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]

I think it's funny that so many old school players refer to everything combat related as "murder xyz".

Like, XP is useful for determining relatively accurate combat challenge, and that's about all it's good for IMO, but by the book it certainly isn't just there as "murder tokens" to turn in to get better toys for murdering, even if we ignore the absurdity of characterizing the general thrust of dnd play as involving "murder".

I mean look at the adventures. Were we overdue for some adventures focused on exploration and interaction? Sure! And we have gotten both recently, although certainly not for the first time. Before that we got plenty of all three pillars in most adventures, but they all required violence to solve, because the evil cult was trying to bring Tiamat into the world, or whatever, so Witchlight is a nice change as an adventure that can easily feature no combat at all.

But having most adventures require all three pillars, with some focusing hard on one pillar and some on another, is....good design. Like obviously good design.

And the resort to violence as a goto solution is probably a matter of genre as much as anything.

 

[Bill Zebub]

In my experience it’s 100% combat.

At least, when the DM says, “Hey, pay attention! It’s your turn” and I look up from my phone we are always in combat. Every single time.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

And the resort to violence as a goto solution is probably a matter of genre as much as anything.

Absolutely.

 

[hawkeyefan]

On the contrary, that ineffable quality of deeendee might be the greatest strength the game has.

As far as market share and influence in the industry, sure.

But as far as a game? I don't see how that means much.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

As far as market share and influence in the industry, sure.

But as far as a game? I don't see how that means much.

So, it contributes to the game being popular...but somehow not to it being a good game.

I think this mindset requires an enormous leap of logic.

 

[hawkeyefan]

So, it contributes to the game being popular...but somehow not to it being a good game.

I think this mindset requires an enormous leap of logic.

Let's retrace the steps to this point and then take my comment in context. Not that I think just because something is popular makes it better than something that is not popular. I think...I hope....we all know that's not true.

Here's the string of posts that have led us here:

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.

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

I’m just being cheeky. But I will say that the D&Dness of D&D isn’t much of a strength.

On the contrary, that ineffable quality of deeendee might be the greatest strength the game has.

So no, I don't think that it's a leap to say that D&D being D&D doesn't really mean anything in this context. It's essentially "tie goes to D&D" or "D&D is best because D&D", which I think is silly.

 

[Parmandur]

As far as market share and influence in the industry, sure.

But as far as a game? I don't see how that means much.

D&D has a certain way of adjudicating actions outside of combat. The details ha e changed across Editions, a few more than others. But the general trend line has been of a particular sort of improvisational freedom, that has that D&D feel. I've played 2E (retroactively, after 3E), 3.x, 4E, and 5E, and most of the way we played at the table stayed the same.

 

[Umbran]

Not sure what you're responding to, but there are plenty of pretty good games that deal well with social encounters via mechanics out there that I don't think this is the case.

It is my expectation that most people who play RPGs play some flavor of D&D/Pathfinder, and not much else, such that most players don't have experience with extensive social encounter rules.

Your opinion on that may differ. I am not going to argue with you about which of our opinions is correct. That wouldn't be valuable discussion.

 

[Ovinomancer]

It is my expectation that most people who play RPGs play some flavor of D&D/Pathfinder, and not much else, such that most players don't have experience with extensive social encounter rules.

Your opinion on that may differ. I am not going to argue with you about which of our opinions is correct. That wouldn't be valuable discussion.

That's my belief as well. Not sure what the disconnect is, then.

 

[Ovinomancer]

D&D has a certain way of adjudicating actions outside of combat. The details ha e changed across Editions, a few more than others. But the general trend line has been of a particular sort of improvisational freedom, that has that D&D feel. I've played 2E (retroactively, after 3E), 3.x, 4E, and 5E, and most of the way we played at the table stayed the same.

This is fine, for you, but it's already established that BIFTs are a major divergence between how you play at your table and a large section of everyone else. Given the general trends in discussion, very few tables use BIFTs regularly, if at all. So the claim that you've always played the game the same way regardless of the rather large differences in how out-of-combat things have works across your listed editions is really just saying that you're playing your game of D&D and don't really care much what the editions say about playing. You already know how you want to play D&D, so you just borrow off those bits that you like from current edition, fill in from past edition those things you want to keep, and do your own thing for the rest. This is perfectly fine, but it's a mistake to call this the same D&D as everyone else, or even 5e as it's presented in by the rulebooks.

I mean, the 5e DMG has pretty decent rules for adjudicating social interaction with NPCs -- do you use these rules?