Regarding the (supposed) lack of role-playing in 4E

[marune]

I have to admit though...i hate scripting..... I did combat and just removed the scripting (which for some is a real draw..but I found really unwieldy and not much fun)

Scripting is difficult, but what I hate is the lifepaths, a bit of the concept, but more on the execution (LoTR / historical middle-age feel).

 

[apoptosis]

Scripting is difficult, but what I hate is the lifepaths, a bit of the concept, but more on the execution (LoTR / historical middle-age feel).

I have to admit, I generally love the lifepaths though i can find them cumbersome. On the other hand a third of my group doesn't care for them and a third love the idea and are less keen on the practice.

I can definitely see the issues with them. I do wish the process was simplified so that they were more user friendly and less cumbersome.

 

[pawsplay]

I imagine something similar could be done with D&D stats that are below-average.

Once, in a creative fever, I wrote about three dozen feats with a prerequisite of having a low ability score. Then I became sane again. But I think I gleaned something from that madness.

 

[apoptosis]

Once, in a creative fever, I wrote about three dozen feats with a prerequisite of having a low ability score. Then I became sane again. But I think I gleaned something from that madness.

That is an interesting idea.

The only issue it might have is that it might not promote the use of bad stats (knowingly stupid decisions or knowingly anticharismatic actions for instance) vs just having bad stats.

Hopefully that made sense.

 

[Hairfoot]

Getting back to this... paragraph form go!

Thanks!

I wouldn't play an RPG without a combat system. I love the fights, and without them there's no way I would have become hooked on D&D as a 10-year-old. I'm also an ex-wargamer, so I was chuffed that 3E supported a miniature-based combat system. Yes, D&D has always been combat heavy, and combat rules and options have always taken up the most space in books.

However, combat and roleplaying aren't siloed. I think that the rules and options (and their presentation) are an important catalyst for creativity. Take spellcasters. Without wishing to walk on the thin ice of edition wars, in previous editions the utility spells took their place alongside the combat spells. As a new player, or when reading a new edition, it seemed equally possible to make a wizard who knows some combat spells for self-defence but otherwise has a spellbook full of floating disks, telekinetics, mind-reading, and navigational and divination spells, as it was to cast a PC who hurls bolts of lighting and blobs of acid.

The description of 4E wizards makes them out to be magic guns, focussed solely on annihilating opponents in combat. There are rituals, of course, and a flexible, imaginative player will be able to build whatever they picture in their mind's eye. But the rules seem to say "you are a wizard. You blast things and use powers which give you an advantage in a fight. Any other application of your powers is an exception which requires a special ceremony, because that's generally not your focus."

I think that's bound to create a trained-for-battle, war-wizard approach to character development, with other characterisations seen as suboptimal by default.

While the menu of combat powers is great for building a fighting class, I think it shoehorns all other classes into a combat paradigm. Over time I think that will repress roleplaying that isn't related to combat (for new players especially).

Here's an analogy: if you go to a restaurant and notice that the menu has 30 varieties of burger and 2 pasta dishes, you're going to view that place as a burger restaurant. You're not likely to try the pasta because the preponderance of burgers indicates that the owners don't have much interest in cooking pasta, and you'll suspect that it will be of poorer quality than the burgers. And if you do order it, you'll wonder if you're missing out on what the place does best.

Eventually, the owners will finally be able to take pasta off the menu and concentrate on what they do best, because the minority of people who like it don't go there any more.

 

[Umbran]

A few people are getting personal in here. Please stop it.

You do not, from a few posts on a message board, have enough information to start playing pop-psychologist or anything. So please don't try - it is dismissive and insulting. Stick to the reasoning and support present within the pots, instead of trying to ascribe characteristics to the persons posting.

In general, we are seeing a rise in such rudeness. Do not expect us to have much patience with it.

 

[Set]

The only times I see rules as having anything to do with role-playing are the following cases;

Alignments. If they were tendencies, that's no big deal, many of us have tendencies to be nice or nasty or law-abiding or freewheeling. But they aren't, they are very specific and have mechanical effects depending on what spells, weapon properties, class restrictions, etc. are built into the game. 4e seems to be stepping further away from that, which, IMO, makes it *better* in that sense, RP-wise. Ideally, my DM will not be telling me what my Paladin can and cannot do, nor will powers be fluctuating or spells be unavailable or classes forbidden based on such nonsense.

Sanity rules. Not a common issue in AD&D, but they take control of the character away from the player. GURPS had the Fright Checks, which could grant permanant mental disabilities, Heroes of Horror has Corruption/Taint that can work similarly, Aberrant had mental aberrations, some shooter game had rules for whether or not a character would 'freeze up' during a firefight, etc. *If* such punitive mechanics are called for in the setting, the player should be allowed to look at the list of appropriate levels of effect for whatever has happened and pick one that they are willing to role-play, and not just be randomly told that their fighter now has a fascination with necrophilia after the GM rolled some dice.

Rotschroek/Frenzy systems. From Vampire, systems where the character flips out in the presence of fire or sunlight or even another vampire! (In VtR, *every single time* two vampires meet, the players are supposed to roll dice or the vampires *flip out and attack each other.* When it was pointed out on the WW forums that this was insane, and that no coterie of vampires would survive their initial meeting, let alone be able to interact with other elder vampires, *or create new vampires,* the 'official' reply was not to use that rule the way it was written... Great. Why was it even there?) Even sensibly implemented fear / frenzy rules still take away from the players ability to RP by removing control of his character from him, and, IMO, should be used sparingly, particularly in a game where the characters are assumed to have survived fifty or more years pre-game without flipping out and getting themselves killed every time someone lit a lighter in their view or said something 'disrespectful' on a message board.

In the absence of RP-restrictive systems like the ones I've mentioned above, role-playing is almost entirely in the hands of the player.

I've role-played in Star Fleet Battles, just about the least RP-friendly game I can think of. If 4E has not a single mention of RP, that's fine, 'cause *rules* are the last thing RP needs. Rules just get in the way and limit RP possibilities.

 

[Doug McCrae]

I would add Pendragon to Set's list above. One of the few rpgs that has more stats describing a PC's personality than his physical attributes, by a factor of about five or six I think.

Roleplaying mechanics aren't to my taste but some people I gamed with really liked them. They felt they served as a spur or inspiration.

 

[SweeneyTodd]

I don't think arguing about what "roleplaying" really means and whether or not somebody is doing it right is a totally fruitless discussion.

Now talking about how rules-mediated versus non rules-mediated situations are different in terms of how you roleplaying, there's some good discussion to be had there. But just saying "if it's a rules-mediated scene, it's not roleplaying" isn't very constructive. Someone roleplaying differently than you do is still roleplaying.

 

[pawsplay]

That is an interesting idea.

The only issue it might have is that it might not promote the use of bad stats (knowingly stupid decisions or knowingly anticharismatic actions for instance) vs just having bad stats.

Hopefully that made sense.

They were pretty hilarious to write. For instance, I had one that required a low Int, that gave you a big boost to Sense Motive. You realized you weren't all that bright, and readily suspected people of trying to take advantage of you. Another allowed a low Con character to feign death after taking any damage. I had one for a low Wis smooth-talker, too.

Unfortunately, they become sort of unworkable. I figured out some of my ideas, while amusing, rewarded stat-dumpers with even more advantages. I also couldn't figure out how something like Cat's Grace would interact with these feats. In the end, I decided it would be more rewarding to simply write more Flaws (from UA) and have the flaw specify the frailty rather than simply an ability score number. Low ability scores are actually pretty hard to relate to any one specific trait.