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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Gryph" data-source="post: 5571110" data-attributes="member: 98071">I have been playing 4e for a little over 2 years now for the most part with the same group of players. For most of the first 2 years I used to complain that my players were very poor at roleplaying and I constantly struggled to adjust the game and my DMing style to encourage the party to take more control of their actions and be more active in their roleplay. I never reached a point where I blamed the system and I still don't, but... My players were new to table top games when we started. All had played various CRPGs, WoW being most common but also a lot of single player games. I think this is still the likeliest cause of the party being sort of passive about making plot decisions on their own. Their expectation from computer games was to be railroaded through an adventure. They also had no experience from those games of free form social interactions. I have finally decided though, that the complexity of the combat system was a partial contributor. 4e combat is richly detailed and engrossing. I know, because they have told me in after game wrap-ups, that most of my players had some decision paralysis problems because they felt a need to do the optimum set of actions every turn. With their thoughts tuned to that type of in game analysis it didn't leave them much mind-share for roleplaying. Interestingly, our last few sessions have been quite a bit different and much more loose and flowing in feel with some good roleplay. I think for a few reasons.  First and probably most important is experience, they are a lot more comfortable with the system.  Second, they have a regular and strong examplar. We had a player join about 6 months ago who is very interested in the rp aspects of gaming (and never played CRPGs) who has gotten his feet under him with the system and really blossomed as a roleplayer. He's started dragging the rest a long and helping them feel more comfortable "playing a part".  Lastly, I tried a little experiment and ran them through an old school 1e dungeon to give them a taste of the roots of the game.  They did not like the rule system, but it did give them a taste of what approaching encounters and scenarios from a naturalistic rather than a strictly mechanical mindset was like. They did say they liked that part and it seems to have carried over. The one knock I will make against 4e when it comes to non-combat situations though is the skill system. Not the typical negative comparisons to 3.X, I prefer the streamlined skill list and always hated crafting/professional skills. My complaint is more fundemental. Starting with the introduction of the original thief, D&D has had some skill monkey classes where their access to a broad range of skills was balanced by diminished combat effectiveness. That pattern held true through 3.5. The 4e designers did a great job balancing all classes for in combat effectivenes but they held onto the legacy of differing access to skills by class and I don't feel it holds up anymore from a play balance sense.</blockquote>

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