As a person who has played in and DM'd for numerous rulesets. I am an expert on how RPGs work.
For sure.
I mean, there is just so few people who ever DM'd using different rulesets, the fact you did it certainly immediately makes you an expert ! I'm pretty sure nobody else here ever did that !
The rules shouldn't have to tell you how to RP, that is for player and DM discretion. The rules do tell you the best ways to provide experience, combat, loot, etc. The core mechanics of the game are based around going out and fighting monsters, they rest is all freeform. You don't even need to use the combat rules, but it adds strategy to the game which makes it fun to visualize on a board or grid paper. You don't need rules to tell you how to RP, it's commonsense, if you can't do it by yourself you shouldn't be RPing to begin with.
I'll refer you to the post I made just before this one : you don't need rules at all, like you said, the point of the rules being to provide a frame helping to visualize the situation and help player gauge their chances and possibilities.
So... Be it for fighting or roleplaying, you don't need rules. Be it for fighting or roleplaying, rules are means to add fun by providing a frame.
So... what exactly is the interest of a supposedly roleplaying ruleset that is actually just a battle ruleset ?
The possibility to make smartass and childish comment about how you don't need rules to chain your imagination and incredible creative process in roleplaying ?
The two interesting and separate points in an existing p'n'p RPG are the settings (the world(s) that the game use, like Dark Sun/Planescape/whatever in D&D, the cyberpunk and magical Earth in Shadowrun, etc.), expressed in the "content" books, and the take on roleplaying it gives, the direction/feeling it gives, expressed in the ruleset (it's like a book : you can write one yourself, but you buy them because you're interested in what someone else has to say). Many rulesets push toward a particular style - that's the point of rules, why would we use them if they didn't influence the game ?
4E only gives a battle system. The world content has been nearly entirely rebooted (at least the planes, which have basically been removed and replaced by a simplistic and very dry new version), and the rules are just a strict barebone to give lip service to the RP part, and the near entirety of the content is just tables of fighting moves.
So basically it's a battle system. It has no personnality in term of style, and doesn't provide any interesting frame for roleplay, nor give any interesting and quantitative informations for new DM, nor is even a good read.
Now you can claim it's a good ruleset because you don't need rules for RP - which is a dumb argument, as you don't need rules for fighting either, and you still went by buying a ruleset for it.
Me, I see something sold as a RPG that is just an uninspired and bland battle system that fits more in video game than p'n'p, and some pompous windbag that think himself an expert because he talks tough on the Internet and miss half the point of actually using a ruleset.
