I like Roles

[Storminator]

Class systems like D&D work better than non-class roleplaying because classes are what is meant by roles. The game should be different depending on what class/role you play.

I love me some D&D, and I'm quite at home with character classes and levels.

But get your damn classes away from my Mutants and Masterminds game!

And, I might add, that my M&M game is the single greatest RPG campaign ever played...

PS

 

[Scribble]

Classes are really nothing more then a group of powers/abilities that work well together, and the tradeoffs made to aquire them.

"classless" systems end up having well designed classes, because ultimatly there will be a group of powers/abilities that work well together, and poorly designed classes.

I can get into either, but I end up preffering class based systems.

 

[Mallus]

But get your damn classes away from my Mutants and Masterminds game!

Tell it, brother!

And, I might add, that my M&M game is the single greatest RPG campaign ever played...

Does your M&M campaign have the Egyptian God of Mexican Wrestling in it? If not, I don't see how you can make that claim...

 

[FireLance]

You know, all this discussion reminds me about another often misunderstood game element, this time from 3e: CR.

At its most basic, CR is simply a measure of what level a standard party of PCs will need to be in order to be able to defeat the monster with about 20% of their resources.

However, some DMs seem to believe that they are only "allowed" to send monsters of the same CR as party level against the PCs, and some players seem to think the DM isn't being fair if he sends a monster of higher CR against them.

A lot of the same type of misunderstanding seems to be happening with roles.

 

[Fifth Element]

And, I might add, that my M&M game is the single greatest RPG campaign ever played...

Second greatest RPG campaign ever played...

 

[Remathilis]

Which brings me back to my earlier point. Who dictated that a party has to consist of the standard 4 roles - a fighter, rogue, healer and mage?

Wouldn't that be Gygax/Anderson, circa Supplement 1: Greyhawk?

Kidding aside, the reason these roles work is because they fill the most common playstyle archetypes for balanced play. The problem with later classes (like bard, druid or monk) is that they don't replace these important niches. Monks can't be "fighters", they don't have the staying power. Nor can they be rogues, they lack the dungeon-skills (traps, locks) to do the job.

Surprisingly, that was one of the greatest strike AGAINST earlier D&D that 4e tries to fix; disassociating critical skill and magic spells from specific classes. Before, you had to be a rogue/thief (or a class with similar talents) to find traps. That meant that unless you didn't mind blundering into spiked pits or your DM was leinent on trap-detection rules, SOMEONE had to be the rogue. Ditto with clerics with healing. Some classes had decent replacements (a paladin was an acceptable fighter substitute) but others failed miserably (a bard couldn't hold weight against a rogue's job). This was their form of niche protection; force the need of a certain class as being the only one who could do its job.

(A side effect of this was the explosion of new base classes in 3.5: scouts were like rogues, favored souls were like clerics, knights were like fighters, etc.)

Now FWIW; 4e has allowed us to break the secondary roles being niche-protected. Rogues aren't the only trapfinders, clerics the only who could cast raise dead. In fact, only COMBAT roles (striker, defender, etc) are hard-wired; a party with a paladin, bard, ranger, and druid with proper skills (perception, thievery) and feats (ritual caster) can do every major thing a fighter, cleric, rogue and wizard can. (Can't say THAT about 3.5!)

 

[Runestar]

but it was easy to also lock all your character building choices. You need 4 feats and 6 levels of a Prestige Class to get where you want. And if you didn't think of that at 1st level, you would only ever play a character of that role at level 15, while stumbling around in the meanwhile with a character with a lot of suboptimal abilities

Why wouldn't/shouldn't I map out my entire character build progression from the 1st lv all the way to the point where the campaign is expected to end?

 

[yesnomu]

Why wouldn't/shouldn't I map out my entire character build progression from the 1st lv all the way to the point where the campaign is expected to end?

I assume that's a joke.

If not, I'll just say, new players.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Now FWIW; 4e has allowed us to break the secondary roles being niche-protected. Rogues aren't the only trapfinders, clerics the only who could cast raise dead. In fact, only COMBAT roles (striker, defender, etc) are hard-wired; a party with a paladin, bard, ranger, and druid with proper skills (perception, thievery) and feats (ritual caster) can do every major thing a fighter, cleric, rogue and wizard can. (Can't say THAT about 3.5!)

Though I think here might also lie a weakness. 4E does not spell out the non-combat roles. I am not saying it has to lock a class into a non-combat role, but to make it explicit somehow that these roles exist and how they effect non-combat situations like dungeon exploration, social situations, wilderness travel, investigations, research (or plain knowledge)

A Wizard is a controller in battle, but outside he's typically a sage.
A Warlord is a leader in battle, but he might be a sage or the groups face outside.
A Ranger is a Striker in battle, but he's typically a guide or explorer outside of it.
A Rogue might be a Striker in battle, but he's typically a dungeon explorer/trap-guy in outside of combat.

Well, in my theoretical "class-less" but "role-focused" version of d20 Modern, this is exactly what I would want to do. Allowing people to mix their combat role with their non-combat role and make these explicit.

Even if you make the non-combat roles more explicit, this doesn't have to mean going outside the role is impossible or a bad idea (in fact, that is already true in case of combat roles, the most obvious example people multi-classing into classes with different roles). In 4E, it would be as easy as taking Skill Training (the very mechanic that already serves us to avoid the "secondary role" niche of classes.).

I think one interesting aspect of this is that I believe that many "old school" people that don't like the combat roles might like the idea of the non-combat roles more. Because these roles are mapped to typical dungeon exploration roles, and from what I gather, this is what people associate the most with "old school".

For the storytelling fraction, these non-combat roles would also be helpful, because they explain the focus of your character and allows to decide which character is critical in which aspect of the story.

 

[Runestar]

I assume that's a joke.

If not, I'll just say, new players.

Shouldn't new players be all the more expected to map out their character progression more concisely? Or at least have a general idea of where to go with their PC? Else, they risk getting into the very scenario you envisioned - suddenly realizing that they took suboptimal choices, or being unable to qualify for a certain feat or prc at that particular point in time.