What's this so-called MMO influence????

[Fallen Seraph]

I don't have the book on me, but I remember Promethean has some abilities, mainly dealing with lowering-Disquiet, that are to be activated on a per-scene or per-encounter basis.

It was like... Now don't quote me on this, since my memory could be faulty: "Once per scene, a Promethean may choose to implant the amount of Disquiet he has garnered onto someone else."

 

[SKyOdin]

A few people have mentioned earlier in the thread the theory that Striker = dps. I am not certain that there is evidence to support this claim. I don't think that any WotC employee has ever claimed that Strikers do more damage to enemies than other characters (in fact, I vaguely remember them denying that).

There have been some very interesting discussions about the Striker role on the Wizards forums a while back. One of the interesting points that some posters brought up is that Strikers could be differentiated by the ability to get past Defenders and attack more vulnerable targets behind enemy lines. This can be done using acrobatics and/or stealth (rogue) or with powerful ranged attacks (ranger? and warlock). According to this theory, Strikers and Defenders will both do comparable damage, but Defenders focus on holding back the enemy while Strikers aim to get past the enemy.

Since we don't have the rules, no one can actually say for sure. So currently, any theory that Strikers are based on WoW dps characters is pure speculation.

 

[mattcolville]

Hey, I have another set of names for those four roles:

Fighter, magic-user, cleric, thief.

Those aren't roles, they're character classes.

If you've played WoW, you know that WoW has classes and roles. Up until now, D&D only had the former.

The concept of "role" exists to help the player. Roles help the player, especially the first-time player, understand what their job is which, for many designers, myself included, is to the good.

Now, in WoW, players must discover these roles. They're not referred to anywhere in the game.

I'm going to say that again, because I think it's important: the terms 'tank,' 'healer,' and 'dps,' occur nowhere in WoW.

They're terms the player invented to describe the various jobs in a party. They're also almost certainly the terms the designers use.

This means that while WoW has roles, and D&D until now has not, they're not well presented to the player. The designers intentionally hide these roles from the player for reasons passing understanding.

I don't believe D&D4's role will be precisely analogous to WoW's roles, but I think they'll fall into the general ballpark. And I think the fact that the roles are spelled out and clearly presented to the player will make D&D4 superior to WoW in this respect, even as it steals from it.

Up until now, in D&D, if you were a Thief or a Rogue and wanted to know what was expected of you, the answer was "pick pockets" or "disarm traps." Well, many encounters, indeed entire adventures, have no traps or reasons to pick pockets. That's not a role, that's just an action available to a thief.

Whereas it's very nice to be able to tell a player "You do more damage than anyone else, but you're squishy." Now the player understands his role.

I was hoping, and I'm apparently wrong, that the roles would be like cards the players could switch around between sessions. So that tonight I might be the Defender, and next week you could be. But this does not seem to be the case.

One thing I recently noticed is that, if Bloodied works the way I think it does, this is a direct ripoff from WoW where every creature you fight...at least every one I remember fighting since going to the Outland, gets "enraged" after suffering a certain amount of damage.

It doesn't bother me in the slightest that D&D is ripping off WoW. Every game designer should steal the stuff he's seen in other games that worked well. No point in reinventing the wheel.

 

[PeterWeller]

As usual, in threads like this, a number of misconceptions or misrepresentations arise about WoW.

First is the good old role argument. This one's been around for a while, and as a number of posters have already stated, is something that has always been implicit in D&D and other fantasy RPGs, no matter what the medium. More pertinent to the discussion, though, is the idea that D&D is designing classes to excel at a single role, and that this is how WoW does it. WoW actually doesn't do this. It's already been pointed out that classes depending on how you "spec" them can fulfill different roles. In addition, WoW has a number of classes that are defined as "hybrids," combining the abilities of other classes. To muddy the comparison further, nothing in the roles concept adequately considers the "pets" that certain classes utilize.

Something else that has been brought up as a point of comparison is 4E's apparent downplaying of out of combat abilities. In truth, out of combat abilities are an important, albeit secondary, part of a WoW character. Crafting, enhancing, and resource gathering are all useful and involve a significant portion of play time.

As to the OP's question, there has been eight years of game design since the release of 3E, and 4E reflects those eight years of change and "advance" in thought. WoW and other MMOs have been a big part of those eight years, and so they have had an influence, from the subliminal to the obvious, on 4E D&D.

 

[The Little Raven]

Those aren't roles, they're character classes.

We can call them by the original roles in which Gygax openly based them: infantry (the units that hold your line; fighting-man), combat medic (the units that keep other units fighting; cleric), special forces (units that do specialized tasks, including single-target elimination; thief), and artillery (units that wreak havoc on large portions of the battlefield; magic-user). Tack on the design considerations that make it so that a fighter will be the guy absorbing more of the damage (higher HP, compared to the M-U's small amount), a cleric will be the guy healing (since noone else was a healer at that point), the magic-user will be the guy laying down AoE damage (since noone else could do that, either), and the thief would positioning himself for special purposes or bonus damage (backstab)... and you get classes that were obviously designed with roles in mind.

