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.
This is an interesting post. It prompted a few thoughts in me, based on my play experience over the past few years with a few different systems.
I think at the heart of roleplaying, on the player side of things (assuming a fairly conventional allocation among the participants of player and GM roles), is
action resolution. Action resolution begins with a declaration that has some connection to, or makes some sort of sense, in the context of the fiction; it then proceeds through GM-mediated framing and adjudication; before finishing with an outcome.
The RPGs I play tend to use dice to determine success or failure of the delcared action: on a success, the player (and PC) get what was wanted; on a failure, it may be that simply no success occurs (eg a missed attack in 4e; a missed strike in Burning Wheel melee combat; a failed roll to meet up with a patron in Classic Traveller), or it may be that something adverse to the PC occurs (eg a failed check in a skill challenge in 4e; a failed attempt to dissuade an official from closely examining documents in Classic Traveller; a typical failed check in Burning Wheel).
This is my take on the notion of "when the rubber hits the road": by declaring an action, the player has done two things. First, s/he has shown that there is something going on in the ingame situation that s/he cares about (either directly, or through the medium of his/her PC); second, s/he has taken a chance with his/her PC, by risking things going wrong.
How much this reveals about the character/personality/motivations of the PC can, in my view, vary quite a bit with system and context. For instance, in 4e combat action declarations tend to tell us quite a bit about the "flavour" of the PC - the steadfastness of a fighter, for instance, or the skulkiness of a rogue, will emerge in combat. This will tend to be the case regardless of the larger stakes of the combat, provided that the GM has set up the combat in such a way that it permits an interesting and dynamic range of action declarations in resopnse: it's something of a system guarantee! I find that the larger staks of the combat allow character to emerge in other ways: for instance, in choices about who to fight and who to ally with; about who to heal or leave to themselves (intraparty dynamics); choices made in skill challenges that are unfolding in parallel with, or as part of, the combat; etc.
A system like Classic Traveller has some element of mechanics-driven PC flavour - eg the player of the "diplomat" with a range of espionage-apropriate social skills is going to approach the game, and delcare actions, that are different from the player of the "handyman" whose expertise tends towards technical and equipment-based solutions. But compared to 4e I think much more of the "weight" of roleplaying has to be carried by the larger situation and stakes (which as I referee Traveller tend to be driven by the patron subsystem interacting with the world-generation and random encounter subsystems).
And a system like Prince Valiant has relatively little mechanics-driven PC differentiation, and much more of the expression of charater occurs as a result of choices made that reflect overall goals and stakes of situations. The closes thing to a 4e-style "cool fight scene with engaging terrain and synergeistic monsters" is a joust with a rival knight, but the possible consequennces are severe enough (often eg losing your gear) and the mechanics simple enough that after the first one or two times this won't be engaging and character-revealing in itself - there needs to be some larger context to give it meaning and against which player choices of action are made.
A different system again is Marvel Heroic RP/Cortex+ Heroic - which actually has some features that slightly contradict what I've been saying above, but which also push it slightly in a 4e-ish dirction. Each PC in this system has a set of character-specific "milestones" that specify occurences whereby the PC earns XP. For instance, in my Cortex+ Vikings game, the swordthane earns XP every time he gives a command in combat; while the berserker earns XP every time one of his allies rebukes him for his use of violence.
The way in which these contradict what I said above is that they introduce a dynamic to play which often is not about action declaration - eg issuing a command in combat, or being rebuked for the use of violence, is often just a matter of "colour" - ie the back-and-fother banter between players at the table.
The way in which thees can push in a somewhat 4e-ish direction is that often the milestones, and hence the player that they engender, are relatively distinct from the particular context of the ingame action. For instance, the berserker can be rebuked for using violence in a range of different situtaions. Which means that the system delivers an aspect of characterisation and intraparty dynamics (because many milestones are intraparty in their orientation) which is somewhat independent of the larger context or stakes of the conflicts going on. This helps emulate superhero comics, which tend in the same direction, and means that the system tends towards the light-hearted in tone.
None of the above gives any reason to think that
roleplaying\ and
combat, or
roleplaying and
mechanics, sit in any sort of tension.
