http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/staffblog/082009/4521
The above is an interesting article comparing 4e to MMORPG's, particularly in the way that they are both geared toward combat over the eponymous roleplaying. It's sort of a look at the roleplaying genre from the other side of the mirror, so to speak, and even though I know next to nothing about 4e (just enough to lose interest), I found it really insightful. Check it out and leave your opinion.
Having played a number of fairly in depth and immersive text based MMO's (www.play.net), as well as more than my fair share of graphical MMOs (Ultima, Asheron's Call, SWG, WoW) and a smattering of pen and paper going back, to, ironically, Planescape, I can safely say that hes' totally right... but has no idea why he is.
Todays MMO is designed to two things: 1. Get a critical mass of subscriptions. 2. Get them to keep paying. The utter simplicity of World of Warcraft illustrates the former, while the "circular" nature of every MMO on the planet, underscores the latter. 4e doesn't have the same business model as the MMOs, so 2 doesn't matter. 1, on the other hand... every game, these days, has taken design cues from WoW, because follow the leader is the best game of them all. I have been underwhelmed with what I've seen come from the 4e camp -- having played in RPGA sanctioned events, that consisted, entirely, of encounters, was disheartening.
Having spent some a number of hours playing 1st edition, with some of the developers of the original game, I can see where things changed. To quote the most evil DM I've ever had the pleasure of playing with, "The Dungeon Master Guide, is just that, a guide. Keep the game moving, keep it fluid, and never let a die answer a question, unless it absolutely has to." 3.x has a rule for every situation, most of them contrary, and so DM fiat is required for smooth operation of everything, usually to the consternation of a player or two who knows what the rules as written say.
What do these two paragraphs have to do with each other? Not much, other than its never about the rules -- the rules are just a framework and a foundation. Granted, in a MMO, with its strict logic and lack of a human to coordinate things, things are more rigid, but its what the players put in to it, is what they get out of it. I haven't spent much time in 4e, because I don't like the way things feel there, but upon reflection, I think its because of the "Players want simple, and players want fighting" MMO-quality that has bled into the design -- not of the rules, but of the modules, and the overall deemphasation of creativity over numbers.
During my last game, one of my players, who is playing a very skill-heavy diplomacy character, by RAW, attempted to haggle with a npc over buying some items -- the exchange went something like this:
P: Alright, I want to talk him up, and I rolled a modified 28 on my diplomacy roll, how much does he offer now?
W: Nice roll. Now, convince me.
P: Is a 28 not high enough?
W: That's the roll you get to use if you actually play this out.
So, I would say, as players and DMs, the sourcebooks are nothing but what we allow it to be. With the proliferation of MMOs in their current form, its an uphill battle, but one that is won a tabletop at a time.
Did.. that.. even have anything to do with the subject? Maybe...
I do agree that 4e combat feels videogamey, but that's the extent of my agreement with that article. Suffice to say, I feel the view presented in that article is extremely lazy, extremely short-sighted, and extremely foolish. Sometimes I wonder if most of the anti-4e crowd has forgotten that about 90% (give or take) of the previous editions' sourcebooks and core class mechanics were also dedicated to combat rules. It also tells me that most of them haven't read the 4e books because 4e offers a functional skill challenge system for handling RP encounters if people want to use it. It's not perfect, but no system is.
He says something about there being mechanics for if he wants his character to be a painter, to which I say, why do we need mechanics for that? It rarely comes up, and when it does, is it really worth the time it takes to spend a die roll on it? Why can't I just say, "Yeah, my character is a really good painter" and be done with it? They took that kind of stuff out of 4e because it's not all that important mechanically. The point of 4e was to streamline the mechanics, not keep them cluttered with pointless nonsense. There are countless roleplaying groups and systems across the internet that do all of that without mechanics just fine.
4e's not for everyone, and if it's just not your bag, that's fine. However, it's no less of a roleplaying system than 3.x or 2e or many, many other gaming systems out there. If you want to be roleplay heavy, 4e will accommodate you beautifully if you let it. Trouble is, most people won't ever give it a chance.
And I know from considerable personal experience since 4e's launch, that the whole "I won't play 4e because it's too combat-focused" is a load of crap.
