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.

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

A fear spell doesn't change what someone is thinking. It just makes it so that, regardless of what you're thinking, your body is acting as though you were afraid and now you're running away (or whatever the mechanical effect is).

Seems like splitting hairs to me, but there are both charms and illusions which most definitely change what your character is thinking.

Now I agree one should use such things sparingly, but they're a long-established part of the game.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Seems like splitting hairs to me, but there are both charms and illusions which most definitely change what your character is thinking.

Now I agree one should use such things sparingly, but they're a long-established part of the game.

It seems distinct enough to me, but I get what you're saying. Really, the big difference is in acceptability. If the DM says that your barbarian is now friends with this guy in a robe who was just trying to kill you a minute ago, because he cast a spell and it's magic making you think things you wouldn't ordinarily think, then that's one thing. If the DM says that your barbarian is now friends with this guy in leather armor who was just trying to kill you a minute ago, because he made a very convincing argument and now you believe that it was an honest mistake, then you might disagree that your barbarian would be so accepting.

 

[Kobold Boots]

man so many people are saying "D&D doesn't need 50 pages explaining social interaction lol", but did it ever occur to anyone that D&D doesn't need 50 pages describing combat either? "combat needs detailed rules" no it doesn't, so many games get away with abstract combat rules and people love playing them. I don't want the combat of D&D to go away but some people are missing the point.

I'd argue that people who are looking for stronger rules in any category are making "their" point. I don't think it matters much with "the" point is.

KB

 

[Sunseeker]

It started out as a tactical wargame. The fact that it has any non-combat elements to it should be impressive in that regard. All these folks who claim that non-combat elements of D&D are dying are, IMO out of their gourd. Non-combat elements have grown, though yes, rules for them have not, which leads to combat having an apparent over-representation in the rulebook. But some editions tried adding rules to social and exploration elements of the game, they weren't terribly successful because all they ended up really accomplishing is setting DC's for diplomacy checks on making gods your friends. That's obviously not the approach we want to see.

Certainly RPGs don't need hard mechanical rules for combat, but I think that, at least for the type of combat D&D wants to have, it's necessary. Combat in D&D is very fixed-outcome. Either something happens, or it doesn't. It's not wishy-washy on its results and I think for combat, that's good. (I'll add that I generally don't like systems of more "make believe" combat). Social and exploration is very much less a fixed-outcome sort of deal and I think because of that, it's a lot more difficult to create rules. We don't know what the outcome of talking to the King is. We do know what the outcome of swinging a sword is. The sword is a known variable. Unless we're going to create rules that say something like "All Kings are the same." in the same way that all longswords are the same, we're never going to be able to have the same kind of rules we have for combat work for social situations.

 

[Sunsword]

To me this depends on the table and the mood. Some nights you can tell a combat is what is desired, some nights we don't roll any dice. In my opinion the most successful DMs are the ones who can read the table and go with the flow.

 

[Thomas Bowman]

I don't think die roles should ever substitute for players using their brains to figure out a situation.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

I don't think die roles should ever substitute for players using their brains to figure out a situation.

The D&D system is not too bad for character knowledge being greater than player knowledge, but there are plenty of other systems out there that have character skills, proficiencies, etc that many players would have no clue how they work in real life, so having to default to dice rolls instead of figuring it out can and will happen. Also, while I love role playing games, I am not so good at the actual role playing, so there are plenty of times I will just roll the dice rather than trying to act something out, especially CHA related stuff. And DMs need to be smart enough and aware enough to understand when their players are in those types of situations.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Well combat needs rules, role playing does not. Players can always play "Lets pretend" There is no die rolling involved when characters are attempting to solve a mystery, or haggling with a merchant to settle on a price, one can roll dice for those things, but that is kind of artificial. I'd rather rely on the player's skills at interacting with people than to roll a d20 die to see if a difficulty class is met to determine an NPC's reaction.

I bet Gygax thought the same way you did. That's why the early rulebooks went lite on the social roleplaying rules because he thought they weren't needed.

However, lots of people read those rulebooks and came to the conclusion that D&D was purely a combat game because it was full of combat rules and little else.

 

[R_Chance]

One thing I miss from that list in the OP is logistics. Today it seems like the we have a multidimensional loot storage area, find 15000 gold, add it to the loot sheet. Its like Pillars of Eternity. Weight doesn't matter. How you are going to carry it out doesn't matter since "that's not fun". The backpack is a tardis staffed by a gnome who hands you the exact item you need as you need it. I would prefer a game where decisions on how to get a large treasure pile out of a dungeon is an issue. Where hirelings become important for such matters. I'd like the environment to be more of an issue the players have to take into account as well. I'm playing in a ToA game and honestly the environmental matters are such a non issue that its hard for me to take the game seriously as we romp around the jungles in full plate. I was hoping it would be a a battle against the environment as much as the enemies. Maybe its just the DM.

The Outdoor Survival rules and the encumbrance rules in OD&D/ AD&D made for some fun. Players could starve or die of thirst. You couldn't take it all with you. Pack animals were a good idea. You had to plan an adventure / expedition. Add weather and environmental effects and it got really interesting. It was fun.

Magic could mitigate some issues as you advanced in levels of course. Later editions started using more and more magic to evade the problems players encountered on outdoor adventures. Too bad. Worrying about where your next meal was coming from gave players something to worry about besides the next combat. It also helped make the game more immersive and gave it a dose of "reality". My initial group loved it, but then we were straight out of miniature wargaming and these issues came up in miniature campaigns (as opposed to just setting up a single battle).

 

[Jhaelen]

Well combat needs rules, role playing does not. Players can always play "Lets pretend" There is no die rolling involved when characters are attempting to solve a mystery, or haggling with a merchant to settle on a price, one can roll dice for those things, but that is kind of artificial.

I've seen this argument quite often, but I'm convinced it doesn't hold water.
There's nothing inherently different about combat that it merits being treated different from any other activities in an RPG. In fact there are numerous RPG systems that have seamlessly integrated combat-relevant skills in their skill system. The only reason combat is treated differently from other skills in D&D is that D&D historically didn't have a skill system.

Combat encounters could be resolved purely by roleplaying exactly as any other kind of encounter. And the reverse is just as true: All kinds of encounters benefit from a rule framework, especially those that involve some kind of conflict. It doesn't matter if that conflict is fought with weapons, words or thoughts.

Going back to the article's question, the answer depends entirely on the preferences of the players. D&D has traditionally been focused on combat, so unless players are reluctant to learn any other RPG systems, there's no reason to play D&D if you feel it's _too_ focused on combat. If you feel that D&D has just the right amount of combat, though, you're obviously fine.

Interestingly, the article's author apparently chooses to ignore that there ever was a 4th edition of D&D. However, it was 4e that introduced the concept of skill challenges, i.e. trying to provide a rule framework for encounters involving something other than combat. 4e was also the edition where I as a GM first used milestones instead of tracking xp to decide when it was time for the pc's to level up. I'm not sure where I got the idea, maybe from 4e's DMG2?