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...

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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.

 

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doctorbadwolf

Heretic of The Seventh Circle
What do people hate about the Ranger? Hell... it's because the two main abilities they get at 1st level are EXPLORATION related and NOT combat! And thus the class "sucks".
Well, no. Level 1 Ranger sucks because the exploration benefits swing between ribbons and completely broken to the point of trivializing all exploration challenge, overnight, when you travel from the forest to the coastline. That level of asymmetry sucks.
 

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Cruentus

Adventurer
My groups that I ran it for had the exact opposite reaction. They liked Fate because it puts checks on the GM in the hands of the players while also emphasizing player input into the fiction.
If our one player (the DM adversary one) ever figured that out.... shudder.

But I also think that the "player input into the fiction" is a sticking point for some of us in the creativity department. Just feed us a module, describe the room, let us bash things and collect loot. That's about how far we get, often, in the "player input into the fiction" side. As DM, I create lots of world, NPCs, settings, but they're all ignored or glossed over.

Its likely the comfort in the "structure" of DnD, if that's a thing.
 

Parmandur

Book-Friend
Oof. This post is essentially the same exact behavior as what you’re replying to.

BiTD dn pbta games, games that specify more of the action as a result of mechanics, absolutely are restrictive in actual play experience for a lot of people.

In a past thread, I was told repeatedly that D&D is more restrictive because it doesn’t have detailed specific rules for certain things, or prescribed consequences for a lot of stuff. That notion is completely bonkers to me, but at least I can recognize that it isn’t said from ignorance of how D&D works, it’s just a difference of gaming preferences and experiences.
Absolutely all of this. Restrictions can be a spur to creativity (poetic form or musical Conventions for example), which is what I think PbtA has going for it: but it is more restrictive than the free wheeling "Well, you can certainly try" attitude of D&D.
 

Umbran

Mod Squad
Staff member
Supporter
"Freedom" is not a measurable quantity. Whether a game seems "free" or not depends on what restrictions you personally find intrusive, and which ones you don't. Whether a game seems to permissive depends on your notions of what each person should be allowed to do.

Put on top of this the usual general precept that Change is Bad.
 


tetrasodium

Legend
Supporter
Epic
If our one player (the DM adversary one) ever figured that out.... shudder.

But I also think that the "player input into the fiction" is a sticking point for some of us in the creativity department. Just feed us a module, describe the room, let us bash things and collect loot. That's about how far we get, often, in the "player input into the fiction" side. As DM, I create lots of world, NPCs, settings, but they're all ignored or glossed over.

Its likely the comfort in the "structure" of DnD, if that's a thing.
I ran semiopen fate games for years at a flgs, adversarial players who are out to "win" & passive players who want to travel a railroad in hammerspace till they can leap out to solve a problem are it's two biggest weaknesses, but that can be self correcting in a way. I've literally said words along the lines of "but you aren't there because $gotoproblematicaspect bob... remember?" had the other players agree with me and not only made bob buy his way back into scenes nobody wanted to call him into (not a game term, like call or text bob on their cell at no real cost to themselves & tell him they were doing x at y). Bob made a character that had no ties to anything but fighting & such in ways that made frank castle look like an extreme extrovert socialite in a game not being played for that kind of loner edgelord disruption & didn't have anything he could tag to insert him into the scene.

Fate is structured mechanically in a way that if players ignore the world or try to build characters that opt out from the themes & such they quickly amass all of the rope they need to eject their own character from that world & campaign
 


Jacob Lewis

Ye Olde GM
The thing I've not seen mentioned is that this is the same Cubicle 7 that utterly nailed the Dr. Who initiative system. The initiative order in the old C7 Dr Who goes Talkers Runners Doers Fighters. In other words if you want to talk as your productive action you always go before someone else - and people trying to run away get to go before the people trying to shoot them - and before the people e.g. trying to close the blast doors (who also go before the fighters).
Thanks for sharing this! That actually makes me more interested in their system. I love seeing innovative ideas that think outside the box (or tardis). So part of the fault is with me for not taking more of an interest to check out these other systems and supporting their work.

But it recently occurred to me that they also made The One Ring RPG, which I did purchase along with a bunch of their pdfs on Humble Bundle some time ago). I thought that was very good. And I still praise their adaptation for 5e with Adventures in Middle Earth, which demonstrated how D&D might work with less focus on the combat pillar and more mechanics for the others. So I have no doubts that this adaptation will also knock it out of the park. However, I still think TOR is a much better system for the game they created. And while I enjoyed reading through it, I never really found enough people with enough interest, time, or money to invest or discuss it for more than a moment. Or if they do, they prefer to use AiME so they can keep using the system they are familiar with, invested in, and know they can easily find others to participate. And therein lies the double-edged sword.

