I had been imagining four roles: Face, Infiltrator, Explorer and Lore, each of which would have multiple themes. Much like classes, each theme would be provide both a primary and a secondary role. For example, a Sneak (the theme that goes with a traditional thief concept) would have a primary role of Infiltrator and a secondary role of Explorer or Face, all with the martial power source.
Themes would provide a minimum set of fixed skills (and, presumably, some optional skills) and access to a significant number of utility powers (assuming we're staying close to the 4e character building philosophy). As a separate matter, I am inclined to think that rituals and martial practices should be organized into sets of abilities that would be selected through feats. Themes should also grant some of these ritual abilities.
Face Themes would typically focus on Bluff, Diplomacy, History, Intimidate, Insight and/or Streetwise and would shine in NPC persuasion challenges. Face themes would support other types of challenges through the secondary role and would commonly have leader-like abilities that help other characters succeed. Face themes can also provide effective support for infiltration and lore by grifting or identifying knowledgeable contacts. Explorer challenges can also involve face obstacles (i.e. difficult natives or magical constructs amenable to persuasion) or they can be supported by arranging for help (extra camels, a better map, etc...).
Infiltrator Themes would typically focus on Acrobatics, Athletics, Bluff, Stealth, Streetwise and/or Thievery and would shine in infiltration challenges. Infiltrator themes would support other types of challenges through the secondary role, through scouting (i.e. exploration challenges), stealing valued property (for persuasion challenges), or retrieving critical information (for lore challenges). Infiltrators can also be very helpful with physical obstacles (like cliffs) that show up in explorer challenges.
Explorer Themes would typically focus on Athletics, Dungeoneering, Endurance, Heal, Insight, Nature, Perception, Thievery and/or Streetwise and would shine in travel and exploration challenges. Explorer themes would support other types of challenges through the secondary role, by noticing important information (infiltration, persuasion, and lore challenges all apply), providing cover for an infiltration from the outside, or engineering solutions to physical problems.
Lore Themes would typically focus on Arcana, Heal, History, Insight, Nature, Religion and/or Streetwise. Many Lore themes would have access to research or divination powers to provide useful clues or domain knowledge applicable to many different forms of challenge, as well as secondary role. Other Lore themes might have "Brains" theme abilities to provide game benefits to their schemes (like Intelligent heroes from d20 Modern).
Thanks. I now know a bit better where you are coming from, especially with regard to the secondary role.
This seems like a lot of material for a new player to digest and it still sounds more like skill challenge game theory.
Wouldn't all of this work just as well if the game added 2 or 3 skills to the number of trained skills and the number of trained skill options that each PC class gets?
Doesn't Aid Another already handle the secondary role that you are discussing in many cases?
In the software industry, we don't try to fix symptoms of problems, we try to fix the root cause of an issue.
The root cause of most of this is that there are major skill encounters where some players shine and some players sit on the sidelines.
So, one person thought that it would be good to come up with non-combat roles just like we have combat roles. The problem is that there are no good set of non-combat roles that do more than just segregate the skills into lists. Hence, the non-combat roles are not what are needed, it's the skills that are needed. A bunch of extra themes and theme powers and skill powers are not needed. That's just bloating the system.
And, this non-combat role system is going to actually add a problem to the system that the current skill system has an inbuilt way to minimize.
There are skills that are just flat out better than other skills. So unless the players get together and design their PCs as a team, most PC groups have many of the skills, but there are some straggler skills that often do not get taken.
By expanding the skills that each PC can get (either by allowing every class to take every skill, or through your role method), the Fighter can now take Perception. So, he takes Perception instead of Endurance. Endurance is now taken even less often than in 4E and the group loses it.
By just adding 2 or 3 skills to every PC's list and to how many starting trained skills they get, it allows each PC to be more versatile without creating this massive set of non-combat role and theme layers that the game designers have to explain to new (and current) players.
Another major problem that I have observed (and Essentials has addressed this issue for some classes) is that as most players get into low to mid Paragon levels (partially because of Paragon Paths), they start forgetting some of their PC's powers or abilities. It happens nearly every gaming session once PCs get high enough level because the PCs have so many options and so many conditionally dependent abilities that players forget stuff. I had it happen to me just a few weeks back where I was actually planning to use one of my PC's abilities, but by the time my turn came around, I forgot.
The more layers and rules added to the game (i.e. non-combat roles, themes, etc.), the more the game gets bogged down in minutia.
Game bloat is one of the big problems in 4E. It's not just in the number of powers and items and feats that players can acquire, it's in the number of different ways that conditions can be thrown, the number of ways they can end, the new features of monsters, etc.
Even something as simple as adding in skill powers or theme powers or abilities will mean that in the middle of roleplaying a skill encounter, a player will suddenly go "Wait, wait, I have a power that will help with that.". He then flips through his character sheet for 20 seconds "Here it is. I add +3 to my Bluff, does that help?".
The immersion of the roleplaying just got sidetracked as the player looked something up on his sheet.
Alternatively, the player forgets he can do that in the ebb and flow of the roleplaying, and a few rounds after it was needed, he remembers. Opps.
I now understand where people are coming with this non-combat role concept, but I just see it as a way to change the current skill distribution. It might be a good tool in the DMG for helping to create skill challenges, but it should be transparent to the players unless the only thing it is used for is skill acquisition. Players already have a ton of stuff on their character sheets and adding more just bloats the system.