Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Andor" data-source="post: 5820060" data-attributes="member: 1879">Roles, in the 4e sense, as explict determinants of character capability... honestly I'm not sure how much of my distaste for them comes from the linking to 4e, which I found to be very gamist and abstract system. So much so that I had trouble understanding it. What on earth happens when a Fighter uses 'Come and get it'? I have no idea. And the usually answer was "It's a game. Roll with it."Fine, but it stopped being an RPG to me and seemed like a miniature game or tactical game like FFT or Disgaea.I fall pretty far along the 'Simulationist' spectrum of gamers. It should be no surprise that I love 3e. It's by far the most simulationist edition of D&D. Leafing through any book of 3e material I could say "Yes. I see how that works in the world. What it looks like, what it implies." And it would spin a thousand possibilities into my head. Spies trained as Binders, nomadic cultures that use Totemist powers to adapt to the most inhospitable of fringe climates, the uses of an immovable rod.So the term 'Role' to me may be inextricably tainted by it's association with a design aesthetic I find alien.I do, absolutely, see the use of Roles as a valuable perspective for judging the game, from the back-end, under-the-hood world of the game designer. But it's just one of many valuable tools and perspectives, and it only measures along one aspect of power, and then only for a single and limited playstyle.Personally I like functions better, as other have mentioned in this thread. I've had more than one discussion with game designers, about how rules are an inescapable aspect of the worlds they portray. You can try to pretend that Hit Points are abstract but the fact remains that Old Knight MacDougal can jump off a 30' cliff without fear and his Squire Percy will die if he tries to follow. And both MacDougal and Percy will know it. Roles are a usefull concept. Power sources are a useful concept. Spell schools is a potentially useful concept. The arcane/divine split is a potentially useful concept. None of these things should be explicit however, unless they are helping to describe the world. Unless an old man on the street might tell you "Nay. Dinnae go ta Magus Bertrand, he be one o' them Nercomancers. A fell and unwholesome lot they be, even if he does stay within the law. Go ta Magus Wainwright. He's a Abjiggimawhatsit. You know, one o' them as works with protections and the like."If a man in the know would stare at you blankly when asked about it, it should not be an explicitly stated part of a classes design.</blockquote>

Verification