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

 

[Aldarc]

IMHO, neither @Manbearcat (who can correct me if I am not wrong) nor @hawkeyefan are fundamentally arguing that the GM can be a jerk - the ability for people to be jerks is certainly a banal point - but, rather, they are recognizing that even good GMs may have competing interests due to the different hats that they are required to wear as part of the job.

For example, "play to find out what happens" / "let the dice fall where they may!" and "curating fun experiences/story for the players" can conflict with each other. In times of a conflict of interest between these two (or more), a GM in good faith can put their thumb on the scale in favor of the latter (e.g., fudging). Likewise, GM in good faith can refuse to tip the scales for the latter in favor of the former.

None of this requires that the "GM is a jerk" or even a "bad GM." Good GMs can in good faith and with good intentions also be victims to this conflict of interests that result from the different hats that they wear as part of their GMing duties.

However, not every TTRPG shares the same conflict of interests (or to the same extent) due to how their respective game are designed in regards to GM/player responsibilities.

Moreover, falling back to the "jerk GM" or "bad GM" criticism grossly ignores the point that is being made here in favor of accusations of bad faith GMing, which is not the case at all. Nowhere, for example, has Manbearcat accused these GMs of being jerks. And @hawkeyefan even explicitly states at several points in his post here:

It's not about trying to prevent the DM from being a jerk though.

It's not about preventing bad DMing so much as about trying to promote and assist good DMing. Let the DM spend effort and energy in the areas where they're best applied.

Can we please move on from arguing the strawman that the only reason that the rules are there is to prevent "the DM is a jerk" and focus on the actual issues being argued?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

IMHO, neither @Manbearcat (who can correct me if I am not wrong) nor @hawkeyefan are fundamentally arguing that the GM can be a jerk - the ability for people to be jerks is certainly a banal point - but, rather, they are recognizing that even good GMs may have competing interests due to the different hats that they are required to wear as part of the job.

You may be right, I'm having a great deal of trouble understanding what they are saying. I think there is a lack of common experience.

And the idea that there might be problems caused by "the DM wearing multiple hats" is entirely outside my experience, either as a DM or as a player. I really see being a DM as only one hat called "make sure the players are having fun".

Now, I have encountered the Cypher system, so maybe I can try and use that to explain why I don't like such systems, and wouldn't want such a system in D&D.

Conversation has a natural rhythm or flow. If you interrupt that flow it's very difficult to pick it up again. And, especially if you are not an expert actor, once you drop out of character it can be very difficult to get back into character again. A typical D&D social situation might involve six in-character players and the DM trying to juggle multiple characters. It's just about possible to sustain the flow of conversation with the occasional "make a [skill] check". The player rolls the dice and the conversation continues. But this works because the player isn't given a decision point. The DM evaluates what they have been saying in character and selects an appropriate skill check based on that. Now, in Cypher, the player has several options to choose from when they make such a check. This requires the player has thinking time. The conversation comes to a screeching halt. The roleplay is dead.

Now, I'm not saying those rules are bad, I am just saying they are not for me.

 

[Ixal]

I am quite surprised by how many people argue that D&D is not a, nearly exclusively, combat engine.
Nearly anything "crunch" in D&D deals with combat. Classes are designed for their combat value, Abilities are mainly about combat, the books advise you how many combats you should have each day because thats how the system was designed for, etc.
The only non combat value you have is the proficiency bonus and thats it.

And arguing that anything not combat related should be free formed doesn't change that. First, that is a personal preference and second, you do not need D&D to freeform. When you freeform D&D has as much value to you as a car repair manual. It doesn't even offer any advice or guidelines.

Compare that to for example Shadowrun (5E, don't know 6E).
You have a lot more skills for non combat activities, its also perfectly possible to make a specialist/non-combat character in Shadowrun which is impossible in D&D, you have guidelines about how much support you can get from people with the contacts system and when you include splatbooks you even get advice of how clothes affect a social situation or how some corporations use unwritten dresscodes as another line of defence to prevent infiltration and so on. D&D on the other hand hardly even acknowledge the existence of social classes.

D&D has nothing like that. If you want to run anything other than combat there is no reason to use D&D.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I am quite surprised by how many people argue that D&D is not a, nearly exclusively, combat engine.

No one disputes that.

Some players feel this is because they don't need rules to resolve social situations. Other players feel they do need rules to resolve social situations. Never the twain shall meet.

