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Good post. I bristle at people complaining there are limited opportunities to RP in 4E. And I totally agree with WotC’s focus on providing rules and options for combat. You need a clearly defined ruleset for running fights. You don’t need a clearly defined ruleset for getting information from the local tavern barkeep. Somehow in that focus of explaining more about combat that RPing situations, 4E got lumped into ‘it’s all about combat’ category.

Not only that, but the Skill Challenge mechanic creates a decent enough framework that even weaker RP-ers can stay involved. I may end up writing a post about how to use Skill Challenges to ensure that all skill levels can feel involved.

Excellent post.

Our own 4e games are pretty much the same. We love the fact that 4e has, perhaps, the best and most enjoyable combat system of any RPG currently on the market. Unless we’re just kicking back and playing a one-shot beer-and-pretzels session where we crack open the Dungeon Delve and run three straight encounters back to back (those are fun too!) though, our game sessions tend to average just one or two combat encounters at most. Sometimes there are none at all.

The rest of the time is spent role-playing – interacting with NPCs and each other, investigating clues and immersing ourselves in the game world. The great thing is that 4e supports all that too with Skill Challenges (which I love), minor quest rewards and an utterly brilliant character generation system that allows players to create that character they want rather than a stereotypical member of a class. Want a Fighter who is an expert diplomat, a Wizard who is a master swordsman or a Dwarf brought up by elves in a forest – with character generation, feats and the background options, you can. And I’ve seen ‘em all.

Anyone who says 4e is “just a boardgame” has the wrong DM, imho :)

I agree with you about the marketing. In fact, I voiced this concern (i.e. that I wondered what happened to Encounter players in terms of role-playing) on the last DM Roundtable podcast. You can find that episode at http://dm-roundtable.com

@SarahDarkmagic had some good things to say in response to my concern. She said, in essence, that the combat part of the rules are the most solid and easy to understand part of the system, so if you want to take a completely NEW player and ask them to play a game for a couple of hours, it need to seem easy to learn and play. Therefore, they can use a program like Encounters to show people how the crunchy parts of the rules work with the hopes that then those people will feel more comfortable joining a game that includes role-playing elements.

I think there is some validity in thinking this might work, given the cool maps and miniatures and player character cards that are on the table during an Encounters game, and given that it is more dynamic and more likely to get people to ask about it than a pure role-playing or heavy role-playing session would. But Ultimately I’m not sure how well people are moving from Encounters into more traditional games – I have no data on this and it isn’t likely to be releases (if WotC is even trying to measure such a thing).

Thanks for the comments everyone – good discussion!

I agree that the assumed use of minis does lend to the perceived high combat focus. On the other hand, it’s not as though minis didn’t exist until 4e. Way back in the early 80s, my brother and I were buying Grenadier and Ral Partha lead figures to use with our AD&D setup. 3rd edition also recommended the use of minis to make combat easier to resolve.

I get your point though, back in the 80s minatures were used as enhancements, nowadays it seems they are needed to play the game. 4e does assume the use of minis, but I know for a fact that you can play the game without minis and battlemats. You can play in the old school way, but it takes some getting used to and some patience. Also, all the players at the table have to be comfortable with envisioning a more abstract use of the “square system” as described in combat, as well as comfort with a much higher level of DM fiat during combat when there are no minis in play. DM fiat was relied upon much more to resolve conflict in every other edition – 4e took that away in a large percentage of the game, the trade-off is, in part, the use of minis to determine the outcome of battle.

I really liked the comment that someone made regarding the blog post. It wasn’t a response to the post but a sideline comment about skill challenges:

“Not only that, but the Skill Challenge mechanic creates a decent enough framework that even weaker RP-ers can stay involved. I may end up writing a post about how to use Skill Challenges to ensure that all skill levels can feel involved.”

