Gentlegamer
First Post
Roles: Combatant or non-combatant.
Eject the video game terminology from the game.
Eject the video game terminology from the game.
Roles: Combatant or non-combatant.
Eject the video game terminology from the game.
Fighting-men fight. Others don't. (Clerics being seen as a form of multiclass fighter/spellcaster with restrictions)That doesn't help clear the waters in the slightest.
In a role-playing game, non-combat is the soul of the activity.Many characters can excel in both combat and non-combat roles. And really when you get down to it, the uses for and people willing to play "non-combat" characters are few.
I said, get that video game language (and thinking) outta my role-playing game.And really how do we differentiate between the two? Are you a combatant if you don't deal any damage but provide healing and buffs?
You're a non-combatant if your main character isn't a fighting-man (in general possessing enough hit points to survive expected opposition, armor and weapons to hang with combat opponents). If you're a non-combatant and find yourself in the thick of a melee, your party has failed on some level and needs to retreat and regroup.Are you a non-combatant if you're the "face" of the party but never go into battle?
Great, if we're playing a game centered on a low-magic, low-fantasy, medieval world this line of thought works. How do we fit in Shamans, wizards(who could both be seen as learned elders and combatants). From the sounds of your definitions of "fighting men", about the only people who'd be involved in combat would be soldiers and thugs.Fighting-men fight. Others don't. (Clerics being seen as a form of multiclass fighter/spellcaster with restrictions)
This seems only to muddy the issue further. Yeah, I'm not punching people to roll the dice. The PLAYER role-plays the actions of the characters, which can include fighting and not-fighting.In a role-playing game, non-combat is the soul of the activity.
It's 2012, not 1979. Times have changed. The language, the thinking, you name it, it's not what it was. Video-games evolved out of classic RPGs, to attempt to separate the two would be like attempting to remove your left arm. It doesn't do anything other than negatively impact the RPG genre(which includes video games) as a whole.I said, get that video game language (and thinking) outta my role-playing game.
Tell me, how many people do you think play D&D to be day-laborers?1. Building (construction, land acquisition, etc.)
Which given your theme so-far often includes thuggery and violence.2. Business (an occupation aside from "adventuring")
This is largely an out of game action. Few people sit around discussing the finer points of the character's novella.3. Character Development (detailing game persona’s “history”)
Is usually not controlled by the player though it is influenced by it, and again given your setting-theme is largely affected by war and violence.5. Economics
Is not a combat-free experience. Rare is the cavern with nothing in it.6. Exploration (dungeons and for larger discovery)
Which again, given your theme-setting is not without combat. Assassinations, wars, ect... These go hand in hand. Rarely does political intrigue not revolve around the death or killing of someone. There's nary a great detective in history that is not also a skilled combatant.7. Intrigue
8. Politics
Neither of which are seperatable from combat, they can be without combat, but making them continually combat-less makes for a dull adventure.9. Problem Solving
10. Questing
Again, how you RP and what your character does need not be identical. You can be skilled combatant and you can also be a great party "face".12. Role Assumption (staying "in character" in actions/thinking)
13. Role Playing (ditto, and speaking thus when playing)
Stories rarely exist without conflict, and conflict rarely exists without violence.14. Story (backstory and in play)
A good strategy encompasses how to fight, and how to avoid a fight.15. Strategy
Relevance?16. Theatrics (occasional histrionics and sound effects)
Mages may have low hit-points and non-pointy weapons but that doesn't make them incapable of combat. Bards may be loaded on instruments and song but they are certainly capable of a brawl.You're a non-combatant if your main character isn't a fighting-man (in general possessing enough hit points to survive expected opposition, armor and weapons to hang with combat opponents). If you're a non-combatant and find yourself in the thick of a melee, your party has failed on some level and needs to retreat and regroup.
Sounds more like an emphasis on single-player gameplay. If the game revolves around you having to get hirelings to accomplish your goal and him getting hirelings to accomplish his goal then I question if you're actually playing the game together.Implicit in this is a return to more party + hirelings/mercenaries/henchmen (which can round out the combat 'muscle' of a group) style of adventuring company and way from "special snowflake" combat-oriented "spotlight" game design.
Rare is the diplomat who cannot also poison the kings food, the pickpocket who is incapable with a blade.All of the above is my opinion on the feel that 5e should re-incorporate from past editions (since the designers said that's something they want to do), specifically in regard to [combat] roles.
The poll appears to be referring to _combat_ roles. All of the non-combat activities mentioned are things that everyone can (and should) be able to do, regardless of their class choice.
I'm pretty sure we won't see a return of the Fighting Dash Man, and at no point did I, or anyone I know, ever feel that other classes were noncombatants in comparison to the Fighting-Man or Fighter. Expert from 3e DMG? Sure. Otherwise, wizards, specialty clerics of Sune, even pacifist clerics in 4e... whatever you are... you're probably fighting, if you're playing D&D.
Problems arise now when you give someone a role, but when you tell them they can't be anything but.
Problems arise from the design assumption that roles should be given in the first place. Players choose or don't choose roles for their character moment by moment in a roleplaying game, the same way we meatspacers do away from the table.
Team Fortress 2 has 9 classes in 3 roles - offense, defense, and support. They equate to striker, defender, and leader/controller. You can 'switch' whenever you die. There are lots of different ways the classes fill their roles.
In 5e, if they do have roles, I'd like some way for classes to switch. Maybe different stances for warriors, or different 'types of mana' for spellcasters.
The purported assumption that people continue to erroneously make is that if a person is a "striker" they can be nothing but that. Calling a rogue a dtriker does not mean that the rogue is suddenly incapable of performing any other function in the game. Removing the tag likewise does not make them any better at it.
If the tag is unnecessary, then it can simply be removed as unnecessary. If the tag is potentially restrictive because it puts players in the mind that their so-called combat role overly defines them then it needs to be removed to maintain what you are saying it isn't so, that it isn't meant to be restrictive. If the tag is actualy restrictive then it needs to be removed because it is poor design. I'm seeing no convincing counter-arguments to these three points.
The tag serves as a guideline. Experiences players like myself know a class's function isn't limited to it. But it does provide a good baseline for new players.
No, actually, it provides a particular baseline for new players, one that stresses importance in combat, which is a great way to foster a combat game. Experienced players like myself knows that the way to streamline how someone approaches a game is to serve up tags that steer them toward the types of play at which the game excels.
I'm not seeing the counter-argument. You say it's bad that a game steers players in the direction of which that game excels. Well DUH. If a game is good at X then getting players more involved in X will make them more fully capable of enjoying the game. Noones arguing that 4e wasn't a combat-heavy edition, to that end, the tags worked out fine. I honestly never met anyone who felt they were missing out on any part of the game because their rogue was considered a striker.
I see why you keep misunderstanding the point. I'm not specifically talking about 4E, though some would say that is an example, and this is the same argument happening in other threads. I'm saying if non-roleplaying elements of a game are the ones being stressed then a game becomes less focused on roleplaying and the game becomes less of a roleplaying game as a result. I'm fine with non-roleplaying games that focus on combat and guide players toward combat oriented styles of play but I feel that roleplaying games should focus primarily on roleplaying which isn't primarily about combat. I additionally feel that narrow views of how someone should approach combat within a roleplaying game restrict how a roleplayer can roleplay in any given combat within a roleplaying game. If a roleplaying game design avoids funneling characters toward specific approaches to combat, I feel it is a better roleplaying game design for those times when combat does come up within a roleplaying game, as it allows for more meaningful choices for the player to make while approaching the game from moment to moment during roleplaying gameplay.