Do you think themes have fulfilled their role?

[Kzach]

First I'd just like to say that I'm not meaning to engage people on whether or not they LIKE or DISLIKE themes. Liking or disliking is irrelevant to the argument I'm trying to present. As a prime example, I LOVE themes, I think they're awesome, however I don't think they have succeeded in doing what they supposedly were meant to do.

It was my understanding that themes were meant to fulfil the role their namesake seems to infer, i.e. give a character a thematic element. However all I'm seeing them doing is ramping up the power level of characters. Which I'm fine with and love, but I don't really see how it makes my character fit into any sort of well-defined theme.

I'm not against having system elements be used to represent thematic goals, however I need far more imaginative efforts for me to see it as anything other than a power-bump. I'm not saying that themes have ENTIRELY failed on this front, either, as there are some elements to themes that I do think 'work' toward their design goal, I just don't feel they've gone far enough with the concepts.

As an example, I have a mage build that is built around the concept of gaining as many spells in his spell-book as possible and then focusing around items and powers that allow him to choose from those spells at a moment's notice. I love the idea of versatility as a form of power. Need Sleep when I've prepared Phantom Chasm? *snap* done. So I use the Order Adept theme to help me gain that goal.

However, I don't feel like an Order Adept when choosing it. Sure, it helps me achieve the goal of the build, but really it's only one tiny piece of the puzzle, and not even a particularly important or big piece. I could easily do the concept without it and although it would definitely lessen the impact, at the end of the day I wouldn't feel like I'd lost anything integral to the build.

The same goes for pretty much every theme. There are a couple of things that work, like the Guttersnipe's bargaining ability and the Scholar's extra languages, but it's like the tip of an ice-berg to me and I feel it could be so much more than it currently is; which is just a few extra powers tacked on to the character.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Themes are primarily a story element, with a bonus power thrown in there to help you feel tied to the story.

"Getting A Lot Of Spells And Being Very Versatile" is a mechanical element, though it informs your character's story, too. I have a Githyanki Pyromancer who will not take a spell that does not have fire in it. He's not restricted to that by the rules, but it's part of what he does, and it's lead to a lot of interesting choices. But that's a mechanical element.

Belonging to an arcane order -- that's a story element. Being of noble birth, another story element. These things tie you into the world and the beings that make it up, embedding you within the setting of the game. Much like backgrounds -- another +2 stealth might help a rogue who is going for MAX STEALTH, but its tied to the rogue's story, his place in the world, his character as he takes up adventuring. Guttersnipe fills a similar place: it's about how the character grew up, how they view the world, what kinds of places they've seen, and how that might play out in play.

Like a wide swath of the character story elements in 4e, it's ignorable if you want to ignore it -- nothing about the Order Adept is going to tell you "YOU SHOULD ACT LIKE YOU ARE IN A MAGE ORDER, D00D!" But it is worth thinking about why an Order Adept gets more versatility, and why a character who seeks versatility might seek to join a mage order for more personal gain -- and the conflict that creates with other members of the order, who clearly share their might with each other.

If you want to work that into your character's story, that is.

If you don't, it's not going to force the issue. It's more versatility, take it and run and never look back. If you want to add story to your character, you need to do the legwork yourself.

I think they're filling their role as "Backgrounds +" just dandy. If you're looking for something character-defining, you won't find it (that's what classes are for), but if you're looking to more strongly tie in your character's story features with their mechanical features, it's a nice tool to use. It's not supposed to be a central pillar, as far as I can tell. It's supposed to be the nice statue on top.

 

[ourchair]

First I'd just like to say that I'm not meaning to engage people on whether or not they LIKE or DISLIKE themes. Liking or disliking is irrelevant to the argument I'm trying to present. As a prime example, I LOVE themes, I think they're awesome, however I don't think they have succeeded in doing what they supposedly were meant to do.

It was my understanding that themes were meant to fulfil the role their namesake seems to infer, i.e. give a character a thematic element. However all I'm seeing them doing is ramping up the power level of characters. Which I'm fine with and love, but I don't really see how it makes my character fit into any sort of well-defined theme.

