Roles in Roleplaying Games

[Thunderfoot]

For me I think "roles" more than anything else screamed "video game design". Classes had specific roles that they 'must' play in the course of combat. And while in previous editions there was a trend to pigeonhole certain classes into certain areas - Thief, open locks, find/remove traps, Cleric - heal/buff, Mage - kill from afar and Fighter - mobile hit point platform, it wasn't always that way in the hands of a creative player..

For example, I was DMing a group that had my son playing a dwarven cleric; during the first battle they encountered, the party started screaming for healing, my son politely asked ,"Why are looking at me?", of course the standard reply was "Well, you're the cleric!"

But he structured his cleric as a summoner - buffing summoned monsters and using them to deal damage, all the while bashing the hell out of anything that moved. Basically he had a high hit point, combat capable, armor wearing mage . Needless to say, when the party realized that brother Rurik wasn't making with the aid and comfort, the party began to negotiate more....

Or how about the rogue that specialized in surveillance and espionage, not breaking and entering? The fighter that shunned armor and went to finesse? The mage that focused on buffs not blasting? They existed, all of them, but is it easy to do now? Not really; possible, but highly improbable.

I like the odd, the quirky, the out of the ordinary. It's what drew me to D&D all those years ago and what has me coming back all these years later.

 

[Darwinism]

Close. A Power Source in 4E provides a way to overcome combat challenges. If you want a non-combat answer to problems, skills and rituals are the only thing available and they are provided to all classes.

...no? It's where your powers come from. Powers are how you overcome combat challenges, and there are more than a few powers that are not combat focused. Granted, the system is flawed in that you will usually have a choice between combat effectiveness or the ability to create a bridge of roots, but you're pretty wrong here.

Yes, the Arcane Power source has spells and implements are needed for them all. However, the overwhelming majority of 4E spells are combat only. Ultimately, the power source only provides a way behaving in combat (much like role typecast you into certain behaviors in combat).

So what you're saying is that a Wizard and Swordmage both are typecast to act... in wildly different ways because they're Arcane? Or the Runepriest and Avenger? I don't get what you're saying; the power source is where your powers come from, not how you act.

Prior to 4E, a class provided a set of tools for problem solving, both in and out of combat. Classes used to have a wide variety of answers available to them. Fighters got Fighter Feats which helped them to fight better (their niche, if you will, was combat prowess, so fighting for them is the right answer). Rogues got bonus skills that allowed them to do lots of different things outside of combat. Clerics and Wizards got a wide variety of spells. Some were purely for combat (magic missile, bless, etc). But the best spells were the ones that were put to creative uses for solving problems outside of combat.

Hahahah yes tell us the many out-of-combat choices for non-casters pre-4E. Ooh! Bonus skills for rogues! Just like 4E. Woops. The biggest difference is that spells were recognized to be far, far too powerful. So there are less trivialize-encounter buttons available for certain classes. That may shrink out of combat choices but it does so to make everyone capable of contributing roughly the same amount in and out of combat, ideally.

Not every class got an equal helping of combat answers, but then again, combat isn't the only area of the game (simply the area of the game that has the most numbers involved with it). Now, every class gets the exact same piece of the combat pie. To make sure everything is balanced, no one gets out of combat abilities beyond skills.

D&D is a game whose mechanics are largely focused on combat. Has been for a long, long time. If the main focus of the game, ie small-unit skirmishes, is imbalanced that is a huge issue and not a benefit. Also you're either ignorant or purposefully lying again, and my bet's on purposefully lying because you've already mentioned that you're aware of Rituals and presumably Martial Practices, which are specifically out-of-combat.

I guess it's really hilarious that you rag on 4E for cutting out spells and PFFF only having SKILLS for out-of-combat stuff when 3E is the exact same if you didn't have the foresight to be a system masteried caster.

 

[Darwinism]

For me I think "roles" more than anything else screamed "video game design". Classes had specific roles that they 'must' play in the course of combat. And while in previous editions there was a trend to pigeonhole certain classes into certain areas - Thief, open locks, find/remove traps, Cleric - heal/buff, Mage - kill from afar and Fighter - mobile hit point platform, it wasn't always that way in the hands of a creative player..

Requiring system mastery to break out of roles isn't a boon. Clearly stating roles is a boon, to let initial players know what will be expected, generally, of each class. And it's terminology that's been in use since MUDs at least.

