I don't think it's a terminology issue.
As well as "being the centre of the action", which is true of the PCs in any typical RPG, and as well as "dictating the terms of the world", which is the province of the GM in any traditional RPG and in default 4e also, there is also "a player having the mechanical resources and capability to signficantly shape his/her PCs fate". The last of these things varies significantly across RPGs. In default Call of Cthulhu the players have almost no capacity to shape their PCs' fates. That's part of the point of Call of Cthulhu - as a player you play your PC's descent into madness and/or depravity.
Classic D&D takes a different approach from 4e to PC heroism. It tends to make a lot of PC advancement dependent upon successfully achieving various epsiodes of action resolution: you have to, in game, find a friendly NPC to train you; if a paladin, you have to, in game, play out the recruitment of your warhorse; if seeking to become an Immortal (in Mentzer's BECMI), you have to, in game, achieve a range of complex and difficult goals.
Contrast 4e's epic destinies - to get one for your PC, all you have to do is reach 21st level, and to reach 21st level all you have to do is turn up and play the game (XP and treasure accrual in default 4e basically being a function of play and nothing more). In 4e, then, the focus of play is not "Will I become a persona of epic cosmological proportions?" Rather, it is "Given that I've become a persona of epic cosmological proportions, what effect will I have on the cosmology?"
This also relates to protagonism. In a game in which earning PC advancement itself requires significant effort in terms of playing and succeeding at action resolution, the focus of play can become rather self-focused: "my guy" is off doing the stuff he needs to do to become better; self-aggrandizement is the focus of play. In 4e, in which PC advancement is simply a mechanical side effect of playing the game, the focus of play can become more outward-focused: "my guy" is out there changing the world, first as a local hero, but at the end of play as a demigod! That's a real difference from classic D&D, at least for me.
I would add to this - knowing also what your PC can and will become matters too, because it permits a shift from play focused on self-advancement to play that is outwardly focused, and about changing the gameworld for its own sake. That's protagonism: engaging the gameworld because of what it is, rather than because by doing so you'll accrue a benefit for your PC.
I agree with all this. Exactly right, on both the player and GM sides.
This is only true if what the player says is something like "My guy tries to climb the cliff". If I say "My guy climbs the cliff" then that doesn't happen, in classic D&D, unless I'm a thief and roll well, or have access to spider-climbing magic.
4e has many more resources on the players side which permit one to express what one's PC does in external, not just internal "trying" language, and succeed: both in absolute terms (the various rogue Stealth buffing powers), in terms that are relative to the mechanical defaults of the game (the Mighty Sprint skill power is an example), and even in respect of actions the rules don't cover: because page 42 is set up in terms of DCs and damages that are level-relative, rather than ingame causally relative, the GM has far more support in saying yes.
An instance of "saying yes" using page 42 from my own game:
The PCs were tracking a purple worm which, under the control of Pazrael/Pazuzu, had swallowed a duergar theurge who was carrying a casket containing one fragment of the Rod of Seven Parts. The PCs' main goal was to recover the Rod fragment (the duergar, though their friend, had been given up as dead). Knowing that this might require going inside the worm, they stocked up on bags of lime (? - something which would be basic, and so neutralise the worm's acid - for the chemistry, I was following the players' lead) - one with the sorcerer and one with the fighter, they being deemed the two most likely to go into the worm.
When they met the worm, it quickly swallowed two of the PCs - the invoker and the sorcerer. Inside the worm they were able to grab the casket (the DC by level table gave me numbers to assess the difficulty of doing this sort of thing inside a purple worm's gullet). The sorcerer dropped his bag of limb, reducing the ongoing acid damage from 30 per round to 20 per round (4e's default damage reduction is 5 points per tier). He then used his 6th level utility power - the pillar of earth one from Heroes of the Elemental Chaos - to force open the worm's jaws so they could (i) get some light, and (ii) get out (the player argued - plausibly enough - that the worm, having burrowed through miles and miles of rock, must have enough dirt in its mouth to meet the material component requirement for the spell). Given that this is a non-standard use of the spell, I asked for an Arcana check for the sorcerer to summon enough power to do it: he rolled enough for Moderate but not Hard success, and so I levied a hit point penalty against him as he tried to marshall the chaotic forces (p 42, appropriately MM3-ed, gives me easy access to mechanically balanced damage expressions). The invoker, being concerned about the consequences of too much elemental chaos, used his Rod of 4 out of 7 Parts to try and contain the forces - his Arcana roll was in the middle too, and so he rather than the sorcerer internalised the damage, through his Rod. The sorcerer then succeeded at an escape check with a bonus for the worm's mouth being forced open, and flew out. The invoker was able to teleport out - normally you can't teleport out of being swallowed because you need line of sight, but in this case forcing the worm's mouth open granted line of sight.
