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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jack7" data-source="post: 4707961" data-attributes="member: 54707">No, not quite HW, though I too think I understand what you're driving at. I'm saying they shouldn't have done it the way they did it. For reasons I've already explained. And intend to explain later.However I think it is good they took up the idea, and it should have been addressed, though both for combat and non-combat or extra-combat functions. But to me what was presented in the book, by tying it exclusively to class function was more like a prototype design. You know, an original idea that should have been considered (because in designing anything you have to start somewhere) but then radically overhauled or redesigned in a far more flexible and capable way. You know Irda made a very interesting and astute point, the combat roles (as currently construed) are so class-regulated that they have practically taken the place of class as a pragmatic matter. That being the point then all you really have is not a role, but a subset of class ability(s). You could have just written it in as a class function because that is all it really is. And then primarily only in the combat sense.But I'm saying whereas the general idea was one well worth considering, the actual form they developed was far too restrictive and nothing more than a class function, as compared to what could have and should have been. Or can be or will be because redesigns can always follow.Then again in designing anything certain assumptions are made (and in the case of 4E I think the designers see the entire game not really as "Role-Play" but as power and combat play). Role is therefore defined not as role, as in "role" is the natural purview and job of the player, to role play the potential of the role, but role is redefined as a design element of "class creation" and therefore it is the duty of the game designer to tell you exactly what your role will be regardless of your individual capabilities as character or player. Classes then become not skeletal frameworks for character development, but rather become automatic constructs, like a sort of machine that controls what the character should become. And that is not really a profession or a class, or even a role, it is an assignment. One you are not free to modify for best advantage. Role becomes an order and a forced structure, not a flexible foundation for development.I'm not being critical in the sense that I'm saying they were a bunch of morons, I'm saying they didn't develop the idea nearly well enough, that the idea they came up with was immature (in the sense of under-developed) and prototypical. It was not an advanced design with multi-capabilities, but an initial design and that's where they stopped, when that wasn't really necessary as a stopping point.Then again if the whole game is really little more than a tactical combat game, rather than a role playing game, then that changes the nature of what role means, and how it will function. It is first design principles and assumptions structuring the potential of any following design element.Now, does that have to be the case? No.As a DM or player one can easily modify this element, or any element.But the designers should review their initial assumptions and also do some redesigning of their own.4E has a number of really interesting ideas and potentialities for real advancement. Roles, skill challenges, character class re-design(s), rituals, and so forth and so so. But in many ways, and in many instances (not all, but many) the game design simply stopped at the initial or prototypical idea instead of fully flushing out the real inherent potential of the design elements. I'm not really sure why, maybe it was rush, maybe it was basic design assumptions, maybe it was a move away from character role play to combat play, maybe it was a lot of things.But a lot of the deign elements show huge potential.But not much of the real potential (or the underlying implications) has been tapped yet. Not really anyways.</blockquote>

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