I don't get what you'all are saying

[FreeTheSlaves]

Going back to the OP

"A lot of you are saying that in 4E, you are unable to ... how do you put it? ... roleplay the way you want? Play the way you want? Experience the game the way you want?

I don't understand. Could you clarify?"

Well the purpose of my post was a poke in the direction to the social context we live, to put an angle on the whole "want" thing the OP is (rightly) wanting to identify. There is plenty of small picture analysis in this thread, I thought to instead zoom out to a bigger view.

Societies have by definition a culture. I could have said culturally specific things like: English speaking, Anglo-American, Western, Developed, Liberal, Democratic, Christian, Rationalist, Free market, etc... But rather than touching too deeply into potentially sensitive subjects, I said "liberal culture that most gamers are part of".

I focussed on liberal because that's the relevant value that seemed appropriate when comparing the character choice between 3E & 4E. If that's not an angle worth exploring, then please be kind and simply ignore me.

In hindsight you're right, it does seem silly of me to have posted this.

 

[Mark Chance]

...then please be kind and simply ignore me.

And not get to mock in Blue Beetle fashion? Perish the thought!

In hindsight you're right, it does seem silly of me to have posted this.

Perhaps, but then again I may only be operating within the context of my gaming group, in which one of the worst things you could possibly call someone is, "You liberal."



My general distaste for 4E has nothing to do with perceived restrictions in options, and everything to do with what I perceive to be a wholly unnecessary, total revision of game system that has worked just fine for me and mine for several years.

Which is why I chuckle at the "In 3E, you had to..." or the "In 3E, you could not..." or the supremely subjective "In 3E, such-and-such was completely broken..." statements. I have yet to see one that accurately reflects my gaming group's experience with the system.

Is 4E a good game system? I don't know, and, to be honest, I don't really care. In my neck of the gaming woods, it is completely unnecessary and, therefore, totally irrelevant to how I game.

 

[Allensh]

If you need rules to help you roleplay than in my opinion you should forget RPGs and take up stamp collecting.

I have seen LOTS of roleplaying in my 4e games so far...much of it happening DURING combat, but much outside as well.

And I think both sides of the issue on this site are a vocal minority..because there are many many D&D players who never come here and probably don't even know about this site.

Allen

 

[AllisterH]

I'm curious: Let's say I'm running a half-orc barbarian with maxed out ranks in Climb. How am I prevented from role-playing? How I prevented from helping the other players solve a problem? If I run such a character and do something other than attack and climb, does that mean I'm not playing the game correctly?

.

Er, that's a really bad example on your part. I've always seen the 3.x skill system as being anathema to roleplaying.

Many of the skills in 3e are auto-levelling. Either they are skills that intriniscally scale with level such as Escape Artist (BAB) or they are opposed rolls (the social skills) or the situations scale with level (you're not going to be throwing 1st level balance challenges at 20th level characters).

Thus, a barbarian in the above scenario would become WORSE as he levelled with respect to the non-combat encounters. Sure, with regards to encounters that depend on PLAYER knowledge such as puzzles (which I might add, ANY edition handles just fine), said barbarian will do just as well as others, but with regard to non-combat encounters?

Personally, I've always looked askance at the belief that 3.x actually encouraged roleplaying. It encouraging ACCOUNTING (a.k.a how much money do I get from being Profession (Basketweaver), IMHO, not so much roleplaying when compared to 1e/2e. The default pre-3E was that everyone was somewhat competent modified by their skills in non-combat situations whereas a 3E's comptency was expliclt laid out.

Someons said skill challenges would work in 3E and that is so wrong due to this aspect of the 3.x rule system. Seriously, how the hell can you construct a skill challenge for say a 10th level party?

 

[Old Gumphrey]

Storm Raven: I really don't know where you're getting this stuff from, it's just circular argument. The only legitimate complaint you've made in that regard is my misunderstanding of the author of the chain shirt fighter; which happened due to it being quoted in your post. Other than that, not really.

Without being so literal, it's easy enough to infer that if you claim a bard/monk who is rampantly sucky in combat would be ecstatic fun and highly welcome in your gaming group, then it stands to reason that a combat guy barbarian / fighter would have the opposite effect. It's really kind of trivial to do all the quoting and pointing just to prove that you didn't say it in those exact words. It doesn't matter if you did or not; it matters if you think the combat sucking guy is better.

Because this is the only point I was ever really trying to make:

Yes, you could in 4e, but according to the designers, this is an "unfun" choice, since you won't be a combat monster any more. Of course, they have protected you from making such "unfun" choices by ensuring that even if you do, you will have so many combat skills remaining that it won't matter.

This quote came after a claim I made that if you could house rule sneak attack out of 3e, then you can do it in 4e as well. Your counter argument is basically "I'm bitter with the 4e design team, so what's the point of bothering to do it?" You can't be ANY LESS combat-focused in 3e than you can in 4e without house rules or rampant multiclassing; at least, as a non-caster. I suppose you could rig a caster with nothing but noncombat divinations to prove your point, but it won't carry any weight with me, even though it would be true (and by that I mean in 15 years of D&D I've never once seen a character play a caster with absolutely 0 combat spells).

I then made the point that even in 3e "you will have so many combat skills remaining that it won't matter." Unless you start applying those house rules (or multiclassing into 5 unrelated classes, or filling all your spell slots with Rope Trick, or some other nonsense). Therefore it's just as easy to make a combat sucking character in 4e as it was in 3e.

Side note: I think you're being way too cynical about this "unfun" stuff. You're using that as a rope to swing on, and it really doesn't mean anything, other than you not agreeing with a design philosophy. It doesn't really have anything to do with the game or what you can do with it, simply that you vehemently disagree with the designers on what should be a fun choice.

The best part about all of this is that if you just, you know, play some D&D, you can use simple house rules to get the effects you are looking for. They aren't protecting you from making something that can't fight worth a crap, they're protecting core D&D from generating crap on accident.

Rule 0, right?

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

(blinks)

My questions answered, I thought this thread dead at page 2.
I come back, and it is at 7 pages. LOL ...

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

(blinks)

My questions answered, I thought this thread dead at page 2.
I come back, and it is at 7 pages. LOL ...

If "Eigenleben"* is not a word yet stolen by the English language, it should be.

After the 2nd thread, the OP is usually forgotten, and the discussion can go on without him. That's why 1-post trolls work, too.


*) If I am not mistaken, "Eigenwert" or at least "Eigenvalue" has been stolen for mathematics. But I am not sure anymore if Eigen was actually a person instead of just meaning something like "self" or "its/yours own".