I think 'theme' isn't really meant to suggest that the player character is necessarily 'themed' in a particular way. Obviously, an Arena Style Fighter who takes the Templar build doesn't become a Templar. Instead I think of Themes as something that indicates talents and abilities that the characters earned outside of their class.

For example, I'm an editor in various magazines and other content-related projects. However, I graduated with a BA in Psychology. That doesn't make me a Psychology Editor or Psychology Writer. It just means that I'm a writer-editor who may or may not apply abilities he picked up from an education spent analyzing behavior and studying interpersonal dynamics.

By that logic, a Wizard's Apprentice Ranger isn't necessarily a dude in the forest with two swords engaged in mundane chores in the hopes of developing an arcane education. He could be a former protege who was forced
by circumstance to develop talents in the wild or live in a dungeon complex.

Simply put, a Theme is a way of showing that a character is more than just his party role or class features, but is someone who might have a meaningful past (and I don't mean Background + Trivial Skill Bonus) that informs what he can do.

The fact that this does translate into a power bump is merely a side effect that is up to the group and DM to decide if that is really something the campaign can absorb.

As an example, I have a mage build that is built around the concept of gaining as many spells in his spell-book as possible and then focusing around items and powers that allow him to choose from those spells at a moment's notice. I love the idea of versatility as a form of power. Need Sleep when I've prepared Phantom Chasm? *snap* done. So I use the Order Adept theme to help me gain that goal.

However, I don't feel like an Order Adept when choosing it. Sure, it helps me achieve the goal of the build, but really it's only one tiny piece of the puzzle, and not even a particularly important or big piece. I could easily do the concept without it and although it would definitely lessen the impact, at the end of the day I wouldn't feel like I'd lost anything integral to the build.

The same goes for pretty much every theme. There are a couple of things that work, like the Guttersnipe's bargaining ability and the Scholar's extra languages, but it's like the tip of an ice-berg to me and I feel it could be so much more than it currently is; which is just a few extra powers tacked on to the character.

I totally get where you're coming from.

The problem I think is (to oversimplify a bit) is that if we developed these qualities further, then the risk of overpowering themes becomes higher. If the Gladiator Theme synergized with the Fighter more, you could get a potentially imbalanced combo. On the other hand, you don't want Themes to be too specific about which classes they synergize with.

 

[Kzach]

Well, to me roleplaying isn't tied to rules. I'll roleplay my character however I want to, irrespective of what a rule or mechanic says I should.

What I'm getting at is that I don't feel the offered powers reflect the themes very well.

Take the Guttersnipe 5th-level ability. This is what I consider a good theme effect. It's a mechanical element, but it strongly reflects the nature of the theme and therefore no matter how you roleplay your character, it's a core element of the character's nature to bargain for the best price.

The same goes for the Scholar and the extra languages. Scholars SHOULD know more languages, and they do!

The powers, however, like Takedown Strike for the Mercenary, could be given to any character who wants a bit of freebie damage. It means nothing. Strip away the flavour text and it's just a flat damage bonus once an encounter with an additional prone. Nothing about it informs the players at the table that this character is a mercenary.

 

[Dice4Hire]

Well, I ignored backgrounds, and themes can be just as easily ignored. But I like the these thus far. I like the Dark Sun ones the best, but the Neverwinter ones (especially the way they fit the whole story) are great too.

The Dragon ones are more ok, but not great.

As for their design, I think they do a pretty good job of allowing characters and classes to be a bit more different without too much real power creep, though there is some, to be sure.

If the concept does not need them, then ignore them, but I think they add to a lot of characters.

 

[delericho]

Themes work if and only if you allow them to work. If you just take the offered power but ignore the background, then of course you won't feel like your theme.

In most cases, mechanics can't make much difference to roleplay. Small-footprint mechanics like themes, especially, can't do more than add a tiny pinch of spice to your character. You really have to do the bulk of the work yourself.

