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]

Oh, gosh, multiple people in this thread have said the same thing I just did, but you want a survey from me? Does it need to be a vetted instrument? How do you feel about the usefulness of Likert scales?

So, given your last I'm going to guess that you do not use the Social Interaction rules from the DMG (they aren't presented as optional, by the way). I find that interesting, as they are the only mechanic in the game aside from Inspiration that refer to BIFTs. Granted not on the PC side but on the NPC side.

In general, when people saying things like "the rules do a good job of getting out of the way," they generally mean "I find it easy to ignore rules when it suits me." I rarely ever see it used to mean "I use these rules all the time, but they aren't onerous at all." If I'm incorrect, I'd love to hear some anecdotes about how you've used the social interaction rules in a smooth and easy way.

Sure I use the rules, never said that I didn't. But as written, they don't get in the way of the actual play, as some rules do.

I think it's a bit of a leap from a handful of posters on a forum to "a large section of everyone else." Certainly not a nonexistant group, but let's not overstate the case.

 

[Parmandur]

I've found quite often roleplaying is not roleplaying. For instance, if I only every refer to my character in the 3rd person, can I be said to be roleplaying? The answer for some is no. The answer for me is absolutely yes. Some people think that attempting to play act is critical to roleplaying. I find it entertaining, but not necessary for good roleplaying. For me, the crux of roleplaying is honest advocacy for the character's needs, wants, and goals. The rest is set dressing. What's your opinion on what roleplaying is?

Taking on the role of another person in q controlled environment and making choices based on the point of view of thst role. So the Model UN or some therapy would fall under the same rubric. A roleplaying game is roleplaying with a systematic means of adjudicating results of declared actions, such as dice or a Jenga tower. Therapy and the Model UN are a bit fuzzier.

 

[Malmuria]

Yeeesss.... but this isn't at all unique to D&D, nor it is better enabled by D&Disms over other things. Other RPGs have archetypes as well, some very well done, and easy touchstones to RPG from. It's not a unique feature, nor does D&D have the ability to claim it does it best. I dunno who does it best, seems a silly question when we're looking for archetype hooks to hang characterization on.

What I've found playing Blades is that the archetypes don't feel quite as intuitive for my players, even though the game works to tie thematization to the mechanics of the playbooks. It could just be that dnd has become self-referential, esp through video games and movies, so that "elf archer" does a lot of work enabling the freeform system to work.

It's also not necessarily about crediting the system. Consider Tieflings, which have become queer-coded in 5e. I bet that the designers did not intend this at all, and it's not a dnd-ism that has made its way to popular crpgs generally. But something about the way they were depicted in 5e made them aesthetically interesting for queer rpg players.

 

[Parmandur]

It may be, opinions vary. @Parmandur seems to think so, and that's cool. I like it, but I don't think the non-combat resolution is all that great, nor do I think the game as designed is all that clear about how it's intended to work. Different groups will find their way to handle things, and that's all great.

I don't care one bit about the margin, though. I don't think D&D is the biggest name in RPGs solely, or maybe even mostly, because of its mechanics. As was mentioned, there are games that handle out of combat resolution the same as D&D. So when comparing them, saying "but they are not D&D" doesn't mean anything about the quality of non-combat resolution, or any other element that may be discussed.

I think the rules are pretty clear on how they are supposed to work...a framework for negotiation on terms for an action leading to a roll to determine outcomes. The DMG explains it all pretty succinctly.

I don't think D&D or 5E in particular are big because of the rules. It's big because it is first, and sits in a genre space that really speaks to a number of people.

However, ancestors it is first, and it does a good job in getting out of the way in play and works the way people want it to, it has social and psychological primacy over others that play in the same space. Same as Magic with trading card games.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I think the rules are pretty clear on how they are supposed to work...a framework for negotiation on terms for an action leading to a roll to determine outcomes. The DMG explains it all pretty succinctly.

Oh I think there's a lot of unclear bits in there. The general process is described, sure, but I think that in many areas, it lacks specificity.

I think this is intentional so that people can take those rules and then put their own spin on things. Sometimes, multiple approaches are mentioned and described. Other times, things are vague and left as such.

I don't think D&D or 5E in particular are big because of the rules. It's big because it is first, and sits in a genre space that really speaks to a number of people.

