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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mustrum_Ridcully" data-source="post: 4283741" data-attributes="member: 710">Rules matter. But not always in the way people think they do.Monopoly is not a role-playing game because my characters ability do not depend on "who" I play. Be a car or a shoe, you're still doing all the same stuff. More-over, there is nothing in the game assumptions about talking about what a character might do or inter-acting with the world. There are no NPCs to interact with. 4E provides 4 general combat roles. This alone means there is a role-playing element. Furthermore, it gives these "color" by assigning power sources to different classes. And even than it goes beyond that (Ranger and Rogue are both Martial, and both Striker). This is the purely combat-part of the roles. Some might not want to count them for "role-playing", despite them defining a role you have to play in the game. Furthermore, the mechanics associate non-combat abilities to these classes. Rogues have Thievery and Stealth. Fighters have Athletics and Intimidate. Warlords have History and Insight. Clerics have Religion and Heal. Wizards have Arcana. This is stuff not related directly to combat. They have totally out-of-combat purposes, and they describe a characters abilities in terms going beyond something like "the money I have" and "the <s>magic items</s> the streets I own" in Monopoly. Even further, the whole game is supposedly motivated by a story. You are not just entering the game board and fighting some enemies. There is a story behind the reason. Depending on your personal preference, the story may be as shallow as "We were offered 200 gold pieces if we eliminate those Kobolds" or as elaborate as "In an effort to impress the Lord of Sharn, we attempt to take down a band of Kobolds. The Kobolds are only in this region because an orc-tribe has settled in their former homes and have driven them out. The tribe is worshipping Gruumsh, and the Kobolds fear a terrible ritual the Orcs are trying to complete. If the PCs manage to talk with the Kobolds, they might even learn about this and warn the Lord about it, and can stop it."Sure, I could play 4E like a board-game, though I would ignore about as much rules material for that as I would have to play 3E as a board-game, or Shadowrun as a board-game.---So, in short, the idea that 4E is something else then a role-playing game is ridiculous. Anyone that seriously claims this must be misinformed, suffers from bad judgment, or has an agenda that makes him claim this despite any evidence to the contrary. Or, he has a very narrow definition of what a role-playing game is that I probably shouldn't bother addressing him.</blockquote>

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