D&D 5E Is D&D 90% Combat?

In response to Cubicle 7’s announcement that their next Doctor Who role playing game would be powered by D&D 5E, there was a vehement (and in some places toxic) backlash on social media. While that backlash has several dimensions, one element of it is a claim that D&D is mainly about combat.

Head of D&D Ray Winninger disagreed (with snark!), tweeting "Woke up this morning to Twitter assuring me that [D&D] is "ninety percent combat." I must be playing (and designing) it wrong." WotC's Dan Dillon also said "So guess we're gonna recall all those Wild Beyond the Witchlight books and rework them into combat slogs, yeah? Since we did it wrong."

So, is D&D 90% combat?



And in other news, attacking C7 designers for making games is not OK.

D&D 5E - Doctors & Daleks - Cubicle 7 Brings Doctor Who to D&D 5E

Cubicle 7 -- makers of the official Doctor Who roleplaying game -- has announced that the Doctor will officially be coming to 5E soon under the name Doctors and Daleks. There are no dates or details yet, over than that the Doctors and Daleks Player's Guide will launch 'soon'. A NEW COMPANION...

www.enworld.org

 

[Paul Farquhar]

You're digging a deeper hole for yoruself by insinuating that people are lying about roleplaying with these other games.

You are implying that if they are not roleplaying it is a lesser activity. You are the gatekeeper here. It's perfectly possible, legitimate, and fun to play D&D as a tabletop battlegame. That is fine, you are the person suggesting that if they aren't roleplaying they are doing it wrong.

 

[Aldarc]

You are implying that if they are not roleplaying it is a lesser activity. You are the gatekeeper here. It's perfectly possible, legitimate, and fun to play D&D as a tabletop battlegame. That is fine, you are the person suggesting that if they aren't roleplaying they are doing it wrong.

Nice attempt to make me the villain here. I am not implying anything about what is a lesser activity. You flat out stated that people engaging in these other TTRPG systems were roll-playing and not roleplaying, which is gatekeeping what is or isn't roleplaying. Have a nice day.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Well, you could easily run a campaign where your planeswalker spends most of their time travelling the planes and engaging with the locals. You don't need rules for that, it can all be handled with roleplay. Thankfully the rules of the system get out of your way for that, so it can be handled organically through the player and GM. Acquisition of new spells and summons can be handled the same way. Then when you do get into a fight with another planeswalker, you can bust out the mechanics of the game. Clearly, MtG doesn't have a focus on combat, it's just how most players play the game.

Okay, that started out as a joke, but now I'm seriously seeing potential for that kind of game system...

I'm curious as to when "don't use rules, just negotiate between yourselves, usually with funny voices, and if there's a disagreement Bob decides" got shortened to "roleplaying." One of the consistent things I'm seeing in this thread is the idea that roleplaying needs no rules, but if it needs no rules, then you aren't playing any given game, either. If this is roleplaying, you aren't playing 5e when you do it. Yet, this going off book into shared make believe is credited back to 5e as some innovation that 5e is good at.

 

[Oofta]

I agree with you and I am aware of the section that you and others pointed out. The issue, I see it, partly one of training an culture. We have been trained to DM in certain ways by older editions and can have trouble remembering the new suggestions.

I do think that D&D would benefit from a conflict resolution system that would be generically applied to non combat situations (like the one referred to by @Aldarc.

Didn't we have that with skill challenges? Or at least an attempt at it? Because the problem we ran into was that it ended up being roll playing instead of role playing. I still use some of the ideas from it for example when I have complex traps. But too often it was too broadly (and strictly) applied.

I think that good mechanics that use the D20 to create tension but provide the players ways to plan for success are more effective than simple advice and hope the DMs and player muddle through.
Also I find that one can often forget such advice at the table. One mechanic, I keep forgetting about is Inspiration. I completely approve of inspiration, but almost never remember to give it because it is not formally incorporated into the games decision loop.

Inspiration is one of those concepts that I kind of like but almost never use. Maybe it's just that I'd rather reward people for role playing their PCs in a way that doesn't feel so meta-gamey.

 

[Umbran]

I wouldn't be shocked if a literal 90% of the verbiage of the rules is devoted to things related to combat

But what is "related to combat"? Are long rests "related to combat" because you get back hit points, for example?

Using vague boundaries like that doesn't clarify, without that follow-on discussion.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Didn't we have that with skill challenges? Or at least an attempt at it? Because the problem we ran into was that it ended up being roll playing instead of role playing. I still use some of the ideas from it for example when I have complex traps. But too often it was too broadly (and strictly) applied.

I really, really, really hate the Roll playing Role playing thing. It is very insulting to the inarticulate. I have played at tables where the reliance on "roleplaying" as defined here has excluded the players that are not good at coming up with glib gab on the spot and the table and action is dominated by the charismatic players not the charismatic characters.
Roll playing is still Roleplaying, ok, can we agree on that.