So, have themes achieved their goal? Yes and no.

For many groups, they'll be redundant - they're already developing background and personality for their character, so the themes don't add anything.

For many other groups, they make no difference - people use them to grab the power offered, then ignore the roleplay stuff.

But for some groups, they might represent that first step from "a bag of stats" to "a developed character". It is for those groups that themes primarily exist, and for those groups that they have succeeded. And it is for those groups that themes are a good addition to the game, even if they're not helping you or I.

 

[S'mon]

I think it would help if they never offered combat benefits. 4e combat really needs to be heavily siloed; Roleplay stuff and 4e Combat stuff often don't mix, because the player will seek the mechanical combat benefit & ignore the fluff.

 

[DEFCON 1]

It means nothing. Strip away the flavour text and it's just a flat damage bonus once an encounter with an additional prone. Nothing about it informs the players at the table that this character is a mercenary.

Yeah, but that's true of practically every other element of the game. Strip the fluff text away from Cleave and you get "do damage against one enemy and your modifier in damage to a second enemy". And how many other classes have that exact same thing? A whole bunch. And from all the different power sources. So that power is no more a "fighter" thing as any other. "Do damage and shift X squares", "do damage and knock prone", etc. All these variations of game mechanics that get all manner of fluff laid over them. None of them are any more geared to any one class as any other.

The game mechanics for individual powers appear all over all the different classes, and it's only because of the fluff descriptions that they become "different". So to expect the theme powers to somehow break that trend is not a likely expectation.

 

[Blue]

Themes were supposed to be a third pillar of character creation, along with class and race.

Well, class and race aren't equal height pillars to start with, with class as the much more important mechanically than race, and both important thematically. Hmm, bad word with the current discussion, but saying "fluff" will make people dismiss it. Let's say race, in my experience, as fully informs RP and those aspects as much as class.

So let's use race as a bar for themes - some mechanical modification, good concept/RP modification.

Mechanically, themes add in usually a default encounter power and optional skill powers. Some themes (Darksun) offer optional attack powers, while others (new Dragon & Neverwinter) offer additional auto-granted bonus/abilities at higher levels.

Mechanically, race usually gives some minor bonuses (+2 to skills, maybe a +1 to a defense, language, etc.), and encounter power, and bonuses to one or two stats. The bonuses to the stats, in my experience, seem to be the biggest draw to particular race/class combinations and as such the largest mechanical part of it. The themes meet and sometimes exceed the first part and miss on something that affects as much mechanical as the stat mods do for races. I could make an argument that the replacement attack and utility powers could make that big of a difference, but that's only DS themes - I don't think just the utility swaps, with all the other skill swaps like skill powers, are a big enough change.

Let's look on the concept / RP side. I'm going with the themes-as-written. Ourchair mentioned that because a fighter takes the templar theme doesn't make him a templar. You can (and should) reskin anything, but for a comparison of the fluff part of it, that's like saying "just because my character is a dwarf doesn't make him a dwarf". It's valid to reskin, I do it, but talking about themes bringing theme to a character, if you strip it of everything but mechanical bonuses it won't stand on it's own.

As written, you've got a number of distinct themes for PCs. Some of the weaker ones (like the original dragon animal lord, whatever it was called) failed mechanically, but in adding concept/RP/fluff to a character did their job really well.

I don't think themes meet their potential, and the themes without swappable attack powers (which helps balance the very strong class-as-primary-determinant) fall short mechanically. Concept wise they do well, the biggest problem is wanting more, which shows a demand for them so they are doing something right.

I give themes a solid B, and personally like what they are trying to do as well as the execution.

 

[MrMyth]

I like the concept of themes. Not as big a fan of some of the specific ones which have come out, which have not seemed especially well balanced. Some do a great job of encouraging RP of the concept and mechanically supporting the flavor - others are just some free stats and powers.

However, they did inspire me to craft custom themes for all the players in my home game, which has been really, really effective and helped everyone feel very defined as a character.