We're back to AD&D1

[Silverblade The Ench]

Oh dear, the rules emphasize combat.

Here I was hoping the books would contain multiple pages about how to roleplay a dwarf in ways other than just giving him a scottish accent. Perhaps I will cancel my preorder.

*speaks in an authentic Glaswegian accent*
"If it's not Scottish, it's CRAAAAAAAAAAAAP!"

Roleplaying dwarves as Scottish in D&D is traditional AND logical *points to hairy wee Scots meanies who do terrible things to sheep and wear badgers as posing pouches!*

"We've got cheap lawyers, and we're no afraid tae use 'em!"
lol

 

[Knight Otu]

Your class is what you do, not who you are. A thief might be a Rogue (and the Rogue is best suited for that), or he might be a Fighter with some off-class training. A priest may be a Cleric, or an inspiringly pious Warlord. An inquisitor may be a Paladin, or a religiously trained Rogue. Some combinations are harder to pull off, of course.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Agreed...I'm fine with a system that lets you 'handwave' backgrounds to some extent, but then how do you know how good the ex-farmer is at evaluating turnips - I am therefore more in favor of a system that allows a roll for background skills...if I'm a woodcarving counterfeiter, I need rules for how well I can create a fake seal for my forged document.

I don't think we ever need to know how good at farming a PC is. Seriously, Baron von Evil isn't going to murder the princess unless the PCs can do some really good crop rotation.

Stuff like that is fluff, not crunch, it doesn't need to be part of the system at all.

Counterfeiting should be evaluated because it can be a useful skill in urban adventures. Woodcarving, not so much.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

What the 4e books do provide is a lot of information on roleplaying, building characters, designing campaigns and building game worlds. But even after someone details the 25 pages on roleplaying that open the PHB and I detailed earlier how the bulk of the DMG is about world building, DMing, crafting stories, NPCs, skill challenges, and other such things, some of you will remain unconvinced because you want to. You've built a belief system around an idea formed through a complete lack of information and now won't let anything interfere with your perfectly good, baseless belief system.

The thing is, some people will look at the rules and say "You get the ability to hit a monster for X damage, the ability to hit a monster for Y damage and stun them, the ability to hit 10 enemies for Z damage, but where's my power that says I get to fast talk anyone by rolling a 10 or above on a d20 or the one that says I can steal any one item without being seen?"

They want to see a mechanical benefit to enhance their role playing. Which, iin 4e is entirely covered by the skill system. You want to fast talk someone, make your skill check. Want to pick pocket someone, make your skill check.

But people would like to see a list of "flavorful" miscellaneous bonuses from their class. They can't just be a rogue unless at 4th level they get a +2 to pick pocket attempts. If they don't see these things in the rules, then it means the rules are obviously meant to model combat only.

 

[The Little Raven]

When I talked about "roleplaying", I wasn't thinking in social skills. In fact I tend to avoid using them and I make my players talk.

I consider the "use character stats for physical, use player capabilities for social" mentality to be poor roleplaying, since you aren't adhering to that role when you're using your own strengths/limitations rather than the character's strengths/limitations.

 

[Joe Sala]

DELETED (double post)

 

[Joe Sala]

What the 4e books do provide is a lot of information on roleplaying, building characters, designing campaigns and building game worlds. But even after someone details the 25 pages on roleplaying that open the PHB and I detailed earlier how the bulk of the DMG is about world building, DMing, crafting stories, NPCs, skill challenges, and other such things, some of you will remain unconvinced because you want to. You've built a belief system around an idea formed through a complete lack of information and now won't let anything interfere with your perfectly good, baseless belief system.

First of all, I posted my first message here when I actually saw the books. So I had no preconceptions, nor I participated in endless discussions about rumors. I just say that I was a bit disappointed with what I saw.

In my opinion, the core books emphasize too much one kind of adventure, forgetting many other options, and you can notice it from the text and the pictures. If 95% of the powers (I don't say it's the right amount) are combat-oriented, then you are leading the readers to play in a certain way.

The DMG says it clearly: "The rules and story elements in the D&D game are built around a set of core assumptions about the world" (it's ancient; monsters are everywhere; magic is natural; civilized races band together). Other options are briefly discussed, but the whole text pushes you in a certain direction.

I read once a core book (I don't remember which one!) where 10 pages or so where a discussion about the fantasy genre, its sub-genres (urban, high fantasy, gritty fantasy...), the type of histories you could play and many literary references.

If I buy three expensive books, I want to be aple to play Freeport, Midnight, Dark Sun, Conan and Perdido Street Station. But D&D4 just offers me The Malazan Book of the Fallen.

 

[Sashi]

The thing is, some people will look at the rules and say "You get the ability to hit a monster for X damage, the ability to hit a monster for Y damage and stun them, the ability to hit 10 enemies for Z damage, but where's my power that says I get to fast talk anyone by rolling a 10 or above on a d20 or the one that says I can steal any one item without being seen?"

And other people will look at the rules and say "You mean there's dice involved in talking to someone? There's no way this is roleplaying!"

This is literally a battlefield upon which there can be no winner, as nobody will even agree they're standing on the same one.

 

[Serendipity]

Um....rules are needed to rp? Huh? *scratches head*


On the flip side, though, I can see people who start gaming with 4e not "getting" the role playing aspects of things if it's not strictly spelled out in the rules set.
I say this, but I learned to RP just fine and dandy with OD&D and AD&D 1e so...

 

[Scribble]

I don't have the main books yet, but armed with KoTS and the experpts and articles so far I can partially agree... Personally it feels like the designers decided to take the good parts of O-2e and mix them with the good parts of 3e shook it up a bit then carefully polished the result..

I like this very much.

It has pre-3e idea of that the game/story should come before anything else. Rules should only jump in when rules are specifically needed, not to give you justification to do something.

It also has the 3e idea that when rules exist they should be consistent and logical, as opposed to whatever works in the moment.

It still has the well thought out math of 3e, but keeps it on the backend. I like this.