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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 7037969" data-attributes="member: 82106"><p>Right, its just HARD to sort out how to make that function in game. Its particularly difficult to sort out how to give characters specific roles. If they are attached to something like class then all of a sudden you have a HUGE number of possible niches to fill with classes. It would take 500 classes to fill your 'grid' given the list above for instance, which is clearly not feasible.</p><p></p><p>If you divorce role from class, then IMHO you obviate most of what role is about. Role, to me, is a way for a game designer to telegraph to his audience what a class DOES, and to help him and anyone else who extends that class to understand what should go into it. This is clear with 4e classes, you wouldn't add a feature to a 4e controller that causes increased damage, or that heals your allies (certainly not as a main thing, you might have a very minor effect that supports the idea of a secondary role). Unless you can make similar statements about any additional proposed roles (regardless of if they relate to combat or something else) then you don't really have a basis for building said role upon (you won't be able to say 'this class should have this feature because it fosters role X'). </p><p></p><p>So, I've seen these lists of proposed roles before, but never really a compelling exposition of what one of them IS in mechanical/narrative terms.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 7037969, member: 82106"] Right, its just HARD to sort out how to make that function in game. Its particularly difficult to sort out how to give characters specific roles. If they are attached to something like class then all of a sudden you have a HUGE number of possible niches to fill with classes. It would take 500 classes to fill your 'grid' given the list above for instance, which is clearly not feasible. If you divorce role from class, then IMHO you obviate most of what role is about. Role, to me, is a way for a game designer to telegraph to his audience what a class DOES, and to help him and anyone else who extends that class to understand what should go into it. This is clear with 4e classes, you wouldn't add a feature to a 4e controller that causes increased damage, or that heals your allies (certainly not as a main thing, you might have a very minor effect that supports the idea of a secondary role). Unless you can make similar statements about any additional proposed roles (regardless of if they relate to combat or something else) then you don't really have a basis for building said role upon (you won't be able to say 'this class should have this feature because it fosters role X'). So, I've seen these lists of proposed roles before, but never really a compelling exposition of what one of them IS in mechanical/narrative terms. [/QUOTE]
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