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]

Which Classes have just an many non-combat abilities as combat? Or were you referring to Backgrounds, which are not Classes

All of them, frankly, as was detailed by others upthread.

Yes, the way the game works is by letting players make action declarations and giving the DM freedom to use simple principles to come up with a resolution and results. That's not because the non-combat elements aren't important, it's precisely because they are importabt, and freeform improvisation is the design approach taken, rather than limitations dictating possible actions and results.

 

[Oofta]

LOL.

Sure, the game that has the MOST support for out of combat material is the one that is "largely about combat."

Hell, this is perfect for this conversation. 4e was rejected, partly anyway, BECAUSE it focused so much of the mechanics outside of combat. Speaks volumes for how important combat is to D&D gamers. Heck, my cleric question actually gets answered in 4e - you make it a skill challenge and work out, depending on the complexity, how many converts the cleric makes. It wouldn't actually be that hard in 4e. As an added bonus, you could turn it into a nice little mini game for the entire group, if you were so inclined.

This is the first time I've ever heard anyone say that. I didn't really care for the implementation of skill challenges and the effect they had on the game if that's what you're getting at. I didn't reject the game because it applied to out of combat. It was just a bad rule for some.

 

[Oofta]

All of them, frankly, as was detailed by others upthread.

Yes, the way the game works is by letting players make action declarations and giving the DM freedom to use simple principles to come up with a resolution and results. That's not because the non-combat elements aren't important, it's precisely because they are importabt, and freeform improvisation is the design approach taken, rather than limitations dictating possible actions and results.

Bah, humbug! Obviously we need to have rules for establishing a trade network along with every other possible interaction outside of combat that there is. Not sure how that could be accomplished.

There are some 3PP books that deal with some of this stuff, but because it's nearly infinite in scope, I don't see how it could be added without significant bloat. That, and I prefer free-form with light rules for most of the game. I just need concrete rules for combat because I wouldn't know where to start.

 

[CleverNickName]

I answered it. Just not in the way folks assumed it would be answered.

"How many slices of pepperoni are on this pizza?"
"Lots!" or, "Just a few," are viable answers.

(CleverNickName has entered the chat)

 

[billd91]

LOL.

Sure, the game that has the MOST support for out of combat material is the one that is "largely about combat."

Hell, this is perfect for this conversation. 4e was rejected, partly anyway, BECAUSE it focused so much of the mechanics outside of combat. Speaks volumes for how important combat is to D&D gamers. Heck, my cleric question actually gets answered in 4e - you make it a skill challenge and work out, depending on the complexity, how many converts the cleric makes. It wouldn't actually be that hard in 4e. As an added bonus, you could turn it into a nice little mini game for the entire group, if you were so inclined.

That is literally the first time I've ever seen the assertion that 4e was rejected because it focused too much outside of combat. Yeah, skill challenges had problems, but the way 4e handled combat powers and focused myopically on complex combat encounters were far bigger factors and drew far more complaints.

But here's the rub - you can make the leap to construct a method of counting how many people you convert using skill challenges, but you can't make the leap from using downtime making money (i.e. donations) to do the same thing?!?

 

[Malmuria]

 

[Older Beholder]

Personally I think the focus of the game is Roleplay and Storytelling, as both of this things happen the entire game, even in combat.

You could spend a session in a tavern hanging out not using the combat rules at all (or any rules for that matter) and that would still be playing D&D.

Whereas, if you each just picked a bunch of monsters from the monsters manual and spent an evening in a royal rumble, fighting against each other. I wouldn't call that D&D even if you used more rules from the book.

I'm OK with people thinking the game is primarily combat focused, for many people it is, but more and more, I think for a lot of people it isn't. And as for what started this whole discussion, Ignoring the whole 'what % of D&D is combat' and focusing on the issue of 'Dr Who shouldn't use D&D rules as they focus on combat' I don't see any issue with people playing Dr Who with a focus on action, if that's what people find fun.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Personally I think the focus of the game is Roleplay and Storytelling, as both of this things happen the entire game, even in combat.

You could spend a session in a tavern hanging out not using the combat rules at all (or any rules for that matter) and that would still be playing D&D.

Whereas, if you each just picked a bunch of monsters from the monsters manual and spent an evening in a royal rumble, fighting against each other. I wouldn't call that D&D even if you used more rules from the book.

I'm OK with people thinking the game is primarily combat focused, for many people it is, but more and more, I think for a lot of people it isn't. And as for what started this whole discussion, Ignoring the whole 'what % of D&D is combat' and focusing on the issue of 'Dr Who shouldn't use D&D rules as they focus on combat' I don't see any issue with people playing Dr Who with a focus on action, if that's what people find fun.

This is odd. The play you do that you don't ever even need to read or look at a D&D book because it's all playing pretend is totally D&D, but the bits where you absolutely are engaging with the rules of the game is not D&D.

Why is it that the things that can be done without D&D -- the things we do all on our own with no help -- are credited to D&D so often?

 

[Older Beholder]

In regards to the example of a cleric attracting a flock, I used the downtime rules to do this in a game recently.

There is a large multi-faith church in the city dedicated to the 'Forgotten Gods' (Gods from Forgotten Realms) and the head priest asked the player to give a sermon. I did something similar with each player as part of leveling up.

I had my player make 3 skill checks:
Religion, Insight, and Persuasion

This was at level 2, so he only needed to pass 2 out of 3 in order to earn his place. He succeeded and I had a few people approach him after the speech, expressing an interest. Going forward, he will gain/lose a follower for each point over/under the set DC for each skill check.

He messaged me after the game to tell me how much he liked that aspect of the session.

 

[Oofta]

This is odd. The play you do that you don't ever even need to read or look at a D&D book because it's all playing pretend is totally D&D, but the bits where you absolutely are engaging with the rules of the game is not D&D.

Why is it that the things that can be done without D&D -- the things we do all on our own with no help -- are credited to D&D so often?

What's odd is people insisting that combat is the only aspect of D&D that matters.

D&D is, for lack of a better term, it's own genre. Yes some other games copy it, but they are copies. It has it's own mythology, feel and style. Specific implementation significantly but most games share more in imagery, expectations, general cultural expectations than not.

So you don't get to tell people that they aren't playing D&D when they aren't referencing rules. Could I have similar experiences with a different game? Sure. But those wouldn't be D&D.