 

[Manbearcat]

When Monte Cook designed the Numenera/Cypher System, he wanted (as someone who loves playing the GM role) a way to focus more on the story and cool things that were happening in the game rather than some of the micromanaging of other various duties that GMs sometimes have to do. He designed a fairly GM-empowered tradtional system but with some caveats.

The GM sets the difficulty of tasks, which is often either public knowledge or fairly intuitive to guess. The difference is that the GM doesn't roll. The GM often announces the Target Number difficulty (0 to 30), then the players muster up their options for lowering that TN (PC abilities, Effort, Edge, Training, etc.), and then the player tries rolling a value equal to or higher than the TN with the d20. So the resolution is typically resolved on the roll itself.

Not rolling does constrain the GM as they can't fudge their own rolls. The GM can only inject their own "fudge" or "complication" into the narrative via GM Intrusion. (As of Cypher 2.0, players also have Player Intrusions.) This is all to say that Monte Cook was not assuming "bad faith design" by constraining the GM in this way, particularly as he was likely the GM in question. He wanted as a GM to focus on other cool GM things, particularly presenting a cool story.

Just because a game system constrains the GM does not mean that it necessarily assumes "bad faith" on the part of the GM. Sometimes it's about offloading some GM duties onto the system and letting the GM focus on other duties, such as rules arbitration and fictional framing.

IMHO, neither @Manbearcat (who can correct me if I am not wrong) nor @hawkeyefan are fundamentally arguing that the GM can be a jerk - the ability for people to be jerks is certainly a banal point - but, rather, they are recognizing that even good GMs may have competing interests due to the different hats that they are required to wear as part of the job.

For example, "play to find out what happens" / "let the dice fall where they may!" and "curating fun experiences/story for the players" can conflict with each other. In times of a conflict of interest between these two (or more), a GM in good faith can put their thumb on the scale in favor of the latter (e.g., fudging). Likewise, GM in good faith can refuse to act in favor the latter in favor of the former.

None of this requires that the "GM is a jerk" or even a "bad GM." Good GMs can in good faith and with good intentions also be victims to this conflict of interests that result from the different hats that they wear as part of their GMing duties.

However, not every TTRPG shares the same conflict of interests (or to the same extent) due to how their respective game are designed in regards to GM/player responsibilities.

Moreover, falling back to the "jerk GM" or "bad GM" criticism grossly ignores the point that is being made here in favor of accusations of bad faith GMing, which is not the case at all. Nowhere, for example, has Manbearcat accused these GMs of being jerks. And @hawkeyefan even explicitly states at several points in his post here:


Can we please move on from arguing the strawman that the only reason that the rules are there is to prevent "the DM is a jerk" and focus on the actual issues being argued?

Two excellent posts.

On 1: You have my thoughts exactly right.

On 2: I haven't touched on this in this thread (GM overhead being offloaded onto/constrained by system so their cognitive workspace is both (a) contracted and (b) focused), but (as I'm sure you know!) I've written about it an enormous amount on here. Its a huge factor in how I look at prospective systems to play.

One thing I will say on (2) which isn't related to this thread at all but is an interesting tidbit is this:

For whatever reason, a not-insignificant cross-section of the D&D player-base has historically maligned PC build design that expands the cognitive workspace of a player while championing GMing models/procedures/principles that do the inverse for GMs. Option bloat is one of the thing that 4e detractors heavily pushed back against. 4e PCs had so many (both discrete and interlocking) bits and bobs to their characters that their decision-space both on-turn and off-turn was pretty damn huge. Analysis Paralysis because of this was something that 5e designers addressed during the playtest and incorporated into their PC design choices.

What is interesting is, this same D&D player-base will champion the same sort of discrete and interlocking bits and bobs and massively expansive cognitive workspace (huge setting canon to assimilate and download onto play + all sorts of interlocking and fiat-based rulings governed by storytelling imperatives and skilled play imperatives and spotlight-passing imperative that must be mediated in real time + discrete subsystems and monster design that is relatively complex + an Adventuring Day-based Encounter Budget system that is intensive to manage at all let alone functionally resolve so that it produces a desired attrition model) for GMs!

These two co-existing positions have always struck me as very very strange. Either it is this odd belief that GMs are inherently savants and players lean toward inherently being derps (and, this strikes me as very plausible, GMs historically love the social cache/identity that this provides them among their TTRPG peers) or its just not been thought through very well.

