Andor
First Post
Which means that any of the archetypes explicitely supported by the game are viable - much more of a range than 3.x offers.
Conversely archtypes not explicitly supported are not viable. In 3.x it was possible to combine things in ways the game designers didn't forsee to make your own archetype (or role, if you insist.)
And sometimes this was bad. While theoretical abominations like PunPun didn't actually happen, there were plenty of GMs who couldn't keep up with creative players with greater system mastery than they had.
For my preferences the good far outweighed the bad, but I won't pretend there were not legitemate concerns, and 4e did adequately address them. Was it worth the cost paid? Opinions have differed, to the great profit of Pathfinder.
And given my dislike of intentionally hiding mechanics and design principles I think the opposite.
Who said anything about hiding it? I agree with you actually. I think the proper role of roles, if you will forgive the phrase, is to inform game design, not to direct or coerce it. Implict roles are fine, as long as they are not tied to heirarchal mechanical restritions for the purpose of niche protection or the squashing of creativity.
4e was, in part, a reaction to the power 3e placed in the hands of the players. Which is an illusion. Frankly all they really needed was to say "Pssst. Hey. GMs, you know you don't actually need to adhere to stat block rules right? You know you can assign that Orc a "Frank is a twink" modifier to hit his character, right?"
Hopefully 5e will provide a balanced framework where less inflationary power growth leads to easier work judging balance for GMs. With less range of power the twink vs wimp character divide will require less intrusive system wrangling than the 4e roles definitions.