In RPGs a Character Class is a designation that determines a player's abilities and fighting style (and depending on the game possibly even their origin, education, and home area) often in the form of a job or archetype. A character class is defined by the abilities that it lends to a character — as such, two different characters with the same class are theoretically interchangeable, in that they have the same "power set" and can play the same role in gameplay because of their similar abilities. However, character class systems can come with varying levels of customization — ranging from characters of a given class being literally identical to having so much variety that character class is no longer even a good indicator of that character's abilities. While most common in fantasy Role-Playing Games, they have recently began to appear in other genres, such as trading card games and MOBAs.
