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

[ExploderWizard]

Strange....I must have a different interpretation of "roleplaying rules".

To me, 4E's OPENING chapter in the PHB which actually makes the player think about how his character will ACTUALLY respond does more to encourage roleplaying than everything put TOGETHER pre-4E.

How the PHB actually puts character "fluff" BEFORE actual mechanics again to me makes 4E more roleplayer friendly than anything before it.

Am I truly the only one that looks at the 4E PHB opening chapters and realizes how much this does to encourage roleplaying?

I much rather have players think "well' I answered that motivation question so my character will respond like this" than "ok, how many points did I put into Profession (sailor) again?"


Seriously, do people consider putting skill points into things like Profession (sailor) more of a roleplaying hint/incentive/rule than the opening chapters which actually make players THINK how their character should act?

When the hell did this happen?

The section at the beginning of the 4E PHB is great fluff but falls apart when the character actually looks for motivations for some of the things that happen to him.

1) Waking up in the morning after swapping out powers:

"Hmmm...........what!! Oh by Pelor where is my mind? I really did just (use power) yesterday right? I must atone for whatever sin caused the mighty light of Pelor to wipe my mind!"

2) Drinking a healing potion when out of surges:

" That charlatan sold me pure crap!! I will have to remember to pay him a visit when we return to town. Funny though, I drank one an hour ago and felt much better. Well...........perhaps it was a dud. I'll ask for a refund."

So, how SHOULD characters react when things like this happen to them?

 

[Gothmog]

As someone mentioned above, reducing interactions to a series of rolls and numerical mechanics just makes it a form of combat. That's contemptuous because it assumes that the player only wants to stack bonuses and roll through boring story details.

Don't miss my point. I like simple modifiers for ability and skill to reflect that a PC may be more or less persuasive and cunning than its player in a non-combat situation, and I certainly wouldn't want a skills system as extensive as the 4E combat system. But (if I interpret correctly) you're seeing 4E as a roleplaying game with an effective combat system, whereas to me it's clearly a tabletop miniature wargame with roleplaying as an optional extra.

The rules and presentation of a game encourage certain types of play, and 4E's rules encourage combat and little else.

Hmm, I don't think I can agree with this. Were 1e and 2e only combat systems with no roleplaying? That flies in the face of many of the modules and source material written for those editions considering they spent considerable time exploring the PCs place in the world at large and how they interacted with it.

Maybe I'm weird, but the more explicit the rules are for roleplaying and background options for a character, the more the character is constrained by those rules in his actions and way he can be played. I think that is why the alignment system was stripped down and made secondary, and why the designers for 4th edition went into more textual description of role-playing, character quirks, social challenges, etc- because you don't need rules to codify every aspect of the game. Yes, reducing the importance of alignment is skewering a sacred cow, but IME over the years, people used alignment as a justification for their character's actions, rather than being a reflection of their actions.

Too many times in 3.x, I saw people try to use Diplomacy, Imtimidate, or other social skills to give them a positive outcome, while only relying on the die roll. I suppose the reasoning was that since there are specific rules for the social interaction rules, that the rules trump roleplaying, so the die result matters more than the character's reasoning or how he approaches the problem. When I told them the check would fail unless they made an attempt a brief attempt at roleplaying out the situation, I got angry stares fairly often and temper tantrums a few times. I know I'll get some flak for this, but I'm sorry- thats lazy roleplaying/gaming. 4e specifically addressed this issue in the DMG, saying that how the characters approach the interaction is at least as important as the die roll, and for the DM to take that into account when determining NPC reactions. I don't know about you, but to me thats empowering the roleplaying aspects of the game.

Finally, if you want to compare simple page/word count, the 4e PHB has 29 pages detailing combat and how to run a fight. The 3.5 PHB has 27 pages detailing combat and how to run a fight. Also, Chapter 2 of the 3.5 DMG was about running the game, and pages 21-30 contained combat information. Considering 3.5 had smaller font, there is a considerably higher wordcount in 3.5 detailing combat and combat interactions than in 4e. Some people also point out that the 4e PHB powers are all combat oriented, but if you look at the 3.5 PHB, most (at a glance, I'd say 80%) of the spells are combat oriented there as well, so that comparison doesn't hold up either. I'm not trying to make this an edition war- the point is D&D (and almost any other RPG) has always had extensive combat rules. The reason we need more rules for combat, and not as many for social interaction/roleplaying is because few of us have been in a life-or-death combat before, but to make sure everyone is on the same page and uses the same set of assumptions, combat rules have to be spelled out explicitly. In contrast, we've all been in an arguement before, or tried to sweet-talk someone into doing something for us- social interaction is something we have practical experience with.

Honestly, I can't see how someone could say 4e is all about the combat- its much less about combat than 3.5, and on par with 1e/2e.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Can I ask you to define what is for you a RP-focused game ?

With the understanding that you asked me what my definition is, not for a universal definition...

Nothing more and nothing less than a game in which

A) People make at least a reasonable effort to converse and make decisions in-character,

B) Characters have at least some amount of background history and personal goals and motivations beyond "I became an adventurer, now I kill things and take their stuff,"

C) The DM provides lots of opportunities to converse/interact with multiple NPCs, most of which are more than Peasant #23, and some of which are recurring characters, and in which not all these opportunities require die-rolls or are even directly plot-related.

