How many roles should there be?

[RigaMortus2]

I agree to this to an extent. Roles dont preclude roleplaying. However, the very necessity for combat roles suggests something I have grown increasingly uncomfortable with.

One of my issues with 4e was that it was very combat intensive and combat was slow. As a result, combat tended to take the absolute bulk of the playtime. The fact that it took so much play time meant that, in order that players werent marginalized for the bulk of playtime we had to find something for them to do during combat : Hence Roles.

If combat simply represented a much smaller portion of play time, it wouldnt matter so much if certain characters shined. We wouldnt need roles as there wouldnt be an imperative to "include all".

The very fact that we think we need combat roles implies that we think combat has to represent the bulk of playtime.

Thats what I dont like

Good points. But when you play D&D and most roleplaying games for that matter, there is an assumption that eventually you will be fighting something. They have books dedicated it, Monster Manuals. The Monster Manuals have traditionally been full of combat statistics. And yes, there is fluff in there on the ecology of certain creatures, their habitat, etc.

I would go out on a limb and say MOST people look more forward to the combat structure of roleplaying games then the roleplay aspect.

If you want to better define your character in more of a roleplay aspect, I think this would be a better place where THEMES would fit in.

This is how I would personally do it...

Combat Role = What you are centered around in combat (healer, defender, striker, etc)
Theme = More in depth look of your character. More on the roleplay aspect. Can still have some minor combat related stuff in there. This would be your Knight, your Bard, your Blacksmith, your Merchant, your Royal, etc.
Class = What you're trained in. This is the meat and bulk of what defines you. You get class specific features. Your Fighter, Rogue, Wizard or Cleric.

(I'd reserve the Thief and Bard as a theme, that a Rogue could take, but so could a Fighter, Wizard or Cleric for that matter).

 

[Ahnehnois]

Roles are a concept that I think clearly demonstrated that the designers didn't understand the game. I've been playing for over ten years, and I can't say that I've ever seen a character that would be well enough described by the 4e roles as I've seen them defined to justify their existence.

Furthermore, the entire idea of roles is an even more metagame concept than classes, and is redundant to that concept. What does the concept add to the game?

Just design the fighter, wizard, cleric, and rogue well, so that they can do everything that a player would expect them to do. I'm on the "ignore roles" boat.

 

[Andor]

Defending the squishies is a chronic problem in D&D. However I can think of several things I'd rather see before marking or "It's not magic but..." style powers.

Less squishy mages. Mages who can wear armour. Opportunity attacks. Guidelines for using the leadership feat to allow the Mage to bring along a lackey-shieldwall. It's an easy thing to brainstorm.

One of the classic tensions of the genre is the fighter types holding the line against the bad guys while the mages perfrom the McGuffin ritual. Akin to the marines fending off the badguys while the techie defuses the bomb in a modern movies.

They should have the tools to do it. But it should require work, or there is no dramatic tension predicated on the possibility of failure.

 

[FireLance]

Roles are a concept that I think clearly demonstrated that the designers didn't understand the game. I've been playing for over ten years, and I can't say that I've ever seen a character that would be well enough described by the 4e roles as I've seen them defined to justify their existence.

Frankly, if we applied the same logic to class names that we did to roles, we'd have people arguing that fighters can't do anything except fight and thieves can only steal. Or maybe throughout the history of D&D, characters have always been more than implied by their class names (and in 4e, roles).

 

[Ahnehnois]

Frankly, if we applied the same logic to class names that we did to roles, we'd have people arguing that fighters can't do anything except fight and thieves can only steal. Or maybe throughout the history of D&D, characters have always been more than implied by their class names (and in 4e, roles).

That would seem to support my point that roles are redundant to classes. A class is one abstraction that makes it easier to group characters, a role is adding another one on top of that, moreover one that contradicts the class, to what end I don't see.

 

[Deadboy]

Roles are a concept that I think clearly demonstrated that the designers didn't understand the game. I've been playing for over ten years, and I can't say that I've ever seen a character that would be well enough described by the 4e roles as I've seen them defined to justify their existence.

Yeah... Entirely disagree and I almost feel like you haven't been playing the same game as me. As I've pointed out many a time, I was well aware of roles since I first played Basic D&D 25 years ago... The roles ine 4e aren't precisely the same as they were then, but close enough.

I think roles are a concept that clearly demonstrated the designers understood the game perfectly well.

 

[SteveC]

I hereby make the following predictions:
Roles as explicit descriptions with rules mechanics will not make it in to 5e.

