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Message: <blockquote data-quote="hanez" data-source="post: 5829644" data-attributes="member: 82160">I actually have to disagree with this statement even though it seems to be obvious at first glance, I don't believe that attitude will lead to a high success of engaging new and casual players in D&D.  As a DM, I know the characters my players envision: the most powerful fighter, the most powerful wizard, the most powerful cleric.  Rarely do they go beyond that.  Of the ten or so people I play with in groups, only 2 or so put a lot of thought into making interesting, different characters.  Most just concentrate of the damage they make.  But, lots of them take cues from the rules.  So we've had druids in 2e whose mission was to defeat the Arch druid (as was a rule in 2e), in 3e we've had noble unbending paladins because the rules threatened to turn them into fighters if not, we've had frail wizards (combination of raistlin, and the weakness of losing spell books), and we've had maniacal barbarians (cued from the rage power).As a DM I know, that when a class is presented with interesting rules, mechanics, and specific drawbacks that the players often take those cues and run with them because they have little else to run with besides the occasional cliche.  Conversely, I know what happened to my players with the more generic classes in 4e, it lead to more generic characters.I would say providing classes with strong archetypes has been long been one of the central draws of D&D, its also one of the things that engages new players the most.  New players know what a fighter, or a mage is and can understand there place in the game MUCH more then in classless roleplaying systems that allow players a high degree of customization (like GURPS or even Rolemaster).  These systems have been around for a long time, but the archetype class system has been very successful (e.g. its present in most online rpgs)For experienced roleplayers, who roleplay frequently and visit forums I would agree, its your job to make interesting and unique characters.  But to expect that from new, and casual players, will just lead to mini battles without motivation, or even the knowledge that there SHOULD be motivation.   So in my view, to make MY game better,  it is the D&D game designers job to make classes that lead to interesting characters.   Strong archetypes, with strong weaknesses, and defining strengths, with interesting cues (like a druid having to defeat an arch druid, or a paladins code).    If the player wants to take those interesting cues and change them, or expand them, the rules should encourage that (and not restrict that).  But absent anything like that, we just have a stale mini combat game for most new and casual players.  Whether the stale mini combat game will be successful, I don't clain to know, but my belief is that it is not D&D.</blockquote>

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