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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ferratus" data-source="post: 5609871" data-attributes="member: 55966">The Roleplaying EditionPromotion of Roleplaying: I wasn't expecting much change here, being a big believer in the amount of roleplaying is determined by the group.  Certainly there isn't much roleplaying with my 3e group other than nerdy and juvenile sex and poop humour.  However, even my Warhammer-loving all combat player and my observer wife did more roleplaying with 2e.The two main differences seem to boil down to two aspects.  The first is 2e's complete lack of social skills.  The Diplomacy skill, ironically, seems to be the biggest roleplaying killer in the game.  Players just seem to want to use it as a bludgeon to get their way, by treating the skill as "I fast talk them into liking me and so they do what I say".   Since 2e doesn't have a diplomacy skill, people engage the NPC's conversationally, using roleplaying to find out what they want, or how they can interact with them.  Having a skill to roll rather than giving a dispassionate measure of success or failure, simply short circuits the entire process.  4e does indeed seem to be the edition least able to facilitate roleplaying, but it isn't because of the combat focus as many people have alleged.  There are certainly just as many (if not more) opportunities to roleplay as in 3e.   However one wrinkle I've noticed as having a negative impact is a side-effect of recharging your powers and hit points after the encounter.  As a result, as a DM, I design encounters and the roleplaying tends to happen in between the combat encounters or in lieu of a combat encounter.  In 2e and 3e the line between encounters is blurry.  Vancian magic also has this problem, as running out of spells forces an end to exploration and encounters and destroys the narrative flow of the adventure.  In many ways this is even worse than 4e, as the game can continue after a short rest, while in 2e or 3e you have to go back to base, rest and return.  So in essence you are trading a few major disruptions to the narrative flow for a minor disruption between every encounter.There is also a tendency in 3e and 2e to reserve resources (since they don't recharge after the encounter) that isn't found in 4e, so players are more likely to look for a solution that saves their spells and hp.  In 4e, players tend to simply cut through any minor obstacle.  Verdict:  2e is the winner as the game that has the most roleplaying and interaction with NPC's and the gameworld.</blockquote>

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