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]

By having lots of prep, I hope to avoid any rigidity. But I wing it if necessary, I just have less fancy stuff.

So, it's hard work because you need to make sure you're balancing your prep against the competing interest of making sure there is enough room for player choices?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

So, it's hard work because you need to make sure you're balancing your prep against the competing interest of making sure there is enough room for player choices?

No, since the more prep I do the more likely I will have preped something cool for whatever the players might think do.

I am balancing time spent prepping stuff against doing stuff not D&D related though.

 

[Ovinomancer]

No, since the more prep I do the more likely I will have preped something cool for whatever the players might think do.

I am balancing time spent prepping stuff against doing stuff not D&D related though.

Why prep, though?

 

[hawkeyefan]

They interact with them, and depending on the outcome the story may go off in different directions.

I realize this non-answer is all you're going to give, so I'll disengage now.

Happy gaming funning!

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Why prep, though?

So the players have fun stuff to interact with. Hopefully whatever they decide to do.

One could argue that the world being full of boring stuff would be more realistic!

 

[Ovinomancer]

So the players have fun stuff to interact with. Hopefully whatever they decide to do.

If you make it up as you go, won't they have stuff to interact with as well? Why is prep necessary if this is the only use?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

If you make it up as you go, won't they have stuff to interact with as well? Why is prep necessary if this is the only use?

If I make it up as I go there won't be cool art, unique creatures and interesting characters to interact with. Making stuff up can be done on the fly. Making good stuff up takes more time.

 

[Cadence]

How do you play D&D without competition? How is it even possible?

I'm being sincere here.... I'd really like to know your answer because I don't see how it's possible.

Don't the characters in the game....and therefore the players.....compete with the challenges you place before them?

I wonder if competition has some connotations/definitions that make it harder to use in the discussion.

I usually take competition as being something like the OED definition "the striving of two or more for the same object" -- where there are two sides like in football or baseball or tennis. It feels like the DM isn't in competition against the players in that sense, and the players aren't in competition against each other.

Similarly for "Compete - To strive with another, for the attainment of a thing, in doing something." it sounds like the "another" is another team and not a puzzle.

"I competed in puzzle solving" sounds like there are a bunch of different teams doing the same puzzles (like a convention with all kinds of groups going through the same module to see who did it best). It feels odd to me to say "I competed against todays cross-word puzzle".


If it's "struggled to overcome a challenge", does the challenge not have as much connotation of needing a thinking thing on the other side that's trying to beat you?

 

[Ovinomancer]

If I make it up as I go there won't be cool art, unique creatures and interesting characters to interact with. Making stuff up can be done on the fly. Making good stuff up takes more time.

So, then, there's a conflict between amount of prep, which needs to be of a sufficient quality for player enjoyment, and providing space for player choices that has to be balanced and this balance is hard work. Did I sum this up well?

 

[Manbearcat]

If the players protest, they are welcome to go away. Preferably as far as possible.

Since I have never had a player protest (and have a waiting list), whatever I do must work. Do your players protest?

Taking another look at this...this all sounds like a competitive person who takes an awful lot of pride in their work.

* Players who don't like your game can go away as far as possible.

* Never had a player protest, have a waiting list, what you do must work.

Being competitive and taking pride in your work is a good trait. Being competitive with your past self and your present self to achieve your best future self is beneficial to you and the players you GM.

My only friendly advice would be just to be wary of pride because that can lead to pettiness and spite. You're clearly good there, no pettiness nor spite, so don't worry about it presently. But just be careful. We're all human and we're all competitive and take pride in our work...and we all know what comes before the fall.