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Message: <blockquote data-quote="SirAntoine" data-source="post: 6504126" data-attributes="member: 6731904">What is at issue is "which characters should you play", and the game has always asked us that first. What 4e did that caused people to become upset, is try to script how you play your characters. This was actually a departure from an unspoken contract between the game's writer whose voice at the table is often the DM, and the players, where the players are told that "in D&D you get to play a character who is like one of the main characters in a story, only the story isn't written already and you get to influence the outcome".The player is assured he or she will get to play their character however they choose. Scripting that play with the added roles will naturally be unwelcome. It also can come across to players kind of like "kid gloves, or lead by the hand", with players feeling they don't need the game's writer to try to tell them how they should strategically play their characters. Many players don't want that kind of advice, or the infringement on their freedom to define their own role. And they may change what they do to fit each situation. As steeldragons tried to explain, the 4e roles are describing what have always just been particular moments, or particular strategies. In 4e, the roles try to highlight what the writer's think will be defining strategies, but they're just examples and all of it is just advice. An established D&D player would have known this, but people new to the game with 4e likely came across thinking those strategies and roles were bedrock.Which brings me to the next point.  Those strategies and roles are not the most defining for the game, and they haven't in fact always been in the game. I agree that plenty of people enjoy using them, and incorporating those strategies, but they are not so traditional or defining for the game. This, of course, for combat within the game.2e calls the classes occupations precisely because the roles "most basically" are not supposed to "strategic aptitudes". The word, occupation, is used because it gets you into character better, helping to imagine their world and their life within it. That is more defining for who your character is, which is also the same as asking what role you are playing in the game. I would much prefer everyone use strategic role when talking about the roles like this.Not every D&D character's occupation is actually adventurer. It's basically true from our point of view playing the game, but far and wide, DM's bring adventure to the player characters in ways that give them motives other than what might best be described as treasure hunting and fame and thrill seeking. In perhaps a majority of campaigns, the characters, drawn from different occupations, come together to face some great threats and try to be heroes. Their occupations establish what their skills and knowledge are, not how they will need to apply them.That has traditionally been left up to the players, to figure something out creatively, and many find the assignment of strategic roles on top of class and occupation as drying down some of the challenge and some of the spark. I don't want to fade in and out of combat, every time trying to play these artificial positions. Sometimes that framework would be really intelligent and exciting, but the same over and over? I am surprised I haven't read more complaints about combat being boring than I have. It is not "4e-bashing" to express such an opinion.  I applaud anyone for enjoying the game, and I am happy it delivers as much enjoyment as it does to them.I think I have covered most of the real undercurrents. We need to say what we really mean. I would welcome a 4e player to my table, and be happy to play in a 4e game.The 4e roles themselves are not the subject of this thread, but I could constructively criticize them, too, without taking away from their appeal or strengths.  The striker is meaningless, as everyone in D&D tries to strike the monsters, the leader is the person in charge, not the healer or the supporter who keeps everyone going, and the controller is "What?"  I never heard the term applied that way before reading about 4e.  To say that the wizard's role is to be a controller is perhaps the ultimate restriction, not surprising given that they took away most of their spells in their haste to make 4e "balanced".  The wizard used to enjoy the greatest variety.</blockquote>

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