Quote:
Originally Posted by Sojourn
And the "roles" are from a strictly tactical-strategic-combat point of view, which is why I hated 4E. Because you're not talking about "roles" as in "roleplaying" the "roles" is filling out combat and tactical positions.
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Yes, the roles are about what people do in combat.
See, the game that is D&D has
always been mostly about combat. It's
always been about, to quote Old Geezer, "killing things and taking their stuff". AD&D 2nd edition started to drift from that a bit, which is why one of the main themes of 3rd edition was "back to the dungeon" (a direct quote by Monte Cook). Yes, D&D was also about roleplaying, but combat was always a huge chunk of the game.
So the designers of 4th edition said, since most
typical D&D campaigns have a lot of combat in them, we think it's a good idea to make sure
every character has some cool stuff to do in combat, regardless of his or her class. Just because someone chose to play the cleric, or the rogue, doesn't mean that they should just stand around when a fight happens, because the market research we've conducted shows that combat is a vital and common element in
most campaigns. Yes, there are many campaigns where that is not the case. They are still a serious minority when it comes to the number of groups playing D&D.
The second part of that design process was that the desigers thought, if every class is going to have abilities in combat, we don't want to just them make them all different versions of the Fighter. We still want the Fighter to be cool, and to do stuff that no one else can do. How do we do that?
Enter the roles. The roles serve as a method by which different character classes can act differently in combats, yet still be able to participate fully in those same combats. It also provides an easy description for new players to help them choose what character class they want to play, and how they should act in the tactical part of the game.
Personally, I'm glad the roles had nothing to do with the "roleplaying" side of things. That's where
I get to be really creative. I'd hate to have "roles" that dictated abilities or themes or something when I'm interacting with the world in character. In fact, I'm really glad that they got rid of most of the
rules relating to roleplaying. I don't need rules to roleplay. What I do want rules for are the things that can't be easily resolved through pure roleplaying, like combat.
I also find it funny that many people decry D&D 4th edition as being only about combat. It has
more information, more space devoted to roleplaying and getting into character,
than any previous edition of the game. Even the character building program talks about how to create your personality as an important part of generating a character.
Personally, I think WotC did one thing poorly...they designed early adventures to really show off the tactical combat system, and they did not provide enough roleplaying hooks. But that's not a fault of the
rules, that's a fault of the
adventures. Imagine if the early D&D 4th edition adventures had been like the first edition Warhammer adventures (The Enemy Within, or Death's Dark Shadow). I think many people would have formed a different opinion on the game based on how the adventures were written.
Some of the adventures in Dungeon Magazine have been a lot better in providing opportunities for roleplaying. I hope (expect?) to see even more in the Eberron adventure this year, as there's some great flavour possibilities in that setting. Maybe some new 3rd-party companies can put out adventures that are more roleplay-heavy, as we're not going to get that out of Goodman Games' Dungeon Crawl Classics.
Then again, one of the games I'm running right now is a Freeport (and, ultimately, Ptolus) game using 4th edition in a solo campaign for my wife. Those are settings that are so rich with roleplaying opportunities and hooks that there's no feeling of the game being "souless" or anything like that.
Having said all of that, I still wouldn't use D&D 4th to introduce someone completely new to rpgs into the hobby. My "go to" games for that are Wushu (since the rules are extremely easy and it gives maximum freedom to the player), followed by the original d6 Star Wars (since it has a bit more structure, but still easy rules, and it's a very recognizable setting that pretty much everyone knows).
Between people who I've personally introduced, and the people
they have introduced (as one person went on to open a gaming/comic book store in an area that didn't have one before), I'm at least partially responsible for approximately 50-60 people joining the hobby
that I know about. They were all introduced to gaming through Wushu, d6 Star Wars, or some combination of those two. And, some years later, they're all still gaming, many moving on to other games/systems. I'm not trying to brag. It just makes me feel good that I've helped to grow the hobby, if only a tiny bit.