Your role? Nothing matters but combat.

[Silent Cartographer]

I very much doubt that this is the original Bugaboo of fame and legend. The classic Bugaboo was a true artiste, and I doubt would stoop to such elementary material.

I guess the alias became available again; I haven't been aware of the original Bugaboo posting for several years.

 

[Bugaboo]

This thread's been open little more than an hour, and it has already degenerated into a questioning of motives and general unworthiness of others to claim the title of "gamer." I'll leave this thread open for now, but kindly stick to polite discussion of the topic, or there will be bans.

Just shut it down already. This is ridiculous.

 

[robertliguori]

A player who chose to play a defender, is of course limited in his way of helping the group overcoming the fight. For example, he's not good at healing his allies.

The important thing is that in his "limited" scope of action, does he still have some meaningful (in D&D, that means tactical) choices to make ? 4E seems to answer yes and that is certainly good game design.

I prefer to have to make a meaningful choice between 2 things than a meaningless one between 10.

Oh, I'd personally prefer a choice between N meaningful possibilities. I'd like to avoid "How will I use my three powers to defend my comrades?" and get more into "Can I use Iron Tide to knock him into a corner and keep him there with Ensnaring Tactics, and so doing keep him pinned down and immobile?"

Basically, I'd like to see less "You can fulfill this role." and more "You can do these neat things, which also let you fulfill this role." This does leave open the possibility for unexpected and generally-undesirable player action (such as building a defender with no defender powers and serving as a substandard striker), but the cost of choice is the possibility of incorrect choice.

 

[PeterWeller]

Role doesn't necessarily limit ones way of helping out in a fight. Paladins are Defenders, but they also have some limited healing, a Defender ability.

It's better to look at roles as, "this is what you are best at doing," instead of, "this is what you do." You can easily pick up abilities via multi-classing feats to break out of your role, and there are many instances that we know of, Lay on Hands for instance, where classes have core abilities that are outside their role.

This, of course, still has absolutely nothing to do with defining a character's abilities outside of combat.

 

[Nahat Anoj]

Sorry for my snarkiness upthread, Bugaboo.

I edited out my earlier post and won't contribute to this thread anymore. This doesn't really fix things, but there you go.

 

[Trainz]

Will mentioned it above, but the snarkiness and vitriol has blinded people from taking note of it, so I'll reiterate in the futile hope that the following fact has to be taken into account:

WotC have mentioned quite often that 4th ed now has a better and more evolved social interaction system. Hell, social encounters are now full fledged encounters that grant *XP*.

No edition before has went that far. They even reworked how the alignment system influences the game in order to create a more dynamic role-playing environment.

Please keep all this in mind as you all go on your happy slinging of 1's and 0's.



/will no one think of those poor 1's and 0's???

 

[Kishin]

THANK YOU.



Gawd.

A dozen people answered you along this line, and your response is as if this is what you thought all along.

Why then, make your original post?

 

[Stilvan]

I think bugaboo has made a valid observation.

I accept that these roles are there and that they serve a clear and useful purpose. I also accept that many people like their RPGs to run a fairly common course - some agency gives you a task which takes you to a location where you expect to find monsters to fight and defeat. D&D is perfect for that type of game - and is becoming even more so. What D&D appears to be less capable of now IMO ls supporting a game where there is very little to no combat; for example one focused on politics and intrigue where getting into a 'fight' is a sign of failure. In that type of game, being classified as a 'striker' seems a bit ridiculous. In fact none of the archetypes (classes) really support that type of game at all.

4e seems to put a stake in the ground and say 'this roleplaying game is about mighty herores battling fearsome creatures in a high fantasy setting'. And I think it is better off for it. If you want to play a 'deeper' game focusing on politics and diplomacy, other systems are better for that - and really, always have been.

 

[VannATLC]

THANK YOU.



Gawd.

I'm sorry, I can't even see how that was supporting your OP.

As regards as your OP.. its a metagame concept. It doesn't stop your character doing anything in game. It reflects what he's best suited to in combat..

But I really, honestly, don't understand the issue.

Pick a character concept. Build your personality, your characteristics, then pick stats and a class that best suits your concept.

I've not seen too many limiters so far, probably the biggest is the lack of druid archetype.

But your complaint is baseless. Its a combat role. its DESIGNED to reflect just on combat, and have very limited impact elsewhere.

 

[ruemere]

Hmm. I think I'm going to play devil's advocate here.

IMHO, there is merit in Bugaboo's observation - the D&D we know is heavily focused on character evolution with regard to combat prowess and, sometimes, skill challenges. In previous edition (3.0 and 3.5) you were able to develop your character off-combat side by investing into professions, crafts and specialized skills, whereas now all you get is a selection of maximums (i.e. trained and untrained skills) and social challenges subsystem.

So, is it wrong to make combat even more appealing while reducing socializing and mundane activities?

This is not a simple question - any game master may easily say that roleplaying does not require supportive crutches of dedicated rules. However... by handwaving the non-combat part of the game, it may be that players lose a bit of incentive to roleplay.
Seasoned veterans should be fine with 4E, they've been playing for ages and know their stuff, but beginners, younger people especially, may feel discouraged from using their personal charisma to roleplay.

If you played Castle Falkenstein, you probably noticed that social standing is much more important than combat. Same goes for various Storyteller games, Amber and quiet a few other games. It's possible to turn each of those games into wonderful feast of carnage, but non-combat side is built into the system and developing non-combat game side of your character is fun, too.
Whereas in 4E you get maximum ranks in trained skills and optional (for roleplayers) system of social challenges.

Isn't it a little lackluster?

Regards,
Ruemere