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

 

[Bayushi_seikuro]

And to me, that was far too metagamey (along with other issues i had with 7th Sea 2e...).

Which again goes back to John Wick's point that what the designer rewards players for can be assumed to be the designer's intent. He wanted to reward making active choices to fail and it giving you another benefit and so he wrote it into the rules

 

[Micah Sweet]

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.

I strongly suspect that, were detailed social rules to be added to the game, many/most groups would roundly ignore them in favor of free-form roleplay punctuated by a couple die rolls.

 

[overgeeked]

But that ain't D&D. It's never been D&D and it ain't ever going to be D&D.

Sigh. D&D is whatever the IP holder says it is. D&D is whatever the people playing it say it is. I'm so over gatekeeping.

 

[dytrrnikl]

How odd.

I don’t know about it being odd. I’ve seen it happen in games in which I have been invited to play as well.

 

[FrogReaver]

Sigh. D&D is whatever the IP holder says it is. D&D is whatever the people playing it say it is. I'm so over gatekeeping.

I think there’s a difference between words actually having meaning, including talking about whether that word should refer to something and actual gatekeeping.

 

[payn]

I don’t know about it being odd. I’ve seen it happen in games in which I have been invited to play as well.

Right, its not odd at all. Back in Pathfinder classic, Paizo introduced traits. They were flavor packed half feats to try and inject some RP into characters. Most folks ignored after session zero. The bonds, ideals flaws, traits thing is very similar in that I haven't seen any group use it. This kind of thing is more common than folks like to admit.

 

[Cruentus]

I mean, it could just be that the social and exploration pillars are well balanced and the combat pillar is where the balanced gets messed up. I actually believe that's probably the case for 5e tbh.

After reading more of the thread (to the end), and thinking about what is often discussed on these boards, as well as different approaches (and this is not directed at Jer), I think that DnD is mostly focused on combat BECAUSE its the only area of the game that is not really dependent on DM Fiat.

Unless the DM willingly throws higher level or unbeatable threats, changes ACs for monsters, gives them immunities not on their stat block, etc., everything in combat is really determined by and controlled by the player. The player picked their class, race, backgroud, feats (if allowed), skills, etc., usually building to high capability in combat - ability to hit, do high damage, maximize action economy, debuff enemies, neutralize through spells, etc. And all of these things are usually implemented "above board" in that the dice rolls on both sides are out in the open.

Everything else in DnD, exploration, social, downtime, research, etc. are all either a simple die roll against a skill (in its most reductive), or handled by the DM deciding what happens or doesn't, whether the player succeeds or doesn't, how badly, etc. So it would make sense that players would gravitate to the portion of the game/world that they do have direct control over - combat. They know what they can handle, how much damage they can do, and the PHB allows them to break it all down and build it as they want (at whatever power level the written rules allow).

Now, I'm also not making the argument that this is how the game is played at every table. I am saying that this is how it is played at our tables most of the time. Over the 40 years of playing with the same group (off and on), we have moved from the very early "adversarial DM" style of play (which some players still maintain is the way to treat the DM), to now trying to move things into more story/background/immersion styles of play (which some continue to chafe at and continue to min/max, no matter the session 0 discussion).

Players have less control over the social and exploration pillars, but do absolutely have control in combat.

So the 90% is clearly hyperbole, but to many players, its likely the part they move toward more than others. I've never had a player say "I'm going to build a wilderness scout who can track really well, knows the flora and fauna, but isn't that great in combat." Its "I'm going to multiclass my optimized barbarian into druid or wizard or cleric for a couple levels and take spells/cantrips (or a Feat) that removes the exploration element from the game, but still steamroll equivalent CR encounters." But, your mileage may vary.

 

[Ovinomancer]

The same as the rest of the game. The DM say what monsters are in the room, how much gold is in the chest, how the trap works. The whole of D&D is a game of "DM Says". That's why you have a DM!

Good! I said this a few posts ago and you pushed back, but I'm glad we've gotten back here. Yes, 5e is mostly GM says outside of combat (the main exceptions being spells) and this means that there are tons and tons of constraints on the players' ability to resolve things via play in these areas -- all of them being the GM. The idea that having a GM fiat system means that players are more free is totally ignoring that what the players may want is not how the system works -- it's only the GM's opinion that matters. This is heavily constraining. So the argument that a system that limits this control of the GM via a mechanic is reducing player-side ability to do things is, on it's face, false. Mechanics limit GMs and often enable players. Look at how combat works -- players know how making an attack works, what they need to do in the fiction to be allowed to do so (be next to the monster, have a sword, not be restrained, etc) and so they can plan to do these things to get to make an attack. Can players predict the entire outcome of a fight? No, but there are now things that are predictable and that's because we're not asking the GM -- the rules tell us how this works. So, as a player that wants to swing a sword at a monster, I'm not more constrained by D&D's combat rules, the GM is more constrained by D&D's combat rules. If I get my positioning right and the GM denies my sword swing, it's now obvious that the GM is flaunting the rules of the game.

