Sure, I remember when the old-timers were raising similar objections when third ed same out, and there were a couple of legitimate grievances there too. Fourth ed takes this tendency even further IMHO. I’m not scolding anyone for having fun with the new game. I’m just pointing out what I see as a core objection to 4e that in my opinion underlies many folks’ bad feelings about it.

There has indeed been a great deal of ‘refinement’ of character roles over the years. But while some construe it as a progressive refinement through the MMOs, others see the sort of ‘refinement’ that saves the slag and dumps the gold.

However, I have seen that tabletop RPGs have become more self-referencing. Shadowrun for example has always had an overarching metaplot. Each new edition of the game still references that metaplot to some extent.

Over the years, I’ve noticed, that D&D draws more ideas and background from “D&D lore” than from the original sources (mythology and literature). However there have been many complaints that the new cosmology (World Axis) bears no resemblance to the original (Great Wheel). Goes to show that you can’t please everyone. Interestingly enough, to me, it feels like the new cosmology has roots that are closer to real world mythology than ever before. As one example, the primordials and their battle with the gods at the creation of the world is a pretty obvious nod to Greek mythology. The Feywild has many aspects of the Welsh and Scandinavian legends of a Faerie World.

IMO, I like that 4e has broken with tradition in some regards. The re-envisioning of some of these concepts, places, and monsters bring some interesting “new” horizons to the game world.
.-= D’karr´s last blog ..Death?s Door: A Few Diseases More =-.

What I’ve seen as one of the common criticisms, and comments leveled at 4e is that the game is “too video-gamey”. By following the thread all the way up to the “root”, the original game classes themselves, the comments would be more accurate if stated as video games are “too D&Dish”.

Another criticism I’ve seen is that the classes all feel the same. This, I believe, is a criticism that is based more on “reading” the game rather than “playing” the game.

With the broadly defined roles that 4e has “introduced” into the game, I’ve found great variation in play with different classes. Even more stark in the comparison is how different classes within the same “role” feel in play. You don’t even have to go very far to see how this works. The fighter, swordmage and warden, three defender classes, each have a very individual “style and feel” in actual play. One interesting point is that the difference becomes even more pronounced as the classes go up in level. With the introduction of Skill Utility Powers in PHB3 it is easy to see how the customization of each class can also go in very diverse directions.
.-= D’karr´s last blog ..Warden Article =-.

I’m not trying to say that D&D games didn’t care about balance. I’m saying it wasn’t nearly as important as being cool, different, able to role play, interesting, etc. Early D&D had so much more to think about than just combat and the things that come along with it (balance for example).

Wizardry in 1981 was the first game to have what everyone likes to refer to as “Prestige Classes” now. Lord, Ninja, Samurai, etc – these are all classes that other normal classes could evolve into if their stats and spell levels were high enough.

The Bard’s Tale really defined the Bard class that others are still using to this day.

Wizardry’s 4th Installment was the first game that centered around playing as the bad guy, summoning minions to fight “parties of do-gooders”. For the record, its also one of the most difficult RPGs of all time I dare anyone to beat it without looking at spoilers – awesome game.

The Might and Magic series took everything to a whole new level in the early days. Huge worlds, incredibly large loot tables, tons of classes, a little sci-fi thrown into the fantasy (aliens and ray guns next to elves and fireballs).

If anything, I’d argue that early tabletop games did little to define or even think about the roles. They were more into it, “this guy wacks stuff and this guy casts spells” but the concept of balance and roles go hand in hand. I don’t think much thought was given to this until later on in D&D and its something that videogame designers really nailed down. And now? We see it coming full circle with tabletop games borrowing heavily from videogame counterparts in terms of mechanics, balance, design, etc.

The Fighter was usually the guy who took the hit AND delivered the hit. Download Swords & Wizardry (it’s free and pretty close to OD&D) and make a 1st level party. Give the Magic-User any spell other than Sleep. Notice the Cleric doesn’t get any spells at 1st level, and only 1 Cure Light Wounds (if they even take it) at second. Either play a few rounds of combat or just look at the stats and imagine how it’d play out.

