My take.

[mmu1]

So I'm a bit confused as to why making D&D more tactical, more skirmish-y, and more gamist would detract from the ability for players to role-play. Could you guys expand on this point a bit? I'm not sure where you're coming from.

For me, it's like the ability of a mid-level 3.5 character to fall off a vertical 100' cliff, brush himself off, and walk away - it makes no sense, there's no way to rationalize it, the game rules just poke right through the scenery - but you do your best not to think about it and maintain your sense of immersion in the world.

From what I've seen, that seems to be a much more common thing in 4E, and I'm not interested in that level of abstraction in an RPG. Sure, I could still try to roleplay as much as ever, but I can't imagine it being especially rewarding.

 

[mhensley]

Roleplaying would be a distraction from its core game experience, which involves pushing minatures around a map, doing crazy things, and generally just doing the 'beer and pretzels' sort of thing.

This has been true ever since 1973.

 

[WheresMyD20]

My feelings are pretty similar to Celebrim's. It looks like a fun miniatures boardgame, but I don't think I'd want to play it very often.

 

[nutluck]

For the most part I agree with the OP. I am actually a bit more interested in 4e now than I was a month ago. But not for a serious long term game but more for something fun to do occasionally. Though the price of the DDI and having to buy virtual mini's to get anything other than 2d counters for monsters is a more than a bit of a turn off. Since the DDI for playing with other people I know that live far away was one of the things I was hoping would be a selling point for me. Now it is looking like the oppiste.

 

[Ovinnik]

The problem is that a tactical game, with many PC powers that can interact in unpredictable ways, is much harder to write for as DM. 4th edition look to give the DM many more powers that he has to account for when creating suitable challenges for the characters. Consequently, the DM is forced to either buy pre-packaged adventures (created by prefessionals who can afford to spend time doing the required math), or spend his time creating suitable combat challenges rather than making good NPCs or interesting adventure hooks. Personally, I think that's the point - to make the game so hard to write for (while all the while telling us its easier) that homebrewing DMs will simply give up and buy their adventures and game worlds.

I actually believe that it will be much easier than previous editions to create and balance your own encounters, just as they're claiming. Sure, everyone has some cool abilities now, but, so far at least, none of those abilities seem truly game-breaking. In 3rd edition spellcasters had so many options that there was really no way for a DM to counter them all except with antimagic spheres. In 2nd edition a 1st level wizard could catch himself a pet which could last a month or more before it even got a chance to break free (Charm Person). Everything I've seen about 4e makes it seem much easier to keep your campaign from being 'broken' by any individual player(s).

I also don't agree that any game system is inherently 'better' for role-playing than other. I've heard many WoD fanboys state that the Storyteller system is, by default, more RP-oriented than D&D, etc. Many of those fanboys then go on to create their characters with 4 Dex, 4-5 in Firearms, and whatever good combat merits they can afford.

4e is indeed very 'gamist', but all versions of D&D (and all class-based level-based abstract-HP systems) are very 'gamist'. Being 'gamist' doesn't inherently detract from role-play, any more than 'realistic' systems (such as GURPS) or 'RP-focused' systems (such as, supposedly, Storyteller) inherently add to it. Its all in the people playing, 100%.

Just my humble opinions.

 

[Cadfan]

Honestly folks, what is it about the 4e rules that doesn't allow roleplaying?

There are three justifications you'll see floating around. Note that I am not defending them- in fact I think they are rather dumb.

1) "These rules are all about combat! The game is all about combat! I don't want to play some hackfest! I want to roleplay! Obviously this isn't the game for me!"

The problem with this reasoning is that the need for combat rules is greater than the need for roleplaying rules, because roleplaying tends to be freeform. Its also a bit of a zero sum fallacy- there seems to be an underlying conviction that the better the combat rules are, the lower the quality of the roleplaying rules. This is of course silly, but I do not think that Celebrim is making this very silly argument.

2) "The rules for 4e are so focused on combat that only combat hungry munchkins will play 4e (and/or it turns the people who play it into munchkins)! If I want mature, roleplaying based games, I'd better play something with crappier combat rules."

The problem with this, of course, is that it implies that the presence of cool combat choices turns you into a worse roleplayer. Roleplaying is then portrayed as something people do because sweet combat rules haven't seduced them away. This argument almost makes you feel sad for the person making it, because they apparently view roleplaying as what you do when you can't do something better, and yet they have some sort of self flagellation urge that makes them want to keep doing it. Think of this as the "cool combat rules = pornography" analogy. They want it, but they don't WANT to want it, and they're convinced that everyone else has been seduced by it. I do not think that Celebrim is making this argument either.