…

To me I think the big thing that all of the RPG theorists out there are missing is the simple equation that every game is bound by … TIME …

Yes you can have amazing RP with 4e quite easily … you could even use the skill rules from say 2nd ed combined with the combat of 4e … but at the end of the day … if you play in an average group. You are constrained by TIME … how much time do you have to get what it is done that needs to be done? Years ago I played in a weekly game where we met at noon every Saturday and went till 3 AM. We had alot of time … we were doing 2nd ed … we had alot of RP and did alot of combat. These days those kinds of games are rarer and rarer … even hardcore gamers without busy schedules struggle to put together a five or six hour weekly session. So with a game like 4e … that has somewhat complex mini centric combats that take an hour or two on average to resolve … unless you have a good 8 or 10 hour block on a weekly basis … trying to add deep long RP into the game … well your not going to be able to get much done. So then you end up with a DM fudging exp so players level up reasonably fast, etc. etc. and you have all these wonkey add on house rules etc. etc. … as I said … I’ll pass on that. 4e shines at providing cool gritty combat and it just flat out does NOT shine at facilitating really good RP. Yes of course you the DM and you the party can add that in … but the RULES do not facilitate that. Whoever said previous versions didnt do that … yes they did … there were complex skill system sets that had rules for huge amounts of non-combat activity and that added to the options that players had for RP. If your chr was a rogue with alot of aprasial abilities, forgery, etc. etc. you could use that to springboard into RP stuff. All that is removed from 4e and you have a bare bones skill set that is ultra generic and ultra universal … PERIOD. So 4e DOES NOT facilitate the RP like older versions of D&D did AND as 3.0 and 3.5 did … 4e kills the RP mood frequently with the abrupt jump to the grid … that really pulls people out of the abstract RP side of things and plunges you into tactical mini skirmish land … where things function alot more like a minis game/board game than an abstract deep RP style game.

So for me as long as I’m gaming with people who have time constraints … I’m always going to pick one or the other … deep RP … or crunchy combats … the folks I game with just don’t have the time necessary to really do awesome RP combined with awesome crunchy grid combat … justice.

Fair statement, but what does that have to do with the quote (that was mine, btw)?

I’ll agree with DM Samuel on this one. In my experience, 4E is more accommodating of deep RP than 3.5 ever was. Although, I too struggle with the mini based combat sometimes. To me, 4E would be the perfect balance of combat and RP, if the Mini based combat was somehow optional. In my mind I envision a version of 4E where you run combat without minis for normal fights, skirmishes, random encounters, etc and then bust out the minis and the grid for the big setpiece and boss battles. Oh, to dream.

Also, I agree, fewer skills is better for promoting RP at my table.

I’m an old schooler and have no problem with simply using your ability scores and class/race to define what you can or can’t do. Want to smash a door? Strength check. Are you able to give me a really cool story about HOW you plan to smash the door? +2. Want to make an impressive leap? Dex check. Are you able to explain what cool thing you’ll do after you make the jump? +2. Bargain with the Duke? Charisma check. Are you able to RP the conversation with me in a smooth manner? +2. Sure, thats probably a bit too vague and leaves a lot up to the DM (not a bad thing imho), but I think the 4E skillset is a nice middle ground between being too vague and too specific. The only people who I can imagine would complain about it are people who are used to having/using skills that are no longer present. No one else would ever likely care/notice.

