Skills & RP

[vagabonvoid]

I have been over on WOTC forums for 4E and one of the anti-4E arguments has been that the new consolidated skill system limits the role-play value of out of combat scenarios... I don't see how they see it. I brought my thread here because right now, the 4E forums at WOTC are full of Trolls...

I haven't had this problem (since the XP demos came out, I have had some 4E demos going) and here is a scenario comparison...
********
3.x
GM: the city officer asks your for your credentials and what your business is here.
Player 1: I present my papers (already rolled forgery earlier) and I tell him I am here to give a gift to the magistrate (rolls bluff). These 3 guy's loaded down with armor and swords, they are my personal assistants... No I don't have any weapons (Rolls sleight of hand)
GM: Rolls Sense motive vs the forged papers-compares. Rolls Sense motive vs bluff. Rolls spot vs the sleight of hand... Goes on to give the results in narrative...

4E
GM: the city officer asks your for your credentials and what your business is here.
Player 1: I present my papers and I tell him I am here to give a gift to the magistrate . These 3 guy's loaded down with armor and swords, they are my personal assistants... No I don't have any weapons (Rolls bluff, possibly with thievery)
GM: Rolls Insight, possibly perception. Goes on to give the results in narrative...
***********
With 4E, there just seems to be less rolls to worry about and you get the same results as in 3.x.

Is this typical of others who here have played demos of 4E?

(Please, if you haven't even demoed 4E, don't comment... Your argument will be invalid)

 

[Tehnai]

They don't limit roleplay. Roleplay is almost completely independant from the system used. It's all up to the DM, in the end.

What 4E does do is that it gives us more time to do whatever it is we want to do by making us roll about 10 million less rolls every game.

For your example, the guard wouldn't even need to roll his perception/insight, there's a passive version for both.

Basically, it's all about turning 6 dice rolls into 1, granting everyone a couple more minutes of gaming.

 

[MaelStorm]

The situation you describe in 4E would be a social encounter which would be better resolved with a skill challenge.

I'm waiting to read the skill chapters in the PHB before condemning it, but from what I've seen so far I'm a little perplexed. The decision to nerfed the skill list according to a recent The Tome podcast was to reduce the time for creating new characters, instead of looking at skills in different books, i.e. a rogue who has 40 SP and take 20 min., the same rogue now take 3 min. to choose his starting skills. I understood the main argument is that 3.5 tried to accomodate non-gaming skills which 4E designers decided to remove entirely.

[Here most are happy about it, but there are some people, like me, who are used to game like GURPS and its a dramatic drop in skills (400 skills as opposed to 15-20 only in D&D 4E), but that is a personal issue, I have to embrace this new attitude. I thought 4E would add more skills instead of nerfing it, but I'm getting there slowly, I understand and see why it is so.]

 

[Stalker0]

As long as skills encompass the majority of actions a character would take that have mechanical significance , the exact number of them isn't as important.