Quote from: WarthurThe approach they seem to be using, as people on ENWorld have mentioned, is to view the archetypes as consisting of two components: the basis of their power, and their role in the group. So, a Fighter for example is a Martial Defender - they draw on their physical prowess and combat skills to stop monsters dead in their tracks, cutting the hordes of darkness down before they can reach the more vulnerable members of the party.

It seems like a sensible distinction to me: the role in the group is your tactical niche, and your power source is the particular flavour you give to that. Put the two together, you get an archetype.

Indeed. It's how the classes interact in tactical scenarios that defines their "roles." I think too many people are seeing the system as some kind of all pervading straitjacket that disallows PC's to do anything other than what their respective keyword(s) describe.

Quote from: WarthurIt seems like a sensible distinction to me: the role in the group is your tactical niche, and your power source is the particular flavour you give to that. Put the two together, you get an archetype.

Which is basically saying 'the fighter fights, the rogue does rogue things...'

Character class, archetype... Call it what you like, its just the same concept that has been in D&D since the early days. Odd that the class base system had to come under thread in 3rd ed before its value was appreciated by game designers.

Did anyone else get the feeling after reading that D&D Insider snippet that the WotC design team has been infiltrated by the White Wolf design team?

Quote from: CabWhich is basically saying 'the fighter fights, the rogue does rogue things...'

Indeed, but it goes further than that - it says "the fighter fights by drawing on his martial prowess and combat skill, the paladin fights by drawing on his inner faith and the careful training of his religious order, the cleric inspires the rest of the party to greater heights through his channelling of divine power, the bard inspires the rest of the party to greater heights through arcane, magical songcraft..."

The benefit seems to be that making new classes should be fairly easy - just pick from the skill trees associated with their power source, and the skill trees associated with their tactical role, and you're good to go.

I'm not a huge fan of these types of roles in P&P RPGs. To me, it's more of an MMORPG thing.  In MMORPGs, the focus is on powergaming, assembling the optimal group of characters with the optimal specializations to overcome the mission (or "instance") at hand. In WoW, a 20 man raid would have X number of protection spec warriors, Y number of holy priests, Z number of shadow priests etc. When the first big fight came up each person knew his exact role and which two or three buttons he had to push. It was all carefully scripted.

This was entertaining and fine for a computer strategy game (or MMORPG rather), but not what I like in my table top game.

I like modeling characters after various fictional sources and thinking about the character as a whole, rather than what "role" they will play in a dungeon exploring party.

I like to take the approach of a group of memorable fantasy characters that get caught up in an adventure and find themselves in a dungeon, rather than a specific group of dungeon commandos born and raised to function together as a tightly integrated unit.

So what all this means is that I hope the new roles don't railroad players into playing a certain way, and I hope there is a great deal of latitude in character design and play.

Quote from: WarthurIndeed, but it goes further than that - it says "the fighter fights by drawing on his martial prowess and combat skill...

And that doesn't seem just a little bit contrived to you? Its just redefining the classes more or less the same way they were always defined (although this became more hazy in 3rd ed). Reinventing the wheel has rarely seemed a more appropriate analogy.

Quote from: GoOrangeSo what all this means is that I hope the new roles don't railroad players into playing a certain way, and I hope there is a great deal of latitude in character design and play.

I'd go along with that, although I think that with a game like 3e with such a big, heavily integrated skill system then of necessity you get a bit bogged down with character statting. You have more latitude for character design if you strip a lot of that clinker out.

Quote from: GoOrangeI'm not a huge fan of these types of roles in P&P RPGs. To me, it's more of an MMORPG thing.  In MMORPGs, the focus is on powergaming, assembling the optimal group of characters with the optimal specializations to overcome the mission (or "instance") at hand. In WoW, a 20 man raid would have X number of protection spec warriors, Y number of holy priests, Z number of shadow priests etc. When the first big fight came up each person knew his exact role and which two or three buttons he had to push. It was all carefully scripted.

This was entertaining and fine for a computer strategy game (or MMORPG rather), but not what I like in my table top game.