You know who's side is missing from this discussion on this forum? The fans of their original Dr. Who game (as well as fans of any other system or edition dealing with the behemoth that is 5e D&D). Imagine that you're one of the few hundreds or thousands people who love this game. It's great! But you can't play it alone. So who's going to play with you? Can't be just anyone. You need to find that cross-section of the general populace that (at the very least) must be a) accessible to you, b) interested in playing RPGs, and c) somewhat familiar with Dr. Who. (More factors for complete compatibility, etc., would be nice, but we don't always have that luxury, especially with such a super-niche circle of interest.)

As if it wasn't hard enough to get anyone interested in trying something new and as complex as an RPG, the majority of those that do are only interested in the biggest, coolest, and most popular system out there and not without good reasons. I'm not gonna go through that entire list, like time, money, and general appeal, but I will acknowledge that they are valid. So I can't blame the customers who make decisions for themselves, or the company that sees a way to make money by catering to a larger customer base.

So now why would I ever want to invest in another system or company again? I can't play the games I love because its too hard to find the right people for your game. Its even harder to convince anyone to try the system you believe in when there's a 5e-compatible alternative for everything. Sure, my bookshelves look great with such a diverse collection of one-offs and complete sets of RPGs that I rarely get to use. But what's the point now when everything will eventually have a 5e-compatible option and no one will see any reason to try anything else?

Everyone keeps saying that 5e's success is great for the hobby. Even if it wasn't a success, I can't imagine it would have impacted many of the successful independent publishers who developed their own games that were not designed for fans of D&D. D&D has traditionally been the gateway RPG for a lot of people who continue to be fans of RPGs in general. Pulling people away and expanding their exposure to other companies with different games, systems, and genres, is only getting harder. So it seems to me that 5e's success really only benefits 5e. Or at least until the next "e".
 

Ovinomancer

No flips for you!
No. I have not seen a system, that does not boils down to "DM decides".

Maybe if you use 4e, you could always use "level appropriate DCs" and still, the DM decides if it is easy, medium or difficult, how many rolls are necessary and so on.
If you have an adversary DM, there is nothing a player can do to "win". Some games make it more obvious that DM and Players are in an arms race, some not. Is it fun? No. But no system can save this group.
Okay, you haven't seen one. They do exist. Your experience seems to be with systems where the GM is the assigned arbitrator of when rules even apply, and when they do, they get free access to the bits and bobs of that machinery to tinker it to however they, the GM, thinks it should be. And, yes, in this case, if you have an unfair GM, they can apply this authority unfairly. (I switched from "adversarial" to "unfair" because the GM darn-better be adversarial! It's their job! They bring the adverse stuff for the PCs to overcome! What they should also be is fair and honest in bringing that adversity. It's not being adversarial that's the issue here, it's being unfair.)

Other systems take things like DC out of the GM's hands. Take PbtA, for instance. Here, every roll is 2d6+modifier and the outcomes are always 6- failure, 7-9 success with cost/complication, 10+ success. Individual moves may outline what success/failure/consequence is specifically, but the rolls are all the same. The GM cannot add or subtract modifiers from rolls -- any subtractions will be from previous failed rolls telling you this occurs, and additions are Stats or outcomes from previous rolls that say to add one. The GM can't monkey with this. Further, the GM cannot say "no" to a player move, and they are required to invoke the mechanics when they apply. So long as players are within the fiction and genre, the GM can't block actions. This system is not "GM Says" at all. Everything is in the open, there are no secret notes, you play, see what happens, and then go from there.

Do you have to like this system? Nope. Not saying it's even better or worse. It exists, and works, and isn't GM Says. Other games do the same thing in other ways. These games tend to radically differ from D&D in that the GM can't really prep play -- how can you when the next action might seriously alter play trajectory? They offer clear tools to assist the GM in continuing to provide situation for the players, to push that honest adversity, and even tell the GM to not play nice -- pour it on. Not playing nice isn't not playing fair, though.

Let me provide an example for my Thursday game where we're playing The Between, a PbtA/Candlewood Bay game. In this, my PC was confronted with a young man wrestling with an older for a gun, while claiming to have been kidnapped along with his sister. My PC is a noted gunfighter, so when I declared I drew and shot the older gentleman, this triggered the need to resolve the action (this is demanded by the system in this case). In this game, this triggers the Day move, or a move that you make when doing something risky or dangerous during the Day phase (where stakes aren't as high as the Night phase). This requires the GM to ask the player what they fear will happen -- what bad thing will occur if this move fails. Since this is a conversation, the GM suggested that I might be afraid I'd hit the boy. I said no, absolutely not, me shooting the boy is off the table because my character, as a renowned gunfighter, wouldn't do that. The GM said okay, what then. I said that I couldn't line up a clean shot before the older man gained control over the gun and shot someone. The GM obliged, I rolled 2d6 +Vitality (which was 1), with advantage due to a playbook move, and scored a 13. This is 10+, so the older man was felled with a round right between the eyes. None of this relied on GM Says to resolve. Further, since this game has a result for the Day move for 12+, the GM was required to provide some extra benefit or advantage. Here the
 

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