Quote:
Originally Posted by Darrin Kelley
Character does not mean role. There are a lot of games in which you have characters. Like Clue. A well known boardgame. That does not mean you are actually assuming and functioning in the role of that character. It simply means your boardgame piece actually has a name.
Instead of games like Sorry, in which your game pieces are anonymous and nameless. And even if someone did give every individual piece in Sorry a name, that doesn't make a a roleplaying game.
It is my contention that D&D 4th Edition reduced the dynamic from actually functioning in the role of your character to simply having named boardgame pieces.
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Except that a "role" in an RPG is defined by being able to interact with the environment in the ways that a person in that world would be able to, as opposed to a boardgame where your piece is only allowed to do what the rules explicitly lay out. You can't kill the other characters in CLUE, you can't try to rob the bank in MONOPOLY or lower the price of putting up a hotel by using substandard building materials.
D&D 4e, as much as any other RPG, allows your character to interact with the environment in any way that the DM thinks is reasonable, using the rules to decide whether you succeed or fail at a given action when the outcome is important and in doubt.