Does anyone play 4e as a role playing game, as opposed to roll play?

[SangoProduction]

Seems people don't think you can role play in 4e. This is blatantly false, but still, may as well ask.
Also, if do role play, do you have any spots for a new player?

[MoutonRustique]

Much like many rpg, there are four paths that aren't necessarily mutually exclusive (in the sense that each method will be used at different times w/ the same game) :
1- role play how your character wants to behave and deal with the rolls
2- role play how your character acts based on the rolls
3- role play how your character acts and obviate the roll
4- roll play your character and leave the role playing aside

For me 4e is excellent at providing a solid foundation for (1) and (2) and, by the same measure makes (4) "easier" to incorporate into the game as an integral part. But, you know, (4) can get boring fast...

I dislike (3). I'm not a fan of improve night at the dungeon when it isn't previously stated that the game will take this turn. Also, I dislike when the mechanics of the game don't mesh well with the fiction - and there's nothing more jarring to me than having excellent players have their characters be better than others at what the sheets say should be the reverse... I don't like limiting players by their Int or Cha scores. (or be limited by mine! ;) )

tl;dr - I like to role play the results of the roll play. Especially in SCs - they're a great format for this approach.

[SangoProduction]

Much like many rpg, there are four paths that aren't necessarily mutually exclusive (in the sense that each method will be used at different time w/ the same game) :
1- role play how your character wants to behave and deal with the rolls
2- role play how your character acts based on the rolls
3- role play how your character acts and obviate the roll
4- roll play your character and leave the role playing aside

For me 4e is excellent at providing a solid foundation for (1) and (2) and, by the same measure makes (4) "easier" to incorporate into the game as an integral part. But, you know, (4) can get boring fast...

I dislike (3). I'm not a fan of improve night at the dungeon when it isn't previously stated that the game will take this turn. Also, I dislike when the mechanics of the game don't mesh well with the fiction - and there's nothing more jarring to me than having excellent players have their characters be better than others at what the sheets say should be the reverse... I don't like limiting players by their Int or Cha scores. (or be limited by mine! ;) )

tl;dr - I like to role play the results of the roll play. Especially in SCs - they're a great format for this approach.

I am similar, I admit. I feel systems should give frameworks - skeletons - for role play, on which the actual players build.
(Also, I noticed your typo edit, you have another one in the first sentence. Just so you know.)

[Kurald Galain]

No, nobody plays 4E as a roleplaying game, nor has anyone ever played it as a roleplaying game. That's precisely why it says "rollplaying game" on the book cover, and why it's in the "rollplaying games" section of these forums here.

I'm surprised you didn't know that

[SangoProduction]

No, nobody plays 4E as a roleplaying game, nor has anyone ever played it as a roleplaying game. That's precisely why it says "rollplaying game" on the book cover, and why it's in the "rollplaying games" section of these forums here.

I'm surprised you didn't know that

.... ....

;)

[Laserlight]

Seems people don't think you can role play in 4e. This is blatantly false, but still, may as well ask.

And those people are wrong, and we all know it (see "blatantly false"), so why bring it up?

[SangoProduction]

And those people are wrong, and we all know it (see "blatantly false"), so why bring it up?

Partially because I wanted to join a 4.0 game. Also just asking if that's what the general consensus is (though I had a fairly good idea, as those who were all "this is an MMO" would have already beat it by now). I may as well have been sure before trying to get into a game.

[obryn]

I think you need to listen less to edition warriors.

Yes, of course, people roleplay in 4e games. And yes, of course, this "roleplaying vs. rollplaying" chestnut has been tiresome since the first time White Wolf pushed it in the early 90's.

[SangoProduction]

I think you need to listen less to edition warriors.

Yes, of course, people roleplay in 4e games. And yes, of course, this "roleplaying vs. rollplaying" chestnut has been tiresome since the first time White Wolf pushed it in the early 90's.

yeah. I really should, lol.

[ScrivenerofDoom]

I think you need to listen less to edition warriors.

Yes, of course, people roleplay in 4e games. And yes, of course, this "roleplaying vs. rollplaying" chestnut has been tiresome since the first time White Wolf pushed it in the early 90's.

It also predates White Wolf.

For those of us in our 40s, or older, we can remember similar sorts of taunts back in the 80s when D&D became a big thing for a few years.

It was infantile then; it is infantile now.

It's also not the "general consensus" about 4E. It's an easy, cheap, throwaway insult for those who don't like 4E to throw at 4E. Not that it bothers me: our enjoyment of games is not shaped by these sorts of comments but by our actual play at the table (or at the laptops as we're forced to play online).

4E is D&D. It is roleplaying (I pretend to be an elf). And it is roll-playing (I roll dice). Those three statements are true of every edition of D&D and those last two statements are true of every TTRPG.

