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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 4081572" data-attributes="member: 2067">For me, an ideal role-playing game would have the motivation and experience and character acting still being represented mechanically.3e did this, to a small extent, with circumstance bonuses and skill checks. Your character's role as, say, a wonderful smooth-talker was determined by your Diplomacy skill. Your character's role as a brilliant performer was determined by your Perform skill. It's a slightly flawed system, but it was there. Like Hussar's sig, the dice provided the direction, you provided the performance.Pure roleplaying in the thespian sense of the word is all well and good, but it's not much of a game, it's more a test of the player's own ability to convince the DM of something, and that's really super-lame in a game. It's like determining combat by the player's actual skill with a longsword. The ways to solve this are, largely speaking, the same way they've 'solved' most of the combat problems. Give people interesting things to do, make a risk and a reward, make it streamlined, but give it interesting effects, and allow for results other than "fail" or "win." This doesn't just apply to situations where you're killing goblins, it also applies to situations where you're trying to win the king's support or convince the sphinxes to let you pass. Indeed, 3.x's noncombat resolution system wasn't the best. It was leaps and bounds beyond 2e's, though. 4e could easily improve on it, though I have no idea if they have. Really, how simple and quick you want the rule to be depends upon what kind of game you want.If you don't want a game that focuses on combat, there should be a simple and quick adjudication system: roll 1d20, add the levels, bigger one wins. This is like 3e's skill resolution system.If you want a game that focuses on how the characters manage to build the Nightmare Engine, having Craft rules that are fairly complex and rewarding is a good thing.Most of the time, D&D characters are concerned about (a) combat and (b) emulating their archetype outside of combat. Sherlock Holmes wants to be able to kill goblins, and to be able to solve crimes. Jack Sparrow wants to be able to slay giants, and to be able to get himself into trouble in the nearest port city. Conan wants to be able to cleave through lizardmen, and be able to bed serving girls and hate on wizards. Leonidas wants to be able to beat up some Persians, and to rule a city-state. Merlin wants to be able to fry up some kobolds with a fireball, and to predict the future and turn into animals. For that to be really rewarding, we need a strong system for what your role does when you're not slaying dragons, nuking kobolds, killing goblins, or cleaving lizardmen. We haven't really seen anything that promises that 4e will be able to deliver that.</blockquote>

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