Otherwise, you should be arguing for free-form combat because it unfairly hampers players to have mechanics in place.

No you don't. They might ignore you. They might call the police. They might thump you.

They might still thump you if they are having a really bad day. People are inherently unpredictable.

Then you work with robots.

No, they don't.

My goodness, you just split up a sentence to respond to pieces of it and then once each to the following two sentences. Let's see what the damage is:

You argue that it's impossible for a person to predict, at all, what a response to a social situation is. Okay, let's run with this -- why then are we not using a random die roll mechanic to determine responses instead of asking a person, the GM, what happens here? If people are unable to predict responses, then why have a person here? Hmmm, it seems you've stubbed your rhetorical toe in the rush to Fisk my post. That's a real danger with Fisking -- you get head down winning in the weeds and end up contradicting your own arguments.

The same goes for tactical combat. My group has some great roleplayers who really suck at tactics. That's the nature of all sports and games, they are played at different levels. If I play tennis against Serina Williams I will get my ass kicked, but that doesn't mean the rules should be changed to limit Serina's skill. But the best way to "get gud" or at least get better, it by practice. And you don't get practice if you remove the element you aren't so good at from the game.

No, of course the rules of tennis should not be written to limit skill at playing tennis. Yet, you seem to think that skill at checkers should translate into the rules of tennis, somehow? That being good at a skill in real life as a player should mean that whatever your character is supposed to be good and bad at, this should win through and the character should also be good at this skill. And vice versa for things the player is poor at but the character is good at -- the character should show to be bad at these things? This is a very interesting argument, and one I can actually support! It doesn't jive very well with typical roleplaying arguments though. It perfectly fits with the kind of paper thin character often seen in B/X dungeon crawls, though.

 

[Jer]

So the 90% is clearly hyperbole, but to many players, its likely the part they move toward more than others. I've never had a player say "I'm going to build a wilderness scout who can track really well, knows the flora and fauna, but isn't that great in combat." Its "I'm going to multiclass my optimized barbarian into druid or wizard or cleric for a couple levels and take spells/cantrips (or a Feat) that removes the exploration element from the game, but still steamroll equivalent CR encounters." But, your mileage may vary.

It's funny - I'm running a 1-on-1 with my kid where I told them up front their character is going to be shipwrecked on a desert island (the Isle of Dread as it turns out) and they actually did create a character that trades combat potential in order to max the elements they think will be more wilderness survival oriented (they ended up building a druid/ranger multiclass - we're starting at 5th level). So far they've been going out of their way to avoid combat (though I will admit that 1-on-1 games are often quite different from full parties since you only have two player's preferences towards the game to worry about).

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Good! I said this a few posts ago and you pushed back, but I'm glad we've gotten back here. Yes, 5e is mostly GM says outside of combat (the main exceptions being spells) and this means that there are tons and tons of constraints on the players' ability to resolve things via play in these areas -- all of them being the GM. The idea that having a GM fiat system means that players are more free is totally ignoring that what the players may want is not how the system works -- it's only the GM's opinion that matters. This is heavily constraining. So the argument that a system that limits this control of the GM via a mechanic is reducing player-side ability to do things is, on it's face, false. Mechanics limit GMs and often enable players. Look at how combat works -- players know how making an attack works, what they need to do in the fiction to be allowed to do so (be next to the monster, have a sword, not be restrained, etc) and so they can plan to do these things to get to make an attack. Can players predict the entire outcome of a fight? No, but there are now things that are predictable and that's because we're not asking the GM -- the rules tell us how this works. So, as a player that wants to swing a sword at a monster, I'm not more constrained by D&D's combat rules, the GM is more constrained by D&D's combat rules. If I get my positioning right and the GM denies my sword swing, it's now obvious that the GM is flaunting the rules of the game.

Otherwise, you should be arguing for free-form combat because it unfairly hampers players to have mechanics in place.

My goodness, you just split up a sentence to respond to pieces of it and then once each to the following two sentences. Let's see what the damage is:

You argue that it's impossible for a person to predict, at all, what a response to a social situation is. Okay, let's run with this -- why then are we not using a random die roll mechanic to determine responses instead of asking a person, the GM, what happens here? If people are unable to predict responses, then why have a person here? Hmmm, it seems you've stubbed your rhetorical toe in the rush to Fisk my post. That's a real danger with Fisking -- you get head down winning in the weeds and end up contradicting your own arguments.

No, of course the rules of tennis should not be written to limit skill at playing tennis. Yet, you seem to think that skill at checkers should translate into the rules of tennis, somehow? That being good at a skill in real life as a player should mean that whatever your character is supposed to be good and bad at, this should win through and the character should also be good at this skill. And vice versa for things the player is poor at but the character is good at -- the character should show to be bad at these things? This is a very interesting argument, and one I can actually support! It doesn't jive very well with typical roleplaying arguments though. It perfectly fits with the kind of paper thin character often seen in B/X dungeon crawls, though.

I think it's fair to say that you and I live on different planets and don't speak a common language!