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

 

[payn]

The original thread is more like claiming that concerts are largely about dancing.

There are individual concerts where that is true, sure. But it isn't broadly true.

 

[Parmandur]

Sure, but that’s applicable to some extent to any social activity.

I mean, I live going to concerts. Sometimes, I’ll go to one where I’m not even all that interested in the performer, but am just there for the social element of hanging with friends and having some drinks and so on.

Doesn’t mean the concert isn’t about the music.

Yeah, @doctorbadwolf has a good adjustment to the analogy here. Sure, many concerts have dancing, some have none, some are actually just dances.

I will add that I think that making the design assumption of "D&D is largely about combat" is precisely the central mistake of 4E on the conceptual level (in terms of taking user needs into account, which for a game is everything).

 

[hawkeyefan]

This.

And also, the claim was that D&D is predominantly about combat. Most of the arguments in support of that claim range from nonsensical to conclusions that don't follow from the premises. I mean, "My group mostly fights things" does not lead to "DnD is mostly about combat". It just leads to "some groups focus on combat in a game where each group chooses what to focus on, surprising no one."

Then you've got people conflating the original claim with arguments like "DnD is an action game where eventually you usually fight the BBEG in order to win", which is a different claim. That claims does not mean, even if true, that the game is mostly about combat. "Will usually include some amount of X" does not mean that chocolate flavoured baked goods are largely about vanilla.

Well this all started because Cubicle 7 decided to make a 5e version of Dr. Who. So they took a property that is not primarily about fighting and decided to use a game whose mechanics are primarily about fighting. It's a bit of an odd choice, and certainly the decision to do so was not about the suitability of the system so much as tapping into the large 5e user base. And honestly, that's all fine.... I don't blame them for the move, and maybe they can take the 5e chassis and tweak it to the point that it will work for Dr. Who. I also don't blame anyone who questions the decision and what it says about the industry and D&D's place in it. I can see both sides of the discussion.

The 90% thing came as a criticism of that decision, and then Ray Winninger framed his response as if he took the claim literally. The 90% figure isn't what matters. It's that the game is primarily concerned with fighting. Hence the abundance of combat rules and combat focused character options and so on. Hence the labeling of the Monster Book as a CORE book. Hence the reward structure of the game being about defeating foes. The game literally incentivizes combat.

Yes, there's more to the game than just fighting. Yes, the amount of that will vary from person to person or table to table. That doesn't change the fact which is plainly obvious that the game is primarily concerned with fighting.

Winninger probably would have been better served had he addressed the criticism without acting ashamed that D&D's about fighting.

Yeah, @doctorbadwolf has a good adjustment to the analogy here. Sure, many concerts have dancing, some have none, some are actually just dances.

I will add that I think that making the design assumption of "D&D is largely about combat" is precisely the central mistake of 4E on the conceptual level (in terms of taking user needs into account, which for a game is everything).

I don't think any adjustment to the analogy was necessary. You commented on the social angle of D&D..... drinking and sophomoric jokes... as being what the game was about. So, I applied the same to concerts to show how my drinking and hanging with friends doesn't change what the concert's about.

As for 4e, it had arguably the most robust non-combat mechanics of any edition. I would say that the game was heavily designed in all aspects, compared to other editions of D&D.

 

[Parmandur]

I don't think any adjustment to the analogy was necessary. You commented on the social angle of D&D..... drinking and sophomoric jokes... as being what the game was about. So, I applied the same to concerts to show how my drinking and hanging with friends doesn't change what the concert's about.

But that's precisely the point: you assume that the combat is the music in the analogy, which began the question. Whereas my view is that the roleplaying experience with friends is the music, with combat being dancing in the crowd: a significant part of the experience at some concerts, not at all present at some concerts (like a Beethoven Sy phony, no matter how mcuh it rocks), and central at a square dance. All have music, and are thus united in participation in the form if "concert." The dancing is a different factor. Thus is combat to D&D: it's the dancing, the freewheeling social game is the music.

As for 4e, it had arguably the most robust non-combat mechanics of any edition. I would say that the game was heavily designed in all aspects, compared to other editions of D&D.

Being "heavily" designed, and being "robust", doesn't help if the design structure isn't oriented to help users do what they wish to do. For the value of "D&D is mostly about combat," 4E is well tuned, and works great if that is how someone engages with the game.. Otherwise, it is fairly restricted can get in the way for many playstyles (apparently most, per WotC).

 

[Parmandur]

Hence the reward structure of the game being about defeating foes.

As a minor note, most tables don't use combat XP anymore. apparently WotC has found that milestone has become the norm among players, hence the move more and more in that direction.

 

[DEFCON 1]

If anyone believes the main focus of D&D is not fighting monsters or planning to fight monsters or finding ways to avoid fighting monsters, more power to ya. But I, and a whole lot of other people think you are grossly mistaken in that belief. Not that that matters... you can believe whatever you want, just like we do. And at the end of the day it doesn't actually matter who is or isn't right.

 

[Aldarc]

This.

And also, the claim was that D&D is predominantly about combat. Most of the arguments in support of that claim range from nonsensical to conclusions that don't follow from the premises. I mean, "My group mostly fights things" does not lead to "DnD is mostly about combat". It just leads to "some groups focus on combat in a game where each group chooses what to focus on, surprising no one."

Then you've got people conflating the original claim with arguments like "DnD is an action game where eventually you usually fight the BBEG in order to win", which is a different claim. That claims does not mean, even if true, that the game is mostly about combat. "Will usually include some amount of X" does not mean that chocolate flavoured baked goods are largely about vanilla.

I do not think that these are accurate summarizations of the respective arguments presented, but you do you.

 

[Parmandur]

If anyone believes the main focus of D&D is not fighting monsters or planning to fight monsters or finding ways to avoid fighting monsters, more power to ya. But I, and a whole lot of other people think you are grossly mistaken in that belief. Not that that matters... you can believe whatever you want, just like we do. And at the end of the day it doesn't actually matter who is or isn't right.

It is part of the genre tropes, but it is not everything.

 

[Oofta]

If anyone believes the main focus of D&D is not fighting monsters or planning to fight monsters or finding ways to avoid fighting monsters, more power to ya. But I, and a whole lot of other people think you are grossly mistaken in that belief. Not that that matters... you can believe whatever you want, just like we do. And at the end of the day it doesn't actually matter who is or isn't right.

Depends on the campaign and perspective. Yes, monsters are one of the obstacles to achieving an overall goal. Probably the single most used one. But is the game about fighting monsters or achieving goals? I haven't played a "let's go hunt some monsters" or even "there's a dungeon, let's go loot it" game since High School. Even then we had other goals.

It's like trying to decide what % of the rules are combat. Is the MM 100% combat related? Yes and no, because about 50% is spent on fluff, the only thing you need for combat is the stat block. So I think the whole conversation is a bit iffy. Combat is very important to D&D but about the only thing I can tell you is what % of our game time is spent from "roll initiative" to "their dead Jim". That's about 50% for me.

 

[Hussar]

You’ve completely missed, or are intentionally ignoring, the point that was made via the downtime rules example.

You mean like you completely failed to answer my question? I mean, I asked, specifically, how many people I would attract to my congregation. The only answer I was given was how much money I would make. Which makes me conclude that, since you are now insisting on this answer, that the rules cannot actually answer my question.

But hey, feel free to make more snarky cheap shots about my intentions. Yes, that's the way to engage in discussion. Accusations of bad faith of anyone who doesn't immediately agree with you is a fantastic means of communication.