Where did class/level system F, E, D, C, B, A, S, SS, SSS come from?

I’ve seen these grade levels used to describe characters or monsters in a couple different litrpg and dungeon books. Does anyone know where it first came from? And why S, SS and SSS? What’s that about?

 

I remember first seeing those ranks in JRPG games from the early and mid nineties.

Games like Dragon Quest, breath of fire and Suikoden used them. There was also Final Fantasy Tactics that used it not just for monsters and loot but also to grade adventurer's level. You started at either F or D and a little bar showed your progress, the more quests you completed successfully (and in time) the faster you progressed to the next level for better quests and higher rewards.

To insure the adventurer's safety -actually just the game's way of capping your progress so you don't end up with uber items from the get go!- There is a character level requirement for each grade, so to get to say grade C you had to either progress to a certain point in the game first or reach level 30, and you can't reach that level without progressing because the exp drops go down to almost nothing after a certain point to push you to progress.

As to S, I took it to mean special. Since A is the perfect score there had to be a level above it that qualified as the god-like level. In old games all the scores/level would be either red or black. If you managed an S then that one would ALWAYS be gold, the games way of telling you it's special

There was no double or triple SSS up until the late 90's when games tried to top themselves. One thing I read that is true in the link Paul posted is that there was never a plus or minus in your score with JRPGs. in fact I've only seen that grade in American games and recently in Americanized Japanese games like the chibi monster hunter game for the 3DS.

 

It started in Japan and migrated from there to the US, I think. I remember playing an arcade game there where every time I passed a stage I was graded on that scale, but I don’t rightly remember when it was. It was definitely post-1990 though, I didn’t start visiting Japan until summer of ‘90 or ‘91.

 

Thanks, all! Coming from older JRpgs makes sense, both because lots of people would be familiar with it but I wouldn’t, since I’ve never really played any. Except Shining Force I and II, but it sounds like those were earlier.

 

Actualy it comes from japans grading system there word for the top grade is Shu so understandably it would be marked with an S the SS,SSS probably came about the same way AA,AAA did

 

Most schools back in the day used a four letter grading system though. Like when I was visiting during summers back when I was in high school, it was ABCF, not SABCF. So I don’t think it originated there.

 

Its on the wikipedia page for japans grading system and apperently its an offical grade just not commonly used so theres no gaurente it would be used similar to the E grade in the US

A side tangeont about E it can either be the lowest or the highest standing either for excelent or below a D

• E (Excellent)
• S (Satisfactory)
• M (Mediocre)
• I (Insufficient)
• F (Failure)

On the wikipedia page for US academic gradeing I found this which might also explain why some games give you S's and then an E if you do great a possible misunderstanding of the S grade use (as its preatty clear it originated from japan)

For refrence the wikipedia pages
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_grading_in_the_United_States
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_grading_in_Japan

 

Didn't know about shu, I always assumed S was Special. Schools in England offer 'A Levels' (Advanced) and also 'AS'. I always assumed the S in AS was Special with the exam being tougher than A-Level, but I've since learned I was wrong:
http://www.aqa.org.uk/exams-administration/about-results/certificates/aqa-certificates?a=67781
That system is complicated enough to be an RPG ruleset!

 

I just assumed it was S for Super.

Another clue is that there is a D on the video game results screen, but there is no D letter grade in Japan. It either goes ABCF or SABCF, since anything below 60% is a failing grade in the Japanese school system.

I’m betting it came from the US grading system, because there are also +/- additions to the letters (which again, Japan doesn’t have), but they added S SS SSS on top of it Because Japan.

Seriously though, trying to figure out Japan is an impossible task. I’ve been trying for 27 years now, and still haven’t gotten it down. No matter how deep I go into the Japanhole, it just keeps getting deeper.

 

what i think happened was japan added the S the US thought it was super or something and started adding some of there grades on i suspect if you check games that use systems and where they originated and are sold the S will be more often the top letter in japanese titles with D appering less freqently and in western titles E will sometimes appear as the top letter and S will use -/+ more often

 

Eh, I dunno. I’ll just chalk it up to Because Japan.