[charcoalninja]

In fact since its so incredibly easy to change the fluff of your class to whatever you want 4E actually empowers far MORE roleplaying in that you can play literally anything you can imagine. Play a warforged fighter that's actually a Gnome in a metal suit for example.

[Laserlight]

In fact since its so incredibly easy to change the fluff of your class to whatever you want 4E actually empowers far MORE roleplaying in that you can play literally anything you can imagine. Play a warforged fighter that's actually a Gnome in a metal suit for example.

I was considering changing from my pixie fire mage to a warforged sorceror, and explaining it as "the pixie got into a golem's head and refuses to come out."

[Eisenheim]

Well, this may not be the popular answer here, but I am going to say it. I am not by any stretch an 'edition warrior'. I enjoyed 4e more than any other edition I've played, and I ran an ongoing campaign for years, but I think 4e is a difficult game to get immersive roleplaying from. Certainly it provides less help with that goal than many other systems.

One problem is that the tactical combat engine is so good. It functions so well that it's hard not to spend a great deal of time engaging with it, sometimes at the expense of other things. The necessity of a grid can create an obtrusive separation between combat and non-combat time, and it's hard to keep roleplaying the focus when the grid is out. Also, as a gm, I found I spent so much time designing encounters and adjusting monster stats (this was pre mm3) that I didn't have time and attention for rich social challenges.

Tl/DR 4e may work great for you, but a focus on tactical combat and mechanical optimization are real potential pitfalls of the system.

[SangoProduction]

Well, this may not be the popular answer here, but I am going to say it. I am not by any stretch an 'edition warrior'. I enjoyed 4e more than any other edition I've played, and I ran an ongoing campaign for years, but I think 4e is a difficult game to get immersive roleplaying from. Certainly it provides less help with that goal than many other systems.

One problem is that the tactical combat engine is so good. It functions so well that it's hard not to spend a great deal of time engaging with it, sometimes at the expense of other things. The necessity of a grid can create an obtrusive separation between combat and non-combat time, and it's hard to keep roleplaying the focus when the grid is out. Also, as a gm, I found I spent so much time designing encounters and adjusting monster stats (this was pre mm3) that I didn't have time and attention for rich social challenges.

Tl/DR 4e may work great for you, but a focus on tactical combat and mechanical optimization are real potential pitfalls of the system.

You may actually be the first person to actually try to explain why it would impact something rules aren't supposed to mess with. But, I can tell you that the grid makes no difference. As someone who plays on roll 20 (where there's ALWAYS a grid) for all sorts of games, no one has any difficulty in roleplaying. And even with the more reluctant of the groups, I got them to describe their combat actions.
But aside from that, why would you *need* a grid? Other versions of the game had explosions, and rays and cones and what have you (although to a very limited group of top tier classes). No grids were required then. 1 square just = 5 ft. Why is it any harder to imagine? Indeed my current 4e campaign doesn't use a map unless it's a major combat that I've planned out.
The time management thing...well, no rules will really help that.

Anyway. Yeah. I got it (a while ago), people do roleplay. Whoever manages this forum thing can shut down this thread (after this guy's response if you want, idc).

[SangoProduction]

I was considering changing from my pixie fire mage to a warforged sorceror, and explaining it as "the pixie got into a golem's head and refuses to come out."

I could not laugh harder.

[Vrock_Summoner]

Yes, I roleplay in 4e, but 4e makes you multitask more to keep the roleplay in. In such editions of D&D as 3.5, the tough mechanical decisions are largely made during character creation and advancement; your character at the table proceeds to run in a fairly reliable and consistent (which is not to say boring, I find it a blast) way. Even when it's time to make tough mechanical decisions in 3.5, it's usually between two or three wildly different options that you can weigh the pros or cons of and, perhaps more importantly, decide based entirely on what you think your character would be more likely to do, without having to figure out any extra mechanics (unless you're new with the mechanics you're using, but that would apply to literally every non-freeform RPG in the history of ever). In 4e, character creation is fairly simple and streamlined from a mechanical perspective, but you regularly have to make tough tactical decisions during combat, and relying too much on what the character would do over what the numbers would suggest as the best option (should they conflict) is a great way to encourage natural selection in the form of running through characters until you're playing one that respects the numbers' opinions. This is of course not an insurmountable or in fact even difficult problem for an experienced group - it's very easy for the DM to adjust such that your playstyle works, or tone down the difficulty so that any playstyle works - but it's still present, and can trouble a group composed entirely or mostly of newbies.

So, yeah, out-of-combat RP is no different in 4e than most other systems, but in-combat RP can be harder for people who are new or bad at multitasking, just because your brain probably needs to be very focused on the numbers when things are going down.