I’m sorry, but as a DM who has run games for something closing in on two decades, I have some quibbles with your post on 4e.
First; the argument that 4e focuses excessively on combat rules is completely valid. The most overwhelming strength of D&D used to be the ease of use and simplicity of the game system. The game system quickly became transparent to both the players and DM, so that the focus of energy became the story that was being told. 4e erodes this with an excess of complexity, covering things that do not need to be covered. A perfect example of the limitations of combat-rule heavy roleplaying are found in your own post. You refer to “running a combat” like some kind of special event, and also “boss fights” as if this was some kind of video game. Combat, evading combat, talking your way out of a situation, creatively bypassing the entire DM-designed ambush thereby negating hours of DM homework, or just bashing right through it should all be equally possible and valid options, depending on what your players want to do. Because of the simplicity and ease of use of the old system, I never worried too much about prep for “running a combat”. If the players decided to fight something I had not anticipated they would fight, I could generate stats very quickly on the fly and, because of the bare-bones nature of old D&D, much of the action was always in the form of descriptive storytelling anyway.
I am amazed that you think it is somehow special or unusual to have roleplaying taking place during combat. This is a peculiar result of modern video game culture, where game designers make graphics and game mechanics, then bring in a writer at the last minute to create what they call “fluff” as an excuse to set up their “ultra cool mega boss fight”. In my games, we ALWAYS had roleplaying going on during combat. I would decide to throw in special bonuses for creative action, like swinging on a chandelier, or using a spell or power in a creative or unusual way. I always tried to place the PCs into a situation where the solution to a problem was not always obvious, and where they would hopefully have to stretch themselves to win. The idea that a PC would stop being a living, dynamic, colorful ‘person’, and suddenly become a robotic, computer like, “DPS” machine hitched to the rules like a train on a rail, and then revert after combat is ridiculous. Some of our best RP moments came in the midst of combat. I tried to set up plots so that various storylines would come together during the climax, and this often meant heavy character interaction during combat. In fact, for many of my best bosses, I ran the “boss fight” not like a video game, but like a movie, where the antagonist is character driven and I could and would bend the rules in order to achieve the goals of the plot and storyline (yes, I have miraculously saved a beloved evil nemesis once or twice, and the players actually thanked me for it, since an early demise would have been a real letdown story wise).
Your approach to building a story is your own DM business, but I can’t help commenting. Sometimes, it is good NOT to do all the set up by consensus. Your “party building session” sounds extremely boring to me, to be perfectly honest. Some of my very best campaigns ever began with my having developed a detailed plot and world beforehand and literally dropping the characters in blind, often as “aliens” in some way; people who do not necessarily know this setting and have to discover it as they go. Players love to go on a journey; take a ride, exploit the wonderful escapist potential of the RPG genre of storytelling. Let’s just be honest here, not everyone is capable of being a good DM. Some people really don’t have the imagination for it. If I start out a campaign as a consensus-driven mutual-setting building exercise, I will be either limited by the imagination of the lowest common denominator (who would be perfectly happy to be blown away by what more creative minds might throw at them), or our lowest common denominator will feel left out, which isn’t really fun. Consensus in world and setting weakens one of the biggest hooks that drive the D&D campaign; MYSTERY.
PCs are curious beasts; they love a good mystery. They want to explore and discover, and they have a hard time leaving a door unopened or a box closed (even when it really shouldn’t be opened). This is the power of the setting; that we do not NEED to mutually build it. D&D consciously built upon the most basic, common, established tropes of fantasy, which meant that the location was pretty easily comprehensible to players. Medieval societies are easily understandable, and classic fantasy mythic elements are both universally appealing and understood as a common language of imagination. This, and the VERY simple rules of the old 1st and 2nd edition, meant that the entire focus was not on “running a combat” or “building a unique world”, but on TELLING A STORY. The DM had a truly vast and wonderful array of tools available to make an endless variety of stories, based on easily understood building blocks. Tell me; is Die Hard a bad movie because a huge office building is so generic and normal to us? NO! It is the ‘normalness’ of the setting that lets us focus on the important parts; the epic story and character development. Now, in D&D you have to balance this with the mystery element, and each world becomes very unique, and a good DM likes to throw things in that the players do not expect, when they think they have everything down pat, but the basic elements are all about the story, not the rules, and not the “uniqueness” of the setting. Baowulf or Gilgamesh or Odysseus could be easily converted into ANY D&D world, and the point of these myths still comes across. We are entertained by, informed by, learn things about human nature from, and identify with mythic stories like this DESPITE rules mechanics and bizarre steampunk elements, not because of them.
I just think that bottom line, a good D&D campaign is like the modern version of a Viking Skald sitting around the campfire and re-telling new versions of the classical myths, with creative twists. We, DMs, are the modern storytellers. We show our players things about themselves that they didn’t see before through the mythical interaction of their paper avatars. They see the best and the worst in human nature as they unravel a story, discover the answer to a mystery, and basically go for an immersive, escapist, ride. This is better than movies or video games because it is a myth, a world, and a ride created custom, just for them, by someone who knows them (usually), and will alter pacing, tone, plot elements, and style based on their real-time reactions. DMing is like telling ghost stories as a kid. Focusing on what is on page 371, part d, subsection 10, is like some annoying kid jumping into the ghost story to point out niggling details that NOBODY cares about.
In conclusion;
Give Me Old School or Give Me Death!