Roles will still exist, as they always have, but:

One or more classes will return that do not do any of the primary roles very well, such as the 3X bard and monk. These classes will be widely derided, and not played very much. They will be there, however, along with a stalwart group of defenders ... err make that advocates, no defenders in D&D Next

 

[FalcWP]

A few thoughts I've had from reading this:

1) "Roles restrict roleplaying" seems to be a common complaint. I do not get this at all. Generally, when I come up with a character for a game (if it's one that's going to feature a good amount of RP, as opposed to just hack and slash), I come up with the concept first.

Most recently, this was a swashbuckler for our freshly started Zeitgeist campaign. I wanted a dashing, charismatic fellow who was good with a blade. I didn't really consider his role or his class at the start, and toyed with several builds across three different roles (Paladin - Defender, Rogue - Striker, Bard - Leader). Every time it was the same character. I could roleplay him exactly the same way no matter which of those roles I chose. He's still going to respond to circumstances the same - the only difference is what abilities he has in combat.

Similarly, I can have two characters of exactly the same role who are very different to roleplay. My Dwarven Paladin of Moradin plays quite differently from my swashbuckling Human Paladin plays differently from my Swordmage plays differently from the Gnoll Fighter someone plays in another of my games plays differently from...

2) A lot of people seem to think classes get shoehorned in to roles and that's that. They look at a character that in previous editions would have been a Fighter, and now a Fighter is a defender, so they have to play a defender. They look right past the fact that, just because a character WOULD HAVE BEEN a Fighter in one edition, it could work a lot better as a different class (with the EXACT SAME RP FLAVOR) in 4E. Similar to point one, I think the big thing is to get your concept, then figure out the best class/role to fill it. If your 'concept' for a D&D game is 'I'm going to be a Fighter who is good with a greatsword' and that's that, I'd call it a pretty weak concept. If it's 'I'm going to be a warrior who is good with a greatsword'... well, it does open up a lot of other options.

3) Roles provide balance and structure to class design. Every Striker will have a way to dish out extra damage, every Defender a way to encourage enemies to attack him, every Leader a way to heal their allies during combat. Some people don't like balanced classes, and that's cool - it means 4E wasn't the system for you. I personally love it, and that means 4E *was* the system for me. The Role structure also made it easy to come up with homebrew stuff that was balanced - it gave me half a dozen or so classes that I knew were mostly balanced against each other to work from.

4) Roles are about combat actions. Out of combat stuff, roles shouldn't matter much if at all. Roles should generally not be tied to skills (something 4E didn't get right, I think - several skills are not often available by default to most members of a role).

5) What roles should exist? I'd say:

-Defender/Tank. Someone who absorbs attacks to protect the rest of the group. Might be done by a warrior with a shield drawing and blocking attacks, a spellcaster casting protective wards, a holy warrior who is protected by his faith and his god, a berserker taking every attack and staying upright, a nimble swashbuckler dodging each blow, or a summoned creature/pet that a party member controls.

-Leader/Buffer/Healer/Support guy. Someone who keeps the group fighting well. Might be done by a spellcaster casting magic spells to heal someone or improve their abilities, a trained medic patching wounds, an officer rallying the troops, or a minstrel lifting spirits.

-Striker/Damage-Dealer/DPS. Someone who deals as much harm to the enemy as possible. Might be done by a warrior using a large axe and charging headlong in to the fight, a fellow moving in to stab someone from behind with a dagger, an expert archer, a spellcaster casting fireballs, a different spellcaster summoning minions to do his bidding, or a beastmaster whose animal friends savagely attack at his command.

-"Controller" goes away, with his toys getting handed out - strikers get a lot of the AoE, and everyone gets a bit of movement and debuff ability.

 

[Mokona]

I would go out on a limb and say MOST people look more forward to the combat structure of roleplaying games then the roleplay aspect.

It's hard to say what most people prefer and good data is hard to collect if there is a stigma against roll-playing.

For myself, I prefer roleplaying.

If you look at a few polls here on EN World you find some evidence that players prefer Narrative (story) to Gamism (combat). The prefer Story-focused over Combat-focused (i.e. they prefer world/exploration & interactions over conflict resolution). Finally, there are more Johnnies than Spikes. Spikes like to win, such as combat, while Johnnies like to be special snowflakes.

I prefer story to combat, yet I still want "good" combat rules.

 

[hanez]

zero roles.

or optionally infinite roles

Ill be happy with either