[theMycon]

Four of the six people in my group try it. The DM is one of them, so everybody role-plays at least a little; but it's clear in a few cases that it's more of a "look how awesome my diplomacy score is! I'll demand free stuff from strangers, and if they're pissed off I'll never see them again anyway" that we're trying to encourage towards doing a little more.

Our game's been going on for 4 years, so any character who survives more than a year develops their own goals, gags, and idiosyncracies that makes them feel a little more alive. We fight less and politic more (I think we've levelled twice this past year, but we've got land and we can nudge an army & a few allied city's resources in the right direction when we need to.) It works just as well as it does in any other system.

The wizard has her own agenda & which affects off-screen plot, juggles political factions, and occasionally puts her goals ahead of the goals of the party. There's only one person paying enough attention to notice who dislikes it. The Ranger seeks atonement for past ill deeds and having more-or-less purified all the bad blood, he continues to move towards a hero for all, rather than a hero for those he wants to suck up to. My "Bard" is generally referred to as a paladin who happens to sing, in-game (or Corelleon's herald, or Captain Not-America). He continually strives to make a world where heroes like him aren't needed, & inspires people to figure out what's right on their own- and to look and say "we did this ourselves" when he actually uses magic to do something.

[R.Shackleford]

I started with 4e but tried 2e3e. Every game I played in 2e3e had a battle map and used minis. They were both very very combat heavy. From what I've seen 3e5e pushes for rollplaying more so than 4e as you need every little bonuss, item, and feature to be relevant.

Whereas in 4e you don't need to strive for those extra bonuses to be awesome or effective.

[georgie_leech]

I started with 4e but tried 2e3e. Every game I played in 2e3e had a battle map and used minis. They were both very very combat heavy. From what I've seen 3e5e pushes for rollplaying more so than 4e as you need every little bonuss, item, and feature to be relevant.

Whereas in 4e you don't need to strive for those extra bonuses to be awesome or effective.

Considering that 4e has an explicit and deliberate math curve you need to keep up with... that seems a bit odd.

[Laserlight]

Considering that 4e has an explicit and deliberate math curve you need to keep up with... that seems a bit odd.

Everyone needs to keep up with the group they're in, but they don't need to be CharOp'd to the max. If everyone is, say, -2 from what they "should be" because they put feats into skills, or got items that were flavorful but not optimized, then the DM just needs to adjust his encounters. It's when one guy is +19 and the other is +8 that it gets to be a pain.

[georgie_leech]

Everyone needs to keep up with the group they're in, but they don't need to be CharOp'd to the max. If everyone is, say, -2 from what they "should be" because they put feats into skills, or got items that were flavorful but not optimized, then the DM just needs to adjust his encounters. It's when one guy is +19 and the other is +8 that it gets to be a pain.

Agreed, but that's a function of the players, not the system. To tackle the baseline challenges the game expects you to deal with at a given level, there's a certain amount of raw numbers you need to reach. This is in contrast with the apparently bonus-mad 5e.... where one of the highest AC's in the game is 24, Proficiency+Max Attribute caps out at +11, and the game is deliberately designed that enough low CR anything remains a threat to high level characters.

[R.Shackleford]

Considering that 4e has an explicit and deliberate math curve you need to keep up with... that seems a bit odd.

Power gamers.

In 4e everyone can be useful with very little work. However in the games I played that were 2e and 3e the players made a habit of reaching for every little bit of power they could in order to keep up/surpass the game.

Theb4a games I've played in were always so... Chill. I don't think I've played in a single 3e game that didn't have some sort of planar Shepard level cheese going on (DMs encouraged it too).

[georgie_leech]

Power gamers.

In 4e everyone can be useful with very little work. However in the games I played that were 2e and 3e the players made a habit of reaching for every little bit of power they could in order to keep up/surpass the game.

Theb4a games I've played in were always so... Chill. I don't think I've played in a single 3e game that didn't have some sort of planar Shepard level cheese going on (DMs encouraged it too).

It has nothing to do with Power Gaming. This is the actual math that determines the rough numerical values of a monster at a given value. As you'll notice, most values go up by 1 each level, when the baseline improvement of a PC is only 1 per 2 levels. You need to spend at least some effort to improve your defenses and attack, or else you won't be able to actually hit anything. This is in contrast to 5e, where the bounded accuracy is deliberately set so that having a 16 in your attack stat is all you need to have a fighting chance, even if it's possible to boost further.

I really enjoy 4e, but it most definitely has a stat treadmill that needs to be kept up with. It's possible to work around it with good DMing, and that's part of the magic of the XP Budget encounter design, but that treadmill is still there.

[Dimers]

In 4e everyone can be useful with very little work. However in the games I played that were 2e and 3e the players made a habit of reaching for every little bit of power they could in order to keep up/surpass the game.

Theb4a games I've played in were always so... Chill. I don't think I've played in a single 3e game that didn't have some sort of planar Shepard level cheese going on (DMs encouraged it too).

