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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Li Shenron" data-source="post: 6935768" data-attributes="member: 1465">(Quoting myself just to add a little extra consideration to my previous post...)This whole concept of "role" has pretty much guided my RPG hobby since the start. For me a roleplay game has always been only optionally about interpreting or acting a character. Most often I've played in games where interpretation is a major part of the game, but in other cases the interpretation was minimal or practically ignored, and they still were RPG to me.By contrast, the role in the party is for me a major defining feature of a RPG. It's what enables cooperative teamwork for problem-solving in a structured way. Same idea as in a team sport, where you have defenders, attackers, goalkeepers, stikers etc... There are very few teamsports where everyone is equal in role.I am not saying it's the only way to play a RPG, you can conceivably play a game where everyone is functionally the same character with the same capabilities as everyone else. That means everyone has the same role, at least at the beginning of the game, maybe later some differentiation arises, but it will be coming from player's preferences rather than character's capabilities. You still have cooperative teamwork, but in an unstructured way.For me the structured way i.e. "different characters have different capabilities therefore different roles" is much better and thus at the true heart of a RPG because:1- it naturally suggests tasks and responsibilities ("you're a Cleric, you will be the one to heal and protect")2- it guarantees that everyone has something important to do ("you're a Cleric, without you we won't last longer than a fight or two")3- it alternates the "spotlight" on different characters ("you're a Cleric, you're the only one who has the right spells to save us from this undead mess now")4- it relieves each player from the "I need to be good at everything" feeling ("you're the Cleric, nobody's asking you to sneak")5- it prevents the best characters/players from taking over the whole party ("you're the Cleric, even the Paladin who's many levels ahead can't do everything you do)If a RPG strongly enforces roles, then these 5 properties are well-supported, and they help a lot having a game that works smoothly and is a lot of fun.On the contrary, I have always been cold/suspicious to the following ideas in a RPG, all of which dilute the roles in the party and thus work against the above good properties of the game:- giving too many features/capabilities to each character (including too many spells or skills proficiencies)- multiclassing beyond a second class- allowing jack-of-all-trades types of features- allowing swapping of major features on a daily basis- having too many (N)PCs in the party</blockquote>

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