Propagandroid said:
All good points, Mustrum. The question, though, is whether or not D&D can model a character that does anything except fight well. The rules *do* have an effect on how you can tell a story through the game, and how you interact with the game via roleplaying. I can't answer that question because I haven't seen all the rules or played the game. We can see, though, that 4e's design philosophy follows that of 3e, which is "system first, characters and adventures second." This is certainly a step away from facilitating the type of game that earlier editions presented, which was a roleplaying game.
I am not really convinced that earlier editions helped roleplaying better. I never played D&D before 3E (basically my life as roleplayer started 1999/2000 with Shadowrun and then 3E D&D), but from what I know, earlier D&D editions seemed to feature only a rudimentary and incoherent skill system. And I think skills are one of the essential aspects of defining a character outside of combat.
The 4E classes are designed around their combat roles primarily. Like in 3E, most of the rules stuff is focused on combat combat combat. And like in 3E, 4E also features skills that fit the non-combat idea of each character archetype. (via Class Skills)
4E simplifies and streamlines the skill system, but on the other hand, introduces a new formalization for applying skills - not only straight single roll skill checks, but also skill challenges become part of the core concepts of skill use.
But in the end, even this can only work rudimentary to "improve" roleplaying or storytelling. In the end, if you solve every problem with a mere dice roll, you don't tell a story or play a role. You're rolling dice. You have to "attach" something to these mechanics. The mechanics can be used for good and ill. You can base your way of playing a character on his skills and describe how you use them. Or you can just say "I use diplomacy on the angry Ogre. 33. Does he give me his pants?" (to just pick a random nonsense example
)
Personally, I wouldn't mind if the mechanics team (maybe for d20 Modern) also expands the idea of roles on non-combat aspects, and give use interesting (maybe even narrative?) mechanics to describe and play a character according to his personality archetype (scientist, face or guide, or something like that). But I am not sure if this would really "help".
You can't turn someone that likes hack & slash into a thespian by changing the mechanics.
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