This weeks poll position will visit the topic of party roles. Now this is more aimed towards MMORPG's however the concept is easily applied to pen and paper RPG's also. So here we go which of the following is your preferred role while playing an MMO or P&P RPG?
Tank: tanks redirect enemy attacks or attention toward themselves in order to protect other characters or units. Since this role often requires them to suffer large amounts of damage, they rely on large amounts of vitality or armor, evasiveness and misdirection, or self regeneration. Tanks are often represented as large or heavily armored.
Crowd Control: the crowd control players role is to limit the size of an attacking force via use of powers and abilities that de-buff/debilitate the enemy.
Healer: the healer is a fairly self explanatory role. The healer is responsible for keeping the party alive during combat by healing damage taken or apply bluffs to the party to enhance the parties chance of surviving.
DPS: DPS stands for Damage Per Second, and it is this players role to hand out large amounts of damage in as short a period of time as possible.
So there you have your choices, please take a moment to vote and then let us know in the comments below why you chose as you did !
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Last week on poll position I asked if you preferred playing a Hero or Villain in games and based on your votes the winner of that poll is ..............
HERO with 69.66% of the vote!
DPS. Shock and awe, baby!
I’ve been all of these but always preferred crowd control as a function. A gnome who blasts a horde of lizards with a cone of frost, or a cleric who discovers that over-healing repulses a horde of undead, or a speed-thrower that collapses tunnels on the enemy, or the seemingly mindless brute who bashes his way to the source of the snake-boars to find out it’s a portable ‘stargate’ and heaves it under the waterfall, to that guy that heaves in the fake grenade or changes the trail signs to divert the enemy. Of course my favorite was penning in 300 battle-ready oliphants in a ring of illusory mice . . . I really like having a GM that gives XP for making him laugh.
Although I voted crowd control, really I mean environment control. I’ve always liked being in command of the field by altering pathways and denying areas and keeping the enemies in the worst possible spots. So, yeah, crowd control.
I just want to do magic.
In theory, at least, one could train be especially strong, or swift, or agile, stealthy, or an excellent marksman. One could, perhaps, even take steps to improve one’s endurance. However, alas, as yet I am not aware of any way to train to, say, throw purple lightning from my hands powered purely by my own will. So I will always go for the magic-user in a game. Often I’ve been frustrated by games that take the “squishy wizard” trope so far that you’re lucky to make it out of the tutorial alive. But once in a while, you get something like Diablo 3, where even at fairly low levels I’m cackling with glee at how handily I’m dispatching the undead and singing along with the “Ain’t No Grave” MP3 I’ve got playing in the background.
(Sorry, I just really want to be a wizard.)
So, yeah. I don’t really mind whether it’s crowd control or DPS (sometimes you get both!), I pick magic. I know healers tend to use magic, too, but they also tend to be oriented toward team play, and I’m not much of a grouper.
Sorry, but this is one of my greatest pet peeves, and one of the reasons I never much cared for D&D… Why shoehorn people into predefined roles? Okay, yes, it makes it easier for lazy, sloppy Game Designers to write their lazy, sloppy rules, and, similarly, it makes it easier for GMs with only half a n idea of what they’re trying to do to limp along as if they actually knew what they were doing, great…
But how often do you see characters in a novel, or a movie, behave like this? What DOES happen will vary, but only in the most trite, hackneyed story do you have everyone know exactly what they were trained to do, and go about doing it…
Maybe if it’s a military story, and everyone’s wearing their Uniforms, with all their badges, people will know who’s in charge, and who’s supposed to have graduated in what specialty, but otherwise? How do you know what that housewife, or that school teacher, or that auto mechanic, can reliably do when (for instance) the Zombie Apocalypse breaks out? You don’t, and finding out what YOUR character can do might be half the fun!
Or, of course, if it’s a Superhero game, you might know just about everything about WHAT they can do, and it’s more of a clash of personalities, perhaps as subtext to what it’s going to take to defeat the Supervillain who doesn’t fear taking on your entire team…
Even when you’ve got an ‘obvious’ Crowd Control sort (let’s say Green Lantern), that doesn’t mean he can’t deal out some ferocious DPS! Superman? Oh, yeah, right, he’s JUST a Tanker, you should ignore him because all he can do is stand there and take {POW!!!} {…tweet… tweet… tweet…}
@Kaldath: Has someone been playing DCU Online?