So those are two reasons I like roles... What do you think?
I'm iffy on them.
I totally agree with your first point. They're a handy shortcut for quick understanding. I'm a little iffier on your second: roles don't really impact whether or not someone has a lot of options when choosing a class to fill that role (as of now, someone who was buying the books only has one option for a Controller -- Someone Has To Play The Cleric is moved to Someone Has To Play The Wizard), but it does help a bit (defining two classes as Leaders helps to say "we need a Leader" not "We need a Cleric!").
I also think they're good combat archetypes.
But I've got some issues with them.
Like I pointed out on the thread on noncombat roles, any "first to zero looses" point-based resolution mechanic like D&D combat has two roles automatically built in by it's very nature, but these roles don't line up evenly with the current D&D roles. Rather, these four "true roles" are spread out amongst D&D's "strategic roles."
D&D's "strategic roles" revolve around minis combat in a big way. Defenders, Controllers, Strikers, and (to a lesser degree) Leaders are all about how you move or fail to move little pieces of plastic around your chess board. I really don't like minis combat in the slightest, so having these roles be hard-wired to that system limits their usefulness and desirability for me. I don't want to play a Controller if, every time I want to blow something up, I have to track a status and push a little piece of plastic around. I don't want to be a Striker just so I can move my piece of plastic farther than other people. It's profoundly uninteresting to me.
There's also an issue with "role sexiness," which is a more abstract and subjective thing, but can cause issues. Depending on what you like about D&D minis combat, there are different "roles" for you. If you're a big fan of pushing plastic around, controllers were made for you. If you get a little rush whenever you get to roll a lot of dice around (and, let's face it, who doesn't?) strikers are for you. Certain players will be kind of "locked into" certain roles based on their predisposition for certain types of fun. This is kind of a negative thing, because it means less variety and creativity and experimentation. Once you find a role you are "good at," you don't stop playing it. It's like those kids at Super Smash Bros tournaments who only play Fox on Final Destination and refuse to play anything else.
Though I would say that that's a much bigger issue than roles, roles feed into it.
Finally, the biggest mixed bag about roles is the group dynamic. It's probably a very good thing to encourage groups to play and use teamwork and the like, but the reality is that one of the reasons D&D and other Tabletop RPG's languish in our fragmented society is because they require a massive user-base that isn't well-connected or well-coordinated. If I need to coordinate the schedules of 6 people to meet in person once per week, that's a TREMENDOUS endeavor. Roles
require this. Even if it is an implied need, it is still there, always sucking at you, saying "you are not having an ideal experience" with less than the suggested number of players.
If the roles were all snowballed so that each class could fill any of the four roles, and even that one character could switch between them as needed (or a party of four or five could all switch between them as needed), this problem would be slightly mitigated. Suddenly, D&D could become (in theory) a one-player game, where I make a character, randomly generate a dungeon and monsters, and run him through it.
Again, though, that's very broad -- more of a social thing than a D&D thing.
So I think it's good to call out roles. However,
#1: They aren't combat roles, they're Minis skirmish roles.
#2: I really don't like using minis in my games, and so I resent that they are roles for minis skirmish and not roles for dungeon exploration, or combat, so they don't address what needs I actually have from the game.
#3: They don't remedy the problems of overly specific players or massive overhead that have plagued D&D games since day 1, and only get worse as time goes on (and people find themselves able to log into WoW without leaving home or berating 5 other people). They're
inconvenient.
That doesn't mean they're bad per se, they just don't solve the problems that I have with the game. I really don't need D&D to come out and tell me what my little piece of plastic is supposed to do on the battlemat, and the roles are geared towards that. They're very useful for describing your minis skrimish tactics, but I don't think that's really worth describing. I think working towards the goal of making D&D easier and less hassle would begin with recognizing the actual combat and dungeon exploration roles (instead of minis roles), and folding those into 2-4 combat powers and maybe an exploration ability or two to use outside of combat that accomplishes the roles needed in those resolution systems.