Basically, your comment earlier, in which you said...

Making every decision by "being in his character's shoes" is one way to play a RPG, but it is certainly not the only one.

...is antithetical to my personal definition of RP.

(And again, to avoid misunderstanding, I'm talking about my preferred definition of an RP-focused game. Not claiming anyone else is playing "wrong.")

 

[marune]

With the understanding that you asked me what my definition is, not for a universal definition...

Nothing more and nothing less than a game in which

A) People make at least a reasonable effort to converse and make decisions in-character,

First part of the answer :

When you say "make decisions in character", do you mean* :

A) Players look at all the defined characteristics (on the sheet or in his head) of his character; consider the established genre/theme of the campaign, to find the most coherent action.

B) Players make a good tactical decision to beat the challenge or make a thematic choice about the campaign's premise that is adressed in the encounter, than afterward explain why his character has come to that decision, which may include a change of mind/attitude or even a new twist on his background.

B) Characters have at least some amount of background history and personal goals and motivations beyond "I became an adventurer, now I kill things and take their stuff,"

Is the background stuff (including goals) :

A) a way for the player to define clearly who the character his and how it should be played afterward.

B) something that change on a ongoing basis so that the players can communicate what is currently important about their character ?

C) The DM provides lots of opportunities to converse/interact with multiple NPCs, most of which are more than Peasant #23, and some of which are recurring characters, and in which not all these opportunities require die-rolls or are even directly plot-related.

So you want to have both "conflicting" encounters (where you need to use the rules) and "color" encounters (where you are just doing narration/acting) ? That's fine !

 

[apoptosis]

Or that combat is the part of the game you need a common, detailed rule set for. It's possible to read 4e like that.

Are you saying that combat is a part of the game that all games that have combat need detailed rule sets for

or

are you saying that D&D having its main focus as combat encounters needs a detailed set of rules for combat.

I COMPLETELY disagree with the first interpretation and agree with the second.

or are both interpretations incorrect?

 

[BryonD]

With the understanding that you asked me what my definition is, not for a universal definition...

So, in your opinion, should D&D attempt to appeal to people who are more or less in line with your definition? Or should it have a goal of appealing to a wider range of players?

 

[Ambush Bug]

Seriously, do people consider putting skill points into things like Profession (sailor) more of a roleplaying hint/incentive/rule than the opening chapters which actually make players THINK how their character should act?

When the hell did this happen?

*shrug* I want both. I think it's great that the PHB devotes space to roleplaying. It says a lot of the right things, and even occasionally mentions that this is your game to play your way. That's good. However, I also want Bob McFighter to have Profession (sailor) or something like it. If I've come up with game content - and character backstory is game content - I'd like to have some mechanics to attach to it. They don't have to be big or intrusive, and they don't have to take away from a character's "useful" skills. But if the PCs are on a boat, I want Bob McFighter to get bonuses to sailor-ish things. It rewards the player for thinking about their character, and makes them feel like their trivial choices are still important sometimes.

Also, and this is a separate thing, I want my made-up imaginary pretend worlds to work like they're real. I'm a player and a GM who likes world-building, and I want my worlds to be more than stage sets that hang out behind the PCs' actions. So if the fighting-and-killing part of the game has mechanics, I'd like other parts to have some mechanics too.

 

[Mouseferatu]

When you say...

Any/all of the above. I reject the notion that any of those examples are mutually exclusive.

More importantly, I reject the notion that such strict definitions are necessary, or even positive. If the result is someone speaking/acting in a way that is clearly an effort to RP their character, and if the result is someone with an interesting background and characterization, I don't care what mindset got them there.

I'd say that most of my own RP, and that of the people I've gamed with, is a combination of these, rarely if ever based solely on A or B.

 

[Mouseferatu]

So, in your opinion, should D&D attempt to appeal to people who are more or less in line with your definition? Or should it have a goal of appealing to a wider range of players?

Obviously D&D needs to appeal to at least a reasonably wide range of gamers. I don't think that's even in question.

Equally obviously, if it has to appeal to some more than others, I'd prefer, on a personal level, that it match my style than not. I think that's the case with most fans of the game; if forced to make a choice, they'd prefer the game match their own playstyle than someone else's.

As to what it objectively should do, in those cases where it can't please everyone... I have no more access to customer feedback or sales figures than you do, so I don't know if supporting my playstyle would be better or worse for the game than supporting anyone else's. Thankfully, as the game remains quite capable of supporting a wide array of styles, I don't see it as an issue.

 

[Imaro]

For me personally, I think one of the things D&D is missing, as far as roleplaying goes, is incentive for a character to act in character. It's sort of like this... if I'm a smart guy in real life, what incentive do I have to play my 8 Int character as a "dumb" guy? In fact, in being a highly tactical game I will probably be even less likely to play the character as dumb, especially in combat. D&D 4e gives you these motivations, traits, etc. but then in no way makes them relevant to the actual game. Do you get bonuses if you roleplay certain skills in a manner in-line with your described character? Is there any benefit to not discarding the "traits" you've chosen at the earliest convenience to make an easier choice?

Now one of the answers WW gives in WoD is the acquisition of willpower by being true to your nature or true to your vice, this encourages but does not force players to act in character. I actually think tying something like this to action points would have been a good idea for D&D 4e, and I'll probably be doing this in future games.