D&D 4E The "We Can't Roleplay" in 4E Argument

[Ryujin]

Are they? Certainly you could see some of the newer class designs as having some characteristics that are reminiscent of AD&D, but the system is still very different in the must fundamental ways. I'm not convinced that Mike is going backwards at all. I think he's searching the design space for optimal solutions and there will be things he's going to try that hark back to older games. At the same time I don't see anything he's said that indicates he isn't aware of the fact that in the context of 4e they work very differently than they did in AD&D. I suspect he's a far cleverer game designer than to think that he's going to make 4e more like AD&D simply by emulating a few peripheral characteristics of that system.

If his goal was to reproduce AD&D style PLAY he'd have started in a very different place than spreading class features out over a few levels and reducing the amount of power selection fighters get.

"All things, to all people."

I'm not saying that it's bad, because I quite like what I'm seeing. I'm just saying that it sure looks familiar

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Apples and oranges comparison. Achiles didn't wear chainmail. That doesn't mean he couldn't. And I'd expect Achiles to be lethal wearing chainmail and carrying a polearm. Almost as lethal as with his preferred weapons and armour.

So now you're saying that the comparison was invalid because while he didn't wear Chainmail or use a Glaive...but could have (even without the training that requires)...which implies you know for a fact that Scheherezade wasn't proficient with handling weapons like whips, light blades, etc. (leaving aside the whole magic thing), that she knew nothing of combat and other elements that would make her unsuitable for the Bard class.

How did you come by this remarkable knowledge?

As for Aragorn, I find it puzzling that you'd not consider Ranger the best fit for a warrior who is a renown woodsman, swordsman, tracker, etc.; that you'd consider Jeanne and Lancelot Fighters when their connection to the divine and attributed abilities made them the prototypical Paladins merely because of silly and/or extraneous class features. Puzzling.

 

[I'm A Banana]

For all that we know, he could be. Things certainly seem to be swinging back towards the way that things "used to be."

I think you may want to calibrate your hateometer if you are under the impression that "learning from the past" means "hating the present."

And just because people try to make things better (by pointing out the flaws of the current system) doesn't mean they hate the current mold. They may love the current mold. That is what good love does. It makes things better.

Apathy, or fundamentalism. Now that's where you get an lack of change. The former's no fun because no one cares, and the latter's no fun because folks care too much about things that don't matter.

 

[Greg K]

My group recently suspended our D&D 4e campaign and started playing Savage Worlds. It's a great little system, both compact and universal, with a fairly robust character creation system, full of various interesting knobs to twiddle.

But there's no real crafting system. No Perform: X, either (despite illustrations of nightclub singers and stage magicians in the book). There are professional feats, but they're not analogous to to 3e's Profession: X skill.

True, there is no craft skill- it falls to background or knowledge. However, there is mention of including a Perform skill in the GM section (and the Brand Manager, Clint Black, admits to using a Perform skill in the games he runs). It also doesn't hurt that
1. there are more skills in SW than in 4e;
2. the Knowledge skill is closer to 3e's knowledge skill and the GM can make them broad or narrow as they deem, necessary, for their campaign
3. The player has control of making his or her character just as skilled as they choose to be in a particular area. Decide how good you want to be and buy your skill to that level. There is no +1/2 level bonus. getting in the way?

 

[pemerton]

That certainly leaves the option open for a character to be a great baker as a part of the PCs background.

As it happens, the wizard PC in my game is a great baker as a part of his background.

He learned magic as an initiate of the Raven Queen while a young man. He then became a baker. Then, after his city was destroyed by humanoid hoards, he wandered south where he eventually met up with some other wanderers in a bar and took up work with them! And since dying but being sent back to the mortal world by the Raven Queen at the behest of Erathis, he has become an invoker dedicated to Erathis, Ioun and Vecna who is (I think) working towards the restoration of old Nerath - using the Rod of Seven Parts (of which he has 2 so far) as his tool.

So far his baking has not figured very much in play (other than in being the party provisioner) but I'm sure it will come up one day!

 

[Neonchameleon]

So now you're saying that the comparison was invalid because while he didn't wear Chainmail or use a Glaive...but could have (even without the training that requires)...

Wearing chainmail does not require a lot of training. I've done it. As for a glaive, I've never understood the D&D obsession with a couple of dozen different types of polearms. Achiles with a long bladed weapon on a stick would be lethal. Not as lethal as with his favoured spear. But certainly very dangerous. Honestly, I'm pretty sure Achiles would be able to make a spork into a dangerous weapon.

which implies you know for a fact that Scheherezade wasn't proficient with handling weapons like whips, light blades, etc. (leaving aside the whole magic thing), that she knew nothing of combat and other elements that would make her unsuitable for the Bard class.

How did you come by this remarkable knowledge?

I see absolutely no evidence in any of the myths I'm aware of to indicate Schehezerade had any sort of combat training at all. It certainly wasn't a lens through which she saw the world.