Later in the encounter the fighter PC got swallowed, and was in danger of dying inside the worm, so the ranger-cleric flew into the worm's mouth on his carpet of flying - succeeding at an Acro check, and voluntarily taking swallow damage on his way in - so he could heal the fighter. They both then got regurgitated by the worm because it didn't want too people trying to kill it from the inside. It swallowed the invoker again and tried to tunnel off with 5 parts of the Rod, but the other PCs killed it before it could get underground.
When they met the worm, it quickly swallowed two of the PCs - the invoker and the sorcerer. Inside the worm they were able to grab the casket (the DC by level table gave me numbers to assess the difficulty of doing this sort of thing inside a purple worm's gullet). The sorcerer dropped his bag of limb, reducing the ongoing acid damage from 30 per round to 20 per round (4e's default damage reduction is 5 points per tier). He then used his 6th level utility power - the pillar of earth one from Heroes of the Elemental Chaos - to force open the worm's jaws so they could (i) get some light, and (ii) get out (the player argued - plausibly enough - that the worm, having burrowed through miles and miles of rock, must have enough dirt in its mouth to meet the material component requirement for the spell). Given that this is a non-standard use of the spell, I asked for an Arcana check for the sorcerer to summon enough power to do it: he rolled enough for Moderate but not Hard success, and so I levied a hit point penalty against him as he tried to marshall the chaotic forces (p 42, appropriately MM3-ed, gives me easy access to mechanically balanced damage expressions). The invoker, being concerned about the consequences of too much elemental chaos, used his Rod of 4 out of 7 Parts to try and contain the forces - his Arcana roll was in the middle too, and so he rather than the sorcerer internalised the damage, through his Rod. The sorcerer then succeeded at an escape check with a bonus for the worm's mouth being forced open, and flew out. The invoker was able to teleport out - normally you can't teleport out of being swallowed because you need line of sight, but in this case forcing the worm's mouth open granted line of sight.
Later in the encounter the fighter PC got swallowed, and was in danger of dying inside the worm, so the ranger-cleric flew into the worm's mouth on his carpet of flying - succeeding at an Acro check, and voluntarily taking swallow damage on his way in - so he could heal the fighter. They both then got regurgitated by the worm because it didn't want too people trying to kill it from the inside. It swallowed the invoker again and tried to tunnel off with 5 parts of the Rod, but the other PCs killed it before it could get underground.
I could never have adjudiated this in Rolemaster, nor in Classic D&D - the tools (for setting ad hoc DCs, ad hoc damage, etc) just aren't there. Whereas 4e made it easy. And the result was a dramatic scene in which the fact that the worm is a giant monster that swallows you mattered, in detail, to the unfolding resolution; and the fact that the PCs are near-epic heroes who can fight there way into and out of the gullets of the worm was actually demonstrated in play, at a level of detail that allowed the differences in their personalities, and their capabilities, to emerge.
This is the sort of thing I think of when I think of protagonism in 4e.
For some groups it would obviously be too gonzo. (My own adjudication was inspired by a purple worm thread back in 2009, when someone complained about dying inside a worm and [MENTION=386]LostSoul[/MENTION] replied that the rogue should have roped up and used Acro to go in on a rescue mission!) But for those groups there will be some less gonzo form of heroic fantasy that 4e can equally give robust support for.
These two posts capture exactly what I mean when I say I wouldn't be able to run the purple worm fight in Rolemaster, nor (at leat as I understand it) in classic D&D. So many checks at every point of the process, only absurd luck would allow the players to get away with what they did. Plus the resolution would tend to go from mechanically heavy but dramatic (the stakes of each roll are clear) to even more mechanically heavy and risking bogging down in minutiae.
I think this is right about 4e's skill system. I think, particularly given the advice presented, it is harder to use well - on both player and GM sides - than combat encounter building and resolution.
