Roles

[RPGnet Columns]

Post originally by SteelCaress at 2005-07-12 12:21:27
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Sorry if I'm posting somewhat late, here. I stumbled into this a few weeks after you started publishing your column.

D&D does not do the job as far as roles are concerned. It would be great, as in Warhammer or Blue Rose, if they came up with all sorts of permutations of the different classes. For example: if you're a Warrior you can be a soldier, a judicial champion, a mercenary, etc. If you're in a Mage class you can also be a scholar or some such. Lump class abilities back into feats, and place restrictions on some of them, so you can't become a mighty fighter who can blast anything with a fireball, and then maybe you'd have a game that is less hostile to character concepts.

The way D&D is now, a scribe, scholar, or merchant may have to be a Rogue (for the skill points), and for some reason have some sort of sneak attack bonus, despite the fact that it doesn't fit the concept. I had a con man character (Rogue class), and wondered why I got better at assassination, somehow.

For pre-defined roles, look to Elric! (based in part on RQ). You can even make your own roles by selecting a set of skills, not limited by career. For free-form, look at Risus or Wushu, which let you make up your own characteristics and what you're good at is based on description. Warhammer has an interesting career system, but it needs to be a bit more open-ended.

Probably the ideal would be basic career (like Warrior) with skills and abilities in common, plus a more defined occupation (like Roadwarden) with a list of suggested skills and abilities to make it distinct from the other occupations and the basic career category.

[RPGnet Columns]

Post originally by Sergio Mascarenhas at 2005-07-12 20:44:07
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It doesn't matter if you are a late commer SteelCaress, what's important is to have you contributing to Rough Quests.

The way D&D handles roles has varied through time, just as how complex and detailed the players want their roles as also evolved. It was only natural that 30 years ago the game would be very simple, stereotyped and rustic in its approach to the issue. The important fact is that at that time D&D really was a game oriented towards roles. I have my doubts about that today, in the age of D&D3, but I'm not an expert on that game system.

There are different ways we can look at roles in a rpg. We can consider the roles of the characters in the game world and we can focus on the roles of the characters/players in the gaming group. Going back to D&D, the original concept of roles was very much focuzed in the second issue.

I don't confuse roles with skills and the like. A role includes complexes of skills, granted, but the same set of skills can be combined into different roles. Some games place the skill as their basic level of character description. In this case the roles are made up by a combination of skills. Other games have the roles as their basic units and when they do the skills are just specification of the roles. Both approaches have advantages and disadvantages.

I will come back to this issue in a latter stage of the Rough Quests design because I will need to decide how the game will tackle it. In the mean time, I'm dealing with attributes, the other main character descriptor in rpgs.

Thanks for the comments, I hope to see you around in the future.

Sergio