The fourth edition of D&D really cemented the old D&D roles by explicitly labeling them and putting them front and center in the game. No longer did a party require a cleric, since a warlord could fulfill the same party role, albeit in a slightly different way. Though, in third edition, a regular supply of wands of cure light wounds also provided plenty of healing if someone had the Use Magic Device skill.
Now, these combat roles have been around since the dawn of the game, and they were even explicitly discussed in the third edition of the game to some extent, though they were also mixed with non-combat roles. They can be broader or narrower, but here's one stab at the list:
Combat: Defense, Offence, Healing, Buffing, Battlefield Control
Exploration: Perception, traps, doors, scouting/stealth, tracking, orienteering, nighttime watches, nature lore
Interaction: Lies and knavery, Diplomacy, Intimidation, Information Gathering, setting lore
One might add a fourth optional "pillar" to the game: Governance (see Adventurer Conqueror King, the second edition Birthright setting, the excellent ORE game Reign, or even the classic D&D Rules Cyclopedia). Though crafting, item creation, and/or spell research might fit into this realm too. Governence, Crafting, and Research are that long-term, story-driven sort of stuff that doesn't seem to quite fit into every game. Maybe they're not pillar-worthy, they're just the ornamentation or capitols on the pillars?
Anyway, the idea that I'd like to explore here is the idea of using race to fulfil some of the party roles. Originally, the D&D races were classes: elves were essentially fighter/mages, while dwarves and halflings were akin to fighter variants. This reflected the fact that demihumans were less dynamic than humans, but they also ended up with their own XP tables, special abilities, and such. Strangely, what they didn't really do was quite fill in for the other characters. Elves were sort of like magic users and dwarves could fill in for a fighter, but halflings... well, they couldn't even fill in for thieves. So as classes, the races seemed to work well as the fifth (or sixth or seventh) guy in the party after your basic four. These demihuman race-classes were extras, not the core and the mechanics helped with that. They also cemented inflexibility as a racial trait.
In AD&D, races were one aspect of your character along with classes. Races had level limits, which prevented them from ultimately overpowering humans in the game, and they could multiclass, meaning they could pursue two classes at once, dividing their experience between the two. Though I'm not a fan of level limits, they were a mechanic that helped re-inforce that these races didn't rule the world. Banned race/class combinations also reinforced the lack of flexibility.
In Third and fourth edition, these limits vanished and races became less mechanically limited. Dwarven Wizards and Gnome Druids became equally viable, and there were no distinctions in how races pursue more than one class. Few things became limited to only particular races. Though racial ability bonuses (and favored classes in third edition) made certain race/class combinations more common, we lost any mechanical reason why dwarves or elves or orcs didn't rule the world.
Furthermore, with the advent of the role typology, it seems a shame that class was the only way to fulfil a role in fourth edition. If races (and perhaps themes and backgrounds in D&D Next) can grant a bit more of an oomph to your character, there may be little need for a thief if you have a dwarf or halfing in the party, while an elven wizard might be able to preform the exploration role of a ranger or druid, to a limited extent. Even if combat roles aren't fixed in races, some of the non-combat options could be tied to race more: this would make race a more meaningful choice.
These additional powers might come at the cost of experience. In AD&D terms, perhaps all elves are multiclass characters with elf functioning as one class. Third edition terms would do this in terms of effective character level (ECL), while a general XP penalty (or, in reverse, a bonus for humans) might do the same job.
I'm toying with this idea because I was slightly disappointed with the implementation in Adventurer Conqueror King. The dwarf in HeroQuest took the thief's role in that board game (perhaps they didn't want thieves as role models for 12 year olds?), it seems like Adventurer Conqueror King still needs a party with a thief in it, even if you have an Assassin, Bard, or Dwarven Craft-Priest. I do like the game for a lot of other reasons, but this seems like a missed opportunity.
I'm not sure that its good game design to really explicitly label all of these roles and suggest that parties find someone to fill each one. But fourth edition showed how nice it is to have some sort of compatibility knowledge. Clerics, warlords, shamen, and bards did similar things in combat, just like rangers, rogues, assassins, and warlocks. It might be nice to have a system where you knew that dwarves can (if not always do) fill in for thieves in terms of disarming traps or that elves have nature knowledge just like druids and rangers.
The other way to fill the grids in a party is to follow the Gumshoe system, where, to some extent, parties are built (rather than just characters) and the necessary functions of the party are divided up amongst all the characters. This ensures that a party can do it all, at least to some basic degree. Again, taking this idea a little more modularly, perhaps elves have options of certain game roles they can fulfill in the different categories like buffing in combat (tactical decisions or a few basic spells), scouting, tracking/orienteering, etc. Not all of it, and maybe not as good as a ranger or druid, but some of it. The options need not even come from the same class, perhaps elves have an option for a bit of sorcerous magic (a few spells, perhaps limited to a thematically coherent fey bloodline) or the ranger's orienteering and tracking skills (but not stealth or monster knowledge), while dwarves might choose between military training, combat tactics, or the technical skills to deal with traps.
In 3.5, I though of doing this for one campaign with favored classes and the gestalt rules. Each dwarf was always part fighter, halflings part rogue, and elves part wizard. Its this sort of thing that would really help make race count, rather than being a bit of an afterthought or a mechanical bump or two for the class you wanted to play anyway. I also considered giving the non-human races automatic gestalt in their paragon class, which was somewhat similar.
