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

 

[UngeheuerLich]

No. GM says based on whatever criteria the GM wants to use. There's nothing that directs, constrains, or otherwise limits the GM's fiat here.

No matter the system, it is always GM's fiat. The question is just behind how many curtains you hide it.

At least in DnD 5e it is easy for the DM to adjucate if the check is rather easy or rather difficult.
I have seen so many systems where setting up the right DC is not that easy and DM's tending to make checks way too hard, so that only highly specialized people have a mediocre chance, and thus most pc's just fail.
That not only makes the game more complicated for no reason (in the end you have an x% chance to make the check), it oftend leads to players not even trying certain actions or feel the need to min/max their characters, because they have learnt, that either you have to be highly specialized or don't bother.

5e with it's very simple resolution mechanics and bounded accuracy makes non-combat resolution very simple.

 

[Aldarc]

The more hard rules for social interaction you have, the more you limit the ability of players to resolve matters by in-character interaction. Just as having hard rules for combat limits the ability of players to resolve matters by hitting each other with wooden sticks. No one objects to not being referred to as a LARPer, I don't get your problem.

But I said nothing about players, only about systems.

There is no point writing anything more when the bottom line is that you accused other systems to be about roll-playing and not roleplaying. The fact that you don’t see a problem with gatekeeping behavior or policing what constitutes role-playing is the problem. Consider our conversation done.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

There is no point writing anything more when the bottom line is that you accused other systems to be about roll-playing and not roleplaying. The fact that you don’t see a problem with gatekeeping behavior or policing what constitutes role-playing is the problem. Consider our conversation done.

It's not gatekeeping behaviour, I'm very keen for people to play whatever game they like whatever way they like. And that includes systems with mechanical resolution of social situations. I just point out that they have drawbacks and are not inherently superior. You are the one conflating "role-playing" with "playing properly". So long as people are enjoying themselves it doesn't matter if what they are doing is called "role-playing" or not.

 

[Morrus]

Apologies. I did understand that. I do agree they would be best sticking to the system they have been using. My OP had more to do with seeing it as a mistake to switch systems. I am a firm believer that the mechanics of an RPG should help emulate the genre of the game. Having played 5E and what I know of Doctor Who, 5E would be a mistake. I do see it as pandering to switch to 5E and not in a good way.

They’re not switching. This is in addition to, not instead of.

 

[Hussar]

The more hard rules for social interaction you have, the more you limit the ability of players to resolve matters by in-character interaction. Just as having hard rules for combat limits the ability of players to resolve matters by hitting each other with wooden sticks. No one objects to not being referred to as a LARPer, I don't get your problem.

But I said nothing about players, only about systems.

This is just wrong.

Sorry, no it doesn't.

If you seriously think that games like, say, FATE or Blades in the Dark are somehow less free than D&D in play, well, that's an opinion I suppose.

This sort of thing has been floated for years - that the only way to do stuff is free-form and everything else is more limited. It just shows a very great gap in people's knowledge of other systems and how systems work. Seriously. This has never been true. This is only true for players who only play D&D and have virtually no experience with other systems.

 

[Aldarc]

This is just wrong.

Sorry, no it doesn't.

If you seriously think that games like, say, FATE or Blades in the Dark are somehow less free than D&D in play, well, that's an opinion I suppose.

This sort of thing has been floated for years - that the only way to do stuff is free-form and everything else is more limited. It just shows a very great gap in people's knowledge of other systems and how systems work. Seriously. This has never been true. This is only true for players who only play D&D and have virtually no experience with other systems.

Yeah. Almost all of these other systems, much as @Ovinomancer has said, stress fairly heavily the idea that everything should begin and end with the fiction. Rolls are often about establishing the stakes and possible consequences of the fiction rather than a simple matter of passing/failing with some atomic action.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

This is just wrong.

Sorry, no it doesn't.

If you seriously think that games like, say, FATE or Blades in the Dark are somehow less free than D&D in play, well, that's an opinion I suppose.

It's not less. Nor is it more. It's just different, and not the sort of gameplay I enjoy.

 

[Thunderfoot]

This is what's wrong with D&D. the players...

Now... D&D is 90% combat look at the PHB,
Then... The DM is the only one that knows the rules, not fair!!!!

I tells ya, it's enough to make a Rat Bastard DM pull out a copy of Tomb of Horrors and go Medieval on some players.

Thunderfoot - Rat Bastard DM Club # 00168.

 

[Oofta]

I rather like the mystery investigator idea. I could use that in my campaigns alot more.

Yeah, I've done everything from a Scooby-Doo mystery where the monster was just an illusion, borrowed from some Sherlock Holmes stories, to just straight find the serial killer who can look human but is really some kind of monster. The last one is fun if you can use an NPC that was previously introduced.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

This is just wrong.

Sorry, no it doesn't.

If you seriously think that games like, say, FATE or Blades in the Dark are somehow less free than D&D in play, well, that's an opinion I suppose.

This sort of thing has been floated for years - that the only way to do stuff is free-form and everything else is more limited. It just shows a very great gap in people's knowledge of other systems and how systems work. Seriously. This has never been true. This is only true for players who only play D&D and have virtually no experience with other systems.

That is only an assumtion. My experience with a lot of other systems differs. The more free form, the more it is player skill vs character abilities.
In those systems, it often feels as you don´t have total control over your character´s actions outside combat. Somehow this is far more easily accepted in combat or when magic is involved.

Of course I don´t know every system out there and if there is a system that somhow solves the mentioned problem, I stand corrected. But I have played at least 10 different games and I always come back to D&D, because it more or less has the rules heaviness for combat/magic/noncombat that I prefer.