My take.

[I'm A Banana]

It's not roleplaying to roll your "Perform (Exotic Dance)" skill. It is role-playing to decide to use it, to describe what your character wants to dance. That is the "real" roleplaying part.

Why d'you say that?

See, playing a role is what it means to put your mind in the frame of another being and act as if that being were to act.

In a role-playing game, your actions in that role require you to play a game to resolve in the world. A game using rules.

In D&D, this means rolling dice.

Rolling for a Perform (Exotic Dance) skill or for a Morality check, or taking damage because of an alignment...

All of these are the very essence of a Role Playing Game.

Without the game, without the dice roles or the rules, you're just role-playing. Which is fun, but definitely not what I'm playing D&D for.

Does it become more role-playing if you can dance an exotic dance and use your "per dance" power "Stunning Jump" that causes the audience to take 1d6+CHA points of impression damage?

Sure. It means that the role that you play affects the world by giving the spectators an impression. If that impression damage makes them more likely to, I duno, give you money, then the game models playing the role of a dancer who persuades his audience to tip him. This makes sense in the context of the role of a performer, so it helps you play your role better.

I agree that such skills should exist in a game, and that the rules should work for it. But it makes little sense in making the rules more complex for them and pretending that means you have more role-playing now. You have just using people using a different part of your game system more. (I'd say it's okay to want making the rules for them more complex - if that makes the game mechanically more interesting. But I'd say that from all mechanical systems, combat systems are probably the most useful for a game that is played with multiple players that want to share the mechanical game experience)

The idea that mechanics aren't role-playing (and vice-versa) is a wildly inaccurate and false idea. In a role-playing game, mechanics are the only way you truly play your role in both senses of the word (that you are playing a game and playing a role at the same time).

 

[AllisterH]

And skills? I absolutely hate the dumbed-down, 1/2 level to everything SWSE style skills. I'm not happy at all to see that system being used in 4e. I was never a great fan of 3e's skills, but the only real problem with them was that the skills were too narrow and characters got far too few skill points. But again, I think they went in the wrong direction here. Every character automatically gains ranks in EVERY skill as they level, even skills that make absolutely no sense for the class or character to have? The 20th level desert ranger is better at swimming than a 1st level islander? Really? And not only that, you have to take a feat to train in a skill after 1st level? If I do end up playing 4e, the skills will be the very first thing I houserule. I just hope that mechanic isn't so ingrained in the system that it would be nigh impossible to change it.

This is the one criticsm I disagree with quite strongly. A lot of people seem to focus on the outlying case (a.k.a 20th level Athasian fighter better at swimming/crafting than a 1st level islander basketweaver) but I prefer to look at the general case (namely, the REST of the skills).

The SWSE skill system IMO captures not only "realistic" skill acquisition but it works better for the game as well.

Looking at the 3.5 list, the ONLY skills I think a "normal adventurer" (a.k.a one that doesn't adventure in a non-standard D&D world, say an Athasian PC) doesn't get better at naturally would be the Craft/Profession skills.

Look at the skills.

Appraise - You've been stealing/confiscating how many gems/paintings/diamonds since 1st level? Hell, IIRC, in one of the latter Conan novels, pre-King Conan, Conan tries to fence a gem from his latest adventure and the fencer tries to stiff Conan. Conan laughs in his face and simply points out all the characteristics and flaws of the ruby and it makes sense given HOW many gems/precious objects have passed through his hands. Even Conan at the end was knowledge about spellcraft.

Use Rope - You mean to tell me that a wizard at 20th level who has been hogtied/camped/been adventuring/tying up people for 20 levels now is NOT naturally going to be better at Use Rope than he was at 1st level?

The examples I listed were for non-class skills and even moreso WITH class skills (Paladin that doesn't know jack about the planes etc).

For an Athasian campaign, my houserule would simply be "Swim isn't available as a skill".

 

[Bandreus]

gosh, we're getting to pretty useless thoughts here...
Just say this, for a good RPG game you only trully need a good GM and some good Players, it's just that, really.

 

[Stoat]

I'm confused. I thought 4E was going to be too videogamey. Now it turns out its too boardgamey?

Tell me its at least some kinda of anime boardgame.

 

[Celebrim]

gosh, we're getting to pretty useless thoughts here...
Just say this, for a good RPG game you only trully need a good GM and some good Players, it's just that, really.

Just in case you may forget, I am explaining why I won't change from 3.X.

