And I really hope that this discussion will happen more often. D&D can in my eyes not survive when it continues its way of becoming a combat tabletop and devaluing the idea of role playing.
I shudder at how many people here show a complete disregard of role playing and see their characters as nothing more than a walking combo or modifier.
I think there's a bit of an excluded middle here. This is not a black and white scenario where the only options are playing a role kind of as an improv actor would and a walking character sheet. There is quite a lot of spectrum in between.
More importantly, this is a complex matter that allows for people to desire several aspects at once in a character. It's not zero sum and desiring a level of quality in one facet doesn't come at the expense of another. In other words, desiring mechanical balance doesn't need to detract from roleplaying. I'll even go one step further and show how the opposite can be the case.
For many people, roleplaying in a tabletop context is not solely the acting of a character. It first begins with a concept. Let's say for this example that I want to make a character who's a good investigator, like a Sherlock Holmes kind of guy. Intelligent, perceptive, some level of adequacy at combat but not a master, widely skilled and connected. So you sit down with that idea and start making the character, using whatever kind of rules your system has for that.
(And now a short interlude. There is also a school of thought that holds that playing a role includes rolling random dice first and molding that into a character concept afterwards instead of first concept and then building it. If Derren or others follow that line of thinking then I should point out right away that this is no longer a majority position as most RPGs, included the last few D&D editions, claim otherwise in their books.)
So, you now made your Holmes. You're aware and deducing and can solve all kinds of mysteries. But your buddy sits down and happens to have made a psychic who can see the past, future, auras, memories, and goodness knows what else. Mysteries simply no longer even exist when he's playing.
Now, the minority line of thinking holds that "roleplaying" means playing the role of a detective who found out he's just been made somewhat redundant, his genius outclassed by supernatural forces. How does he respond? Will he re-invent himself to learn other skills the psychic doesn't have? The act of "roleplaying" means finding out what this fellow does next.
However, according to the other line of thinking "roleplaying" is not just saying and thinking as your character, it's also a certain niche protection. What is your
role? Well, it's Sherlock Holmes the detective guy. But how can you claim to be a detective guy when all mysteries are gone from the world? The activities you looked forward to doing with your character concept are axed, your role has been cut from the script. This is not a situation of wanting bigger bonuses or fighting better, it's that somebody else has (inadvertently) denied you the ability to roleplay what you came here to roleplay.
I feel it's important that people are aware that there's more than one definition of "roleplaying" within our hobby. (I'd even go so far that there isn't a definition, just a whole lot of consensuses that are often left unexamined.) Anyway, the point is that people wanting niche protection or mechanical support for their concepts are not necessarily min-maxing powergamers. People can want synergy between their roleplaying and their mechanics, and I think it would be swell if they didn't get insulted for it.
Which of these two lines of thinking is best for D&D? Well, D&D is a class-based game. Take a guess.