However, ancestors it is first, and it does a good job in getting out of the way in play and works the way people want it to, it has social and psychological primacy over others that play in the same space. Same as Magic with trading card games.

I agree with you here, D&D is the market leader and to many (especially outside the hobby, but even within it) it's synonymous with roleplaying games the same way Q-Tips are cotton swabs.

But that doesn't actually make it the best. Just that it's the most available and known.

 

[FrogReaver]

Oh I think there's a lot of unclear bits in there. The general process is described, sure, but I think that in many areas, it lacks specificity.

I think this is intentional so that people can take those rules and then put their own spin on things. Sometimes, multiple approaches are mentioned and described. Other times, things are vague and left as such.



I agree with you here, D&D is the market leader and to many (especially outside the hobby, but even within it) it's synonymous with roleplaying games the same way Q-Tips are cotton swabs.

But that doesn't actually make it the best. Just that it's the most available and known.

Out of curiousity. Suppose there was a single game out there that was significantly better than D&D for every player. What's a reasonable explanation for why such a game wouldn't became more popular than D&D?

 

[Ovinomancer]

Sure I use the rules, never said that I didn't. But as written, they don't get in the way of the actual play, as some rules do.

I think it's a bit of a leap from a handful of posters on a forum to "a large section of everyone else." Certainly not a nonexistant group, but let's not overstate the case.

Really, you actually use the social interaction rules? That's unexpected and cool. I'd love to hear an example of your play -- what worked best? What could have worked better? I'm keenly interested in hearing someone else's take on how these actually worked in play, and people that use them seem few and far between.

 

[The Myopic Sniper]

Can we also talk about how the head of D&D came out swinging his weight against faceless Twitter nobodies who slighted the 800 lb. gorilla in the room that doesn't need defending?

Edit: I get that the Twitterspace around 5e is hostile in the wake of this Doctor Who announcement, but I'm not sure why WotC senior staff feels the need to defend D&D from the claim that it is 90 percent combat. It seems like they could have done more for their cause by saying "D&D 5e has robust mechanics that provide ample support for combat and for other game modes too."

Although the blowback is widespread, some of the biggest and loudest noises seem to becoming from nerd influencers who had ideological issues with the new race stats, having a woman cast as Doctor and attempts by WOTC to make D&D more inclusive. Silence from WOTC on this issue would directly reflect on the D&D brand in the eyes of some people because of who some of the noisiest people on this are.

 

[Hussar]

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.

I think that these conversations are so fundamentally grounded in this fact.

You know who says D&D isn't 90% combat? D&D players. You know who says D&D is 90% combat? Everyone else.

That's a bit tongue in cheek, but, there is a grain of truth there. It's very, very obvious from the questions that get asked and the points that are raised that those who think that social mechanics aren't needed or are restrictive or whatever, have very, very little experience with games which have social mechanics. D&D has never really had much in the way of social mechanics. Heck, one of the biggest complaints about 3e was how social mechanics actually appeared in any form in the game. There is a HUGE amount of inertia resisting the idea of social mechanics in the game.

But, to give an example of how social mechanics work -

My cleric wants to preach to the masses. He's going to spend a week (to pick a random number) preaching to the masses. Does he convince anyone to come to his temple?

In D&D, how would you even start to do that?

In games with social mechanics - it gets handled by the system at varying degrees of complexity depending on the system.

But, frankly, the point that was raised earlier pretty much says it all - D&D doesn't do that and it never, ever will. There is just no way that fandom will allow this into D&D. At least, not for a couple more decades anyway. The notion of "good roleplaying doesn't need mechanics" is too ingrained into the zeitgeist of D&D gamers.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Taking on the role of another person in q controlled environment and making choices based on the point of view of thst role. So the Model UN or some therapy would fall under the same rubric. A roleplaying game is roleplaying with a systematic means of adjudicating results of declared actions, such as dice or a Jenga tower. Therapy and the Model UN are a bit fuzzier.

Therapy is an entirely different thing altogether, and not terribly fuzzy. Model UN is just another RPG, really. And you've already argued that lots of D&D is just GM Says, which isn't a really systematic means of adjudicating result of declared actions, is it?