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

 

[hawkeyefan]

I can see why he used competitive integrity, but I don't think it matches up all that smoothly to what the DM does when planning encounters. While I do want to challenge the players, I do so to make it fun for them, not to make sure that the earn their way to being top players based purely on merit. I also present medium encounters and even some very easy or even trivial encounters, since it can be very enjoyable to just curb stomp some bad guys every once in a while.

But that right there is the kind of competing priorities that are being talked about. Legit challenge versus fun is a primary example. Yes, hopefully you do both, but sometimes these two priorities may be at odds.

I don't think so, or at least I've never encountered a time where my various roles were at odds with one another, and I've been DMing for almost 40 years now. It might be possible for it to happen, but if it can it would be so rare as to not even be worth thinking about in advance.

Character death is a pretty obvious example. Let's say things have taken a turn and it looks like one of the PCs is going to die. The player is particularly attached to the PC.... having the PC die probably won't be considered fun for that player. Do you as GM somehow dial back the threat? Do you softball things to give the character a shot at making it through? Or do you honor the competitive integrity of the game and let the dice fall where they may?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

So, you're whole "well, this never happens and I don't know why you'd play D&D if it does" seems a bit strange to me, considering that it's very common and happens all the time apparently to many groups.

Okay, so, I’m familiar with Reddit discussions about this topic, and…yeah you aren’t saying the same thing they are, IME. I’ll assume you mean to say the same thing, but are using enough hyperbole that it comes across as a different statement.

Reading the module, it…shouldn’t play out that way unless the team is just bad at stealth. Which, being fair, stock 5e could really have spread out somehow and made a little less “take this one skill of be bad at a whole approach to adventuring”. But many of the groups of Sahuagin don’t leave their rooms unless directly encountered, and many others only if the team is careless, goes about breaking things, etc.

But there is also, again, and you never seem to even acknowledge this, the issue is the game’s advice, not it’s mechanics. We all agree, far as I can tell, that 5e has bad advise sections, in the core books.

What you’ve missed is that failing a single stealth check (and most of your stealth should be group checks in a group infiltration, and so hard to fail unless multiple PCs are bad at it) doesn’t ever actually have to alert even a large portion of the facility, much less all of it.

In fact there are few places where it would make sense for a single helmet accidentally knocked down a well could possibly alert the entire facility to your presence as intruders.

A failed stealth check should be followed by describing what immediately happens as a direct result, and then asking “what do you do?” What do you use to avoid the alerted guards actually finding you when they come searching? Do you try to bribe a lone warrior that spots you?

I mean, idk. Maybe y’all just assume that the entire facility can hear any swordfight anywhere in the place, no matter what, and easily discern what they’re hearing?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

This tells us something. D&D is not a game that is intended to have it's climactic events occur in courtroom confrontations but (usually) in violent confrontations.

Does it? Why? You’ve made a leap, unless there is reasoning you can extrapolate here.

it could just as easily (easier IMO) tell us that courtroom conflicts also need complex and objective rules, because of the nature of such conflicts. Just like how I wish infiltration, and generally movement oriented conflicts, could use a little more complexity.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I don’t even know how to respond to this other than “okay.”

Well, I'm trying to work with the words you like. I used robust, you mentioned sturdy. I would expect sturdy rules to at least confirm something as fundamental to the game as "do you say this DC out loud to the players or not". The rules don't. That is some vague stuff right there.

Robust means full and plentiful and vigorous. To me, that applies to the combat mechanics in D&D. They're robust because there are many of them, and they work cohesively in an understandable way, they don't fail easily. And each character has a ton of them. Look at the classes and what they can do..... many, many options for combat. For non-combat, a few options, though Backgrounds do add one to each character.

For the vast majority of social interactions, you quickly wander away from reliable mechanics and start heading into the unknown. That's not robust.

As I said. Your starting point is too different for me to really usefully engage with this. If you think sturdiness and flexibility are complimentary, that they don’t go hand in hand, we are speaking different languages.

I don't quite follow the above but I think you maybe left a word out? Dd you mean "not complimentary"?

I don't think that they necessarily go hand in hand, no. I think they can often be at odds. When a system is sturdy, I take it to mean it's pretty rigid.... it's well defined and has a way for things to be done. When it's flexible, it's defined loosely to allow for multiple ways to proceed. Often, you dial down one to raise the other.

Can a rule be both sturdy and flexible? Yes, I'd say so. That would take a kind of design elegance to have a rule that is understandable and applicable but also adaptable to a variety of situations. I don't think the social mechanics of D&D fit that bill.

 

[AlViking]

Delete

 

[Oofta]

Thank you.

This is all that's meant by competitive integrity. That challenges match the skill and capability of the players. It's not about adversarial GMing or tournament play or any of that.



So think of sports. Imagine that the guy who coaches the opposing team is also the guy officiating the match. Seems to kind of conflict, right? That's why it doesn't happen in sports.

Now, in D&D, the same person does perform both of those roles. Now, there isn't the adversarial angle of opposing teams, but there is still the possibility of conflict. Having clear procedures in place can help avoid or at least lessen that conflict.




No, it can also be a problem if the GM goes the other way and makes things too easy. When I play, I want the opposition to be legit... I want to play with the competitive integrity that's being described. That the challenges are valid to my skill and character level and so on. I don't want the GM to have the game on Easy mode probably even more than I don't want him to have it on Insane mode.