A clearer role typology for interaction and exploration (and governance, crafting, or research?) need not be a prominent part of the game, but it would be nice if it were at least acknowledged, and even better if there were some mechanics that would help parties to fill those roles. I'm suggesting here that races could be used as stand-ins for some of the traditional class roles, at least partially.
Now, these combat roles have been around since the dawn of the game, and they were even explicitly discussed in the third edition of the game to some extent, though they were also mixed with non-combat roles. They can be broader or narrower, but here's one stab at the list:
Combat: Defense, Offence, Healing, Buffing, Battlefield Control
Exploration: Perception, traps, doors, scouting/stealth, tracking, orienteering, nighttime watches, nature lore
Interaction: Lies and knavery, Diplomacy, Intimidation, Information Gathering, setting lore
One might add a fourth optional "pillar" to the game: Governance (see Adventurer Conqueror King, the second edition Birthright setting, the excellent ORE game Reign, or even the classic D&D Rules Cyclopedia). Though crafting, item creation, and/or spell research might fit into this realm too. Governence, Crafting, and Research are that long-term, story-driven sort of stuff that doesn't seem to quite fit into every game. Maybe they're not pillar-worthy, they're just the ornamentation or capitols on the pillars?
Anyway, the idea that I'd like to explore here is the idea of using race to fulfil some of the party roles. Originally, the D&D races were classes: elves were essentially fighter/mages, while dwarves and halflings were akin to fighter variants. This reflected the fact that demihumans were less dynamic than humans, but they also ended up with their own XP tables, special abilities, and such. Strangely, what they didn't really do was quite fill in for the other characters. Elves were sort of like magic users and dwarves could fill in for a fighter, but halflings... well, they couldn't even fill in for thieves. So as classes, the races seemed to work well as the fifth (or sixth or seventh) guy in the party after your basic four. These demihuman race-classes were extras, not the core and the mechanics helped with that. They also cemented inflexibility as a racial trait.
In AD&D, races were one aspect of your character along with classes. Races had level limits, which prevented them from ultimately overpowering humans in the game, and they could multiclass, meaning they could pursue two classes at once, dividing their experience between the two. Though I'm not a fan of level limits, they were a mechanic that helped re-inforce that these races didn't rule the world. Banned race/class combinations also reinforced the lack of flexibility.
In Third and fourth edition, these limits vanished and races became less mechanically limited. Dwarven Wizards and Gnome Druids became equally viable, and there were no distinctions in how races pursue more than one class. Few things became limited to only particular races. Though racial ability bonuses (and favored classes in third edition) made certain race/class combinations more common, we lost any mechanical reason why dwarves or elves or orcs didn't rule the world.
Furthermore, with the advent of the role typology, it seems a shame that class was the only way to fulfil a role in fourth edition. If races (and perhaps themes and backgrounds in D&D Next) can grant a bit more of an oomph to your character, there may be little need for a thief if you have a dwarf or halfing in the party, while an elven wizard might be able to preform the exploration role of a ranger or druid, to a limited extent. Even if combat roles aren't fixed in races, some of the non-combat options could be tied to race more: this would make race a more meaningful choice.
These additional powers might come at the cost of experience. In AD&D terms, perhaps all elves are multiclass characters with elf functioning as one class. Third edition terms would do this in terms of effective character level (ECL), while a general XP penalty (or, in reverse, a bonus for humans) might do the same job.
I'm toying with this idea because I was slightly disappointed with the implementation in Adventurer Conqueror King. The dwarf in HeroQuest took the thief's role in that board game (perhaps they didn't want thieves as role models for 12 year olds?), it seems like Adventurer Conqueror King still needs a party with a thief in it, even if you have an Assassin, Bard, or Dwarven Craft-Priest. I do like the game for a lot of other reasons, but this seems like a missed opportunity.
I'm not sure that its good game design to really explicitly label all of these roles and suggest that parties find someone to fill each one. But fourth edition showed how nice it is to have some sort of compatibility knowledge. Clerics, warlords, shamen, and bards did similar things in combat, just like rangers, rogues, assassins, and warlocks. It might be nice to have a system where you knew that dwarves can (if not always do) fill in for thieves in terms of disarming traps or that elves have nature knowledge just like druids and rangers.
The other way to fill the grids in a party is to follow the Gumshoe system, where, to some extent, parties are built (rather than just characters) and the necessary functions of the party are divided up amongst all the characters. This ensures that a party can do it all, at least to some basic degree. Again, taking this idea a little more modularly, perhaps elves have options of certain game roles they can fulfill in the different categories like buffing in combat (tactical decisions or a few basic spells), scouting, tracking/orienteering, etc. Not all of it, and maybe not as good as a ranger or druid, but some of it. The options need not even come from the same class, perhaps elves have an option for a bit of sorcerous magic (a few spells, perhaps limited to a thematically coherent fey bloodline) or the ranger's orienteering and tracking skills (but not stealth or monster knowledge), while dwarves might choose between military training, combat tactics, or the technical skills to deal with traps.
In 3.5, I though of doing this for one campaign with favored classes and the gestalt rules. Each dwarf was always part fighter, halflings part rogue, and elves part wizard. Its this sort of thing that would really help make race count, rather than being a bit of an afterthought or a mechanical bump or two for the class you wanted to play anyway. I also considered giving the non-human races automatic gestalt in their paragon class, which was somewhat similar.
A clearer role typology for interaction and exploration (and governance, crafting, or research?) need not be a prominent part of the game, but it would be nice if it were at least acknowledged, and even better if there were some mechanics that would help parties to fill those roles. I'm suggesting here that races could be used as stand-ins for some of the traditional class roles, at least partially.
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