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I think the Role Play vs. No Role Play issue is a question of time management, if a gaming session typically lasts 4 hours or so and each combat takes an hour to run then you have a conflict of time availabilty.  Groups that favor role-playing over combat are going to want to focus their available time budget on the role-playing activities and minimize the time spent resolving combat.  Groups that like combat and the tactical aspect of the game will do the reverse.  On a player by player basis you then can get individual perceptions that the system is slanted against role-playing if all of the game time is dominated by the players who like tactical combat and want to slay lots of monters for their loot.

In short mechanics and the time required to resolve them are directly in competition with time spent on mechanic-free role-playing which can resolve very complex situations in a shorter period of time than the micro-managed time slices that occur in tactical combat.  If a new system gives players the options to abstract combat into a set of quick dice rolls then their perception will be that the system is more role-playing oriented, if the players decide to use their larger pool of available time to role-play.  If they do not and instead focus on killing even more monsters for loot then the perception will be that the game is a "dumbed-down" version of the game with little more than simple board or card game mechanics.


 

Aug 21, 2012 -- 9:41AM, Toki_Wartooth wrote:

Aug 21, 2012 -- 12:48AM, Zathris wrote:

"4e D&D has no roleplaying" is

a strawman. No one contends that. The only people that say that are the one's arguing against it. 

 
  

I love the "no RP" discussions though, it reveals the fakes in the Roleplayer crowd

Ok fanboy, how 'bout if we say something like "4e did combat so awesomely that now all my group wants to do is run combat scenarios!!". Would you accept that statement? 'Cuz it's basically the same thing. It's simply harder to roleplaying a lot if the rest of the group, including the DM, is expecting to play something more like a boardgame.

You're wrong on the first point. People DO say that. Often.


If you're group isn't mature enough to ealize that just because a system does one thing well, it can't do anything else well, then 4e isn't your problem.
"Apple makes good tablets. Oh well, their computers must suck then".   

Aug 21, 2012 -- 9:41AM, Toki_Wartooth wrote:

Ok fanboy, how 'bout if we say something like "4e did combat so awesomely that now all my group wants to do is run combat scenarios!!". Would you accept that statement? 'Cuz it's basically the same thing. It's simply harder to roleplaying a lot if the rest of the group, including the DM, is expecting to play something more like a boardgame.

I am totally willing to accept that statement. Especially because it clearly points out that your actual problem is one of group dynamics, and that you have an apparent mismatch in desires. You should talk with your group and DM and see if they are interested in a more RP heavy campaign. If not, you can either accept that is just the way that group is and go along, accept that that is the way the group is and go look for a new group, or try to persuade them to try your way anyways.

If you were RPing more heavily in previous editions, probably your group would be perfectly happy to RP more heavily in this edition as well. My own experience going from 3.5 to 4e was that there was no difference in the amount or quality of RP, but several options opened up as now you could RP an unaligned Paladin of Waukeen, with a bit of Barbarian mixed in. But then 3.5 hadn't really stopped me from going down wierd tangents anyways. It only outlawed certain specific tangents. No clause against playing a Librarian. 

Aug 21, 2012 -- 10:48AM, Istaran wrote:

If you were RPing more heavily in previous editions, probably your group would be perfectly happy to RP more heavily in this edition as well.

In my own case: the players are perfectly happy either way, they just tend to play differently in each edition.

In 4e, the powers tended to make them think mainly in gamist terms.

In 3.5e, I used to fill my backpack up with all sorts of mundane oddities: spikes, perfume, flour, powdered soap, lemon juice, salt, catnip, pepper, chalk charcoal parchement, bottles, vials, waterskins, etc. and I always find odd uses for them,

I don't do that anymore as they don't really have a benefit. The WotC adventures are a usually a collection of combat encounters (or pre-scripted skill challenges), and the characters are expected to use powers and skills as written.

Mind you: I still ham it up by describing my powers' effects in unique ways (example: "I sneak attack him with... a horse I just released from the stables... that happens to do the same amount of damage as my +2 dagger"). But 4e players can often expect to meet resistance if they say, try to alter the pre-scripted conditions of a set-piece combat encounter.