For that matter, video game design has progressed far faster and better than TTRPG design. There is nothing wrong and everything right with examining good features of a path of game development and then seeing if they fit with your own game.

For example, I was DMing a group that had my son playing a dwarven cleric; during the first battle they encountered, the party started screaming for healing, my son politely asked ,"Why are looking at me?", of course the standard reply was "Well, you're the cleric!"

But he structured his cleric as a summoner - buffing summoned monsters and using them to deal damage, all the while bashing the hell out of anything that moved. Basically he had a high hit point, combat capable, armor wearing mage . Needless to say, when the party realized that brother Rurik wasn't making with the aid and comfort, the party began to negotiate more....

This isn't good design; why shouldn't one of the only classes that can heal well be able to heal and do fun things with their powers?

Or how about the rogue that specialized in surveillance and espionage, not breaking and entering? The fighter that shunned armor and went to finesse? The mage that focused on buffs not blasting? They existed, all of them, but is it easy to do now? Not really; possible, but highly improbable.

What? It's entirely possible now. There's nothing more stopping you than there was in 3E. Where do you even get this kind of idea?

I like the odd, the quirky, the out of the ordinary. It's what drew me to D&D all those years ago and what has me coming back all these years later.

And? Nothing stops this in any edition. The thing is you seem to equate suboptimal choices in characters with better RP through some mystical inversion process, when that's just wishful thinking. To be sure you can RP a fun Fighter who wears only loincloths and wields only tankards, but that RP is no better than the guy in full plate with a greatsword by default.

But nothing is stopping either character from being made in any edition I can think of, nor is it harder to do in 4E than 3E or AD&D 2E.

 

[pemerton]

while in previous editions there was a trend to pigeonhole certain classes into certain areas - Thief, open locks, find/remove traps, Cleric - heal/buff, Mage - kill from afar and Fighter - mobile hit point platform, it wasn't always that way in the hands of a creative player

<snip>

he structured his cleric as a summoner - buffing summoned monsters and using them to deal damage, all the while bashing the hell out of anything that moved.

<snip>

Or how about the rogue that specialized in surveillance and espionage, not breaking and entering? The fighter that shunned armor and went to finesse? The mage that focused on buffs not blasting? They existed, all of them, but is it easy to do now? Not really; possible, but highly improbable.

It's hard to comment in depth without having the builds set out in detail.

But Invokers can be built as divine summoners (Divine Power has the relevant options), and if you want bashing as well you could Hybrid you invoker with a fighter or paladin (both can benefit from WIS).

A 4e rogue can be built to specialise in surveillance and espionage - Stealth, Streetwise, Bluff, Insight, Perception, Thievery. Take utility powers that enhance Stealth or senses, and eschew those that enhance movement and/or Thievery.

Martial Power has a build for an armour-shunning fighter (the Tempest, which can be built on DEX - to support blade specialisation - and get benefits from wearing light armour). If you want literally no armour on your fighter, ask your GM to let you swap your armour profiencies for the Unarmoured Agility feat.

I don't think there is a solely buff-focused wizard (I don't have the Eberron books and don't know what an artificer does), butyou could build a wizard who focuses on zones, walls and the like (rather than "blasting") as offence and then uses buffing utilities (Jump, Invisibility, Resistance Fly, etc).

Except for your buffing wizard, the builds you describe don't seem to me especially hard to realise in 4e.

 

[pemerton]

Dissociation also has other risks (seekers, battleminds, runepriests, etc.), but this thread largely isn't about that.

I like the concept of runepriests! (I'm not sure about their mechanical implementation, though - I suspect they should have been a cleric sub-class.)

I also don't mind battleminds, because they are the D&D equivalent of a class in Rolemaster Companion 3 - the Noble Warrior - which is a mentalism-using paladin variant, and I once GMed an RM game with an interesting Noble Warrior PC.

Seekers, on the other hand, don't speak to me at all.

If the exact same player ability can be the healing words of a deity and some jerk shouting at you, it's not great design, IMO, because quite evidently there should be a difference in those effects, since they are quite distinct in flavor.

But that difference, surely, can be at the level of fiction - just as in classic D&D much of the difference between weapons is at the level of fiction (particularly in the days before variable weapon damage).