I like modeling characters after various fictional sources and thinking about the character as a whole, rather than what "role" they will play in a dungeon exploring party.

I like to take the approach of a group of memorable fantasy characters that get caught up in an adventure and find themselves in a dungeon, rather than a specific group of dungeon commandos born and raised to function together as a tightly integrated unit.

So what all this means is that I hope the new roles don't railroad players into playing a certain way, and I hope there is a great deal of latitude in character design and play.

Hasn't D&D always had a certain implicit amount of optimum party building, though?  I still hear people refer to the bard as a "fifth-class", because it's one you don't mind someone playing once you already have your fighter (hit point guy), cleric (healing guy), mage (damage guy) and rogue (skills guy).

Quote from: HaffrungPC roles are nothing new. In Classic D&D, they were called 'classes'.

If roles were classes, we'd only have 4 classes today.

Which honestly, is part of the problem that I have seen in the new class glut that came with 3.5. Many of the new classes like Swashbuckler and Spellthief really don't support the party and stand up to the typical challenges in a standard D&D-style adventure.

Not that such a thing is inherently wrong... there are ways to put an adventure together other than the standard. But many players went into the game -- and many DMs allowed in the game -- such characters on the assumption that they would serve the role of a standard PC in such a game, when such is not the case.

I think their thinking for the 4e classes is sound.
It´s just a little bit useless discussing the behind-the-scenes-abstractions with the proles like us. It destroys a little bit of the magic.

I like a cleric, but a "divine leader" is just a little bit too technocratic for me. But hell, the game had MUs it will stand this addition of idiosyncratic technocracy too.

Quote from: BrantaiHasn't D&D always had a certain implicit amount of optimum party building, though?  I still hear people refer to the bard as a "fifth-class", because it's one you don't mind someone playing once you already have your fighter (hit point guy), cleric (healing guy), mage (damage guy) and rogue (skills guy).

Yes, definitely. Prior editions with their limited choices in character creation were particularly stifling. Which is why customizable skill based systems like Runequest  and GURPS became popular alternatives. These games gave you the option to create more complex characters, rather than just "OK, I'll play the tank". I'm hoping 4E has options enough to make nuanced characters who can do different things rather than just assigning people roles like "You're playing the tank, you do this."

And the hateraid continues to flow...

Why not think of this from the perspective of a GM and not a player?

I simply don't think that this kind of meta-game thinking is for the players' benefit, but rather for the DM's.  If I were designing an adventure it would be really nice to be able to quickly determine what the basic capabilities of the PCs are so that I can match them up against appropriate challenges.

Oh hey, lookit that!  There's also a brand new monster classification system that sort-of kind-of parallels the PC classification system. I wonder if I can use them together to quickly cobble together a reasonably fun scenario?

Let's say I have a Fighter, a Wizard, a Sorc, and a Cleric.  Hmm, seems a bit heavy on the artillery, but we cover three power-sources.  Fairly straightforward to figure out what each class' purpose is though.

Now let's try: Swordsge, Monk, Psychic Warrior, and Warlock.  I'd guess that's pretty tough for most DM's to plan for, but if those classes fell within certain class-groups (or "roles") it might be a bit easier to quickly assess what their capabilities and approach might be.

I could see this kind of thing helping published adventures, both for the writer and the purchaser.

Just a thought.

Quote from: GoOrangeYes, definitely. Prior editions with their limited choices in character creation were particularly stifling. Which is why customizable skill based systems like Runequest  and GURPS became popular alternatives. These games gave you the option to create more complex characters, rather than just "OK, I'll play the tank". I'm hoping 4E has options enough to make nuanced characters who can do different things rather than just assigning people roles like "You're playing the tank, you do this."

I think you've got that backwards

If I was playing, say, classic D&D (lets say its the BECMI line, pre-Gaz, pre RC) then I might say to the DM "I want to play a cleric, I want him to be from the coast, lets say he's from Ostland, he's an outcast from a fishing village", and my DM would say "Okay, whats he like?". I'd describe the character, and that would be it. Then maybe in an adventure we'd have to pilot a small boat across a sea loch, the DM would ask "Anyone ever sailed a small fishing boat?" and I'd say "Yes, my character was a fisherman, rememner?". And thats all you have to do, you have a character who has background knowledge within reason. You don't really need to customise the class at all because you're playing a character who makes sense in the context of the setting.

