Is D&D Too Focused on Combat?

Dungeons & Dragons' wargame roots are well-known, but what is sometimes forgotten is how much its origins influenced role-playing games. Although D&D has been a platform to tell many different kinds of stories, its mechanics focus on a few core themes and one of them is combat -- but it's not the only one.

Picture courtesy of Pixabay.​

The Three Modes​

Jon Peterson in Playing at the World explained that there are three modes of D&D play, in which dramatic pacing is achieved by transitioning between the three:

...a mode of exploration, a mode of combat and a mode of logistics. Time flows differently in each of these modes, and by rationing the modes carefully a referee guides the players through satisfying cycles of tension, catharsis and banality that mimic the ebb and flow of powerful events.

These modes are interrelated in important ways, and modern role-players tolerance for all three has changed over time. Exploration has experienced a resurgence with sandbox-style play. Combat has been de-emphasized, particularly in story-telling games. And logistics are back in vogue thanks to the Old School Renaissance. Let's take a look at each in turn.

The First Mode: Exploration​

In the original boxed set of D&D, exploration was important, but beyond the scope of the rules. It was a key part of emergent play -- using basic guidelines to encourage creative strategies -- but it wasn't actually part of D&D itself. Instead, D&D encouraged players to buy Avalon Hill's Outdoor Survival board game, as Peterson explains:

The object of Outdoor Survival is to navigate a wilderness, though there are five scenarios providing distinct justifications for doing so: for example, lost players returning to civilization at the edges of the map or racing to find the object of a search party. Given that the board itself is not a secret from the players (Outdoor Survival has no referee), some other means is required to simulate being lost in the woods, since the players necessarily command a bird’s-eye view of the environment. Dice therefore determine whether or not players are lost, and if so, in which direction they will wander. The board is overlain with a hexagonal grid, segmenting the board into hexagons about 1.5 centimeters across; as there are six possible directions on a hexagonal board to move, a six-sided die can easily dictate the orientation of lost players. Each hex contains a particular terrain type, in much the manner of Hellwig: there are mountains, swamps, rivers, deserts, plains and even roads (well, trails).

Evidence of D&D's interest in hexcrawling is strongly represented in the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual, which was published after the original set but before the rest of the AD&D line. Each monster has a few noteworthy statistics, particularly: frequency, number appearing, and % in lair. Much of these stats do not make sense in a typical dungeon context, where the rooms are planned out; DMs would likely know the monsters that were to appear in their dungeons, and in fact author Gary Gygax states, "...It is not generally recommended for use in establishing the population of Dungeon Levels." But when used in hexcrawling they're useful in describing the encounters there, beginning with frequency, then determining if the monster encountered is in its lair, and then concluding with number of appearing (which could sometimes be in the hundreds, befitting a camp but not a dungeon room).

For a time, hexcrawling and emergent play were out of favor as more scripted adventures came into vogue. The OSR has reinvigorated sandbox-style play, in which the players generate the world as they adventure, one roll at a time.

The Second Mode: Combat​

D&D's second mode is the one most gamers are familiar with: killing things. D&D grew out of Chainmail, itself a product of wargaming, so combat's relevance to D&D goes all the way back to its first iteration. Additionally, it mimics the style of the fiction that influenced it, including the violent Conan among other swords and sorcery novels. What's changed is how D&D scales combats. The emphasis on leveling up was treasure, as explained in a previous article, "The Original End Goal of Dungeons & Dragons." Kiva Maginn (Battletech design lead) on Twitter explains how this changes the style of play:

As a player, you could gain experience by fighting monsters or claiming treasure. You could lose it by dying in battle with monsters. You could encounter monsters without treasure, and you could encounter treasure without monsters. So there was an obvious 'best' path. Get in, get the treasure, get out. Do as little fighting as possible, because fighting risks XP loss. Avoid encounters when you can, and subvert them with clever tricks if possible. Money you find without a fight is free XP.

This changed with Third Edition, in which experience points were rewarded for defeating a monster:

Consider 3rd Edition D&D, by contrast. Gold provides no inherent advancement. At a certain point, you simply don't need it anymore. You have so much of it that it's absurd to bother picking up any more. So there's a new obvious 'best' path. Ignore tricks and clever solutions. Never avoid fights. Kill every single monster in the dungeon, with 'it's in the dungeon!' as your justification for doing so. Seek out harder fights with bigger monsters. Don't stop killing.

Ironically, D&D became MORE about killing than less, as PCs were no longer incentivized to just accumulate gold to advance. Third Edition also did away with name levels and retainers as being an end gold, so the purpose of spending gold had shifted from building strongholds and hiring mercenaries to personally enriching the character through acquisition of magic items. This change was a recognition that players were less interested in leading armies and transitioning back to a life of perpetual adventuring, and the game shifted gears to reflect that.