That rant aside, you are correct. At least that skill challenges were an attempt at this. In hindsight, the biggest issue with skill challenges was that it was introduced in to a D&D where the culture had built up, where the idea that if one was untrained in the skill one could not attempt the thing (jump, use rope, I am looking at you again).
This would not be as bad in 5e where there are no skill checks, only ability checks and skills are areas where one can apply a proficiency bonus to an ability check.
5e could do with more explicit support to allow no standard abilities to skills. For example, a Barbarian using Con or Str for Intimidation.
The other issue, that a skill challenge needs some element that you can hang a narrative on the progression to of the challenge.
(like hit points do for combat)

Inspiration is one of those concepts that I kind of like but almost never use. Maybe it's just that I'd rather reward people for role playing their PCs in a way that doesn't feel so meta-gamey.

Well I have no real problem with metagamey. I think that meta gaming has been in the DNA of D&D going all the way back to Gygaxian Skilled Play. YMMV

 

[TheSword]

I wonder if the roleplaying rules in the books being so short is because there are a few design assumptions: 1) They use the 'cops and robbers' pretend analogy edition after edition, I think with the assumption that that's roleplaying, 2) Because of that use of that analogy, or the assumption that people learning D&D won't be being taught by first-timers and learning together, they make an assumption that new players will learn to roleplay by interacting with an experienced GM and experienced table.

I think most of the roleplay in our group is acting in character, interacting with npcs. Persuading, asking questions, interacting amongst PCs. How many rules do you need for that?

Intimidation, persuasion, deception and then a way of guessing DCs. A few abilities and spells that intersect with things. It all looks pretty good to me.

Artificial point or dice based mechanics to force NpCs to act in certain ways all seems a bit contrived to me.

 

[Bayushi_seikuro]

And we did play without experience even in 1e, it was not called milestones, it was just "follow the story". It's not a new thing in the game, it's just been properly formalised in 5e and it's a good thing.

I agree, but my point again goes back to what was written, and therefore considered the designer's intent as perceived by some/most players.

I pulled my 1e DMG off the shelf next to me. Pg 84-85 describes experience.

First section: Adjustment and Division of Experience Points covers combat XP, and also in one small paragraphs discusses rewarding XP for outsmarting the monsters or overcoming tricks and traps. End of combat, total up the XP and divide by # of survivors.

Second section: Experience Value of Treasure Taken. "Convert all metal and gems and jewelry to a total value in gold pieces." It specifies the treasure must be taken out of the dungeon and returned to the PC's stronghold. It also addresses selling magic items before XP is awarded to raise the XP gain, and also talks about selling of creatures. Gygax's note: "Players who balk at equating gold pieces to experience points should be gently but firmly reminded that in a game certain compromises must be made."

Third section: Experience points value of monsters.

Fourth section: Special Bonus Award to Experience Points. Gygax's specific suggestion: "Any character killed and subsequently restored to life by means of a spell or device, other than ring of regeneration , will earn an experience point bonus award of 1,000 points."

Given that Gygax was considered (wrongly?) the creator of D&D, sole credited name on the cover of the DMG, I'd say at the time there would have been probably a sizable crowd that considered what I posted to be the 'correct' way to play D&D. Thankfully, as you said, 5e has evolved and made it more explicit that there are other ways to level.

 

[Bayushi_seikuro]

I think most of the roleplay in our group is acting in character, interacting with npcs. Persuading, asking questions, interacting amongst PCs. How many rules do you need for that?

Intimidation, persuasion, deception and then a way of guessing DCs. A few abilities and spells that intersect with things. It all looks pretty good to me.

Artificial point or dice based mechanics to force NpCs to act in certain ways all seems a bit contrived to me.

I understand your point. I believe the underlying conceit would be, and has been, that a dice roll isn't there to 'force' an NPC but to bring the game of chance element into it. Any time there's a chance of failure where there's consequences, I think there should be a die roll, whether its combat or critical moments in roleplaying. Who personally hasn't been intereacting in Real Life at some point and said just one thing too much and had that whole interaction change, for better or worse?

 

[Bayushi_seikuro]

I think many tables would be better off by ignoring the dice. I have seen way too many instances where the DM asks for a roll - it ends poorly because of d20 - and something that should have been simply logical to know or interpret is ruined. I think part of this is due to that skills are listed on the sheet, and people want to use their assets, but the applying that same random chance to skills as you do to swinging a sword has detrimental effects sometimes.

I also like systems that encourage you to fail rolls occasionally in the name of making a better story in the moment. I think of second edition of 7th Sea, where you can choose to fail rolls and there's some benefit to it