Your choices are Kill, or ... Kill

[Elephant]

I take it you have seen the complete playtest rules?

Seriously, why are you making assumptions that no other options exist because we haven't seen them yet?

Because we haven't seen them yet? Presumably, if those options were going to be prominently featured in 4e, WOTC would have been touting them.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Because we haven't seen them yet? Presumably, if those options were going to be prominently featured in 4e, WOTC would have been touting them.

Or else they're not being prominently featured, and the word count is being reserved for those options that are.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Anyone of the "old" EN Worlders - how much were the social skills touted during the lead up to the 3rd edition release?

 

[SSquirrel]

If you think reading a D&D book is more valuable than reading a classic novel, I'm going to have to say we are talking about different things.

Maybe he was saying War & Peace is boring but D&D is fun?

 

[Belphanior]

Anyone of the "old" EN Worlders - how much were the social skills touted during the lead up to the 3rd edition release?

Not at all, if memory serves. Oh, we found out at some point that there were skills and diplomacy was one of them and such. That was the day D&D killed roleplaying I believe, despite the fact that we could point out numerous abilities or non-weapon proficiencies that were pretty much the same. But touted? Nah.

(I know my postcount and join date aren't superduper, but I was around at the time and lurked.)

 

[med stud]

I can't see why they they would tout role playing elements in 4e. Roleplaying isn't specific to rules, either you do it or you don't. What roleplaying specifics is it that people want to hear about? Skills? Guidelines? XP-rewards?

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

Yes, that is what I meant.

EDIT: To clarify, the reason it "begs the question" is because the question purported being answered is not answered. The argument "You can't judge the PHB without reading it" with the rationale, "Because you can't judge the PHB without reading it" begs the question.

I was not making a pretense in order to rhetorically state my question. The questions remains unanswered.

Example
Person A: You cannot judge the PHB without reading it.
Person B: Why can I not judge the PHB without reading it?
Person A: Because you have not read it.
Person A: But why? That would seem to beg the question, why can I not judge the PHB without reading it?

Summary of the use of begging the question referenced above:
Person 1: Why would you read the PHB when you have strong evidence you won't like it?
Person 2: You do not know if you will like it without reading it.
Person 1: How will I determine if I should read it?
Person 2: You must read it.
Person 1: So in order to determine if I should read the PHB, I must read it. That would seem to beg the question, why would you read the PHB when you have strong evidence you won't like it.

Replace that with


Example
Person A: You cannot judge the PHB without reading it.
Person B: Why can I not judge the PHB without reading it?
Person A: Because to judge something you have to be familiar with it. Judgment given in ignorance is worthless.

And you'll be closer to the truth.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I can't see why they they would tout role playing elements in 4e. Roleplaying isn't specific to rules, either you do it or you don't. What roleplaying specifics is it that people want to hear about? Skills? Guidelines? XP-rewards?

I think the latter 3 covers what might be desired.
If anything in D&D is worth to be done, it must grant you XP. Or so might be the general idea...

This view is a bit short-sighted.
A nice comparison often coming up is "If rules don't matter, Monopoly could be an Role-Playing Game).
But I would say this assumption is wrong. In Monopoly, you roll your dice to see how many steps you go and other stuff (Please note: My last monopoly games is probably over a decade ago, and I probably played the game once or twice, and possibly never to conclusion). Then you decide how much money you want to spend or figure out how much you have to pay.
But in the end, it doesn't matter if you speak in funny voice and pretend to play a competent investment banker or a house wive that just won in the lottery. The funny voice doesn't matter much in RPGs either (in both games, the effect is that it can be very entertaining to do so). But the idea of "who you are" is only important in RPGs, because this affects what actually happens in the game. It affects the story - something not really existing in non-RPGs. It affects not only how you approach a situation (do I build a small or a large hotel), but also which situation you want to approach in the first place (Do I even want to go in the hotel business?).

Furthermore, if you don't think about who your character is, you just can't do anything in an RPG. You can't roll the dice to see what the character does next. You have to decide yourself, based on the character you are playing.

That said, I still think that if you'd only get XP for killing monsters and taking their stuff, any role-playing beyond figuring out where the monsters are and what to do with their stuff can become rare. If you hand out XP for non-combat stuff, though, this doesn't mean that people will roleplay more, it just means they have a reason to roll dice for resolving their social skills instead of only their attack and damage. But this can motivate people to think more about the role-playing part, since it feels a little more natural to explore a character when speaking with people then when hitting them with sharp or pointy objects...

 

[pawsplay]

Replace that with


Example
Person A: You cannot judge the PHB without reading it.
Person B: Why can I not judge the PHB without reading it?
Person A: Because to judge something you have to be familiar with it. Judgment given in ignorance is worthless.

And you'll be closer to the truth.

The truth is I have ample reasons to both judge and avoid the PHB.

Also, you've commited a fallacy. "Judgment given in ignorance" assumes "you cannot judge the PHB without reading it" because there may be other ways to judge it. Hence, this still begs the question. If you can state any method other than reading it to "become familiar" then Person A is incorrect. If you can not, then the reasoning is entirely circular.

 

[pemerton]

Roleplaying isn't specific to rules, either you do it or you don't.

There is actually a significant interdendence between roleplaying and rules.

For example, if the per-encounter powers are interpreted as a type of narrative facilitation mechanic (as many people on the Trip thread are suggesting) then the presence of those mechanics strongly supports a type of roleplaying that otherwise would not be supported, namely, description by the player of the combat environment.

Conversely, 3E's skill point rules (hard to maximise many skills) plus its action resolution mechanics (a good number of skills are worthless unless maximised) actively discourages the use of the character build rules to express a serious vision of the character, because skill points are too few. Compare this to Rolemaster character build in RM2, for example, or the breadth of skills that a Runequest character can meaningfully develop, thereby allowing the player to use the character build rules to express the character as a distinct personality.

There's no doubt that the mechanical ways to support roleplaying are many and varied. But it's not independent of the mechanics of the game.