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

 

[Ovinomancer]

You're not establishing why exactly it is that "if the outcome isn't exactly the same as it would have been given the vanilla rules, that means there's been a departure from really playing 5E", or defending that notion in light of how incredibly narrow it appears. So narrow that it's going to make it look like a No True Scotsman fallacy, and maybe no one is playing 5E then.

You're mistaking me entirely. I don't care about the outcome, I care about the how. No two D&D games are likely to have the same outcome even if they use the rules. How you get to the outcomes can be the same, though -- did you use the rules given or did you do something else, and if something else, what?

 

[Ovinomancer]

See the Role of the Dice section in the DMG. Both are D&D and come down to group preference. There's no one true way to play the game, the rules form the foundation of the game we play it doesn't dictate every act or resolution. Board games can give instructions on how to resolve everything that can happen, RPGs cannot and 5E doesn't try.

No, not really. Getting permission to ignore the rules of the game and just play pretend with a side of Bob Says doesn't turn that into a useful resolution framework for a game. For one, you don't actually need permission. That section is just acknowledging that people are going to make it up anyway because that's a longstanding form of the game. For two, if I follow that advice, how does 5e help me do it vice any other game out there? It doesn't. That's you doing it. Don't mistake this for saying that it's wrong or lesser to do this, I'm pointing specifically to how play occurs and analyzing that. Freeplay with Bob Says is not something any ruleset assists.

 

[Oofta]

No, not really. Getting permission to ignore the rules of the game and just play pretend with a side of Bob Says doesn't turn that into a useful resolution framework for a game. For one, you don't actually need permission. That section is just acknowledging that people are going to make it up anyway because that's a longstanding form of the game. For two, if I follow that advice, how does 5e help me do it vice any other game out there? It doesn't. That's you doing it. Don't mistake this for saying that it's wrong or lesser to do this, I'm pointing specifically to how play occurs and analyzing that. Freeplay with Bob Says is not something any ruleset assists.

A game that is 100% rules driven would not be a TTRPG.

But you don't get to define what is D&D for everyone, especially when the people that wrote the system repeatedly stress rulings over rules. The rules and lore provide a framework, each group needs to breath life into it.

But keep at the no true Scottsman argument. Nothing anyone else has to say is going to matter so have fun with... well actually I'm not sure what you're trying to prove any more.

 

[Ovinomancer]

A game that is 100% rules driven would not be a TTRPG.

I wrote a very simple RPG earlier upthread. 100% rules driven -- tells you how to resolve any conflicts in play. Unless you're crating a strawman that says every single things done or said must be according to a rule? I mean, Monopoly seems 100% rules driven, but isn't that, either.

But you don't get to define what is D&D for everyone, especially when the people that wrote the system repeatedly stress rulings over rules. The rules and lore provide a framework, each group needs to breath life into it.

I can, however, look at what they say they are doing and see if it's something the game tells them how to do or not, and then if they're following that direction or not. If they're doing things that the game doesn't tell them how to do and doesn't offer advice for doing, then I can note that the game isn't providing anything to that play. You're absolutely right I cannot tell someone what they call their play, though, good catch.

But keep at the no true Scottsman argument. Nothing anyone else has to say is going to matter so have fun with... well actually I'm not sure what you're trying to prove any more.

It's not a no true Scottsman argument. I'm not pointing to an example of play and ignoring my arguments to claim that's not this. My basis is clear, it's clearly applied, and it doesn't engage in special pleading to allow this exception but not that exception. I hold my own play to this analysis and, as I've said, I fail to meet it often enough. I just accept that when I do fail to meet it that doesn't mean my play is bad (my fellow players are the judge of this) but rather than I'm off-book when I do that stuff. I'm 100% fine being offbook. I'm less fine with going offbook and insisting that it's still inbook, though. That seems odd to me.

 

[Aldarc]

No, not really. Getting permission to ignore the rules of the game and just play pretend with a side of Bob Says doesn't turn that into a useful resolution framework for a game. For one, you don't actually need permission. That section is just acknowledging that people are going to make it up anyway because that's a longstanding form of the game. For two, if I follow that advice, how does 5e help me do it vice any other game out there? It doesn't. That's you doing it. Don't mistake this for saying that it's wrong or lesser to do this, I'm pointing specifically to how play occurs and analyzing that. Freeplay with Bob Says is not something any ruleset assists.

