computer games out there which have or purport to give the player the fighter/mage/thief* experience. The canonical examples for me are ‘Quest for Glory’ (Sierra) and ‘Keef the Thief’, probably because they were the first ones I played in the genre.

Most of these games will have different skills you can use to overcome the various obstacles the games throw your way. I’m interested in looking at these skills, and seeing how much each of the games actually lets you play a fighter, mage, or thief, and also how much each of the skills falls under one or more of these categories. But for this, well need some definitions…

The mage/non-mage division is probably the easiest to define, good canonical examples are ‘Ars Magica’ and the ‘Might and Magic’ series, where there are various types of magic users various types of non-magic users.

Mages:
– Basically, a mage is someone who can do things that are outside of what a human could do at a medieval tech. level**.
– They also have some sort of internal power reserve which they use to perform these feats, a power reserve which recharges over time or when they rest. This power reserve is sometimes the same as ‘stamina’ (GURPS), ans sometimes not (D&D, TES, etc…)

‘Fighters’ and ‘Thieves’ have skills that one could conceivably acquire as a very well-trained human. The main difference is in the techniques used to solve problems.

Fighters:
– Tend to use very straight-forward methods to solve problems, often involving combat.
– Fighters will tend to have more combat skills and options than others

Thieves:
– Thieves tend to use more stealth, trying to find an adversary’s weak points, and using more non-combat skills, many of which have less than legal uses.
– Thieves will tend to have a wider variety of skills than others

There are also various skills which any ‘adventurer’ would require to get by in a fantasy world. Depending on the particular game and its game balance, these skills may fall under any one of the ‘classes’ above.

*I’m stepping somewhat away from the D&D Fighter/Mage/Cleric/Thief paradigm, but may revisit this in the future. There are a large number of games which merge all magic users into one, and that’s what I want to explore. Also, the idea of a separate class of ‘healers’ is an interesting concept/conceit, and it may be interesting to see how this is reflective of a society where people damage themselves all the time, and rely on one member of the group to heal them, rather than doing things in a more sustainable/mindful manner…

**’Tech. levels’ were first codified (that I saw) by GURPS: http://gurps.wikia.com/wiki/Tech_Level. Most fantasy-type games feel like between 2 and 3 on this scale. Game balance wrt different ‘magic spells’ and their resepective tech. levels is a whole different interesting topic.