My experience playing 3.X has been quite the opposite, to the point of strong-tier classes picking lousy spells so everyone could play together without cheese. I recognize my experience as atypical, but I do believe your DMs encouraging overkill is pretty far from normal too.

And I generally feel that newbies need a lot of advice to make a 4e character that can work well in the same party with normal characters built by experienced players. The advice is simple to follow, mind you, but there's a lot of it. Expertise of the correct type or types, what attack-tools to use, Improved Defenses by a certain point, the flabbergasting benefit of Superior Will, what class traits make defenders work, minimum stats to hit reliably, stat spread for defenses, what hybridizing and multiclassing do for you and what they don't, background for hit points, what themes have any meaningful impact and why, why Essentials classes mostly get lackluster quickly, and of course why hitting many times is the key to dealing the most damage.

[R.Shackleford]

It has nothing to do with Power Gaming. This is the actual math that determines the rough numerical values of a monster at a given value. As you'll notice, most values go up by 1 each level, when the baseline improvement of a PC is only 1 per 2 levels. You need to spend at least some effort to improve your defenses and attack, or else you won't be able to actually hit anything. This is in contrast to 5e, where the bounded accuracy is deliberately set so that having a 16 in your attack stat is all you need to have a fighting chance, even if it's possible to boost further.

I really enjoy 4e, but it most definitely has a stat treadmill that needs to be kept up with. It's possible to work around it with good DMing, and that's part of the magic of the XP Budget encounter design, but that treadmill is still there.

No. I'm pretty dang sure that the players I played with were power gamers. I'm talking tier 1 encounter ending let's go kick a god in the nuts type players.

4E has a higher floor and a somewhat lower ceiling (for some classes). This actually stopped the power gamer friends from power gaming as they didn't feel they had to in order to keep up with the game.

There is a difference between getting a few +1's and power gaming.

Also 4e maths fixes itself (for the most part) by giving out a free attack boost feat and a free defense feat. Outside of those you really don't have to worry about getting bonuses.

[Kurald Galain]

No. I'm pretty dang sure that the players I played with were power gamers. I'm talking tier 1 encounter ending let's go kick a god in the nuts type players.

Sure, but this is really about your players, not about the system you're using. Other parties may have the exact opposite experience, i.e. that 4E pushes for roLLplaying more than 3E/5E because in 4E you need every little bonus, item, and feature to be relevant. Just check the charop boards for examples.

The fact that some people don't powerplay in some particular edition doesn't mean that nobody does.

[R.Shackleford]

Sure, but this is really about your players, not about the system you're using. Other parties may have the exact opposite experience, i.e. that 4E pushes for roLLplaying more than 3E/5E because in 4E you need every little bonus, item, and feature to be relevant. Just check the charop boards for examples.

The fact that some people don't powerplay in some particular edition doesn't mean that nobody does.

And I never said anything about other games, I specifically was calling out *my* experiences with 2e3e and was told that I was wrong.

[Hawkstar]

Considering that 4e has an explicit and deliberate math curve you need to keep up with... that seems a bit odd.

3e also had a math curve, but it was insane and hidden from players, causing no end of frustration... and unlike 4e, there was nothing that even came close to keeping you on said curve.

At least in 4e the game automatically keeps you close to said curve - everyone is at +half-level, instead of the grossly disparate BAB, Save, and Skill progressions of 3e, with magic items giving inherent boosts, instead of keeping up the math curve competing with having fun abilities (I want a cape of the mountebank instead of Cloak of Resistance. In 4e, they're the same thing).

[georgie_leech]

3e also had a math curve, but it was insane and hidden from players, causing no end of frustration... and unlike 4e, there was nothing that even came close to keeping you on said curve.

At least in 4e the game automatically keeps you close to said curve - everyone is at +half-level, instead of the grossly disparate BAB, Save, and Skill progressions of 3e, with magic items giving inherent boosts, instead of keeping up the math curve competing with having fun abilities (I want a cape of the mountebank instead of Cloak of Resistance. In 4e, they're the same thing).

True enough I suppose, though it's worth noting that it's fairly easy to miss the curve in the other direction entirely, rendering the d20 roll moot in attacks and skill checks.

[Knaight]

I think you need to listen less to edition warriors.

Yes, of course, people roleplay in 4e games. And yes, of course, this "roleplaying vs. rollplaying" chestnut has been tiresome since the first time White Wolf pushed it in the early 90's.

Though to be fair, in the context of White Wolf pushing it for their products it is also pretty hilarious. The "Storyteller" system is not particularly rules light, has almost no mechanics that actually push for roleplaying, and has a habit of using way more dice rolls than it really needs for just about everything, starting with how attacks that connect eat four rolls, which also creates a level of combat focus they desperately try to claim isn't there. The claims about being a narrative focused game are almost cute.