Does 4th edition hinder roleplaying?

[winndwalker]

I ran into this blog 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons | Felonius.com in my wanderings, and it makes an interesting argument.

As I formulate my own reactions I've become curious about the opinions of those who wander these boards.

So what do you think? Is there any merit to this?

 

[Kzach]

No.

 

[ProfessorPain]

No. It doesn't. You can role play with 4E as well as any other edition. What I think people are honing on when they level this criticism is 4E really takes the mechanics out of role playing. So you don't have a robust list of roleplaying and background skills. But the idea is you don't need them, because not having them makes you more free to make the character you want. Some people don't like this, and many of their reasons are good. But to say that this in any way hinders role playing, is innacurate. Me, I like mechanics to handle these things. But its just a preference. I think the only potential negative from the 4E approach 9(mainly with how it handles Backgrounds) is fluff that can have an imbalancing effect on the game is harder to adjudicate. But a good DM shouldn't have a problem with it.

 

[Piratecat]

Too ranty for my taste.

I certainly don't think multi-classing hinders roleplaying. You do make some mechanical sacrifices, but from my perspective that blog seems to be making a mountain out of a molehill.

 

[fba827]

Does 4th edition hinder roleplaying?

It hasn't hindered me/my group.
In fact, as it happens, my current campaign ends up being roleplay heavy on some sessions. That's not because of the 4th edition rules, but because it's a roleplayig game. The rules mechanics are just there to help manage the crunching combat bits.

 

[Nightson]

No.

 

[Ariosto]

Yes, but as Socrates (who met a hard end for it) was fond of saying, let us define our terms.

The terms were changed radically enough long before 4E that a lot of D&Ders do not see it as a crisis.

Folks who will have no truck with 2E are unlikely at this point to see such significance in 4E.

 

[Jack99]

I didnt even bother to read the blog, but the answer is obviously no. We play for 5 hours at a time. My players are 13th level. Last night we had less than 2 hours of combat, and the last time, we had no combat. Meaning we had 5 hours of straight roleplaying that night.

Obviously I can't speak for everyone else, but for us, 4e is definitely not hindering the role-playing aspect of our game.

 

[FireLance]

He does kind of have a point. There are no rules for 3e-style multi-classing, or 1e/2e-style human dual-classing in 4e.

However, a DM who is flexible enough could go overboard with retraining and allow a character to completely re-select his class, feats and powers at the next level-up to represent his abandonment of one class in favor of another. If the PC is a half-elf, Versatile Master from PH2 could even allow the character to obtain powers from three or more classes.

If the player and the DM are willing to work hard enough, abilities from one class can even be re-flavored as abilities from another. A sorcerer's single target ranged attack can become a monk's ki blast, for example.

 

[Abisashi]

No.

He is saying that removing a tiny subset from the set of all possible roles to play means that playing a role is impossible, which is false.