Of course, role-playing has since moved beyond combat -- relying more heavily on the narrativist style of play -- even if it started with the primarily tactical dungeon and overland exploration of D&D.

The Third Mode: Logistics​

Logistics have largely fallen out of favor today due to onerous nature of keeping track of encumbrance, equipment, and gold. These factors were all intentional controls on player greed, ensuring that PCs couldn't just cart out mountains of gold (and thus experience points) without some challenges. You can read a more detailed discussion of inventory management and encumbrance in a previous article, "The Lost Art of Packing it All In."

Third Edition's shift towards combat meant that the nature of logistics changed to be less about accumulating gold and more about personal advancement, exemplified by Pathfinder which spins out even more options than Third Edition for character development.

D&D Today​

So where does that leave us with D&D today? Kiva points out that the combat biases are still there, but now D&D has expanded to encompass other styles of play -- it just doesn't emphasize it equally:

The flaw in later D&D was that it was a game that was good at modeling killing, and spent a decade trying to be anything other than a game about killing.

Inspiration, Personal Characteristics, and Background were added to incentivize players to role-play but as the AngryDM points out, many players forget all about it because of the way it's implemented:

It’s just this thing that’s easy to forget and sits in the game not really doing anything. It feels tacked on. Vestigial. An afterthought. It certainly doesn’t seem to have a clear purpose, as evidenced by the fact that the DM and the players get different advice about it and how it is weirdly disconnected from the mechanics that it seems to be connected to. It seems thrown in. “People like Bonds in Dungeon World and Aspects in Fate, we should probably slap something like that in there.”

Fifth Edition D&D has also changed how experience points are gained, providing an option to level up through milestones instead. This shifts the incentives yet again away from combat.

Is combat overemphasized in D&D? Maybe, but that's at least partially due to the other two modes of exploration and logistics falling out of favor. If the eight pages detailing combat are any indication in the Basic D&D Rules, combat is still an integral part of the game, and many players are just fine with that.

 

[Fandabidozi]

Well, I like combat and I like exploration and I also like logistics.
But which one's better? There's only one way to find out! Fight!!!

 

[Jacob Lewis]

Almost everything in D&D revolves around combat. Combat has always been the main course. And there is no shame in that, but we often see attempts made to either apologize or compensate for it unnecessarily. What I loved best about fourth edition was it actually embraced the true nature if the system. It was the most honest and innovative version of the game, and true to form, flawed no less than any of the others.

 

[pogre]

If there were truly a goal of representing the three modes of play equally, the rules are too heavily geared around combat. IMO, D&D is biased towards combat because it is the most popular mode of play. I do agree that the history of the game plays a role as well.

 

[pemerton]

There's no inherent contrast beteen "narrativist" play and combat. Look at super hero comics: combat can be a significant arena for a character to express and exemplify his/her values and commitments.

But "narrativist" combat should be about character and stakes, not ASL-style tactics and logistic. Games like Burning Wheel and Cortex+ Heroic give non-D&D examples. 4e is as close as D&D has come to this.

 

[jasper]

No, But since there would be real life combat, thrown dice, hurt feelings, broken chairs, broken mugs. Combat rules are need so the players are on the same page.

 

[Ratskinner]

The operative word in the thread's question is "too". That's, I think, almost completely a matter of opinion.

If you're looking for a heavily story-oriented, narrative game, which is also directly supported by the rules...I'd say D&D is the wrong tree up which to bark.

Of course, tons of D&D play has been narrative and story oriented, but that's more due to the creativity of the DM and players involved...and often their willingness to bend the rules.

Sent from my [device_name] using EN World mobile app

 

[hawkeyefan]

I don’t thibk it is. Certainly it plays a part, and due to the nature of it, combat requires more rules than other areas. Or at leadt it does in the mechanics used by D&D.

But exactly how much of the game is devoted to combat will vary greatly from group to group. Even when playing the same published adventure, there can be sognificant difference from one table to the next. The numerous live streams that are available support this. The most popular among them would not, by most, be considered combat heavy.

 

[delericho]

I could certainly stand to see some more emphasis put on the Exploration and Interaction pillars of the game in the next few supplements/adventures.

But "too focused" is very much a matter of opinion. Indeed, I'm not convinced it's not entirely a matter for the individual group to answer for themselves.

 

[BackInAction]

I don’t thibk it is. Certainly it plays a part, and due to the nature of it, combat requires more rules than other areas.

This is so true, should we have 5 pages of rules describing how to convince the barkeeper to give up more town secrets? And if the social rules are a bit too weak, or thin, what advantage does that give the players? Whereas weak or thin combat rules can really fubar all sorts things in the game.

The other issue, is that the min/max and a big chuck of the 'on-line' world tends to focus on it, but that doesn't mean your group or the game itself are too focused on combat.