Balancing across a combat encounter is a modern thing. Take a look at Mike Mearls’ post on game balance. In earlier editions the classes were “unbalanced” for combat. A lot of players felt they couldn’t contribute meaningfully to combat encounters. They didn’t have a role in the Tank/DPS/Healer/Controller sense. If you like balance in combat, modern game designers like Mike should be getting a lot more credit. They’re the ones bringing stuff into games that you enjoy.

Older RPGs often balanced things this way: Combat Guy, Magic Guy, Skills Guy, Talky Guy. Depending on the game Magic Guy was Healing Guy, or sometimes that was a different guy. Sometimes there was no Talky Guy. If you ended up running a game that was really combat heavy it often meant Combat Guy had all the fun and the other guys felt a bit left out.

Look at other non-D&D RPGs from the 70s, 80s and 90s. They all tend to break down like this. I think balancing for combat roles is a positive innovation for recent games that put an emphasis on running more balanced combats.
.-= Stuart´s last blog ..Starting Hit Points for Weird West Characters =-.

[Side Note: These roles also apply to non-combat situations.]

For a second imagine a game without one of the three.
Take away the ability to do damage and how much fun would that be? Take away the ability to heal and there is no threat of loss. You could probably take away the person who is built to take a hit as his role can be compensated for by the healer, though I would make mention that a tank allows for damage to be dealt that can “one-shot” a character and thus adds an edge of excitement.

I believe the point of Matt’s article is that the foundations of roles in rpgs was laid back in the early days of D&D. That roles have been with us from the start. There have been times when roles have become more defined or narrow, but again, when a system is broken down it all falls back to these three roles.
And these roles have pervaded every rpg game since then.
.-= Callin´s last blog ..4E Power Interactions =-.

I’d go along with Cleric / Fighter / Thief / Magic-User have been central to the game since the early 1980s for sure. Although the Thief could never dish out the damage like the other classes. Even with a good back stab he wasn’t dishing it out like the Figher, Lightning Bolt slinging Wizard or Flame Striking Cleric.

The classes stepped all over each others “niches” as well. That was a big part of the design goals for 3e/4e and if you like niche protection you should thank the recent designers for bringing that to the game.

I totally understand where you’re coming from about saying people shouldn’t harsh on each others games. That’s just dumb. We’re totally on the same page there.

I totally don’t understand why we can’t say the modern designers did a good job introducing elements to the game that a lot of people really enjoy and were missing from the earlier editions. Why the need to say everything in 4e or 3e was there from the beginning?

I guess I don’t understand what there is to disagree about and move on from.
.-= Stuart´s last blog ..Starting Hit Points for Weird West Characters =-.

Ahem. I was there.

In CHAINMAIL there were wizards that functioned as artillery.

Then there was Dave Arneson’s first miniatures/roleplaying campaign. Some players were ‘good guys’ and some players were ‘bad guys’ and Dave was the referee.

One of the ‘bad guys’ wanted to play a Vampire. He was extremely smart and capable, and as he got more and more experience he got tougher and tougher.

This was the early 70s, so the model for ‘vampire’ was Christopher Lee in Hammer films. No deep folklore .

Well, after a time, nobody could touch Sir Fang. Yes, that was his name.

To fix the threatened end of the game they came up with a character that was, at first, a ‘vampire hunter’. Peter Cushing in the same films.

As the rough specs were drawn up, comments about the need for healing and for curing disease came up.

Ta da, the “priest” was born. Changed later to ‘cleric’.

The bit about edged weapons was from Gary’s reading the old stories about Archbishop Turpin*, who wielded a mace because he didn’t want to shed blood (“who lives by the sword dies by the sword”).

In other words, it came about the same way that 90% of the D&D rules came about :

WE MADE UP SOME **** THAT WE THOUGHT WOULD BE FUN.

* Clarified afterwards that he meant Bishop Odo of Bayeux (who I accidently called Odo of Deuil in that same thread… duh!).”

Sanitized to remove harsh language.
.-= Stuart´s last blog ..Starting Hit Points for Weird West Characters =-.

See you guys at DDXP!
.-= Matt James´s last blog ..Critical-Hits.com Editorial =-.