Hense, the claim, "for a good RPG game you only trully need a good GM and some good Players", if I were to accept it as true would not in any fashion lead me to accept the alternate proposal, "I should switch from my existing system." In fact, if it were true, it would be a very strong argument for not switching from a system to any other.

Be careful about calling other people's thoughts useless.

 

[Celebrim]

This is the one criticsm I disagree with quite strongly. A lot of people seem to focus on the outlying case (a.k.a 20th level Athasian fighter better at swimming/crafting than a 1st level islander basketweaver) but I prefer to look at the general case (namely, the REST of the skills).

The SWSE skill system IMO captures not only "realistic" skill acquisition but it works better for the game as well.

One of my favorite all time mechanics is the method of skill improvement in Chaosium Call of Cthulu. You can only improve those skills you actually use, and the more you improve the harder it is to continue improving. It's one of the most elegant if not the most elegant experience systems ever devised. And, despite your argument, the skill system in 4E is nothing like it.

The problem with your argument is that the 'edge case' is generally more common than the non-edge case. That is its generally more likely that from 1st to 20th level, in most DM's campaigns, the player character would not have used the skills that are mysteriously improving than it is that they would have made alot of use of them. In particular, skills like 'use rope' and 'appraisal' that you are using as examples, most proponents of 4E would also say are 'useless' skills that almost never came up in play. How many swim checks are the characters really making between 1st and 20th level in most DM's campaigns if you play 3.X according to the style assumed by the core books?

I won't tell you that a 20th level wizard who has been hogtied/camped/been adventuring/tying up people repeatedly over a 20 year long adventuring career is NOT naturally going to be better at Use Rope than he was at 1st level. I will tell you that most 20th level wizards in 3.X haven't been using alot of rope and haven't been making alot of 'Use Rope' skill checks, and hense won't have any cause to be skilled in 'Use Rope'. If in fact, the 20th level wizard had been repeatedly using rope where the results of the check mattered, thier player probably would have invested some skill points in 'Use Rope'. Players invest skill points only in the areas that they think they are going to use, and if they have cause to believe that its important thier characters will get better at that skill.

Similarly, the career of your average 3.X character doesn't look anything like the career of Conan, and the career of your average 4E character is going to look even less like the career of Conan. I don't think that there is any evidence that 4E is aiming for some sort of Conan versimilitude. It's not an exageration to say that you can go from 1st to 30th level in about 3 weeks of game time in 4E. How is that enough time to become broadly skilled at everything?

At its heart, the whole argument is disingenious. You can read the 4E rules and quite easily see that the primary reason for adopting changes to the rules was not attempting to be more realistic. You can argue over whether or not this is a good thing. You are quite free to believe that 4E benefits from the lack of realism. However, if you believe that, don't hypocritically preach to me about how much more realistic the rules are.

 

[Lizard]

Did you ask the same question about all the 1HP kobolds, goblins, and orcs back in 1st edition and/or Basic D&D?

Back when I played those games, I tended not to think about such things.

3e's 4hp kobolds(+not dead until -10) were much more survivable, but could still be killed by a single weapon attack, like its commoners. (Cat attacks not withstanding.)

Actually, the greatly buffed HPs of 4e makes modeling children and the like more viable. In 3e, a child basically had 1-2 HP, making them amazingly fragile creatures, yet still half as tough as their parents.

 

[Grazzt]

I agree with Celebrim's comments. The "resting six hours cures all injuries" thing really bothers me. It reminds me of hitting the Rest button in Neverwinter Nights.

Yep. This one definitely gets house-ruled in my game.

 

[Hathorym]

Maybe I'm missing something about the argument in this thread, but we have only seen the combat rules for the system, and then a narrow view of even that. Who is to say, (as was implied in part 2 of manawyrm's post) that there isn't a more robust system for other situations that occur in gaming, outside of combat? It appears to me that there's more cart before the horse reaction here, rather than any consideration of things we have yet to see.

 

[Derren]

Imo it does not matter how the out of combat system is. The combat rules throw out believability in favor a streamlined (imo too streamlined) combat. Examples are 6 hour instant heals, Cuthulu geography and 50/50 saves. That puts a big dent into believability which is quite important for some people when they want to roleplay. The world should feel real, even with its fantastic inhabitants.
And please don't come with "3E also had such rules". 3E did indeed have such rules but a lot less than 4E. 3E not being perfect does not mean that 4E can throw believability out of the window.

To counter that the out of combat rules must be really great, but thanks to the consolidated skills and the "PCs can do everything automatically" skill system I doubt that is the case.
Such things are good for a board game, but not so good for a immersive RPG.