(1) It's not just a longstanding form of TTRPGs, but also boardgames. One of the things that I have learned time and time again from playing board/card games with different people is that people have their house rules for these games that they grew up with and modified over time. Sometimes they are shocked to discover that they have been playing with house rules, rather than the standard rules, their entire life. I experienced this several times when playing board games with my partner (e.g., Uno, Monopoly, etc.) and I forced us to play according to the rules as written rather than either of our disparate family house rules.

(2) As you say, it is a longstanding form of the game. There are many TTRPGs outside of the Dragon Game family that likewise admit that once the book/rules are in the table's hand, there is not much that the designer can do about how that table chooses to play it. It is an admission of the TTRPG equivalent of the "death of the author" idea: either "la mort du créateur" or "la mort du concepteur." Unless you are stuck playing Jumanji, the game in your hands is yours to do with as you like.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I've long been a pretty strong not-fan of Planescape. As a setting, separated from D&D, it would be fun, but, in D&D? With 2e alignment? Or 3e? I just never liked it for a lengthy number of reasons, primarily though for the fact that Planescape became the default planar setup in D&D, choking off any creativity in service to a single setting.

I think it would be a great setting for Fate, for example. But, it just never worked for me in D&D.

Have you played the Planescape: Torment CRPG? It might be relevant to note that whilst based on the 2nd edition rules, it departs quite significantly. And that's creative, not a game engine thing - Icewind Dale uses much the same engine and is much closer to the 2nd edition ruleset.

 

[Aldarc]

Have you played the Planescape: Torment CRPG? It might be relevant to note that whilst based on the 2nd edition rules, it departs quite significantly. And that's creative, not a game engine thing - Icewind Dale uses much the same engine and is much closer to the 2nd edition ruleset.

The RTWP game where the common strategy developed of boosting your mental stats and talking your way through most everything in the game?

That game is a pretty good sign, IMHO, that there is a mismatch between D&D and Planescape.

 

[Oofta]

I wrote a very simple RPG earlier upthread. 100% rules driven -- tells you how to resolve any conflicts in play. Unless you're crating a strawman that says every single things done or said must be according to a rule? I mean, Monopoly seems 100% rules driven, but isn't that, either.

I can, however, look at what they say they are doing and see if it's something the game tells them how to do or not, and then if they're following that direction or not. If they're doing things that the game doesn't tell them how to do and doesn't offer advice for doing, then I can note that the game isn't providing anything to that play. You're absolutely right I cannot tell someone what they call their play, though, good catch.

It's not a no true Scottsman argument. I'm not pointing to an example of play and ignoring my arguments to claim that's not this. My basis is clear, it's clearly applied, and it doesn't engage in special pleading to allow this exception but not that exception. I hold my own play to this analysis and, as I've said, I fail to meet it often enough. I just accept that when I do fail to meet it that doesn't mean my play is bad (my fellow players are the judge of this) but rather than I'm off-book when I do that stuff. I'm 100% fine being offbook. I'm less fine with going offbook and insisting that it's still inbook, though. That seems odd to me.

There is no "inbook" and "offbook". No set of RPG rules can cover absolutely every possible scenario while still giving people real autonomy.

You're making up stuff that nobody else is going to ever care about to win some abstract philosophical argument that nobody I've ever gamed with cares about. Should D&D have more structured rules for social and exploration encounters? Well, that's a matter of opinion. I like it the way it is. To say that we aren't playing D&D if there are no rules to follow is just goofy. We are following the advice given by the developers of the game.

I have no idea what you're even trying to push here, but I'm done.

 

[HammerMan]

I wrote a very simple RPG earlier upthread. 100% rules driven -- tells you how to resolve any conflicts in play. Unless you're crating a strawman that says every single things done or said must be according to a rule? I mean, Monopoly seems 100% rules driven, but isn't that, either.

um, are you assuming that Monopoly is a role playing game?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The RTWP game where the common strategy developed of boosting your mental stats and talking your way through most everything in the game?

That game is a pretty good sign, IMHO, that there is a mismatch between D&D and Planescape.

The definitely-not-a-sequel Torment: Tides of Numenara uses the Numenara rules. Which strangely, IMO, work less well than the modded D&D rules used by the first game.

I think the issue is levelling. It doesn't really work as a carrot that you get a bunch of new combat skills as a reward for achievements, but you go for several levels without actually getting to use them. And then when a fight does occur you find you don't know how your skills work.

I think in a game with levels, you need to have at least one fight per level, simply as a chance to "play with the carrot". If you want to go completely combat free I think you need to go level free as well.