Is D&D "about" combat?

[Jack Daniel]

I'm interested in posters' knee-jerk reaction to this question, the gut-instinct response, hence the fact that the poll asks for a simple "yes" or "no."

I've been prompted to ask this question by an odd happenstance. You see, I was browsing through my local library yesterday, and I stumbled across a copy of "Dungeon Mastering for Dummies" (the only D&D book on the shelves), written by Bill Slavicsek and published during the "v3.5" era. Curious, I picked up this book and started leafing through it, having never before read any of the "D&D for dummies" books. I wondered what kind of advice this book might give budding DMs. A lot of it was re-hashed from the 3rd edition DMGs. A lot more was pretty sound advice. But then, at one point, Bill came out and said, "D&D is a game about combat."

This disturbed me instantly. Mainly because it contrasted with everything I remember Zeb writing in the 2e DMG, where the text came right out and said things like, "D&D is not a combat game" and "more than just hack & slash." So for me, when I see a question like "Is D&D a game about combat?", my gut reaction is a weird, atavistic sort of "NO IT'S NOT!" that comes barreling out of my brain like that space-slug coming out of the asteroid in Empire.

It's the same reaction I have whenever I see someone say, "You shouldn't use the phrase 'roll-playing.' That's judgmental and derogatory, like calling someone a munchkin or a min/maxer." But I can't help it: it's a major aspect of my "upbringing" into D&D, an irremovable portion of my "gamer constitution." I was brought into the game when roll-playing was bad, min-maxing was bad, rules-lawyering was bad, the Monty Haul campaign was bad, the killer DM was bad, etc., etc. Objectively bad: these were game-killers. They made things less fun for everybody.

The mantra I remember, back in my day (when we had to climb uphill both ways in the snow just to roll some d20s, don't you know), was "good role-playing." This is a phrase sprinkled liberally throughout the 2nd edition books in particular. Preachy? You bet. Bad for the game? Not necessarily. As near as I can tell, "good role-playing" according to the 2e definition meant "resisting the temptation to play the numbers," e.g. forsaking min/maxing, monty-hauling, munchkining, etc. in favor of a more immersive experience. It didn't always turn out that way, of course, but at least the admonition was there in the books. The notion was current in gamer culture in the late 80s and throughout the 90s.

And that's changed. I don't think that we see exhortations in favor of "good role-playing" in rulebooks anymore. And I think that gaming has suffered for it. Certainly, in my locality, it's exceedingly difficult to find any player who would rather play a character than a character-sheet. Can it be that attitudes have changed so much in the span of a mere decade? I hope not.

*grumble grodnardy grumble*

 

[OnlineDM]

I'm sympathetic to the point behind making this a simple yes/no poll, but I didn't answer it because I don't think I can pick one of those choices.

There's a difference between "being about combat" and "being ALL about combat". If the question were, "Is D&D ALL about combat?" I would definitely say no, of course. And I think your post implies an interpretation of "all about" which I don't think was necessarily intended by the writer.

D&D is about combat. It's also about character and exploration and discovery and interaction and role-playing and...

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Tell me how much the participants at a given table want it to be about combat, and I can answer the question for them.

Roleplayer versus Rollplayer is a silly idea, because it is based on a silly assumption: That to the extent you are rolling dice, you aren't playing a role, and vice versa--as if they were some perfectly balanced grains in an hourglass that you can only turn one way or the other. Rolling dice and playing a role aren't completely orthogonal, of course. But gamers have traditionally been the type that can chew bubblegum and walk at the same time.

 

[Agamon]

While it's, of course, not all about combat, if I was forced to diffuse D&D down to one word, I'd be hard pressed to find something more apt.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Of course its about combat. No, that doesn't mean that every single conflict must be solved with combat, or that its just a slog from battle to the next, but we do kill things, and we do take their stuff. If you have a PC, the majority of what defines that PC mechanically is how good he or she is at said task of killing things and taking their stuff.

 

[Mark CMG]

I think people are going to read into the question in a number of different ways, everything from "Should D&D be about combat?" to "Is D&D currently "about" combat?" to "Has D&D always been "about" combat?" to "Is D&D "about" combat exclusively?" Depending on which of these ways someone reads the question, they might find themselves answering one way to one or another way to another. I read it as "Is D&D" (in general, not edition specific) (primarily) "'about' combat?" to which I answered "Yes" though I would stress that it doesn't have to be and has never been for me or most of the people who game with me. The rules do and always have focused more on combat than any other aspect of the game.

Then question then becomes, "Can any RPG, including D&D be less "about" combat?" To which I think most would answer, "Of course." There are many RPGs where combat plays a lesser or even minor part, some, I believe, with no combat at all (though, admittedly, as I write this, no specific game names are springing to mind). So, how does a design team focus an RPG in areas other than combat and still make it feel like D&D? I have my own ideas but I'll just leave that for another thread at some time in the future rather than shift your thread away from the binary intent, which I applaud. I also have to say . . .

I don't think that we see exhortations in favor of "good role-playing" in rulebooks anymore. And I think that gaming has suffered for it.

Indeed.

 

[DEFCON 1]

D&D is all about combat the same way that pretty much every single RPG out there is about combat (tabletop *and* computer).

The largest section of character generation and rules explanation is for what happens when combat or fighting breaks out. D&D, Fable, Shadowrun, World of Warcraft, HERO, Mass Effect, Legend of the 5 Rings, City of Heroes, Star Wars RPG, The Witcher, Ghostbusters, James Bond, Fallout, Paranoia etc. etc. All of them use combat scenarios as their 'scene break' and the way for creating conflict and risk to a character during a game.

Sure... other forms of conflict resolution exist in certain games, but it is the rare game whose rules for social combat are larger and more complex that the rules for the physical.

 

[Gryph]

No.

D&D is about adventure. Adventures which tend to include a lot of combat, but adventure still has pride of place.

 

[Tuft]

But then, at one point, Bill [Slavicsek] came out and said, "D&D is a game about combat."

That explains a lot, IMHO.

 

[Yesway Jose]

Is Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle "about" hamburgers? No, it's about the journey to get the hamburgers.

Is D&D "about" combat? I think "no" if combat is part of the journey, and "yes" if combat is the main journey for its own sake.