You’re right. That’s a lot of what my issue with 4th Edition is, that I can’t play the character, just a cog in the machine that is the party. I’d rather play a character trying to fill in as that cog…much more interesting to me

I was in a game a while back that was supposed to be a test of the system. It was originally planned for five players: one warlock, one wizard, a fighter, a rogue and a warlord. Then the fighter quit the group (the edition war was one of the reasons) and the session after… well, it was a tad awkward. Leaving aside the warlock’s player’s class-restlessness, and my irritation about the inability of an elf rogue to take advantage of racial weapon proficiency without losing half of her powers, we had one major issue that told me why I was probably going to stick to other games. With the fighter gone, the warlord was having to tank, which would’ve worked a lot better if he’d had more abilities that he could actually use on himself, and that threw just about everything off tactics-wise.

Now, ordinarily I like a teamwork-based game. But in a game where a certain set of roles have to be filled, no choice, no sidestep, the last one to the table will usually get stuck with something they don’t want, or have to sacrifice a perfectly good concept because, good idea though they have for a spellslinger, that’s already filled and the party needs a healer, so pleeeeeeease? And I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m not fond of being pigeon-holed.