3) "The rules for 4e combat are too abstract. If I take them literally, then it leads to silly conclusions about the rules and physics of the gameworld. This disrupts my ability to roleplay. (Hidden argument, sometimes made- it disrupts YOUR ability to roleplay, too, but you just aren't sensitive enough to notice)"

This is the argument Celebrim appears to be making. The best I can say about this is that I disagree. I've never found that silly consequences of good gamist rules really ruined my ability to run or play in a cool, roleplaying focused game. If this premise were true, then previous editions of D&D were absolutely sucktastic. The contortions necessary to explain healing magic in previous editions were absolutely beyond me. But fortunately, we could just ignore them and go play the game, roleplaying and all.

 

[Cobblestone]

Huh? How in any way shape or form does the new ruleset preclude, disgorge, or eliminate the roleplaying aspect of D&D?

I am serious! I don't see it. I am planning a brand new campaign for 4e and honestly the previews we have gotten so far have made me more anxious rather than less. Is there something I am not born with that makes me believe that the R in RPG comes from the members of the play group (ie players + DM) using their collective imaginations to hash out an ongoing story, which includes combat, info gathering, socialization, interaction and all-around derring do?


Honestly folks, what is it about the 4e rules that doesn't allow roleplaying?

THere's nothing in Monopoly preventing me from role-playing either, but I wouldn't call it a role-playing game.

I haven't looked through all the sample characters posted, but for the few I've looked at, I haven't seen a single ability that could be used outside a fight. Whatever the social-interaction sytem is, it's well-hidden so far.

C-stone

 

[Lobo Lurker]

But design a campaign world with 4E? It seems kinda ridiculous. All the sudden the venerable gentlemen in my campaign world with 3 Str, 3 Dex, 3 Con, 18 Int, 18 Wis, and 18 Chr are all Cohen the Barbarian, intelligence is only really useful if you are a librarian, six hours rest cures all evils, every trained fighter is a supernatural force, and children can reasonably allowed to play with sharp objects because it takes overwhelming force to do more damage to someone than can be healed in 5 minutes. Sure, I can ignore that by just saying that none of the rules apply to anyone who isn't a PC, but then welcome to the world of unlimited DM fiat. And contrary to some claims, DM fiat is just a headache even for the DM. It's a lot less work having some rules to help you make decisions.

Emphasis mine. Didn't WotC already come out and say that the rules for the PCs ARE different than they are for everyone else in the game world? The little bit of flavor text they released for the fighter (sorry, no link) a few months ago indicated that Fighters were on a level beyond the normal warriors of the game world. DnD, especially in 3rd/3.5 edition, has been something of a superhero game and it looks like they're running with it.

Besides, what's wrong with unlimited DM fiat? I know that in the games I run, the rules are always secondary to what I want to happen (though, admittedly, not where they concern the PCs and their abilities).

 

[Wiseblood]

I can agree with the OP in that the speed and ease of play will not be the only thing that chages in 4e.

One of the things that is impacted by the way things are handled in combat (oddly enough the rules will have more say in the storytelling than the actual combat) is that combat "may" feel more like a sports event. (bear with me here) If you can rest up for a few minutes or hours and go right into the next encounter with 99.9% of your resources then the previous encounter did what exactly? It's ease or difficulty has had 0.1% of an impact on this encounter. This disjoins combat from the role-playing or story-telling aspect. It then becomes a "roll the dice to get to chapter 2" where the only thing that will affect the next encounter is death. (or perhaps some off screen changes enacted by the DM)

 

[Cadfan]

I haven't looked through all the sample characters posted, but for the few I've looked at, I haven't seen a single ability that could be used outside a fight. Whatever the social-interaction sytem is, it's well-hidden so far.

You'll find it under "Skills."

Is it that you're expecting some kind of, I don't know, big elaborate social interaction system with special per encounter powers like "Cunning Lie" and at will "Little Fibs?"

Allow me to make a prediction about which I am darned near certain. The social encounter system is 1) skills just like in 3e, plus 2) DM advice on how to design social encounters that 3) mimics the flowchart type rules you'll find in other areas of the game such as in Heroes of Battle for designing war encounters.