Neonchameleon
Legend
I think I've finally solved a mystery - why some people think that you don't roleplay in combat, and why they claim 4e has less roleplaying than other editions of D&D.
To me the reverse is not just true but obvious. Who you are is at its clearest when the rubber meets the road, and in D&D where the rubber meets the road is combat. This means that the moments that should be the most telling about and most reflective of who you are and in which your personality is at its rawest and clearest should be in combat. You can make all the pretty speeches you like when you are safe - but the things that are important to you are shown most clearly by what you will risk your life for rather than trying to haggle the merchant down to save some gold pieces, or even solving a detective puzzle. And 4e has always to me fulfilled this promise with my fighters showing that they will defend their allies to the death, even taking blows meant for them, my malediction invokers shedding their own blood to hurt their foes, my warlords leading from the front - or from the back, and prioritising their allies. Far from inhibiting roleplaying, combat makes it more intense. You are what you do and you demonstrably value what you are prepared to bleed for.
However, thinking of my experiences in D&D games other than 4e this has not proved the case. A 2e fighter might be a badass thanks to weapon specialisation - but the only choices they really make in combat are about who to hit. Meanwhile the question the wizard asks isn't "How close should I get and how much of a risk should I take?" but "Can I find the right spell in my spellbook for this situation?" And finding the right spell to solve the combat is a test with a right answer so isn't so much about playing what your character would do but seeing if you can find the right answer on a multiple choice test.
To illustrate non-4e wizard might have some spells to cast, but they will never ever decide to stand over the body of the fallen fighter to prevent a coup de grace to repay the debt they owe for saving their life; they just do not have the AC or the hit points to make this other than a Darwin Award choice against anything that can bring down a fighter. I've done it a couple of times in 4e, once with a wizard and once with an invoker and both times they ended up battered - but they were enough to hold the line for a round, and the fighter lived. If a wizard standing over the fallen body of a fighter, trying to take the hits a pair of ogres would dish out because that way the fighter has a chance isn't roleplaying I don't know what is - and this sort of choice comes up far far more often in 4e in my experience than any other version of D&D.
So when combat starts I don't expect the roleplaying to stop - I expect it to ramp up because that's where the rubber meets the road. And in 4e when run even vaguely competently and when there is any meaning at all to the fight it does. But this isn't my experience of other editions of D&D where the fighter's options narrow down to "I hit that guy" and the wizard is looking for the spell to solve the combat. If I'd been more experienced with other editions I'd probably be expecting the roleplaying to stop - so I'd have stopped roleplaying. And given that combat in 4e does generally take longer than other editions (and 4e deals terribly with filler fights where the rubber doesn't really meet the road anyway) if you aren't roleplaying in combat no wonder you find there's less of it.
And I really recommend reading John Rogers on writing action scenes where he talks about practically this exact same issue about whether action scenes should be meaningful or just filler.
To me the reverse is not just true but obvious. Who you are is at its clearest when the rubber meets the road, and in D&D where the rubber meets the road is combat. This means that the moments that should be the most telling about and most reflective of who you are and in which your personality is at its rawest and clearest should be in combat. You can make all the pretty speeches you like when you are safe - but the things that are important to you are shown most clearly by what you will risk your life for rather than trying to haggle the merchant down to save some gold pieces, or even solving a detective puzzle. And 4e has always to me fulfilled this promise with my fighters showing that they will defend their allies to the death, even taking blows meant for them, my malediction invokers shedding their own blood to hurt their foes, my warlords leading from the front - or from the back, and prioritising their allies. Far from inhibiting roleplaying, combat makes it more intense. You are what you do and you demonstrably value what you are prepared to bleed for.
However, thinking of my experiences in D&D games other than 4e this has not proved the case. A 2e fighter might be a badass thanks to weapon specialisation - but the only choices they really make in combat are about who to hit. Meanwhile the question the wizard asks isn't "How close should I get and how much of a risk should I take?" but "Can I find the right spell in my spellbook for this situation?" And finding the right spell to solve the combat is a test with a right answer so isn't so much about playing what your character would do but seeing if you can find the right answer on a multiple choice test.
To illustrate non-4e wizard might have some spells to cast, but they will never ever decide to stand over the body of the fallen fighter to prevent a coup de grace to repay the debt they owe for saving their life; they just do not have the AC or the hit points to make this other than a Darwin Award choice against anything that can bring down a fighter. I've done it a couple of times in 4e, once with a wizard and once with an invoker and both times they ended up battered - but they were enough to hold the line for a round, and the fighter lived. If a wizard standing over the fallen body of a fighter, trying to take the hits a pair of ogres would dish out because that way the fighter has a chance isn't roleplaying I don't know what is - and this sort of choice comes up far far more often in 4e in my experience than any other version of D&D.
So when combat starts I don't expect the roleplaying to stop - I expect it to ramp up because that's where the rubber meets the road. And in 4e when run even vaguely competently and when there is any meaning at all to the fight it does. But this isn't my experience of other editions of D&D where the fighter's options narrow down to "I hit that guy" and the wizard is looking for the spell to solve the combat. If I'd been more experienced with other editions I'd probably be expecting the roleplaying to stop - so I'd have stopped roleplaying. And given that combat in 4e does generally take longer than other editions (and 4e deals terribly with filler fights where the rubber doesn't really meet the road anyway) if you aren't roleplaying in combat no wonder you find there's less of it.
And I really recommend reading John Rogers on writing action scenes where he talks about practically this exact same issue about whether action scenes should be meaningful or just filler.
