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

 

[Parmandur]

No, ANY table can make up whatever they want. There's nothing special about D&D that enable you to make stuff up on your own. I don't understand what making things up on your own consistently gets attributed to D&D as if it uniquely allows this to happen. You do it, take pride!

5E provides a very fluid resolution mechanic that creates a meaningful space where improvisation can occur, without needing to think about the rules or learn new rules on a regular basis.

 

[payn]

5E provides a very fluid resolution mechanic that creates a meaningful space where improvisation can occur, without needing to think about the rules or learn new rules on a regular basis.

Any numbers of RPGs can do this.

 

[Parmandur]

Any numbers of RPGs can do this.

Sure, but none of them are D&D, are they?

 

[jmartkdr2]

This gets me to another point, and I can't tell you how or even if it applies.

I've played lots of other games (RPGs, TTMiniatures, Boardgames, Computer Games, etc.), and in the TT miniatures realm, what I find is that how the "designers" play the game is often different than how the rest of us play. I've seen this particularly in TT miniatures (GW specifically, the 800lb gorilla in that arena). Players complain there about balance, and rules churn, and the ability to easily "break" things, and OP units/models. When pointed out, the response from devs (in the past) has been "But why would you do that?" or "That's not the intent." But it is allowed by the rules. They play a more laid back style, see the rules play out in a different way than many do.

I don't know if that's the case with DnD where the Devs and writers do actually play, but play differently? What would a game or adventure look like from their end? Do they use Feats like Chef, Dungeon Delver, or Linguist? Do they use Feats at all? What's their experience with Twilight Clerics on the table and why wasn't it seen as powerful to them? Etc.

On the other hand, I feel like they've been pretty open about how their tables (Crawford's?) handles certain rulings, but I also wonder how much they play all the stuff they put out there, or is it all reliant on feedback from the playerbase.

The books for 13th Age (which was written by a lead designer for DnD 3e and the lead designer for DnD 4e) are pretty up-front about how they run the game: reddit, at least, would call their style "fast and loose" though I think here they'd rate medium stingy. They mostly follow the rules, but are not adverse to changing things that don't feel right in the moment. If they feel the need, they change it.

This means they really don't think in terms of munchkins - any more than the other side of Hasbro worries about people sticking ponies in a blender. They'd prefer you didn't, and the toys aren't designed to work afterwards (but are, oddly enough, safe to drink).

That seems, to me, to be the general attitude at WotC to how DnD 'should' be played: it's your toy, do pretty much whatever you want with it (but don't hit your sister).

I personally share this attitude - munchkins gonna munchkin, and the only way to prevent them from ruining your game is to not play with them. Trying to change the rules to prevent all abuse requires taking all the fun out of it.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Sure, but none of them are D&D, are they?

This is true.

Most have far less than 90% combat.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Good roleplaying doesn't require rules, and I've felt with 5e from the beginning has had a much stronger focus on encouraging players to roleplay. I love all those little charts you can pick from/roll on for character back story or motivations (also handy for quickly generating NPCs), even if it sometimes feels like they sacrifice room that in previous editions to be used for world building.

I would say good roleplaying requires context - which 5e does a lot better than prior DnD editions.

 

[Neonchameleon]

IME White Wolf's Storyteller system oversells itself as a narrative system - I haven't played the newest edition yet but the older ones were clunky and depended a lot on ignoring rules to keep the game flowing (much like the AD&D rules of the time did).

IME White Wolf's Storyteller system was pretty good by the standards of narrative games produced in the very early 90s because there was little else actually trying to do that. But the main goal of The Forge can be summed up as "We want to play the sort of games that White Wolf promises but only gives the barest hint of delivering on" (D&D was mostly irrelevant). And by modern standards Storyteller is traditional and clunky.

 

[Neonchameleon]

And that's the big question, isn't it? If D&D has much more complexity in its Combat mechanics rather than it's Social or Exploration mechanics... is that because it NEEDS that complexity, or because it WANTS all that complexity and those moving parts to make it more interesting?

I'd have said option C - that making combat mechanics is easy but making good social mechanics is very very hard and most attempts at them suck.

 

[Umbran]

I'd have said option C - that making combat mechanics is easy but making good social mechanics is very very hard and most attempts at them suck.

Option C.1 - Most folks have so little experience with extensive social mechanics that they don't know what they want from them, so that it is hard to make any of them seem good.

 

[Parmandur]

This is true.

Most have far less than 90% combat.

As does D&D.