After taking your coments into consideration and rereading the original article, I must admit that the author could have expressed the idea better, but because I agreed with the article from the outset, I either understood it despite the vagaries or read my own meaning from it. So, the following argument is my own, and although I understood the article to be promoting the same idea, I may have been mistaken.
MMO's, like all video games, are limited by what can be anticipated and realistically programmed. Usually, this programming is focused on combat, with all other actions being relegated to the chat screen, which gives you the choices of /say-ing something or /em-oting it. Whle this is, theoretically, all you need to express the actions of your character, the world will not respond to your emotes. Except for some superfluous /wave-s, /bow-s, and /dance-es none of your non-combat actions are animated or have a noticeable effect on the gameworld unless the player you are roleplaying with decides to play off of your version of events and continue the charade. Other players might, if they are so inclined, but none of the NPC's or game objects will care if you type "/em picks up a mug of ale and throws it at the barmaid" or "/em ties the vanquished kobold to a tree for questioning". You buy ale from barmaids and you kill or run away from kobolds. As far as the game is concerned, those are your choices. Thus, in such games, roleplaying is confined to player characters. The point is, the game is limited in the way it can react to your character, so it simplifies things by focusing on the most straightforward and predictable behavior - combat. To facilitate this, it forces the players to choose to "roleplay" a hero or, occasionally, a villain, varied in their appearance and combat abilities but otherwise having very little grey area in terms of behavior. They either kill bad things and save good things or vice versa. Even most of the numerous quest descriptions and the few scripted events don't stray from this simple hero/villain storyline, which you can't escape except by pretending you didn't just spend five hours saving halflings from goblins so that you could survive long enough in the larger area which is more interesting to RP in with the 1-5% of the server population that also wants to do something besides level and loot. Even if you find a few, you are limited to lengthy discussions, spars, or verbally described events that have no effect on the game world or the NPC's.
Unlike video games, tabletop roleplaying is only limited by human ingenuity, and the only difference in the capabilities of the players and the NPC's as far as behavior goes is that the latter area all controlled by one player, the DM. There are, however, two types of tabletop roleplaying styles - freeform and systemized. Freeform is essentially the same thing as multiple people improvising a single story. It requires no rulebooks or dice, as the outcome of important actions are decided according to how well they would progress the story and fit the situation. It might be the most pure form of roleplaying short of actually acting something out, but it is not a game, it is a storytelling exercise. The systemized style, on the other hand, allows equal innovation, but leaves the outcome of important actions to fate - usually in the form of dice. The exact rules are unique to each system, but to limit the amount of creatures and events that need to be systematized (as well as to make the rulebooks more interesting), such systems are almost always paired with a particular campaign setting. Thus, some rulebooks systematize how to swing a sword at an orc, others how to hack into a mainframe, and others how to survive the plane of fire using magic. Notice that this style of tabletop roleplaying has limits, similar to a video game. Unlike a video game, however, there is still some element of the freeform style, particularly in the form of a DM that can improvise world and NPC reactions to scenarios not covered by the rules. A good DM will even bend the rules to make the game more interesting. As most of your responses clearly illustrate, in tabletop games, fewer systematized rules mean more, not less, freedom.
Now, from the admitably little I know about 4e, it has similar limits as MMO's, and this is what I believe that the article was trying to get across. Fourth edition is systemized, but the rules that it does have revolve around combat. Since those rules cover character creation, players are forced to create combat-centric characters if they follow the rules of the system. Although they can add fluff - e.g. non-combat professions or ambiguous (i.e. not strictly heroic or villainous) actions - they have to do so freeform (or using homebrew rules). Additionally, they soon run into the other limit: the setting associated with the rules is very MMO-like in that there are undeveloped evil monsters for combat and helpless but monetarily useful good NPC's for loot, with little inbetween. Once again, the DM can create a more interesting setting, but he'll have to do it on his own, either freeforming the grey areas or creating homebrew NPC's that can do more than fight or sell. Neither the rules nor the setting are designed for ambiguous non-combat events. Everything is simplified and cleaned up to drive characters to go out and slay monsters, sell the loot, buy better gear, and go out again. Neither the rules nor the setting facilitate non-combat roleplaying. Indeed, they seem to make it more difficult. It's like trying to use miniature rules to play out a tense negotiation scenario. Point is, there's no reason to get 4e except for the combat rules, and as I'm sure some of you realized, it's hard to work the fluff of more interesting settings (such as Planescape) over those rules when all of the creatures and NPC's are defined by their combat abilities, many of which contradict previously known fluff because it muddled the straightforward combat that 4e seems to prefer. It's easier to just go freeform or use a different setting. Thus, 4e has limited itself artificially in the same way MMO's are limited technically, and it tends to attract the same crowd.