Up until now, D&D only had the former.

D&D has had roles since the beginning.

The concept of "role" exists to help the player. Roles help the player, especially the first-time player, understand what their job is which, for many designers, myself included, is to the good.

Roles help designers just as much as players, because they help them keep focus on what the class should be able to do without any customization on the part of the player. So, all fighters will be able to be Defenders, even if you want to gear yours towards being a Striker instead.

And I think the fact that the roles are spelled out and clearly presented to the player will make D&D4 superior to WoW in this respect, even as it steals from it.

I think clearly presenting roles that have existed (and evolved) since the beginning of the game is a good thing, too.

One thing I recently noticed is that, if Bloodied works the way I think it does, this is a direct ripoff from WoW where every creature you fight...at least every one I remember fighting since going to the Outland, gets "enraged" after suffering a certain amount of damage.

This is wrong, as five minutes playing WoW will demonstrate. Some monsters will flee once they reach a certain % of health (to make sure you're paying attention, since previous MMOs had problems with people just turning on auto-attack, then walking away for a few minutes), some will enrage, some will call others for help. Not all monsters do the same thing.

Every game designer should steal the stuff he's seen in other games that worked well. No point in reinventing the wheel.

This is 110% true. Inspiration for good mechanics comes from any source.

 

[The Little Raven]

To muddy the comparison further, nothing in the roles concept adequately considers the "pets" that certain classes utilize.

I gotta disagree here. Hunter pets, in particular, are very important to the hunter's role (damage) as well as having other uses (such as being the hunter's "tank" while soloing). The Water Elemental (a pet only summoned by particular mages) is also a very important boost to the frost mage's damage. Pets and their uses are pretty clearly defined by the special abilities they get.

 

[Dausuul]

Those aren't roles, they're character classes.

If you've played WoW, you know that WoW has classes and roles. Up until now, D&D only had the former.

No, D&D has always had both.

In the original version of D&D, class and role were synonymous. There were only the four classes*, and each was very solidly tied to a specific role. Fighters held the front line; magic-users laid down the heavy firepower; clerics healed and supported; thieves scouted, dealt with locks and traps, and backstabbed. That was the whole point of the four classes, a combined-arms system emerging from D&D's wargaming roots... and I don't think it's coincidence that those four classes correspond precisely to the four roles that WotC has defined for 4E.

While classes have proliferated over the editions, the roles have remained the same. 2E, for example, divided classes up explicitly between the roles, although they didn't use the term "role" to describe it. There were the Warrior classes (fighter, paladin, ranger); the Wizard classes (mage, specialist wizard); the Priest classes (cleric, druid); and the Rogue classes (thief, bard). 3E got rid of this and allowed the roles to get fuzzy around the edges, but 4E is clarifying them again.

WoW players have simply rediscovered what D&D has known for decades.

*In fact, originally there were only three classes/roles; the thief was added in the Greyhawk Supplement.

 

[Campbell]

On Roles

If I had to guess I'd say the class roles originated as design speak. I bet the idea was to avoid accidents of design like the 3e monk, bard, and possibly druid and cleric (although the later two were probably not so much accidents as short sighted design). Those classes either did not really excel at anything or were capable of pulling much more than their own weight. In order to avoid this phenomenon they came up with certain areas where a class should excel with the caveat that a given class designed with one role in mind should not outclass another class of differing expertise in their own niche.

On a related note I'm guessing the entire reason why we even heard about roles is due to a move towards more transparency in design. Wizards has abandoned the idea of system mastery at all levels - they don't want to force players or DMs to figure out how to best make use of the game. Rather by laying everything out on the table the assumption is that groups can determine how they want to play without dealing with unforeseen consequences. As far as I'm concerned this is a Very Good Thing^TM.

 

[FireLance]

If I had to guess I'd say the class roles originated as design speak. I bet the idea was to avoid accidents of design like the 3e monk, bard, and possibly druid and cleric (although the later two were probably not so much accidents as short sighted design). Those classes either did not really excel at anything or were capable of pulling much more than their own weight. In order to avoid this phenomenon they came up with certain areas where a class should excel with the caveat that a given class designed with one role in mind should not outclass another class of differing expertise in their own niche.

Indeed. I think the concept of roles serves two related purposes:

One, it serves as a point of reference for the designers so that they don't end up making an unfocused class by mistake. Whatever abilities the class is given, it should always be able to fulfull its basic role.

Two, it serves as a guide for newer players so that they have a reasonably good idea of what their character is supposed to be good at, and how to play to his strengths. As long as a character acts in accordance with his basic role, he won't do too badly in a fight.

This does mean that each individual class is more narrowly defined. However, and this is the important bit, this is not a limitation that applies to the characters. If multiclassing is as easy or easier than it was in 3e, it will be possible to create a multiclassed character that is a mix of defender and striker, or one that is part leader and part controller.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

I also personally prefer more narrow class-abilities/feel. Simply because if I want to play a certain style of character, I don't want to throw away half my class abilities just to get that feel. But if I can find a class which has a narrow enough approach I can use everything.