If I'm playing 1st ed AD&D I might be using proficiencies for the same thing or just background skills.

2nd ed codified that more, as did RC, but still, its a background set of skills allowing a high degree of flexibility and control in character design; where 2nd ed and RC really started specifying what characters could do, though, they also explained in more depth what a character couldn't do. You were more likely to be a tank because unless you'd bought the skill 'fishing' then you couldn't be an ex fisherman, at least not one who ever caught any fish... You'd also have to have the skill of boat piloting, perhaps navigation, haggling, unless you'd specified each of the skills (or just had a sensible DM!) your character design was limited... And then came 3rd ed, which took us further in that rather restrictive direction.

Statting in that which more reasonably lies within the narrative doesn't give you more control over character design and abilities, it gives you less. It appeals to a certain element of the gaming community 'cos its also munchier, unfortunately.

I see what you're saying Cab, and agree with it in the context you've put it.

I think, though, your reasoning works fine for the specific example of background type skills but less so for general class type abilities (like the skill with a weapon and the ability to cast magic).

What I was trying to say is more along the lines of this:

I wouldn't like to play the tank where my only abilities were being able to wear armor and swing a sword effectively. Perhaps I want to be more of the swashbuckler type, maybe even cast a spell or two. That wouldn't fit into a narrowly defined "role".

The more the rules try to focus me on a role, the less likely I'll be to create the character I want.

Roles work for tactical dungeon crawls where you try to optimize your 4 man party to overcome various tactical challenges of mostly combat, some traps and possibly even a social negotiation. When I make up a character, I want to start with a concept of something I think would be cool, who I could picture watching in a fantasy movie or reading about in a book. I don't start by thinking of the challenges ahead in the dungeon and how I can optimize a character to best interact with the other party members to suceed in our dungeon delving. I think the concept of "roles" tries to focus attention toward this style of tactical roleplaying too much.

(I'm not trying to rip on D&D 4E or having a "hate-on", I'm eagerly looking forward to the new edition. I'm just discussing theory here more than anything else.)

Quote from: GoOrangeWhat I was trying to say is more along the lines of this:

I wouldn't like to play the tank where my only abilities were being able to wear armor and swing a sword effectively. Perhaps I want to be more of the swashbuckler type, maybe even cast a spell or two. That wouldn't fit into a narrowly defined "role".

The more the rules try to focus me on a role, the less likely I'll be to create the character I want.

Thats rather a limitation of any class based systems, unless of course you broaden out the range of classes to accomodate that. Then the problem arises that its hard to keep the sprawling list of classes well balanced. I'd say that your best bet then is to keep the backbone of the system as simple as possible to make tailoring custom classes as easy as you can.

QuoteRoles work for tactical dungeon crawls where you try to optimize your 4 man party to overcome various tactical challenges of mostly combat, some traps and possibly even a social negotiation. When I make up a character, I want to start with a concept of something I think would be cool, who I could picture watching in a fantasy movie or reading about in a book. I don't start by thinking of the challenges ahead in the dungeon and how I can optimize a character to best interact with the other party members to suceed in our dungeon delving. I think the concept of "roles" tries to focus attention toward this style of tactical roleplaying too much.

(I'm not trying to rip on D&D 4E or having a "hate-on", I'm eagerly looking forward to the new edition. I'm just discussing theory here more than anything else.)

And its reasonable speculation based on what you like in a game. I'd say that the best way to obtain what you are after is by keeping the game simple; the whole focus on 'roles' in 4th ed could simply be a tool for letting novices know what a character class is good at or it could be more narrowly defining what each class can do. I suspect that if its the latter, it'll go down like a lead balloon. The problem they have with d20 as it stands is that while the skills system they have is basically sound, it is restricting, and its hard to use it to break out of class restrictions.