In my opinion, even GMs who are enormously confident in their ability to manage a hugely expansive cognitive workspace (I am one such GM...I'm extremely confident in that I can do this because I've done it so much for so long) will almost surely "bring their A game" when incidental/corner-case overhead that isn't particularly consequential to play (especially play RIGHT NOW) is either reduced outright or offloaded onto system/players, thus allowing them to focus intensively on the particulars of play that matter the most (all aspects of GMing are not equal).

 

[Paul Farquhar]

What's a "cognitive workspace"? A special room for thinking in?

 

[Oofta]

IMHO, neither @Manbearcat (who can correct me if I am not wrong) nor @hawkeyefan are fundamentally arguing that the GM can be a jerk - the ability for people to be jerks is certainly a banal point - but, rather, they are recognizing that even good GMs may have competing interests due to the different hats that they are required to wear as part of the job.

For example, "play to find out what happens" / "let the dice fall where they may!" and "curating fun experiences/story for the players" can conflict with each other. In times of a conflict of interest between these two (or more), a GM in good faith can put their thumb on the scale in favor of the latter (e.g., fudging). Likewise, GM in good faith can refuse to tip the scales for the latter in favor of the former.

None of this requires that the "GM is a jerk" or even a "bad GM." Good GMs can in good faith and with good intentions also be victims to this conflict of interests that result from the different hats that they wear as part of their GMing duties.

However, not every TTRPG shares the same conflict of interests (or to the same extent) due to how their respective game are designed in regards to GM/player responsibilities.

Moreover, falling back to the "jerk GM" or "bad GM" criticism grossly ignores the point that is being made here in favor of accusations of bad faith GMing, which is not the case at all. Nowhere, for example, has Manbearcat accused these GMs of being jerks. And @hawkeyefan even explicitly states at several points in his post here:


Can we please move on from arguing the strawman that the only reason that the rules are there is to prevent "the DM is a jerk" and focus on the actual issues being argued?

But don't those other game systems fundamentally work differently? How can you fix he perceived problem without total transparency on, well, everything?

Part of the fun for me is not knowing some things when I play. I see a door. I know I could try to kick it down, but kicking down a door is noisy. So I have to consider if it's worth the risk without knowing my exact odds, just like real life.

 

[Ovinomancer]

What's a "cognitive workspace"? A special room for thinking in?

It's a term for the capacity a person has to think about a thing or set of things. E.G., "I can do 3x2 digit multiplication in my head, but 3x3 gets hard and anything more is outside my available cognitive workspace." In relation to games, it's the capacity to hold the rules, the setting details, the players' wants, the current fictional situation, and do operations on all of these things. Use of things like maps and tokens are an example of things used to reduce the cognitive workspace needed to play games because they're external cues that can be offloaded from the cognitive workspace (and also to reduce confusion with shared fiction that needs to be precisely referenced by multiple people).

 

[Micah Sweet]

I am quite surprised by how many people argue that D&D is not a, nearly exclusively, combat engine.
Nearly anything "crunch" in D&D deals with combat. Classes are designed for their combat value, Abilities are mainly about combat, the books advise you how many combats you should have each day because thats how the system was designed for, etc.
The only non combat value you have is the proficiency bonus and thats it.

And arguing that anything not combat related should be free formed doesn't change that. First, that is a personal preference and second, you do not need D&D to freeform. When you freeform D&D has as much value to you as a car repair manual. It doesn't even offer any advice or guidelines.

Compare that to for example Shadowrun (5E, don't know 6E).
You have a lot more skills for non combat activities, its also perfectly possible to make a specialist/non-combat character in Shadowrun which is impossible in D&D, you have guidelines about how much support you can get from people with the contacts system and when you include splatbooks you even get advice of how clothes affect a social situation or how some corporations use unwritten dresscodes as another line of defence to prevent infiltration and so on. D&D on the other hand hardly even acknowledge the existence of social classes.

D&D has nothing like that. If you want to run anything other than combat there is no reason to use D&D.

I wouldn't say no reason. Cubicle Seven's commercial reasons for making a 5e version of their game are perfectly valid.

 

[Micah Sweet]

But don't those other game systems fundamentally work differently? How can you fix he perceived problem without total transparency on, well, everything?

Part of the fun for me is not knowing some things when I play. I see a door. I know I could try to kick it down, but kicking down a door is noisy. So I have to consider if it's worth the risk without knowing my exact odds, just like real life.

I have to agree. Full transparency in the rules was one of the factors that made 4e unpalatable to some.