As for Aragorn, I find it puzzling that you'd not consider Ranger the best fit for a warrior who is a renown woodsman, swordsman, tracker, etc.;

In 3.X classes aren't archetypes. They are themed collections of abilities. Woodsman is one skill, track is one feat. I might choose one level of Ranger or possibly even two for Aragorn in 3.X - but he'd be a complex build. (In 4e I'd give him a ranger multiclass feat - but probably start with a base of Warlord - 4e classes are much more archetypal and much less likely to cause weirdness).

that you'd consider Jeanne and Lancelot Fighters when their connection to the divine and attributed abilities made them the prototypical Paladins merely because of silly and/or extraneous class features. Puzzling.

Joan of Arc was a real historical figure. I do not see making real historical figures non-magical as even remotely puzzling. As for Lancelot, tales vary. But all of them I'm aware of recognise the strength of his arm as his primary attribute. And he was not one of the grail knights. Possibly we're just familiar with different myths here.

 

[Ryujin]

Joan of Arc was a real historical figure. I do not see making real historical figures non-magical as even remotely puzzling. As for Lancelot, tales vary. But all of them I'm aware of recognise the strength of his arm as his primary attribute. And he was not one of the grail knights. Possibly we're just familiar with different myths here.

Unfortunately the Disneyfication of mythology has rather muddied the waters, where most people's recollections are concerned. Feminist 'reimaginings', like "Mists of Avalon", haven't helped much either.

I agree that you'd do a better job at imagining Lancelot as a rather forthright and plate armour wearing Fighter, than as a D&D Paladin. Paladins come from books like "Three Hearts and Three Lions."

I think you may want to calibrate your hateometer if you are under the impression that "learning from the past" means "hating the present."

And just because people try to make things better (by pointing out the flaws of the current system) doesn't mean they hate the current mold. They may love the current mold. That is what good love does. It makes things better.

Apathy, or fundamentalism. Now that's where you get an lack of change. The former's no fun because no one cares, and the latter's no fun because folks care too much about things that don't matter.

Not quite what I said. Please see my response, just previous to the quoted post.

 

[Kerranin]

I think there is a certain amount of confusion between simulation and role-playing here - the two are not the same, nor are they mutually exclusive.

What I would definitively say is that you do not need to be able to simulate every action down to minute detail in order to role-play.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Joan of Arc was a real historical figure. I do not see making real historical figures non-magical as even remotely puzzling.

Her contemporaries would disagree with you. As would, I guess, anyone who considers her a saint today.

Of some interest might be Joan of Arc - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, which gives a crude overview of Joan of Arc's visions.

As for Lancelot, tales vary. But all of them I'm aware of recognise the strength of his arm as his primary attribute. And he was not one of the grail knights. Possibly we're just familiar with different myths here.

Possible interesting reading here: Lancelot - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lancelot, Galahad, and the Grail

By this time, Lancelot is one of the most famous knights of the Round Table and Elaine, daughter of the Fisher King, falls in love with him. She tricks him into believing that she is Queen Guinevere, and he sleeps with her, and the ensuing pregnancy results in the birth of Galahad.

Word returns to Queen Guinevere and in a fit of rage, she banishes Lancelot after subjecting him to a long tirade criticizing him for his behavior. Broken by this rejection, Lancelot loses his wits and wanders the wilderness for two years until he arrives at Corbin. Elaine recognizes him, and he is shown the Holy Grail through a veil that cures his madness. Shortly after he recovers, he returns to Camelot after being found by Sir Percival and Sir Ector at a repentant Queen Guenevere's request.

Upon his return to court, Lancelot takes part in the Grail Quest with Perceval and Galahad, though as an adulterer and a man minded of earthly honors that have come with his knightly prowess, he is only allowed a glimpse of the Grail itself. It is instead his son, Galahad, who ultimately achieves the Grail, (along with Lancelot's nephew, Sir Bors, and Sir Perceval the son of King Pellinore).

If you cannot wrap your head around the idea that "A knight who is false cannot best a knight who is true" or the way that the pre-modern mind conflates spiritual and physical properties, I fear that Lancelot will always seem merely a strong and talented man.


RC

 

[Ryujin]

I think there is a certain amount of confusion between simulation and role-playing here - the two are not the same, nor are they mutually exclusive.

What I would definitively say is that you do not need to be able to simulate every action down to minute detail in order to role-play.

Exactly. In a 3e campaign one of the ongoing story arcs, for my many multi-classed fighter/monk/rogue/kensai was the creation of a masterwork bow. The character had a maxed-out craft/bowyer skill, but I don't think that we made more than 3 rolls, on that skill, in 15 levels of play. I might as well not have had the skill, and yet at level 14 I had role-played my way to a masterwork MAGIC bow, made of a rare, special wood that I had spent at least a little time trying to source, then craft, at every level of the character.

It's "role", not "roll" play.