Ty Arthur
BloodyaugustOn The Roleplaying Aspects of 4th Edition
June 15th 2008 01:30
The 4th edition of Dungeons and Dragons has been the subject of intense debate since publisher Wizards of the Coast first announced its existence, and the progenitor of enough name calling, flaming, and incomprehensibly dumb arguments to put the recent American Presidential primary to shame. Dungeons and Dragons 4.0 has been out for just over a week now, and there is little sign that all the unpleasantness is going to end anytime soon. There are those who will defend this edition tooth and nail to their last breathe because it's new and takes the game in a direction they like, and then there are the people on the other end of the spectrum who will have an unwavering hatred for it because it changes something they consider critical to their beloved role playing system. The main focus of the argument right now is whether or not fourth edition is conducive to heavy role playing or if it is detrimental to the role playing experience and is focused too heavily on combat.
First and foremost, it needs to be said outright that no pen and paper RPG system is more predisposed towards good role playing than any other. A group playing a GURPS campaign won't have any more of an edge over a group playing a d20 Modern game when it comes to players effectively acting out their characters or having a good time role playing out social encounters. RPG systems exist to simulate a modicum of reality and prevent unnecessary "I shot you" followed by "nuh uh you missed" moments. While any given RPG may have skills or abilities tied to social interactions, such as "bluff" or "intimidate", these skills should never completely rule a role playing situation. Any Dungeon Master worth his salt is going to know to modify or completely junk the rules when they conflict with the fun or the story. Some of the oldest editions of Dungeons and Dragons didn't even have rules to govern success or failure at things like lying, cheating, intimidating, convincing, wooing a crowd with a good performance, etc. It was simply assumed that the group would role play this out and that the DM would fairly judge whether any given action would be successful and to what degree.
It should also be pointed out that the fourth edition Player’s Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide actually have more pages devoted to explaining role playing and how it should be a part of the game than their third edition counterparts. In fact there are several parts of the new Dungeon Master Guide that I wish would have had a greater emphasis in previous incarnations, specifically the sections on DM style, player motivations and how to work with them, character and party backgrounds, and the "narration" section about atmosphere, pacing, and use of props.
With all this in mind, I'm going to have to contradict myself a little here and say that to a degree, I do side with those people railing against the new system and its lack of role playing support. The reason I lean towards that side of the argument is that I think those people have the right idea, they just aren't expressing it properly. The argument isn't that fourth edition has some rule that says "We don't role play anymore, this is World of Warcraft on the tabletop, all we do is combat", or that the new rules somehow prevent DMs and players from cooperatively creating an immersive role playing experience. The problem is an issue of "feel" and "style", and it was made exponentially worse because of some things the designers decided to say before it was launched. The new edition was primarily created to streamline combat and make it quicker and more fun, so combat is decidedly the focal point of the new rules. Things like grappling were known to slow combat to a crawl (at least for those DMs who followed the rules exactly as written - I wasn't one of them. If a rule makes the game degenerate into page flipping and an argument about rules then it isn't worth using), and lots of players complained about that.
During interviews or updates from the designers of the new rules there were several references to how the new system would draw influence from massively multiplayer online role playing games, where supposedly combat is fast, furious, and fun. If you've read my previous post about MMORPGs, you know that I feel they need to have the "RPG" dropped from their title because they stifle role playing by their very nature. Building the entire new system of rules for Dungeons and Dragons around MMORPGs leads to an overall "feel" that role playing is non-existent and combat is everything. It's not strictly true (because of all the above points about how a system does not govern role playing), but the feel remains nonetheless. There are lots of little design alterations that all add up to a complete style change that seems more combat oriented and less RP oriented. The most noticeable is that the Player's Handbook no longer uses half of its pages to list spells. Spells aren't necessary for role playing, of course, but a huge portion of those spells were useful in non-combat situations. Of the remaining spells present for the wizard class in fourth edition, almost three-fourths of them are strictly for combat. The skills have also been condensed down to about half their previous number. Again, skills didn't completely govern role playing, but all those options for skills gave a wider range of options and created more RP opportunities. The new "powers" system is also setup almost exactly like one you would see from a game like World of Warcraft or a console RPG. While having and gaining abilities in a similar manner to a MMORPG in itself does not stifle the ability to role play, it adds to the feel that RP is not the focus.
So should you switch to fourth edition? Well it all boils down to how happy you are with the current system. If you want new art, new abilities, are not satisfied with the third edition rules, or want a more video game style, then fourth edition is for you. If you like the third edition rules or feel that video games and pen and paper role playing games are separate for a reason, then don't bother picking up the new stuff.
My gaming group will probably do at least one session with the new rules to see if they really change our gaming experience, but since we're still playing through the amazing Pathfinder Rise of the Runelords adventure path (most fun we've ever had gaming - expect a future post dedicated to it!), it's basically on the back burner for the foreseeable future.
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