EDIT: Sorry for all the minor edits.
I disagree with Archdukecocula's post quite a bit - the 'rules hinder roleplaying' thing is, IMO, a very unfortunate idea and it's just not true given the right set of rules. Now, perhaps it's true with D&D - the rules for non-combat situations aren't inspiring and never have been - and that's fine, because D&D has never been about talking to people. That they've basically been thrown out doesn't strike me as a problem because the game isn't about that. But saying that roleplaying would be better in general without mechanical backing given the existence of systems like, say, Dogs in the Vineyard, or Don't Rest Your Head, or ... *points vaguely at The Forge* - most of the games that emerged from that community/movement - well, don't say that - it's silly 
Edit: Eh, I'm not really happy with how this post sounds - but I don't have time to give examples and stuff of rules aiding roleplaying in more concrete ways right now. I think I'll make another thread later though, because it's probably a seperate subject.
I'd like to preface my response by saying that I've been running a very successful 4e game using several 2e Planescape modules adapted to the new system. I have found almost no flaws in the roleplayability and I run very few combat encounters in comparison to the apparent 4e expectations. My players enjoy the non-combat situations more than the combats sometimes and the game proceeds extremely smoothly. For those curious about what I've done: Several adventures from Well of the Worlds, the whole of The Eternal Boundary, and so far almost halfway through Dead Gods. My plan is to finish off the campaign with Faction War.
I want to stress again, the rules in 4e are really not that much more combat-oriented than any past edition of D&D. The bulk of D&D class mechanics have always been combat (or at least mechanically) oriented and the most rules attention is given to combat. How many 3.x wizards don't take some kind of combat-helpful spell unless they know going into the game that it's going to be little to no combat? Most of the 3.x classes have mechanics and abilities that revolve around combat, or combat-like situations, or mechanics that will invariably come up during combat. The Fighter is practically a combat-only class. Ranger, monk, and rogue are not all that far behind on the "roll-playing" scale. Sure, you can take flavor skills like Craft, Profession, etc., on any of those classes. But even in the average 3.x game, those skills only prove useful to a certain point, and are rarely used anyway. And even then, do we really need a mechanical system for painting a picture? I think that's rather superfluous.
Your claim to know very little about 4e shows. I really suggest you give it half a chance before you come down on it so hard. Most critics of it haven't actually looked and they fail to realize what it has to offer beyond the combat, yourself included. The DMG is chock full of information, rules, and ideas for running non-combat encounters. It even offers a nice mechanic for handling lengthy non-combat situations like tense negotiations. The generic D&D setting is no less developed than any previous generic D&D setting. Creatures are hardly defined by combat abilities alone, and let's be honest here, how much of previous monster manuals have been devoted to lengthy, in-depth discussions of the creatures contained within? Not very much.
Finally, quite frankly, your point is nonsense. Some of us have realized that it's not hard at all to work fluff of interesting settings (like Planescape) into the system. My characters are about to fight the visages and I have a very simple way of using their lucidity-control powers to affect the entire battlefield. My roleplaying experiences have been solid, and my game has been very rewarding, both as a 4e and as a Planescape game.
I said before that 4e isn't for everyone and I mean that. If you give the system an honest chance and you still don't like it, that's fine. But from what you've said, you -- like a lot of the anti-4e crowd -- haven't even given it a real chance. 4e is what you make of it, and if you just want it to be a combat-centered MMO style game that limits everything you can do, then that's what you get. But if you actually want a solid roleplaying game, the system works perfectly fine. In some respects, it's a lot easier to use than 3.x ever was.
The point I made was an extreme one, as the argument was in the "for or against" rhetorical vein, but yes, it's certainly fair to say mechanics aren't inherently restrictive to roleplaying. However, I do think mechanics can encourage lazy roleplaying and when given mechanical rules players and GMs tend toward mechanical resolutions. More often then not, players and GMs will leave it to the mechanic itself to reflect the outcome of an event. Certainly some people are more inspired than this, but I've noticed with others and myself that the more that is described by mechanics, the less tends to be described by the players. Part of it is just the sheer time involved in actually understanding and properly implementing rules sets. Exhaustive rules require extensive knowledge, frequent referencing and constant dice rolling. At some point, it becomes a "can't see the forest for the trees" situation. The rules while noble in aim often obscure their larger purpose, which is modeling a world.
