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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Garthanos" data-source="post: 5137214" data-attributes="member: 82504">One of the elements mentioned earlier that was burried in a big post that received a warning pointed out that ...characters who inspire people to fight for them and who are a in character "hiding and screaming" ... actually work well in 4th edition and the key component isnt even something brand spanking new (The Warlord). When I built my Frodo baggins  character I did build him with some of the latest rules... probably because I wanted him to be very good at hiding and made him hybrid rogue and warlord. ;-).Frodo isnt a comedy relief but I do find the warlord useful for building comedy relief characters (out of genre characters). Non combatant In the middle of the fight get themselves in trouble almost constantly and coincidently the real heros are always in the right place to save them. Warlord doesnt have to be visualized exactly this way but it really lends itself to it.....and the warlord is actually an under appreciated class.Did you catch that element ... Players through their characters powers and how they visualize them are often given control over "coincidence" it is not a pure province of die rolls or even dm fiat.  There is some role changes in 4e and it isnt about defenders and strikers. Its in DM and Player categories. Absorbing the difference is not necessarily at first glance but for me its significant.[sblock=quoting myself about DM and Player Roles in 4e]Role playing games have explicit limited set of mechanics which are used to govern/under-pine the nearly infinite actions a character chooses to take.In 4e the player is encouraged to visualize the infinite choices the character can take in terms of that more finite set of mechanics and differentiate them narratively...Character says I can sing thousands of songs but the Player looks at the character sheet which only lists ... "Rock Blues" and "Hot Dance". . The character may want to do something plausible like do a romantic dance it isnt in the characters specialties but seems obvious to the player and DM it is plausible. So the DM excercises her job..and uses page 42 to extend the games mechanics ie to stretch or take off the lid... she has less job than she used to involving converting from narrative to simple mechanics a lot of those have been given to the player, but her job of being an enabler for going beyond the explicit rules is now even more important. And there are actual guidelines for it.. Page 42 is used as a short cut reference for this but it is not limited to being expressed on pages 42/43, that say "yes, but.." philosophy applies directly to the idea of opening up the mechanics .. and DMG guidelines encourage doing it in a controlled sort of way.Somebody reading the players perspective and ignoring the dms (whose job always has been enabling going beyond the rules), may see more restrictions than there are.[/sblock]</blockquote>

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