I recently played through the Baldur's Gate saga, which uses (modified) 2e rules, and essentially found that I was using the various classes in the same broadly defined 'roles' that 4e has given them: fighters & paladins take the front line, clerics heal and buff, thieves hide and backstab for massive damage, wizards blast and generally ruin their foes' days.

But do we want our role-playing games to simulate video games that simulate role-playing games?

I'm not being flippant here - it's a serious question to which I expect different people will have different answers.

I think the problem with defined roles is that it feels like a further limiting factor.

When someone plays a rogue, he can be anything from a Two-weapon Fighter of Stabbity Death to a Non-confrontational Spymaster, but with the proper allocation of skills and feats you could potentially be a little bit of both. When you elect to play a "striker" though, you're pretty much dedicating yourself to the former.

I agree that it's something that arises in MMOs out of necessity, but doesn't really have a place in a good, open-ended RPG. There is nothing to stop a group of players from deciding which character is goign to be teh "face," which is going to be the "tank," and which is going to be "healer," even if those roles are not clearly defined. However, when your game mechanics revolve around those things, you're going to wind up (in theory) with more cookie-cutter roles and fewer outside-the-box Poomonster Accountants.

Balance is in no way crucial to good game play, or to having fun. There is much joy to be had in playing Watson to somebody else's Holmes.

I think the problem with defined roles is that it feels like a further limiting factor.

I guess it's unlikely that any new form of D&D will downplay combat significantly, in which case your point about roles holds true. If all the characters are doing is fighting, then they need to be able to have an equal effect on the outcome of combat. But they shouldn't all have identical powers with just different names and different prime requisites. Sure, maybe less people will pick a Cleric or Rogue if they are more of a support character, or if they take 2 rounds to get in position for a back-stab. And no-one would pick a Mage who only has one effective attack every day, let alone each encounter.

I would hope there is more chance for different roles to have a different roles out of combat. Knowing a Cleric gives you better access to healing in town, the Bard's World Lore gives you a lead on the site of the treasure etc. But it's hard to write this stuff into rules. Every group should be trying to make sure each player has an each chance in the game, no matter what the mechanical rules say.

I must reject, whole-heartedly, the concept of Roles and class/race balance in D&D, and table top games in general.

To be honest, I don't see how one version of D&D could satisfy us both, modular rules or not, because it's a fundamental difference of what the game should be all about.

In D&D terms, all of my games are decidedly unbalanced. I don't care if my players can kill the dragon in one strike.

Balance is a tool for the GM to use, but if it's not there in the first place, you can't use it. I can always conjure up a dragon so mighty that it just defeats the players by GM fiat or one so weak it can't do anything to them. However, I need a balanced system in order to be able to predictably give them a dragon that will challenge them but be beatable. The only thing worse than a climactic battle that ends in three blows is the GM accidentally killing the party when you didn't mean to.

The way I have understood D&D to define balance, is as in "difficult encounters is not good". While I might be mistaken in this understanding, I have heard it, or variations on it, often enough to lead me to believe that I am not badly off.

I disagree, but before I explain why, let me set a couple of parameters.

The way I have understood D&D to define balance, is as in "difficult encounters is not good". While I might be mistaken in this understanding, I have heard it, or variations on it, often enough to lead me to believe that I am not badly off.

I have no problems with a GM creating an encounter so extremely unbalanced that, should it come to combat, we are looking at a virtually assured TPK. That is, as long as there are ways around it. If nothing else, retreat is good.

The most fulfilling session I have had as a player, is when we snuck by a nest of dragons, successfully bypassing them. We were level two to three, and had recently been stripped of all our belongings other than clothing.

I think that a balanced encounter, as in one where the PC and monsters are more or less equally matched, has its place, but that the whole idea of balance being the best way is critically flawed.

To me, the very best sessions are the ones where we are forced to play to our weaknesses, not strengths.

A system needs to be mechanically balanced so a GM knows how balanced something is.

Unfortunately, your impassioned post fails to understand the points I made about roles. For example, absolutely nothing I said has anything to do with video games.

I suggest there is a happy medium between "rules build encounters using math" and "GM just wings it."

Although I err on the side of teaching GMs how to wing it. Nothing yet to compensate for the nonlinear imagination and spontaneous mind of the GM.