I am not saying that roleplaying is inherently better without rules. I most certainly allow that there are better and worse rules sets, and rules sets that work well with roleplaying (WoD is a good example). What I am saying is that the average roleplayer tends towards weaker roleplaying when given more rules. A poor roleplayer will still be a poor roleplayer with fewer rules. But I have seen good players become poor roleplayers when playing systems that have very detailed rule sets. It is not really a binary situation, it's a bell curve.
Now, each person has their own happy medium, mind just tends to lean towards the descriptive part of the game. But the intial argument was expressely whether 4e D&D diminished roleplaying by virtue of having supposedly weak non combat mechanics. I emphatically argue that this is not the case, and in fact suspect the opposite is true. Simpler rule sets leave more room for roleplaying in terms of time and necessity. A failure to detail non-combat elements mechanically is not the same as diminished roleplaying. The thrust of my argument was to reject that notion more than it was to assert the superiority of freeform systems. I think people making anti-4e arguments conflate mechanical richness with roleplaying richness, and I think that is a fallacy.
Similarly, I think the fact that the combat mechanics of 4e mirror combat mechanics of MMORPGs is a red herring. There are plenty of reasons that argument is bunk, not least of which is the difference in audiences (most people who play MMORPGs wouldn't be caught dead roleplaying). Even assuming audience overlap, the mechanics of MMORPGs aren't really why people don't roleplay in MMORPGs. Rather, it is simply the lack of verissimilitude present in MMORPGs. Any portrayal of character action is usually limited, and there is no real way to develop a coherent storyline in a world wherein there is no cooperative effort to tell a story. After all, 20,000 people are playing, each with unique interpretations of the game. Even if you want to roleplay, there will be no consistency in the way other players approach the issue, and consequently any immersion will be lost and hours will be spent wasted dealing with the fact that the world is overwhelmed with people who don't give a rats ass about your playstyle and have no intention of respecting it. When you roleplay, there is a general consensus between you and the players, and a story moderater in the form of a GM. The structure simply has no analogy.
You know, this guy obviously isn't the roleplayer he claims to be. I can't for the life of my understand why people feel like every single thing needs to be mapped out with a mechanic. The best roleplaying is done without ever rolling a dice. Dice rolling just interrupts the drama if you ask me. If my character was raised a glass blower, and the party is looking to make some flasks for potions, the idea that we should take the time to represent the obvious outcome via a bunch of dice rolling is just silly. I would rather spend that time with compelling roleplaying of the event. All mechanics do for uncontested events is take the onus off of the roleplaying and put it into the hands of rather stale mechanics. If a person cant roleplay the gradual development of their characters skill in armorery, its because they are a crappy roleplayer. Mechanics don't solve that problem. They just disguise it behind a set of numbers.
Combat is one of the few areas where mechanics are actually helpful because they represent a contest of skills, which naturally means some measurable opposition makes sense if the outcome isn't clear. There are a few other areas in which contests make sense to measure (like sneaking past a guard for example), but there are also contested skills where roleplaying should be sufficient. Want to BS your way past the guard? Do some compelling roleplaying with your charming bard and you can get past. Using mechanics again just draws away from the roleplaying and makes the outcome dependent upon good dice rolling rather than good roleplaying.
A good mechanic that actually encourages roleplaying would be Exalted, simply because you get all these powers that just broadly outline what new stuff a character can do. Stuff like Speed the Wheels just says you can speed up bureaucracies. Making that power meaningful is almost entirely a roleplaying thing. D&D 3.5 by contrast would have you rolling a set of dice. Personally, nine times out of ten I would rather have players and the DM roleplaying out non-combat skills. 3.5 mechanics actually encourages lazy roleplaying if you ask me. Lazy roleplaying is better than no roleplaying at all, certainly, but I think its funny that people elevate such a thing to idolatry as if having mechanics will magically make people roleplayers. Roleplaying is almost entirely dependent upon the quality of the people playing the game. Mechanics are just window dressing.