I'm not totally against classes, its a way for you to define your character and that's a central part of the RPG experience. Keeping the 3 main classes balanced is my biggest complaint, often the fighter will totally dominate the other two in multiplayer PvP. Even in PvE it's annoying, with priest classes often getting it handed to them. A much needed tweaking is my suggestion to whomever is thinking of making a new RPG.

The Lover

They're masters of seduction, acrobatics, and hiding. Sadly they've a weakness that when their hiding fails, they automatically activate the Soothe Enraged Entity skill which they're not very good at. They're also quite adept at skullduggery and poisons when scorned.

/edit: forgot to mention: More romance options!

RPG's suffer from classes, but people suffer from choice so we're stuck with them. Some people are indecisive, some are stuck in a box and the ability to come up with something outside of that box is incomprehensible, some can't do anything unless they have a fallback excuse, and some are just lazy. The idea of forging ahead and creating your own unique character is anathema to most of the population, and if you've ever gotten drunk before asking a pretty lass out , starting a fight, or making a major decision, then you're officially normal and part of the problem. :P

Unique because any system based entirely on skill points would end up being relatively unique to each player as each person would choose different skills unless some were obviously better than others. If it's something like Deus Ex Human Revolution where non-violence is more powerful than a violent approach then a general tendency towards non-violent specialistion is to be expected, but otherwise a more chaotic effect without any major trends would be the norm.

However, Fighter, Mage, Thief, has everything there you need to make anything else. Thief has the skill points to go the diplomatic/sneak route, Fighter the tankiness to slog it out mano-a-mano, Mage the ability to tell the laws of physics to take a hike. Anything else in the normal RPG is simply a combination or variation rule. In most games you aren't limited to a single class, so you can go Fighter + Mage = Bladesinger (That was in NWN, yea?) or Thief + Mage = Assassin/Bard or Fighter + Thief = Pirate/Corsair, etc.

Even in your sci-fi/realism RPG you'll still have the Brute, Smart, Skill archetypes. Smart will be the engineer/hacker, Brute the basher, Skill the sneak/diplomat. Which would be the reason they're so popular. :P Simple enough for a computer, easy enough for reasonably unlimited variation.

This reminds me of the Tourist class from Nethack. You survive by taking photos of monsters and running away while they're still dazzled from the flash. They're the weakest class in the game but have a knack for covering distance and collecting limited-use items (if a wand or other item runs out of magic you can charge it on your credit card).

The protagonist is Phoenix Wright, and his main spell is calling out "I object!" with a pointed finger and dramatic pose. Instantly kills all but the strongest creeps.

Samurai, a twist to the traditional knight class perhaps. Different morales and such.

The three typical classes mostly come from RPGs being set in the same kind of world over and over, which is tiresome. If we set RPGs in more diverse locations and time periods we could have more common sense classes.

For generic fantasy though, the three that exist are basically the only three that work.

yeah ive played morrowind to skyrim, all were great.

There is a Samurai in D&D 3.5. In fact it has plenty of everything so I can't really think of anything I would like to add.

I think the original Dungeon Siege (can't comment on DS2 or DS3) really embodies this ideal, and it's how I wish RPGs which came afterward treated the idea of "classes". Are you a wizard who wants to learn how to use a spear to save your friends? Then spend a little time stabbing people with one and get better at it. The same goes for a warrior who wants to learn a little healing or fire magic.

That's why I liked Diablo 2, you can have some really unique classes, for example the Werewolf Druid build, and the Necromancer.

GIRLFRIEND!

Vampiric Drow God of Destruction!

Oh, and I would then choose tiefling as race and lawful good as alignment. ;)

I don't have a problem with the three main classes in terms of the functions they fulfill. People are bandying around all sorts of exciting names of classes, but I haven't seen any really well thought out concepts on how a party based rpg would work without them.

Having one "class" that can use magic, melee and ranged weapns in any party based rpg defeats the point of combining different character's strengths in different ways for different situations.

I also think it's good that it's become very much an industry standard, because I for one think there's enough new stuff to learn with each of these games that comes along. If we were to have to relearn the entire basic underlying mechanics for each game we play, things would get tedious pretty quickly imo.