One of the worst things about 4E was that it had very clearly defined roles ... basically repeat the paragraph above.
Though the frustrating thing about this is that nearly every critic took "clearly defined" as meaning "absolute ironclad straightjacket, you will never do anything else, don't even think about it," which is patently untrue. All or nearly all classes had at least one baked-in secondary role, and a little bit of elbow grease could usually blend some other role into a character until they were cromulent at both their "innate" role and their adopted one. Fighter, for example, could quite easily get into Striker levels of damage, or could specialize in polearms and become a surprisingly effective local-area Controller. Paladin could straight up become a full Leader in addition to being a Defender. Etc. Point being, roles were never rigid, but
boy howdy would people doggedly insist that they were.
I don't remember what Primal, Shadow, or Psionics shook out with, especially since Shadow was kind of broken, and Psionics ended up with Monk, which was initially meant to be be the 'ki' power source, plus they came out so late the design focus may have shifted away from the earlier patterns.
Primal had an innate Defender bias, with high Constitution and defenses across most of its classes (Barbarian, Druid, even Shaman due to the surprising tankiness of its spirit companion), with the Warden being the ultra-survivable Defender. Actual PP classes (so, Psionic but not Monk) had no inherent bias AIUI, but instead were almost totally dependent on power selection, being able to flex really well into almost any secondary role.
Shadow only ever had two proper classes (Assassin and Vampire), and some subclasses for other existing ones (Nethermancy and Necromancy for Wizard, Blackguard for Paladin.) Overall, it seems to have a bias toward either Controller or Striker, but it doesn't seem to have been a strong thing. This is, in all likelihood, a result of most of these things (that is, everything but the original Assassin) being designed in a post-Essentials context, where choice and variety were discouraged in favor of much more fixed archetypes.
Well strikers had a bonus damage ability and Defenders had a mark of some type.
I think WOTC just can't communicate the hows and the whys of the game in an effective manner. That's why I advocate that they shouldn't bother trying and instead make the text as vague and obtuse as possible so people will subscribe their own interpretations.
That's what they did for 5E and look how well that turned out!
Ugh. I hate the intentional obfuscation. I just think WotC has chronic foot-in-mouth disease when it comes to talking openly with people. They're mired in a culture of obscurantism. It could be addressed. I just don't know if they actually have the wherewithal to do it properly.
5e makes it easy to play what you want, you start off doing cool stuff, and even sub-optimal characters still contribute.
I should like to challenge all of these statements.
If your only experience of RPGs is "3.5e/PF or earlier versions of AD&D," then sure, in that context 5e makes it easy to do many archetypes, they get their core stuff sooner rather than later, and sub-optimal isn't punishing. Compared to 4e, 13A, Dungeon World, or a variety of other modern design games, it's often infuriating to try to assemble any archetype that isn't officially supported (look at the Frankenstein's monster you must assemble if you want to even loosely mimic a Warlord, to say nothing of something like a Spellslinger, Engineer/Machinist, Summoner, Shaman, etc.), and the "contributions" of sub-optimal characters are literally "things absolutely anyone could have done, so you still bring nothing
personally to the table."
5e is a great game compared to its primary thematic and mechanical inspirations (3e and to a lesser extent 2e), making significant strides in game design compared to them. That's a very narrow slice of all gaming, and outside of that narrow context it is...less impressive, shall we say.
Yes, 5E sort of stumbled on to the ideal design for streaming at the right time. Their goal was to lean hard into what made TTRPGS different from video games, which turned out to work great on the air.
For proof, I would direct anyone to watch Critical Role's Pathfinder special from 2016 or so. It was painful how much the rules, which Mercer had 15 years of experience DMing, got in the way compared to their 5E game.
Though it's also worth noting that many streaming games eventually found 5e to have previously unforeseen issues. The Adventure Zone, for example, has repeatedly employed other systems (Monster of the Week, which is a PbtA game, and The Quiet Year, which is a supplemental/"map-making" game) due to dissatisfaction with certain aspects of 5e.
IOW, there is a spectrum here, and while 5e is certainly way closer to the "convenience in use" end of that spectrum than PF1e, it is nowhere near the maximum of that spectrum.
I mean, if you let people cheese without consequence, I guess it wouldn't be challenging. Go figure.
I have yet to see a single person actually articulate how to do this beyond a magical-sounding ability to provide extreme, nigh-on overwhelming time pressure at the level of a day (so 8-24 hours) but no meaningful pressure at all at the level of part-time work (so 1-7 hours.)
Because somehow taking 8 hours to rest is an utterly unacceptable option unless the party would die otherwise, but taking 3 hours (divided) for some short rests is absolutely fine, no concerns whatsoever. The logic of this is never explained beyond "well I've done it" and I frankly just don't believe it works nearly as well as people claim it does.
Edit: That is to say, I believe this can be done in short bursts, a single quick adventure or maybe once in a while on a more involved journey. Doing this all the time, pretty much every session,
consistently, across an entire campaign? I don't buy it. But that's what you need to do to deal with this problem. Otherwise it's "5MWDs whenever the DM lets us and something approximating balance when she doesn't."