As some of these threads turn around and around, I realise that I'm becoming more and more aware of how important differences at the level of fiction, rather than just in the mechanics, are to the way I play the game. And also that, in 4e's design, keywords are a central anchor of the fiction to the mechanics. So for the difference between Healing Word and Inpsiring Word, the difference between Divine and Martial as keywords - which signify, in mechanical terms, the different character of those abilities as story elements - is enough for me.

I don't think everyone expects classes to have an automatic combat role.

Sure, although not everyone expects the intricacy of 4e's combat mechanics either. It's the intricacy of the mechanics that means that good play depends upon different PCs doing different things, which in turn creates the design pressure towards roles (at least, that's my take on it).

But what I was trying to get to, in my comment about expectations, is that I don't expect to find "stance"-based round-by-round roles in D&D. It's true that earlier editions of the game, with looser action resolution rules for combat, have been looser in the relationship they make between class and role. But I can't think of anything in those editions that corresponds to your suggestion of taking on different roles round-to-round by adopting different "stances".

Again, I'm not saying I object to it. (Burning Wheel has something a bit like it, and in a different way so does Rolemaster with its round-by-round OB/DB shifting - although these both operate only on the aggressive/defensive spectrum).

But it would, for me, mark a change in what I expect as the D&D default, which is that my PC has a certain stability in the way s/he mechanically engages the situations that the game throws up.

 

[Thunderfoot]

Requiring system mastery to break out of roles isn't a boon. Clearly stating roles is a boon, to let initial players know what will be expected, generally, of each class. And it's terminology that's been in use since MUDs at least.

That's my point, I don't WANT to be told what I should do. Regardless.

For that matter, video game design has progressed far faster and better than TTRPG design. There is nothing wrong and everything right with examining good features of a path of game development and then seeing if they fit with your own game.

I respectfully disagree. There is nothing right and everything wrong in my opinion.

This isn't good design; why shouldn't one of the only classes that can heal well be able to heal and do fun things with their powers?

My point was, he didn't want his player to be the healer, he was a cleric, not a medic... And frankly, I thought it was great that he was doing something so far out of the norm. Just because someone expects you to play your character a certain way is their problem, not yours.

What? It's entirely possible now. There's nothing more stopping you than there was in 3E. Where do you even get this kind of idea?

I said it was improbable not impossible - please don't put words in my mouth.

And? Nothing stops this in any edition. The thing is you seem to equate suboptimal choices in characters with better RP through some mystical inversion process, when that's just wishful thinking.

Wow, you came up with that hogwash all on your own... I NEVER said suboptimal was better RP... EVER - I said I prefer people to think outside of the box.... [/QUOTE]

o be sure you can RP a fun Fighter who wears only loincloths and wields only tankards, but that RP is no better than the guy in full plate with a greatsword by default.
But nothing is stopping either character from being made in any edition I can think of, nor is it harder to do in 4E than 3E or AD&D 2E.

Again, I never said either was better, just what I preferred, please, don't transpose your gripes into my comments.
As far as stopping either character from being made, again, I said it was improbable, not impossible. The real question comes from expectation. The idea that a fighter is a tank made only to suck up damage or a ranger is a DPS (what ever the #*$8 that means in D&D since seconds aren't used as far as I know) is MUD/MMO thinking. It goes beyond what I believe an RPG is supposed to do and moved the RPG back into the realm of combat simulation. Combat is not a required element of play even though it is the one most often associated with D&D. If a player associated fighter with tank then the player is more apt to ignore the RP part and go just in for the combat (third wheel mentality). Again, this isn't a given, but is more likely to happen rather than not. Yes, I'm sure you don't do it and none of your friends or anyone else you know has, that's great, but it happens, I've seen it, I loathe it.

 

[pemerton]

If a player associated fighter with tank then the player is more apt to ignore the RP part and go just in for the combat (third wheel mentality). Again, this isn't a given, but is more likely to happen rather than not.

I've seen no evidence for this at all.

Two of my players play defenders - a dwarven polearm paladin, who plays in effect as a melee controller, and a tieflng CHA paladin of the Raven Queen. Both play their PCs pretty vigorously. Neither objects to using combat as a method of conflict resolution - it is D&D, after all, not Burning Wheel or HeroQuest! - but I don't know why you would think that roleplaying stops when combat starts.

 

[The Shaman]

These aren't the droids we're looking for. Move along. Move along.

 

[pemerton]

[MENTION=26473]The Shaman[/MENTION] - I'm not sure who the metaphorical droids are. Your post? My examples of play? Thunderfoot's non-RPing 4e players? Combat roles in general?