Since the DM and players do not have an adversarial relationship, what your discussing is group expectations. Sometimes there's a mismatch, no DM can be the right person and vice versa.

That doesn't have anything to do with competitive integrity. In order for that to apply you would have to have rules for most things the PCs could potentially do along with set DCs or another way of transparently tracking resources. It wouldn't be D&D, it certainly wouldn't look much like the current game.

 

[Hussar]

Okay, so, I’m familiar with Reddit discussions about this topic, and…yeah you aren’t saying the same thing they are, IME. I’ll assume you mean to say the same thing, but are using enough hyperbole that it comes across as a different statement.

Reading the module, it…shouldn’t play out that way unless the team is just bad at stealth. Which, being fair, stock 5e could really have spread out somehow and made a little less “take this one skill of be bad at a whole approach to adventuring”. But many of the groups of Sahuagin don’t leave their rooms unless directly encountered, and many others only if the team is careless, goes about breaking things, etc.

But there is also, again, and you never seem to even acknowledge this, the issue is the game’s advice, not it’s mechanics. We all agree, far as I can tell, that 5e has bad advise sections, in the core books.

But, isn't that a bit of a contradiction? You first say that 5e "could really have spread out somehow.." but then claim that the problem is in advice. So, you accept that there are mechanical issues but then roll back and say that it's simply an issue of advice?

I'm a bit confused here. Granted, we do completely agree on both of these points mind you. The mechanics could use work and the advice could too as well. But, you seem to be saying that the issue is advice and not mechanics.

What you’ve missed is that failing a single stealth check (and most of your stealth should be group checks in a group infiltration, and so hard to fail unless multiple PCs are bad at it) doesn’t ever actually have to alert even a large portion of the facility, much less all of it.

In fact there are few places where it would make sense for a single helmet accidentally knocked down a well could possibly alert the entire facility to your presence as intruders.

A failed stealth check should be followed by describing what immediately happens as a direct result, and then asking “what do you do?” What do you use to avoid the alerted guards actually finding you when they come searching? Do you try to bribe a lone warrior that spots you?

I mean, idk. Maybe y’all just assume that the entire facility can hear any swordfight anywhere in the place, no matter what, and easily discern what they’re hearing?

Well, I dunno. The giant freaking alarm gong in the first encounter might be a bit of a giveaway. Or the fact that many of the encounters are very close together. Or the fact that Sahuagin will smell blood in the water from hundreds of feet away. That sort of thing. Again, I'm pointing to the fact that many, many groups had this problem. Which kinda means to me that this isn't just something I'm making up here - but rather it's an issue that is pretty common.

 

[Hussar]

Does it? Why? You’ve made a leap, unless there is reasoning you can extrapolate here.

it could just as easily (easier IMO) tell us that courtroom conflicts also need complex and objective rules, because of the nature of such conflicts. Just like how I wish infiltration, and generally movement oriented conflicts, could use a little more complexity.

But, therein lies the bigger issue. You name off two conflicts that could use a "little more complexity". This thread has posited a number of others (the point I was trying to make way back when with trying to determine the number of converts example). There are a rather large number of elements that could use "a little more complexity".

But, the game doesn't do that. The game is largely silent on how to adjudicate this sort of stuff. Not only does it not have mechanics, but also the advice given is, in your words, inadequate.

The question that needs to be asked here is, "why?" Why doesn't D&D, despite decades of development, not have these things?

To me, the answer is pretty simple. D&D doesn't have these things because D&D is about combat. It doesn't need these mechanics in a game where these things are generally treated as less important, less central to how play usually progresses. I mean, heck, you mocked me for having an example of a priest trying to attract a flock as something that D&D isn't about.

Yet, for all of that, @doctorbadwolf, anytime we do try to point to what D&D is about, it's not that either. So, I'm rather at a loss here. It's not about non-combat stuff, but, at the same time, it's not about combat stuff either.

 

[Oofta]

But, therein lies the bigger issue. You name off two conflicts that could use a "little more complexity". This thread has posited a number of others (the point I was trying to make way back when with trying to determine the number of converts example). There are a rather large number of elements that could use "a little more complexity".

But, the game doesn't do that. The game is largely silent on how to adjudicate this sort of stuff. Not only does it not have mechanics, but also the advice given is, in your words, inadequate.

The question that needs to be asked here is, "why?" Why doesn't D&D, despite decades of development, not have these things?

To me, the answer is pretty simple. D&D doesn't have these things because D&D is about combat. It doesn't need these mechanics in a game where these things are generally treated as less important, less central to how play usually progresses. I mean, heck, you mocked me for having an example of a priest trying to attract a flock as something that D&D isn't about.

Yet, for all of that, @doctorbadwolf, anytime we do try to point to what D&D is about, it's not that either. So, I'm rather at a loss here. It's not about non-combat stuff, but, at the same time, it's not about combat stuff either.

I would say the game is about what the group group wants it to be. Is Matt Mercer and company's Critical Role primarily about combat? Combat is important, but the game is about a lot more than combat.

 

[Eric V]

I would say the game is about what the group group wants it to be. Is Matt Mercer and company's Critical Role primarily about combat? Combat is important, but the game is about a lot more than combat.

Haven't we been talking about the design of the game, and not individual tables, for a while now?