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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mustrum_Ridcully" data-source="post: 4241122" data-attributes="member: 710">I used to believe that roleplaying was all about the "pretended" social interaction between NPCs and PCs, and if you didn't do that much, you weren't really roleplaying. But I come to believe that this is not all to it. Even combat interaction is roleplaying. You play (in a very literal sense of playing a game, too) the role of a Fighter or a Wizard. You use abilities and techniques that suite your style. That is also a subset of roleplaying. And judging from what I hear about the early editions of D&D (which is not that much), it was always an important part for a role-playing game. And it is notably different from a typical war game or boardgames, where you lead an army that hardly has something like a role, or Monopoly where it really doesn't matter whether you play a Shoe or a Car, since you all do the same stuff, or a card game, where everything you do depends on the cards handed to you, with no "personality" or "role" attached, or a game like Go or Chess, where it doesn't matter whether you're black or white, since you all get the same pieces and moves. [/ridiculously long sentence]Maybe the "social" parts are a higher concept of role-playing, but that doesn't diminish the basic type of roleplaying. I play a Fighter, therefor I fight. I am also courageous, boast with my prowess, and lead the party (the latter unfortunately an aspect that at least the 3E rules totally missed, and probably also the 4E rules). I am a Cleric, therefore I cast spells that heal and banish evil creatures, and I also teach people the lessons of my faith and ensure proper behavior of my comrades. I am a Wizard therefor I blast my enemies into oblivion, and I also have vast knowledge on history, arcane lore and science. I am a Rogue, therefore I stab people in the back, and also disable traps, and mingle with the common folk to secure information.---I think D&D has always a strong focus on combat. Most games I played and enjoyed do so. That might be just me (and my group), but I like tactical, exciting combats. And I might even be better at that then at running a number of NPCs (which is probably not so good for my DMing) for pure roleplaying purpose "against" the PCs. Sometimes I think we should do more of that. But I am not sure if it's D&Ds fault that we don't. That said, off course a lot of people love (and even prefer) the high concept role-playing. I think the tavern and the general time in Winterhaven  in KotS are the main (or only?) points where you can do the "socializing" stuff. For better or worse, it is not very mechanically detailed, but it contains some amount of role-playing hints. It could be expanded upon (and maybe it should have been?)Why does KotS not include more of these opportunities? 2 Ideas (beyond the "that's all D&D 4 can support)1) The designers wanted to introduce the people to the combat rules of the game, because these are some of the major changes. 2) The designers decided that going light on role-playing is actually better for beginners. If you really haven't roleplayed that much (maybe coming from video-games and MMORPGs?), you might find it hard to "naturally" fall into playing your role. Coming up with an interesting personality (for a pre-generated character!) and reactions to NPC and PC activities might be a little daunting, and testing the waters in free-form scene might be a good idea.</blockquote>

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