But anyway, I'm a bit sceptical of the suggesetion that there are all these players out there who are paragons of roleplaying in AD&D or 3E, but then who turn into WoW-bots as soon as they are given a 4e PC to play. But then, the world is full of strange things. And maybe it's also full of crappy 4e GMs. Who can tell?

 

[JamesonCourage]

Umbran explained best why I think you're missing the point. In the 'old days' you didn't choose a Fighter if you wanted to cast spells.

"Casting spells" is not what 4e means by role. At all. There's "dealing damage really well" and "healing people" and "controlling the battlefield" with casting spells. Those are defined as "roles" in 4e. Casting a spell is just a means to an end.

So, in 4e, my paladin has to have the "takes damage really well" role, whether or not I'd rather be a "dealing damage really well" paladin. It's not about spell vs melee vs skills, and it's not about class features. It's about the play style that is hard-coded and baked into the classes. D&D has always had this, but it's been more broad in the past. A Fighter wasn't always a "takes damage really well" type of guy. Now he has to be.

In 4E you choose Ranger, or Rogue, or Seeker, or Hunter, or Bard, or Warlord if you want to be the ranged weapon guy, not Fighter. The only difference is that previous systems used to let the Fighter fill this role. Things change, but the missile-weapon high-damage low-defense guy still exists, he just isn't called Fighter any more.

The thing is, a Bard is an entirely different archetype than a Fighter. As is a Ranger. As is a Warlord. As is a Rogue. There's only a couple upsides to classes, in my mind: simplicity, balance, and archetype support. I feel that the setup of some classes in D&D (including 3.X) are too restrictive to meet the "archetype support" upside. Just my opinion, but in a thread about my feelings on role, I am most certainly not "missing the point." As always, play what you like

Would you care to elaborate?

Of course. I didn't mean to sound contrary or unproductive, but there seems to be a lot of talking past one another in this thread so far, and while a few people have nailed the issue (as far as I can tell), I wanted my statement to be as clear as possible. Looking back, it may have come off as a little short, and if so, I apologize.

At any rate, let me quote your statement again to give it some context:

I agree with D'karr here. Why would you build a Swordmage and not mark? Or build a Warlord and not heal? In general, why would you not use your class features?

Okay, context given.

Some people in this thread like the feel of broad archetype classes. The Fighter can represent of lot of different things: ranged, reach, sword and shield, two-handed, two-weapons, etc. The class "Fighter" is just the D&D archetype for "warrior" to me, for example. With this in mind, by narrowing the Fighter down to fulfilling one role very well (and other roles workably), you really take a bite out of the concepts that will fit into "warrior". I may envision my archer warrior as a light-on-his-feet kind of guy. I don't want to wear plate, I want to wear light armor.

If I'm a Warlord, it makes sense that I'd want to heal from a class-perspective, but not necessarily from a conceptual perspective in terms of archetypes. I may want to be someone who inspires his allies (healing or buffing them in 4e). I may, however, want to be someone who is a great tactician and military leader (I'm not aware of any class abilities or skills to reflect this).

As I mentioned, a few people have really nailed the issue, in my opinion. It's about how broad any individual wants the classes. I prefer the "Fighter" to be D&D's "generic warrior archetype" class. I'm not a big fan of Barbarian (3.X, can't say for 4e) because of how narrow it was. I remember being pretty impressed from some other d20 systems that used a talent system and gave you basically one or two class distinctions, and let you build the rest with shared tools to those broad classes.

That's my preference. So, when I hear "why would you be a Warlord and not heal?", I think "because that's a form of the archetype I'm thinking of." I admit, however, I think of archetypes in a rather broad sense. If you think "the heavily armored melee warrior" is an archetype, I can see where you're coming from. I say "warrior" instead, but it's not like you're wrong, either. It's just a difference in perception.

Thus, I said that it was missing the point (probably rather rashly). I was trying to point out (very poorly) that tying class abilities to roles is one way to define roles, yes. It's not like 3.X didn't do it from time to time, too. I was trying to point out (again, poorly) that it's not a given, and that pointing to class abilities as indicators of what that archetype is misses the point others have been trying to make: they don't agree with the narrow archetypes.

Again, not saying you're wrong. You're not. It's just perception. I'm not even sure that my players would agree with me (I haven't really talked to them about it). Again, sorry for the poor communication, short reply (originally), and possible confusion. As always, play what you like